After a test day at Snett a few weeks ago, I wasn�t feeling particularly optimistic about my chances this weekend gone, mainly due to being a complete fanny in the braking areas and not getting to grips with the Esses. I was 20 points ahead of my rival up until the weekend, meaning I basically had to come 2nd to win overall. However, with both of my rival Supras having way more than double my power and torque at a circuit which need lots of poke, I didn�t think this was going to be possible. Not for me anyway.
Well, we arrived at Snetterton late Friday just in time for a few beers at the pub, followed by the usual hassle of setting up our tents in the dark, ready for a day of learning on Saturday.
Saturday went o.k and I did lots of laps judging by the amount of fuel I got through. However, my confidence did take a bit of a blow after going into turn one early on in the day and hitting some freshly dropped oil on the second apex and sliding off onto the grass backwards. Close call, but no damage done apart from to the inside of another competitors pants, who had ging asked for a few passenger laps. Annoyingly, I did have top spend the whole day short shifting due to being on the drive-by db limit, after only having done one test day on my freshly repacked silencer. At the end of the day, we actually had to do our first bit of repair work after no damage whatsoever this season. The high speeds reached on the back straight had caused my front splitter to come loose and rub on the tarmac. So after a late night in the pits armed with a rum and coke drilling out old fixings, replacing them and adding in some additional support brackets on the ends for good measure, all was well again.
Sunday was going to be an absolute beauty of a day, what a relief. After the morning warm-up we whipped the old tyres off and put on some nice new ones, ready to scrub in during practice. I�d been struggling for grip here because of the tyres and was only managing 1.17 laps. However, even just scrubbing the new tyres in was a pleasure and the difference was amazing. Qualifying was next and I suddenly realised that if I could get full points for going quickest I could win outright by only coming third in the final. The pressure was on!!! Anyway, my confidence grew with my new-found grip, but I kept getting stuck behind cars on their warm-up or cooling down laps and my tyres were getting worse and worse. I pitted to give them a rest and was told I was in 2nd. Bugger!!! There wasn�t much time left now so I went out again for another pop at 1st. At this stage I think I was the only car out on the circuit, so there was no excuse and after one flying lap I pitted again. 1st place was secured. Wicked!! I�d done a 1.14 and I could feel that there was another couple of seconds to come off that at least.
Feeling much more relaxed as the final drew closer we just chilled out doing absolutely nothing, watching loads of other teams franticly stripping engines, suspension, gearboxes, you name it. A while later we all lined up for the final. To begin with, I basically just did a full lap to make sure I would get a finishing result to put me first overall by one single point, however I really still wanted to beat the two Supras in the final for good measure. This just wasn�t going to happen though as I�d taken the goodness out of the tyres in qualifying and I was pushing harder only to go slower. The result was that my rival had piped me by 0.037 of a second!!! More annoyingly, my fastest time was achieved on a lap where at Corum, I had to go around the outside of a cooling down Steve G in his Audi Elise and the fastest Evo. Quite scary!!!
Overall though it was a 1st place for me in my Class and I got a lovely big trophy as a result. Steve G got down to a very, very impressive 1.09 lap but was just beaten by the super powerful orange Evo which did a 1.08. Quite amazing on road tyres really. Out of interest the orange Evo was clocked at 164mph down the start/finish straight and at about 180mph on the back straight!!! I believe Jeff in his na Honda got fastest time in his class and a place on the podium, which is good for the Lotus crew. Jonny in his na S2 Exige was struggling with a couple of problems and was just too far down on power at this circuit to get up the list.
So all in all it�s been a great first year which I�ve enjoyed very much. The guys that organise the events and all the competitors are a real good bunch and a joy to be around. My car�s been faultless, even after all its changes over the winter and all the stick I�ve given it this year, thanks to a sterling effort by Maidstone Sports Cars, Eliseparts and last but not least Scuffers. Sadly for me though, I won�t be competing next year due to a couple of other things going on in my life. However, this does mean that I get to let Scuffers and MSC come up with some special mods for my car over the next year to make it much faster, so that I can compete again in 2012.
Short clip of my fsatest lap in qualifying
