Its been a busy start to the Summer and a steep learning curve writes Ruth Nugent Bishopscourt The 11th of May I set off to the magical land of never ending corners and straights, (also known as Bishopscourt Race Circuit) for the weekend for the next round of the Fiesta Zetec Championship! I won’t deny that I was a little terrified as I’d never been there before and this was only my second ever race weekend. I cycled the track the night before practice and qualifying which gave me a good feel of it and got a good sleep in too. Practice gave me my best chance at finding lines that I was comfortable with in the car until a few laps in I ended up directly behind another competitor who hit the kerb awkwardly and rolled their car. I knew as a driver I should continue on and return to the paddock but I guess my marshal instincts were screaming at me and I pulled in safely to help instead. I was the first in attendance to the driver, they were luckily okay, however, they were suspended sideways in their seat as the car was stuck on its right hand side. Another driver had pulled over to assist and along with the rescue team we managed to roll the car over and get the driver out safe and sound. It was decided that we wouldn’t go back out to finish practice so next up was qualifying. I’m not sure why, but I felt negative and uncertain going into qualifying and just couldn’t seem to push myself past my comfort limits and ended up qualifying last on the grid. I was hugely disappointed with this and hard on myself for the rest of the day until I finally told myself “You’re brand new to this and have never even been to this circuit before so STOP”. And it worked. I went into race day with the mind-set of just enjoying the day of racing ahead. That morning, a few of our Motorcycle Marshals Association members travelled up as a surprise for support and it made my entire weekend. (Shoutout to our Maureen Cross (Toastie) for making me my own personal “Go Ruth” sign!). I didn’t get a great start off the line in race one but within two laps I...