Down to the wire

It was time for another race meeting, this time at Snetterton. I decided not to go testing, although I did spend the test day there with Dan who was out for the first time in his RGB race car.

Consequently, I signed up for the BikeSports race so as to get a bit of track time. Before I came to this meeting my fastest time around Snetterton as the 1:18.4 that I’d done testing just before the first of the cat blow-ups. At the time that had seemed pretty quick for me, although as usual there was lots to come.

Bikesports scrutineering was first which was no problem, although the scrutineer commented on the “very free running front hubs”. Perhaps it’s about time I tightened up the bearings? I was very pleased to get a 1:17.8 in this session so that was half a second quicker. Oddly, it’d had seemed easy. I did try rather harder later in the session but ended up going slower. 🙂

Then it was RGB qualifying. By this time the sun had come out and I managed to go quicker again: 1:17.1 this time. That time is actually .3 second under the lap record which would be amazing were it not for the fact the John Cutmore had got the Spire working to such an extent that he was 2 seconds faster than me. That’s just astonishing. I have no idea at all how I could have gone that fast. The paddock supposition is that the “whale tail” Spire is actually working rather well, even though it looks ugly as hell.

I pulled out of the Bikesports race as it was a bit lonely and I didn’t want to risk breaking the car. It was, though, useful for a bit of starting practice which I’m still rubbish at with this car. However, just before the Bikesports race I’d noticed that the engine management light had come on. Quick investigation showed that the wire to the Air Inlet Temperature sensor had broken. Hence, the ECU would have been running just making a safe assumption about the inlet temperature. So, back in the paddock I set about fixing it. The break was right close to the connectors and I didn’t have a soldering iron to hand. Hence we ended up making a bit of a bodge of a solution which, all the same, will probably hold together for a while.

Finally, it was time for the RGB race. I’d qualified 5th for the race and was side-by-side with Tony Gaunt on the grid. Tony’s actually ahead of me in the championship at the moment but there’s a tiny possibility that I could catch him up as long as I beat him at this round and the next one. Hence, a good start was important.

As it turned out I didn’t get a bad start, although not a storming one. I fell behind Tony through Riches and Sear but managed to slipstream past him on the Revett straight.

After that it was a race long process of keeping in front of Tony. I kept managing to get slightly ahead of him and then made a small mistake that allowed him to close again. I’m not sure when in the race Jonathan took the photo here but we were as close as this for much of the race.

Eventually, on what was the last lap, Tony had a supreme effort and spun at the entrance to Coram. That rather surprised me when I looked in my mirrors before braking at Russell and couldn’t see him. Luckily for him he managed to recover without actually losing a place.

So, it’s all down to the wire at the final race of the season at Mallory. Depending on too many variables to think about I could finish between 2nd and 4th in class B overall. Unfortunately, too much of the variability is down to how many class B drivers turn up on the day. Of course, if I’d managed to finish all the races this season it’d be a done deal already, so I guess it’s all my own fault really.

The video below is just the start and part of the last lap. Look in the mirror to see Tony spinning on the last lap: