Knaresborough
I did sleep better last night compared to the night before but, as has been the case for this entire walk so far, I still didn’t manage to get a great night’s sleep. Better yes, great no. Still, the day ahead didn’t involve a great deal of effort or energy so that was ok.
Russ drove us to Croft racing circuit near Darlington to go and watch the Touring Cars, along with a load of other classes of cars to fill the racing day.
We set off around 9:30am and drove through some lovely lanes to get to the A1 just to then sit at 50mph in the roadworks which will be there until 2012! It’s a good job Russ doesn’t go that way very often as that’s quite a long time for road widening to be taking place.
We managed to get to Croft in plenty of time before the races started, although there was a little bit of a queue to get to the circuit but nothing like trying to get the Brands Hatch or Silverstone that’s for sure.
There were quite a lot of people there by the time we got in and Russ knowing where to go didn’t bother to try and get to the big spectator’s bank that looks down the starting straight – you need to get there about midnight to get a spot there from what I could gather – but took us to a spot that looked out over the bottom third of the track. There were still quite a lot of people there but we managed to get a good spot at the top of the bank.
Throughout the day there were different classes of cars racing: Touring Cars, Porsche Carreras, Ginetta G50s, Formula Renaults, Renault Clios and Ginetta Juniors.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching all the racing and really enjoyed having a walk round looking at what was about, including all the extremely plush hospitality areas that just seemed to transform out the side of a lorry. Very impressive indeed.
Although the racing was good to watch, and there were a few bumps and scrapes on the bend near to us, including one good spin off the track, for most of the racing it was pretty straight forward, clean racing – just what you don’t want when you’re watching motorsports!
I took a load of photos, most of which I was pleased with. My little camera did pretty well but I must admit, I wish I’d had my other camera and my zoom lens for some of the shots as they would have been stunning. Ho hum, another time.
The weather was scorching all day and both Russ and I caught the sun regardless of how hard we tried not to.
I phoned the girls in the car as we didn’t leave Croft until 6pm and when we got back to Russ’ place Rachel had cooked a wonderful roast dinner followed by crumble and custard…yummy! It was lovely and just what we needed after a hard day watching the cars zip by.
All in all a fabulous day out – thanks Russ – and a great dinner and evening – thanks Rachel.
One more day off tomorrow before I head back to the trail. I’m really hoping that a slightly longer break from the walking will set me up for a good second half of the walk, but the weather’s looking like it’s going to be against me this week as it’s supposed to be very hot all week. Just what I like, er, not!
Photos
I f you want to find out more about this day you can see the photos I took.
I just wanted to say a massive thank you to Alice and Elisa – my beautiful little girls – for their father’s day card. It’s now in my pack and I’ll be carrying it all the way to John O’Groats with me.
Love you girls – miss you loads!