Snetterton (Rounds 13 & 14)

The Circuit

The championship arrived at the Snetterton circuit and was greeted by blue skies and a hot sun. Large clouds billowed up towards the end of race day but luckily the downpour started about 5 minutes after the feature race had ended and the rain provided a cooling relief from the heat of my Alfa.

Practice and Qualifying

The first part of qualifying went OK but during the second part of the qualifying session I really struggled to find some space to get a clear lap. The main culprits are the super tourers who usually use their superior braking to get past the production cars and usually at a tight corner. This compromises their entry and the production car's exit ruining both laps. It was getting late in the session and I still hadn't managed to post a decent qualifying time. Then on the entry to turn 2 Matt Neal came down the inside of me on the brakes. I stayed out on the edge of the track and waited for him to turn his egg astra into the corner. He used the technique that many of the super tourer drivers do of flicking the car in the opposite direction prior to turning in. His rear wheel flicked into my front wheel very hard, braking the rim and bending the front sub-frame where the lower wish bone mounts. The next thing I new I had Matt Neal broad side in front of me. I managed to avoid hitting the Astra as it gradually slid off into the corn field. Matt wasn't too impressed and lodged a complaint. I wasn't too impressed as I was left in 10th place for the feature race. However, my version of events was accepted by the race officials and no further action was taken. I decided to approach Matt in the pit lane after the incident and was rather put off as I tried to interrupt his conversation and found I could only just reach the top of his shoulder.

Sprint race

I made an awful start and ended up almost last. But the engine in my 156 was pulling well and I found it relatively easy to get past other cars and pulled back several places. Then Alan Blencowe blew his engine on the entry to Russel and left Oil everywhere. I spotted many of the cars ahead of me spinning on the oil and so I thought I'd cut across the chicane. Unfortunately I locked the wheels as I went on to the grass and stalled the engine. By the time I got the engine started I had lost the places again. I started battling back through the field and managed to make up a few places to salvage a few points by the end of the race.

Feature race

Starting from 10th on the grid left me with a lot of work to do and so I put the hammer down right from the start. The car was running well at the start of the race and I immediately started to move up through the field. I was pushing really hard though I was starting to have problems with second gear and was having to hold it in gear whilst steering with one hand (there are three second gear corners at Snetterton so it was hard work and left a hole in the palm of my right hand). I then found myself catching James Kaye and Gavin who were battling for the lead. They ran very wide into turn 1 and Gavin ran off the track (in fact he was lucky to get back onto the track) and James was slow onto the subsequent straight so I was able to overtake him into turn 2. And so I found myself in the lead of the production class but with quite a few laps left to run in the race. I tried to concentrate on pushing hard and keeping it tidy. This was very difficult given the problems I was having with the gearbox, particularly into Russel where the front wheels were locking while the gearbox floated around in neutral. James got back past me on the exit of Russel (the Civic is very quick in a straight line even with all the success ballast). A few laps later and I ran wide on the exit of the Esses and a charging Gavin Pyper and Tom Boardman slipped past me nose to tail. I managed to hang on to the back of Tom and was planning to nip back past him but then the lead super tourers started to lap us and I seemed to fall foul again as the leader over took me through the esses dropping valuable time to Tom Boardman. And so I finished 4th having put in a fairly strong performance under testing conditions. I was so hot in the car by the end of the race that I was feeling tired and the cool rain that started to fall about 10 minutes after the finish was a welcome relief.