Neil Alberico – Pure Unsweetened Victory Juice

Silverstone, England (November 5, 2011) – I’m still at the track as we just finish up our first day of racing here at Silverstone for the Walter Hayes Trophy. We had some overnight rain, as expected, which left the track wet for most of the day. I was the first sessions out to see a wet and drying track for morning qualifying. We ended the session P2, which would start us on the inside going into Turn One. The main goal for today was to get through our heats clean and set ourselves up for a solid run in tomorrow’s semi. There were six heats today to divide up all 95 drivers for the racing on Sunday.

James Beckett has done a great job at organizing this event to get so many entries! The Walter Hayes Trophy is by far the biggest Kent Formula Ford event of the year. It’s also a great event to be a part of because with so many drivers coming from so many different forms of racing, anyone could win! The only thing that’s missing are some smokin’ hot grid girls. Then again I don’t blame them for not wanting to stand in the rain all day!

Anyway, I was in Heat One at 11:45 starting off pole to Felix Fisher. The conditions were extremely tough in the morning because there was somewhat of a dry line beginning to form, but at the same time the track was still very wet. As the lights went out to start the race I was able to get down the inside of Fisher into the first corner to take the lead. Once I was out front, the goal was just to keep a clean nose and finish the race with a good consistent pace (ABOVE, photo courtesy of Jeff Bloxham). We went on to win by nearly seven seconds over the second-place finisher. The tricky thing is that your Semi-Final grid position is based on your heat finish and overall race time. Unfortunately for me, even though I had won the race, I would most likely have the slowest heat purely because as the track continued to dry, times began to drop tremendously. But that’s just the luck of the draw!

Trent went on to match my result in his heat race to give us Cliff Dempsey Racing and the Team USA Scholarship victories all around! Not to mention Cormac O’Neill who also won his heat for the CDR camp. So far so good! Although at the end of the weekend the only race that matters is the final. So we’ll just keep our heads down and make it all happen again tomorrow!

Keep your pecker up