Snetterton October 19th

The penultimate rounds of the MR2Racing series were held at Snetterton, and this was our first race meeting with the new engine in the MR2 which we were hopeful would help us to perform well after a promising track day the weekend before at Bedford.

As the MR2s originally only had 13 entrants, the decision was made to run us on track with the Ma5da Racing MX5s to keep track fees down. As it happens, by the time the race day came out, we had 17 MR2s entered which would have been enough to have our own race. So, into qualifying, and heading onto the track with about 40 other cars I found it very hard to find a gap in the traffic to get a couple of decent laps in. I managed one or two clear ones, but felt I was getting faster each lap as it had been a long time since I’d driven here. For the last lap or so of qualifying, it seemed like the car was losing a bit of power and on the last lap huge amounts of steam came billowing out of the engine cover. I pulled off the track and got towed back to the pits. Upon investigation, the Montana Motorsport guys thought it was a bit of air in the coolant that had done it, so they bled that out, topped it up with water and got us ready for the first race, for which I’d qualified 7th.

Race 1
They started the MX5s in a group to themselves 20 seconds ahead of us, so we had to wait for the Union Jack flag to start us. When it dropped, I got a pretty decent launch. Soon, I was up to 5th place and battling with Johnny White and a couple of others for better position. It soon became apparent to me that this new engine still wasn’t as fast as almost everyone else’s, and on more than a few occasions I’d find myself leaving a corner faster than a driver in front of me and would gain on him, then he’d slowly pull away from me. Despite this, I was having a good battle and managed to get up to 4th at one point. However, for the last couple of laps the engine started steaming again and the temperature gauge would intermittently jump off the scale. As there wasn’t long left I decided to carry on, but the performance dropped again and I ended up finishing in 6th place. After the chequered flag the engine was steaming wildly, and I heard a loud bang as the expansion tank cap blew off. I pulled off and got towed back again.

After more thumb-twiddling, the guys thought they’d sourced the problem. The radiator cap with a pressure release valve seemed to be sticking, so they replaced it with a working one. Thankfully, this sorted the problem:

Race 2
Second race came about and again I started 7th. I got another good launch but really messed up the 1st-2nd gear change, resulting in me losing a couple of places. By the end of the lap though I’d got two back, and coming onto the start straight I was going to get another, when everyone ahead of me suddenly slammed their brakes on,so naturally I did too and luckily no-one hit anyone despite a good few locked wheels. Turns out there was a red flag, but after reviewing the video there wasn’t any notice until the lights on the start line. The race was restarted and this time I got the gear-changes spot on, and by the first lap I’d made up two places. Adam Lockwood then stormed past me and away, and soon I got into a 3-way battle for 4th place with Sam Maher-Loughnan and Jason Jesse. Jason had an extremely fast car on the straights, and would often pull away from both Sam and I, only for us to close right back up on him under brakes and on the corners. We had a superb battle the entire time, we must have traded places amongst ourselves well over 10 times. Finally I managed to get clear of both Sam and Jason, only for me to out-brake myself at the end of the back straight and get into a huge slide, requiring full opposite lock both ways. Unfortunately, I ended up going miles off the track and over the grass, but to my relief (and amusement), both Sam and Jason did the same thing and I only lost 1 place but was right on the back of Sam again. On the last lap I managed to get ahead of Sam into 4th place, and that’s where I stayed right until the flag. This was the best race I’ve had, I really really enjoyed it. You’ve got to watch the video! (See end of page for link)

So, with the engine problems sorted, I managed to salvage a good result and an excellent race from a slightly dissapointing qualifying and first race. The car handled perfectly as usual, but was still slightly lacking down the straights. I hope that I’ll manage to get on the podium at the final rounds at Brands next month.

To see the rest of the pictures from this meeting, SEE HERE

For on-board videos from this meeting, SEE HERE.

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