Snetterton has never been a 'Lucky' circuit for me. In 2010 my engine blew up and cost me the championship and in 2012. I don't believe in luck anyway and what happens in the past, stays there and those problems were just mechanical, possibly could have been helped with a more sympathetic drive in 2010 and a bit of driver error mixed in with some oil in 2012. I had hoped that I would get a run on slicks for the 1st time this year if the weather would play ball for a change. Then again, I have always been best in the wet so would be happy either way.
Warm up
A bit of typical Brittish summertime weather had brought some overnight rain and it was strill drizzling away for warm up. On went the wets and I headed out to get into the swing of things. There are no points to be gained for warm up, its all just about getting the car and driver up to temperature and feel out how the track is feeling. And the answer is.... slippy! I thought that the new wets had not been scrubbed in as I was all over the place and then I had a look around and people were falling off the circuit left right and centre. I did just enough to get a feel of the circuit and make sure all was well with the car and headed back in. There was a slight issue of the oil temperature getting hot a bit quick, this had not been an issue at the damp Knockhill but the long straights of Snetterton were a bit more demanding in the oil cooling department.
Practice
There was a dry line on the track but the clouds looked a bit ominus, so I did the sensible thing and threw on the slicks
It would be useful to try and get some temp into them and see how they faired in damp conditions if the inivitable rain came on. Good ol Brittish summertime managed to find us a pretty decent downpour within a couple of laps. I slid about for another 3-4 laps having a great time to myself and it also gave me a bit more of a chance to learn the car in very low grip conditions. Again, there were no points to be gained in this session so not much point going in for the wets ans possibly wrecking another set if the weather dried up.
Qualifying
The gods of fast laps had finally given us a dry track, or had they. It was like bloody Knockhill, there was sunshine, rain and wind with some massive black clouds all at the same time. Usually, with a few minutes to the session start all the drivers are in the cars, strapped in and ready to go. The club pro guys on the 1B list tyres were all ready but all the Pro and Extreme guys were wondering about looking at the sky with upturned palms trying to guess whether there was going to be a downpour or not. 2 mins to go and a single beam of sunshine came through and we were good to go on the slicks. I managed a few laps and started to get some temp into the tyres, we dont have the luxuary of tyre warmers, but the dreaded oil temp was getting a bit warm so I took a couple of laps to get the temp nice and cool again. I pushed on for another lap and then was met with a black flag, so headed into the pits for the walk of shame up the stairs to see the clerk of the course. It turns out that despite passing the static test with flying colours, we were tripping the track side detectors by a considerable margin. The side exit exhaust of the car was poining straight at the noise detector.
The RA guys came up with a plan to cut the exhaust and point it out the other side of the car. Not the easiest task with only a short time between sessions and a welding mask sitting in their broken down van half way up the A1. As usual, nothing was a hassle for them and they just had to used the eyes closed method of welding, no one in the paddock seeemed to have a mask either. The job was done in plenty of time for the final and we were good to go.
In the mean time I had a look at the timing sheets and I was 3 seconds off the pace of Marshal in the Evo and 1 sec behind Deaton in the Porsche cup car. To be perfectly honest, I was gutted and pretty dissapointed in myself, I thought that I should have been much quicker and on pace. Then I took a big swig of man up, put my big boy pants on and started to think things through. I had a look at the tyres and they were not where near hot enough. The slightly damp track, wind and long straights of snettetton were going to need a lot more work to get heat into the slicks. It was also the 1st time I had ever driven that car on slicks and I had only logged a handfull of laps. I was running med compound slicks with no warmers where the other guys were running super soft compound with tyre warmers, both of them on a brand new set for qualifying... Please refer to the big book of racing driver excuses pages 1-25 for further information on my big list of excuses!
Final
The gods of boost had given us a nice dry track for the final, except for the chicane of Brundle and Nelso where they had chosen to dump a Sh1t load of detergent and water to make things interesting. The plan was to get 2-3 laps of tyre warming to get them nice and toasty and keep the oil temps at a sensible level and then to try and smack out some decent lap times. Things were going nicely to plan until I reached lap 3, only to be met by the black and orange flag with my number, lucky I had my cut out and keep flag guide in the boot
so i Knew it was a mechanical issue. I headed int the pits to find out the exhust was hanging much too low. There was only 10 mins remaining in the session and I knew we were against the clock in the wrong way this time. Less than 5 mins later and the RA guys had me out again. With the instruction to get a lap in quick as they did not know how long the quick repair was going to last. I did not weave about as much as usual in the out lap to make sure nothing fell off and then set to set a banker lap whilst realy getting the tyres up to temperature. They were a bit cool for the 1st couple of corners and then stared to warm up nicely during the rest of the lap. I was working them pretty hard to make sure they would be toasty for the real flyer. I got onto the start finish straight and had a look at the oil temp. It was at the upper limits of safe and I had to make the decision to bin the next lap. I was not going to take the risk of blowing up the engine of RA's car just for the sake of one lap. We were also having problems with the coms system so I could not ask their opinion on the matter, turns out the car is too noisy on the inside too. I did another lap to cool the engine but was met by the chequred flag before I got a chance to get another flying lap in.Time Sheets came in and I was 2nd. 1.2 secs behind Marshal, at 1st we were a bit dissapointed about being so close to nailing that final lap but all things considered, we had a great day and took another step forward in development of the car. For the next event, we should have some sitcky rubber, better oil cooling and some aero. The guys have done a great job to build the car on a budget. Some of the other guys have crazy money to spend on their cars. Between events Marshal had an engine re-fresh, lowered the engine and gearbox 20mm, bought a new 6 speed sequential and sold his 850 turbo for a bigger unit.
The next event is Cadwell which has always been a pretty good event for me so i'm looking forward to ripping up a proper circuit rather than one of these dull airfield tracks.
Massive thanks to
RA Motorsport Developments
Andy Forest Performance
Whiteline
ABW
Turbosmart
AET Turbos
Samsonas Motorsport Transmissions
And eveyone who reads my guff and supports me
