After the slight disappointment of Anglesey, we were keen to show our speed at Snetterton, our ‘home’ race. The misfire woes from earlier in the season were, we hoped, behind us, although we had fitted a lambda sensor to the datalogger to help us get around the problem should it recur.

However, all that didn’t go quite according to plan…

Saturday’s practice session was damp. There was, in places, a dry line, but the overall feeling was that wet tyres were the way to go. Most people felt the same, but a few remained on slicks due to lack of time and manpower. I went out and had to pick my way through the traffic to find some clear air, whilst Jeremy Timms went out last due to clutch problems. This meant he was immediately on a clear track and banged in a 1m19 second time. Then it started to rain…

By the time I had found clear space, the track was too wet for me to get below 1m20, so I missed out on pole position for the first time this year, whilst Jeremy was able to celebrate being quickest qualifier once again. Fair play to him for finding the space at the right time (although a certain amount of (bad?) luck put him in that position), and I don’t think newer wet tyres for me would have made much difference.  Richard Purcell was a very happy 3rd, albeit 3.4 seconds away from my time and 4.5 seconds off pole, with Kevin Mason pleased with 4th. In fifth place was Jeremy Goodman in his trusty old Ralt, who made the most of the slick tyres he was on (due to lack of time and manpower to change to wets, so it wasn’t the clever strategy call he might later claim!) before the rain came down.  I also had a bit of a spin – at the end of the Revett Straight, I hit the brakes and shot off backwards across the grass at the Esses – exciting in a way, but not exactly helpful for laptimes!!! You can see the series of photos (and buy others) here.

The race was held under even trickier conditions. It was wet, but not quite wet enough to use wets, and besides, it was drying slowly anyway. Everything is much nicer when it’s plain dry or plain wet, as the decision is straightforward.  A quick run around the paddock to see what Jeremy was doing confirmed that slicks were the choice to be on, and they were duly fitted at the last possible moment.

Sitting on the grid I knew that challenging Jeremy off the line would be difficult, as he is very good at starts, whilst I still seem… HE STALLED!  Jeremy dropped the clutch and the engine died.  I disappeared off into the distance and  it became obvious that this wasn’t going to be an easy race, as the car was misfiring quite a lot, especially after gear changes until I had lifted the throttle three or four times.  The saving grace, or so I thought, was a safety car due to Louis Watts hitting the pitwall at the start.  After two or three laps of trundling around behind it, whilst the marshals looked at the car but didn’t make much progress with clearing it, the red flags were waved and the race was stopped.

Now I’m not sure of the regulations on this matter – despite having subsequently read the Blue Book – but as we were being reformed on the grid, Jeremy’s car was pushed out of retirement and to the back of the grid. He was being allowed to restart. Oh dear!

After some more confusion, mainly caused the marshals and officials being a bit thick and failing to realise that single seaters can only idle for a short while before needing to be switched off, and then needing booster batteries to get them going, the race was restarted.  This time Jeremy Goodman made a brilliant start from 4th, sitting on the inside of me into Riches corner. He had visions of taking the lead, but a Ralt is no match for a Dallara through the corners, and I was able to drive around the outside of him, finally confirming the lead as mine under braking for Sears. Meanwhile, Jeremy was doing what I did at Thruxton, and got his head down. I think he passed eleven cars on the first lap alone! I was a sitting duck, with my lap times mostly in the 1m10s (I managed a couple of 1m09s when the misfire wasn’t as bad), and as I started the last lap I remained 6 seconds ahead or so.

Into the final half of the last lap, and I caught up with a ‘gaggle’ of cars – Mark Schofield, Mark Smith, Anthony Bishop (in a car that should be at the sharp end of the grid), Nick Catanzaro, Chris Scott and Lenny Coleman (in our old Reynard 883) – that were more interested in racing each other than getting out of my way. And rightly so – I have no right to be let passed, and it was unlucky that I caught them when I did, as I couldn’t power past them.  Out of the final corner and I was still with them, trying to find a way passed, but Jeremy had caught up, opened the throttle and drove past me on the run to the chequered flag – and he beat me! By 0.087 seconds, or a car length!!

Neither of us actually saw the chequered flag, and I gave chase for an extra lap hoping that he’d make a mistake or my misfire would suddenly get better.  He didn’t and it didn’t. But it wouldn’t have counted even if either had happened.  Obviously I was gutted, especially as the problem wasn’t really our fault – it was the map in the ECU (and the options to do with overrun fuel cutoff) that was wrong, which was mapped by the people that make the ECU.

After the disappointment, and after checking the datalogging, we gave Simon at Specialist Components a call. He was on holiday, and wasn’t very pleased to get calls from his racing customers at the weekend – a very poor attitude considering he sells ECUs to people who only use them at weekends…  Anyway, he grugingly gave some advice, but for the most part I had to teach myself how to map an ECU from lambda data overnight. Fun!!

And so Sunday began, with me still in a bad mood from the earlier race result…

The new ECU map was loaded up, and our fingers were firmly crossed. It was, at least, dry so the tyre choice was straightforward!

The car was immediately quicker – early ‘banker’ laps got me into the 1m08s with relative ease, even with traffic.  After 13 laps (I think) I found the space in the traffic I so desired, and drove the car as well as I’ve ever driven it – and it seemed happy to be driven like that. The results was a 1m06.49, over a second under the lap record, set by Jeremy Timms in 2009, of 1m07.79.

WOW!

Afterwards, as we were patting ourselves on our backs for a job well done, I discovered that our airbox was about to fall off – the throttle bodies are a multi-part system, with a throttle block, extension pipes, and the trumpets. The trumpets are inside the airbox, and the weight of the airbox, air filter and trumpets is supported solely by the extensions. These are aluminium tubes, with a flange welded on, and it was these flanges that were cracking. Gulp.

Phone calls were made to find people that can weld aluminium locally (nobody had a TiG welder at the circuit!), and I was dispatched in the Teapot (Ford Ka) to get that job done.  Meanwhile Andrew and Martin set about creating a contingency arrangement in case the welding wasn’t successful or we didn’t get back in time.  The drive to Tivetshall was quite exciting – the Teapot is fun to drive, although the brakes a little spongy for my liking. Maybe I should write a road test? – but we got there, had the welding done thanks to some wonderful work by John and Stuart at Waveney Pumps,  and got back to the circuit with about an hour to spare.  The contingency plan was already fitted, and we made the decision to stick with it as time was short, and the risk of the new welds failing and resulting in a large part of my car falling off was too great.  The contingency was thus – the trumpets had been modified with a file and a hacksaw to bolt directly to the throttle body block, secured with Loctited bolts and lockwire, and a set of air filter socks had been created using lockwire (as home made staples) and tie-wraps. Yes, we’d be down on power a bit due to the shorter inlet tracts (probably optimised for around 10,000rpm!), but at least we’d race and at least the engine wouldn’t injest anything or discard heavy objects onto the track…

My start was perfect, but my getaway was slow. The shorter trumpets really surprised me with how little torque I got, but at least I didn’t stall. I covered Jeremy Goodman’s move up the inside (!), and set about keeping up with Jeremy as I knew the car was capable of beating him on the right day.  Jeremy had had his car in two between practice and the race to cure an oil leak that had developed at the sump joint, and I must confess I hoped that I could pressure him into making the car unreliable like in 2009. I couldn’t. I was down on power on the straights, and although my best laps to start with were in the 1m08s (just), which is still quicker than the lap record from 2007, Jeremy just drove away without any contest.

And if I thought it was bad to start with, it only got worse. The engine lost more and more power, until at the end of the race I was lucky to be in the 1m13s, with Jeremy 30 seconds up the road and Malcolm Scott closing fast just five seconds behind. But I maintained 2nd, got some points, and kept my championship hopes alive in doing so.  As soon as I was out of the car for the podium ceremony I found the problem – the fancy new air filter socks had, on number one cylinder, been sucked into the trumpet, effectively blocking it. By the end of the race I was, at best, running on three cylinders with a massively rich air:fuel mixture. It wasn’t my finest race, but in terms of cornering ability I was matching my practice speeds, and didn’t do my left-front tyre many favours in the process.

Lapping people was interesting too. On the straights I was 10mph down on practice, and with everyone on similar engine outputs, most cars were plenty faster in a straight line. So I caught them under braking and in the corners. Which meant I had to pass under braking and in the corners. Then on the straights they would overtake, imagining me to have a problem, and then have me dive down the inside when I didn’t lift off for Riches, or brake for another 100m for the Esses.  To be quite honest it was a silly way to drive, and was inviting an accident, as the backmarkers probably can’t quite comprehend just how quickly I can corner in the Dallara, especially when they’ve powered past me on the straights.

So…

Two second places. One pole. No fastest laps. No official lap records. But we still stored 24 points (to Jeremy’s 32), and at least we’ve mostly cured the misfire. The throttle bodies are being re-engineered as I type and should be stronger than before (but probably uglier!). At some point it would be nice to have a reliable, trouble-free weekend when I can show the speed of the car unmolested… it’s nice to have a dream!

Jeremy is ahead in the championship by 24 Points. There are 7 races still to go, and the best 11 of the season count. So we can still do it.  And I hope to make some progress to that end at Mallory Park on the 29th and 30th August…

Photos to come, maybe the odd video (the camera broke AGAIN on Sunday practice, so I missed my unofficial lap record), and all of that nonsense that takes a lot of time to do. I’m in an amateur theatrical version of Wuthering Heights at the moment (as Edgar and Hareton for those that know the story), but once that is over I’ll update a few things.

Things to do before Mallory – take the engine out and refresh it as the oil pressure isn’t as good as it once was. Sort the camera. Fix the throttle bodies. And do a presentation on “Living the Dream” at a local school.  Oh, the joys of motorsport…….

See Snetterton 2010 Press Release here