Snetterton October 14/15

After the mechanical problems of our last outing at Croft, where the side pod top cover came off and destroyed our aerodynamic grip making the tyres go off, we arrived at Snetterton fully aware of how close the situation was in the championship standings. I was 2nd equal with Jeremy Timms on 116 points with Geoff Fern close behind on 104 points. This was to be a very important weekend for me.

Practice on Friday started off with a tyre test so that we could quantify how much time we had lost at Croft due to tyre wear. We didn’t really need to do this test but it helped us formulate an opinion on the set up we would use for our next trip to that circuit. It was also helpful psychologically as the other teams testing had no idea of our true pace until the very last session, when the rumor went round the pits of a 1.09.40 minute lap. All of a sudden there were alot of visitors to the Nemesis awning.

Saturday morning dawned nice and fine and our plan for Qualifying was to get into the 1.09 minute laps, then come into the pits to access the opposition. 1.09.21 came up on the dashboard on lap three, just before the session was paused due to a red flag incident. At the time this was 1.5 seconds quicker than Mark Harrison in P2. We decided to push the car out of the line and sit in the pit lane, saving our tyres for the race. With seconds to go before the end of Qualifying I pulled out of the pit lane exit right in front of Mark. He had done a fast lap, although not fast enough, and we made the point that we could beat his time again. Pole position was ours.

The race started with a neck and neck dash down to the first corner, fortunately Mark lifted first and we all got through the start without any contact. By the end of the first lap I had a 2 second lead which grew out to 3 seconds by half way through the race. As I came to lap back markers there was oil on the track at the esses, which almost resulted in a spin. This allowed Mark to close the gap and for the next four laps he was all over the back of my car. Mark was quicker in the chicane but not as fast in the flat out Bomb Hole and Corum Curves. With three laps to go Mark pushed too hard at the Russels chicane and his car spun. This left an easy run to victory. Both Geoff Fern and Jeremy Timms had retired due to mechanical failures which meant a points haul in my favor. 15 points for the win and an extra point for fastest lap in the race. Alot of satisfaction was shared amounst the team as we took the Snetterton circuit lap record from motorsport legend Jonathan Lewis, who was in attendance at the time, and the first to congratulate us.

We arrived back at the circuit on Sunday morning to find out that Jeremy Timms had not been able to repair his car and had therefore abandoned the event. Qualifying was a repeat of the Mark Harrison v Phil Moore show, although this time the lap times were in favor of Mark. Afterwards we cheeked our logged data from the on board computer and found out that although the speed we took onto the long back straight was 2mph faster on Sunday, we arrived at the end of the straight 1 second slower. We put this down to a strong head wind, and the fact that our car has 0.5 square meters more frontal area than Mark's or Neil’s cars.

Unfortunately the car didn’t launch well for the race and Jim Blockley stormed past into second. Jim's car was throwing out oil, so much so that I thought the liquid splashing onto my visor was rain. The same oil had hit my front tyres and the car slid wide into turn two letting Neil Harrison past. With limited visibility it was difficult to keep the chase but first I picked off Jim, and then chased down Neil. Neil then spun at the same Russels chicane as his brother Mark had the day before, and I was back into 2nd. The last lap board was then shown and not enough time was left to try and haul in race winner Mark Harrison.

Championship Standings at the end of the season (Top Five):
Mark Harrison 191
Phil Moore 144
Jeremy Timms 116
Geoff Fern 104
Niel Harrison 100


9 podiums, 2 wins, 3 fastest laps, 2 lap records, and 1 pole position was not a bad end of year report.