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Sat/Sunday 13 & 14th May - Snetterton - Britcar V8 Supercars: |
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Due to personal family commitments, I
was sadly unable to make it across to Pembury for the next round of the
Tuscan Challenge. Luckily for me though, the very first Britcar V8
Supercar race weekend was being held at Snett’ and although it would mean
getting there at 2.00a.m. the morning of the first day, it was possible to
do it. It was certainly an exciting schedule ahead:- a 30 min qualifying session, followed by a further 15 min free practice and a first 30 min race later that afternoon. Day 2 also provides for another 20 min free practice followed by race 2 ( 30 mins) with a reverse grid based on the previous days’ finishing positions. This was quite a new experience for me, with only a small number of my TVR colleagues racing here, we were surrounded by some pretty spectacular cars. My simple aim for the weekend was to try and have fun and beat my previous best time set here last October of 1min 17.1 secs and try to get down to 1min 14 secs if possible.  In the first qualifying session, I moved in the right direction. After a few laps to bring the tyres up and re-acquaint myself with the circuit, I put in a best of 1min 16.8 secs. I knew I could go faster though and was able to show it with a time of 1min 15.3 secs in the warm up session. This set me up nicely for the first race. Unfortunately, it poured with rain for an hour before we were due on track and so once again wet tyres were required. Sod’s law, 10 minutes into the race, it had stopped raining and the circuit quickly began to dry. After a while I could feel the tyres beginning to go over and with my times at a boring 1min 20 secs decided to pull in and put on the slicks for the remainder of the race. Compared to some Teams here, we were anything but “slick”, the tyre change cost me 3 laps as Terry did the best he could to manually change them all. But I felt it was worth it, we just saved ruining yet another set of tyres and I was able to get my times quickly down to 1min 17secs, albeit far too late to make much difference to my position now. Still, it was good fun and valuable experience.  The next day, I was able to improve again on my fastest time, putting in a 1min 15.1 secs lap in the free practice. Again, I felt sure I could go quicker and that I should be able to meet my target of a 1min 14 sec lap time. As we were on a reverse grid for race 2, and the two cars which failed to finish the day before were unable to get out, it meant that I was on pole position, for a rolling start - having only done 2 rolling starts ever! This was a little daunting, particularly as I knew that Darren Dowling would be right up my backside looking to go past quickly.  Anyhow, without too much embarrassment I led everyone out, we completed the green flag lap behind the pace car and away. As expected, by corner one Darren forces his way past me, followed not long after by the Ford Falcon, then the V8 Star Jag and then a little later, Tim in his Sagaris. This left Dean cook and I to have a really good battle together. Our times were getting quicker and quicker when Dean squeezed past me on the inside at Riches. He nearly lost it and I tried taking the inside line back on the apex of the bend as he went a bit wide. I thought we were about to hit each other, so I decided to back off a little and try and work my way through later on. Dean was having none of it, despite me out-breaking him at virtually every corner, I couldn’t find a way through. On the straights he seemed to be able to pull away from me so I had to do all the hard work in the corners. We’ll have to look at why my car seems a little under powered. 
 We nearly had another coming together at Russell chicane as I tried to force a way through but again Dean held on. With just 3 laps to go, I was experiencing huge oversteer, which was really bringing the back end out big time at Corams and also Riches. Finally it got the better of me at Riches as I made another attempt to close up on Dean and this time I couldn’t catch it. Having completed a couple of 360 ‘s, I managed to stop the car on the grass verge. The engine had stalled, was very hot and smoking and did not want to start up again - the race was over.  What a weekend though, my best time in race 2 reducing to 1min 13.9 secs, rain/sun/safety car periods/tyre changing - it had everything and has bolstered my confidence again. A little work is going to be needed to sort out the oversteer and the slight lack of pull on the straights and the Tuscan Challenge Race here in a months’ time should be excellent! Watch this space… |
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