snetrace01

Snetterton Race 15th April

After last year's debacle I was out to score some points at Snetterton.....Both Mike and I had had a good race at Silverstone but knew we were up against it at the Norfolk track. Our restrictors (2 smaller than the Viper!) meant we would be struggling down Snetterton's two long straights. We were both still determined to give it our best shot.
And that we did on the Friday test - both of us were in the 1.06's which was under the lap record and fairly happy with the balance of the car. We had also been running on old tyres so thought we may be more competitive than we originally anticipated.

Our optimism continued into Saturday qualifying when Mike posted a superb 1.055 to put us second behind the Viper which was an unbelievable 0.5 second quicker than that. Still we were philosophical about it and believed we had a chance over the hour long race. We were further heartened in the afternoon when I was quickest in the wettest part of the next qualifying session only beaten towards the end when the track was drying.

So far so good. The forecast for the Sunday race was not good. The weatherman had kindly paced a bolt of lightning over East Anglia (in fact it looked as though it was on Snetterton........) Whilst the thunder eluded us, the rain did not. This was going to be a wet race.

As we rolled on to the track I gingerly applied the throttle down to Riches. The car twitched but felt okay. As I turned on to the straight however I felt a huge vibration through the wheel. I tried to get some heat in the fronts but the vibration became worse.

On the grid we sat in silence as a mark of respect to Matt Bettley. I then relayed my concern to Dan. Before I could say anything else they were mounting some brand new wets for me....Two minutes to go....unscrubbed wets and some kind advice from Jim the Michelin man..."Careful David - they're brand new..."

At that stage I wasn't unduly worried because I could give them a thorough working down the straight. Or so I thought....Before I say anymore let me make myself clear. Michelin tyres are the best I have ever driven with but something was not right in "the state of Denmark." The car was absolutely awful and I mean awful. I tried frantically to get some heat in them but I couldn't. We were going much too slowly. I decided to hold back a bit and and rolled the car from side to side. I reached the end of the straight, turned into the "esses" and went straight off. Goodness knows what the rest of the field thought. I knew I would be in trouble at the first corner and indeed for the first few laps....

I was right - I had an absolutely torrid time - I cannot remember having so many "moments" in any stint ever (including Daytona and Le Mans...) How I was keeping the car on the track for those first 7 or 8 laps I didn't know. Junior McKellar had other ideas about that though and nudged me into a spin at Riches. Ironically the tyres were beginning to work a bit better at this time and I knew if we were to salvage anything then I would need to recover from the grass verge and recover quickly. My lap times started to come down rapidly as the tyres gave me more confidence and I overtook 5 or 6 of the GTO cars that had passed me after my coming together with McKellar.

I knew I was some way down on the leaders although I was now eventually running similar or quicker lap times. At least the car was better now and in one piece. Time for Mike to jump in.....

The pitstop went well enough and Mike disappeared down the pitlane. We had been fortunate - despite my own problems, it seems that others were also struggling. The Marcos was out and the TVR's were having their own dramas. We were an amazing 4th then 3rd (as the TVR stopped) and then 2nd (after a pace car incident.)

We were now also only 5 seconds behind the lead Viper but Mike was struggling with visibility after the wiper went AWOL. And that's where we finished. A great drive by Mike, a course in survival by myself, and a second place which is a whole heap better than last year.....