Unfortunately due to other commitments I was unable to get down to Brands Hatch for the previous month’s round of Roadsports. Given the 2 month break from the car I decided to book two 25 minute test sessions on the Friday morning before race day which proved to be invaluable. Once again my wife came down with me and my brother-in-law and nephew manned the much needed pitboard since both Dave and Robin were otherwise tied up.
Snetterton is one of my favourite circuits. It has everything: slow hairpins, fast flowing bends (Coram, the penultimate turn is awesome) as well as technical sections such as the ‘S’ bend at the end of the Bentley Straight. With the benefit of the previous day’s track time I felt good in the car, and confidence is everything when it comes down to racing. My main goal was to beat friend and fellow competitor Ivor Mairs, car number 316. In the past we have been fairly equal but he has shown me a clean pair of heels over the last few races.
Qualifying went well enough placing me 6th out of 12 Class C cars, 30th out of 47 overall. The front Class C runners were 2 seconds quicker than me; realistically I didn’t know where I would be able to gain that amount of time but the car in front was only 1 second up which was a realistic target.
My start was excellent, squeezing past several cars at Turn 1. I even managed to keep 3 Class B cars at bay for several laps but 2 of them eventually passed at the end of the Bentley Straight. The other Class B car made a lunge at Turn 1 but out braked himself, shooting in front of me which enabled me to get the cut back. Unfortunately several laps on he tried the same move again but was even later on the brakes. He smashed into the rear quarter of my car which spun me off the track with the car fortunately just coming to a halt, nudging the tyre wall with the splitter. Unbeknown to me over one foot of side skirt was broken off, the side intake panel smashed and the sill bent. Frustratingly I had to sit and watch several cars pass before it was safe to rejoin. Even more frustrating was one of those cars was driven by Ivor!
However, the rest of the race was a blast. I was determined to catch Ivor and once on his tail he was even more determined not to let me pass. We swapped places several times but on the final lap I managed to sneek past and maintain the position. Job done! Final standing was 5th In Class C, 27th overall with a new pb.