Two hats Tim

I knew it was a bad idea. I got home on Sunday from just about the most successful race weekend ever. Now I’m in a bit of a quandary as it’s going to be tough to get the J15 up to the performance of the Fury, at least in the short term.

Back to the beginning though. After last weekend getting the car fettled there was lots of stuff to do to get the bus, trailer, tyres, race gear, bedding, food, etc., etc. sorted for our trip up to Snetterton. One of the advantages of using a motorhome is that we can leave lots of things in it for the duration of the season. However, the first race is inevitably a lot of faffing about and I spent a good deal of time on Thursday getting it all done. However, we were finally done late in the evening and we (that is, Anthea and me) set off for Snetterton which is luckily not that far away from us.

On the way I remembered that one of the things I’d forgotten was the car cover. As it was scheduled to rain over the weekend I felt compelled to go back and fetch it as I didn’t fancy getting even wetter than I needed to. Lucky that we’re not far away.

After a restless night dreaming about Snetterton and listening to the rain I got up early and signed on for the coming morning’s testing. All I wanted to do was to get my brain in gear and see if I could remember how to drive a race car. I know from past experience that it’s surprisingly difficult to drive at the start of the season in the manner that you finished the previous season. The weather conditions were such that I knew I wasn’t going to get near my personal best here, which was 1:17.10 at that point.

Out on track and it was mega-slippy. I was still using the “wets” that I was using at the Birkett although they’re really getting a bit old in the tooth now. Still I spent the morning trundling round with times in the region of 1:32-ish. That is, very very slow. All the same, the car worked just fine. The only thing I needed to change was to twiddle the track rods so that the steering wheel was pointed straight ahead. This is something that you can never adjust without actually driving the car. You think you’ve got it right and then drive the car and it’s miles off. Still, it’s easy to do just by twiddling one track rod in and the other out of the track rod ends, thereby retaining the toe setting.

During the afternoon it cleared up a bit. It would have been nice to get out on circuit again but I spent the time doing some minor fettling and, shock horror, washing to car.

And so to bed, this time for a better night’s sleep as by now I could remember how to drive a car. The evening’s weather forecast had been much better too, they were promising double figures for temperature the following day.

I did found out later that this was probably correct for the rest of East Anglia. However, Snetterton was its usual self and on Saturday we were cold and wind-swept. This was because, we were told by a local, that Snetterton is on the top of a hill… They’ve a funny idea what a hill is in N’fark.

Racing on Saturday was the Allcomers race. Essentially, I was using this as a bit more testing and wasn’t really expecting great things. The entry varied from Jonathan (ex RGBer) driving a super quick Radical and, most bizarrely, a couple of chaps driving socking great Nissan 370Zs, one of which is in the photo at the top. These two had apparently won a Playstation competition to get their drives which, as they were both sporting numpty crosses, was slightly alarming as this was apparently their first real track outing and the cars were rather, errm, imposing. Apparently, the two drivers were the winners of the “2010 GT Academy” and the intention was to get them into International GT racing. Seems vastly optimistic to me, and predicated on the notion that being good at games on a Playstation implies one is good at the real life thing. If nothing else that seems extremely unlikely as the bandwidth of the sensory mechanisms in each scenario is so different and success is therefore likely to select for different sorts of people.

As it turned out, they had obviously been trained well as they were pretty responsive to other people on the track. They were painfully slow though. I really don’t understand the point of racing cars that are so slow. OK, the drivers were novices and probably therefore a couple of seconds off the pace. However,  the difference was extreme. I had a pretty good qualifying and got well on it. I ended up with a time of 1:16.7, 0.4 seconds faster than I’ve ever gone before and comfortably the fastest front engined RGB class B lap of Snetterton ever. There was probably a bit of wind assistance down the Revett straight though. For comparison, the Nissans were 1:28ish, 12 seconds slower around the lap! Mind you, there were split by a Ford Fiesta stock hatch so that perhaps indicates that driver inability is actually a large issue about what is going on.

I was pretty pleased with my time though, which was good enough for 5th on the grid. I was behind a couple of Radical-ish cars (actually a Radical and a Speads) and John Cutmore and David Wale both in class A RGB cars. John, you might remember, laid waste to the RGB class B lap record at the Snetterton race at the end of last year. That, though, is a mid-engined car and was one of the reasons why I decided to build the J15. My grid time here at least showed me that I was up to speed anyway.

Later in the day it was time for the race. The temperature had never achieved the promised dizzy heights here on the upper reaches of Mount Snetterton and there was a bitter wind and so we formed up, shivering, in our allotted spaces. The Speads car had pulled out for some reason and I was therefore 4th, although still in slot 5. Come the start and I got a truly horrible one with bucket loads of wheelspin. It’s still my Achilles heel in this car in that it’s far too easy to either get too much wheelspin or bog down (or worse, stall). Problem is, it’s very hard to find a way to practise starts, and impossible to do so in anything like the psychological state one is in at the start of a race.

So, I got jumped by both Mat Green, who is driving John Cutmore’s car from last year, and Doug Carter in the run to Riches. However, I managed to get past Mat on the run down to the Esses along the main straight. Then I was up behind Doug and imagining another race where he managed to use the straight line speed of the class A Genesis to keep ahead of me. However, first time through Sear and I managed to come out of the corner very close to the back of his car. From that position it was relatively easy to sit in the tow until near to the braking zone, pull inside Doug (who as always was very fair) and get into the Esses in front of him. In that position I pulled a few seconds clear of Doug and was up behind David. In that position I sat for several laps. David would always pull clear on the straights and I caught up on the twistier bits, especially through the Esses and the Bombhole. Later on I told him what was wrong with his line there and he commented later that in RGB qualifying he’d gone rather faster as a result! Looking at the results he was about ¾ seconds faster.

So, I sat behind David until the dash went haywire and I lost the Palm and the shift light entirely. As such I had to drive the last few laps “blind” which rather slowed me up. In a way it was worse as the shift light flashed continuously which was quite distracting. Then we caught up with the first of the two Nissans as we came down to the Esses. David managed to get past on his way into the first Ess but I decided that discretion was the better part of valour. I did dive up the inside into the second Ess, I probably need to reduce my dosage of brave pills, but David had got away and I settled in for the flag. Along the way I noticed that John Cutmore had pulled off, his ignition switch had fallen to pieces (!), and I therefore finished in third place on the road. That’s my first ever podium finish for which I got a trophy and a hat! OK, it’s only a Snetterton baseball cap but it’s right up there as far as I’m concerned. I also got interviewed by the commentator which is another completely new experience for me!

FL in the race was 1:16.71, a huge 0.02 seconds faster than my quali time but again very gratifying.

Again, there was very little to do to the car once I figured out why I’d lost the instrumentation. The DL1 daughter board had fallen off again; I need to work out a way to retain it better. So, after refueling it we settled in for the night.

The next morning and now the weather forecast said it was going to rain from about 1200; our race was a 1400 with qualifying early in the morning. This was now an important qualifying so we jostled to get in the quali queue early (good because you can get a couple of quick laps in before you catch up with the tail of the field). I then got stuck in. At the time I thought I’d not done too well, but looking at the time sheets that isn’t the case. I managed a couple of even quicker laps, this time at 1:16.52 (!) and was again 5th on the grid. Alarmingly, Mat Green was a few hundredths quicker than me. He’d been right behind me all through qualifying and I was a bit concerned that I’d shown him the best way round. Oddly, though, he’d just disappeared from my mirrors towards the end of qualifying. It turned out that he’d thrown a rod and therefore there was frenetic engine changing underway in the Spire camp.

I was only 0.7 ahead of Lee, an RGB newbie racing a Phoenix which bodes well for close racing later this year.

Later in the day, as predicted, the weather was degrading. When we eventually got to the grid it was looking pretty murky, especially for an 18 min race with the entire field on bone-dry settings. Then the lights went out and we set off. I got one of my better starts and got past Mat on the way to Riches. The problem was, about 100m clear of Riches it was immediately clear that it was now pouring with rain. Luckily those of us at the front managed to clear Riches and Sear without damage but apparently there was a good deal of spinnage further down the field. Down the Revett straight I was behind David and John. John managed to get ahead of David there, and I jumped him on the run to the Bombhole. Oddly, now, the circuit was bone dry again and I think David was just being more careful than me.

And that was really where the race ended for me. I sat behind John for quite a long time and I did toy with having a go at him. However, I knew I was in first place in the class and that would really be a bit daft. So, I sat there and tried not to pre-count the points. For the entire race I didn’t see another car in my mirrors other than back-markers that I’d passed. I did start thinking that everyone else had fallen off. It was, though, the most difficult race I’ve ever driven. The conditions were different at every single corner on every lap. One lap you could stick the front end into the cambered track around the Bombhole and floor the throttle. The next you ran wide and were wondering whether you’d run out of road. Hence, I drove really, really, carefully.

And, after a while, there was the chequered flag. So, that was another outright 3rd place, 1st in class, another trophy and another hat! What’s more, this race was being recorded for broadcast on Motors TV and there was a mini podium ceremony and an interview from a TV chap. Most unusual. I guess they’ll be transmitting the race in a week or so, you can probably see on the TV company’s website. There doesn’t, though, seem to be any clue there at the moment as to when it will be.