What an awesome weekend racing! 4 races over 2 days, with 2 races in both the Allcomers on Saturday and the Locosts on Sunday would keep us all busy, and produce our best results to date….
After a lengthy drive from the sunny Isle of Wight and the 2.30pm ferry from East Cowes to Southampton, we finally arrived at Snetterton almost 8 hours after leaving home! We had decided to camp for this one and by the time we had organised ourselves it was almost dark. A quick BBQ later and a couple of beers and we were planning our strategy for the weekends racing.
The next morning was an early start, off to scrutineering for 7.30am for Allcomers. Having satisfied the scrutineer the wheels wouldn’t fall off, it was time to go out for qualifying. We had found it useful in May at Snetterton to take part in the Allcomers as we had new tyres to scrub in and a new layout to learn. This time it was all about getting on the pace for Sunday’s Locost races, so we headed out onto track along with 3 other locosts, Shaun Brame (#32), Lewis Dallas(#81) and James Millman(#63).
Qualifying went well enough, but we only managed 3rd out of the 4 Locosts for Race 1 with a 1:34:15, over 1.3seconds off Lewis’ excellent lap time. 2nd best laps went towards race 2, and we managed a 2nd out of the 4 locosts with a 1:34:30, again behind Lewis who was a little closer to us, less than half a second ahead.
12 O’clock soon arrived and we headed down to assembly for Race 1. I had a great race with Shaun back in May, and today would be no different with all 4 of us battling together throughout the race. Shaun beat me to first Locost home with all 4 of us just 2.5 seconds apart after almost 15 minutes of intense racing.
Race 2 saw another great battle between us, this time Lewis capitalising on his faster lap times to be first Locost home, followed by James, myself and the Shaun. A little more spread out in race 2 with 4 seconds separating the 4 of us.
I was a little disappointed with my times in Allcomers and particularly how the car was washing out around Coram and Riches, so managed to grab a little advice from Matt at Procomp on Sunday morning. Describing the issues with the car he quickly suggested some changes we could make and then it was time to set off for Locost qualifying. Heading out onto circuit, I felt confident we would fare better with the changes we had made, and I wasnt to be disappointed, ending up with a fastest lap of 1:33:67 for 12th on the grid for race 1 and a 2nd best lap of 1:33:82 for 6th on the grid for race 2. Result!
We again met up with Matt who has done a lot of work on the car and set up over last winter, and again a couple of tweeks were made prior to race 1, then it was time to set off to assembly Race video below……..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpyh_psaMTI
It was a great race with some excellent battles throughout the race, finally crossing the line in 8th, my best result to date.
Soon it was on to race 2, and a 6th place on the grid for my start position. Another epic race followed, and the video is below…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76to0iMh8-Q
I wasn’t able to maintain my position but a great result again, with 8th place. A very successful weekend. If you fancy a rear view of Race 2, check out the video below….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZHxTMK8ilQ
A long drive home followed, but we eventually got back at midnight, tired but very pleased with how the car, driver and team had performed. Next event later this month at Silverstone, then its off to Odiham for a bit of sprinting.
