I gave the car a real good shake after Silverstone and didn't find a single nut, bolt or wishbone loose. What could go wrong??
Snetterton is a long old drive so i entered the extended invitation from Bikesports to join them for an extra race. This meant 2 practices and 2 races. Upon arriving at snetterton we were informed that due to a lot of bikesports entering late we would now be having our own non championship RGB race, sorted! :) After arriving at 7pm and pitching up to Bob, the usual BBQ and beers were had while having a good chat with the RGB crew.
1 extra Stella resulted in a slightly fuzzy head when i woke up on sunday, but a shower and a cuppa sorted that out for scrutineeering at 8.15am. With only 1 session between bikesports practice and RGB practice it meant that a full tank of fuel was required so i could go straight to holding after the first practice had finished. As it turned out we had a bit longer as the marhalls had to peel a radical out of the tyre wall at russels after it had collected Andy Grant while making a completely unnecessary lunge to get past him going into Russels. Why some of the bikesports drivers feel these types of moves are necessary is beyond me, they can get past our cars where ever they like with ease, so why try doing it it tight places, especially in practice???
Practice went well, and i was 2nd in class, and only fractionally behind Al and in a pack of class C cars, so had high hopes for the race! The non championship race didn't really matter, but i was 8th on the grid alongside James W and would definitely require some kind of heroics to improve upon due to the straight line disadvantage my class C car had over all the A's and B's infront of me.
While calmly preparing for the race and with an hour to go i was looking round the car and noticed the driver side "H" engine mount had cracked. Further investigation showed that it had virtually gone all the way around the tube. Luckily Mr Bates was standing close buy and after 20mins with the oxy torch i had a a bronze splattered, dog eared looking bracket that supported the engine:-
The non championship race was great fun, trying to overtake james on the brakes and using his brick shaped car as a towing aid was great racing but also taught me where i could push the car harder and deeper and take liberties!! Bens dive up the inside at the end of the revitt was exciting, and also makes a good video, thankfully with a happy ending ;):-
I also managed a 1.18.92, which i was over the moon with as non of the other class C cars broke the 1.19.00 mark in either practice or the race.
The only downside of the race is that the car had started to jump out of 4th, which was not good going through the bombhole!!!! I had my fingers crossed it would hold for the RGB race!
I got off the line well for the RGB race, but by the time we had got down to the Esses Colin and AL had managed to get get a couple of cars in between us, and then over the next couple of laps Phil and a few class A and B went past me down the Revit. It took me a few good laps to finally get past James, Dan and Neil and back up the chuff of Phil. Phils car gives very little tow down the straight and is bloody quick, meaning a slip stream move was probably out. By now the car would not stay in 4th around the bomb hole and becoming increasingly difficult to get into gear, meaning on a number of occasions i either missed 4th gear or it popped out. The bombhole was the worst place, as when it popped into 3rd it would lock the rear wheels, and was something i was constantly thinking about while doing 95mph around Riches!! I started trying to drive it in 5th around here but i just couldn't get the acceleration, i tried holding it in 3rd for longer, but it either meant i hit the limiter, or the at the point where i needed 4th the car was becoming unbalanced at which point i couldn't wrestle to get it into 4th. I was right behind phil coming into the bombhole with a few minutes to go and decided to try it in 4th so as to get the best run on him, unfortunately it popped out just as the car was squirming around, this locked the rears and i ended up spinning off!! I got going again and finished the race, but it was the worst result of the season (well apart from the not seen at cadwell), although it had been a bloody good race and infact i recorded fast lap in class!!! The fastest lap cheered me up as i hadn't managed that before and at least means i was pushing it and could have stayed up with Al if i had had a better start!
On the downside the gearbox was shot and would need to be sorted for Oulton in less than 2 weeks
Photos of the day:-
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