Snetterton was really the first time we’d be able to directly compare the Silverstone tyres with our Avon performances from earlier in the year. Since Croft we’d made further changes to the setup – notably toe, camber and ride height – which we hoped would compliment the needs of the tyre construction.

Going out for the morning practice session would be a test session as well (isn’t it always in club motorsport?), and I had some new front brake pads to bed in too. Initially I concentrated on warming everything up properly, but it was soon apparent that the cat was nervous and not confidence inspiring. I pushed on, navigating the traffic and looking for clear air. For the majority of the session I couldn’t get below 1m11, which was Reynard pace and not very competitive for the Dallara. Pole was going to be in the 1m07s – 4 seconds is a long time… By the 11th or 12th lap I’d found some clear air, was all warmed up, and stuck in 4th position. It was now or never…

Edit: Blimey! I hadn’t realised that this article wasn’t published. I’d written it, saved it, made it ‘public’, but didn’t select the Published box. So it’s sat here, invisible to all but me.  Sorry. It won’t happen again. Probably…

It was a bit of a rush to get the car ready, but we entered the BRSCC F3 (formerly ClubF3, formerly ARP F3) round at Snetterton to see how the car faired at low ride heights allowed in this championship – in Monoposto we have to run at 40mm minimum, which is due to some antiquated rule to do with banning ‘skirts’) – and to see how I coped against quicker machinery with a view to doing the championship next year.

With no pre-event testing it was always going to be difficult to get the car balanced, even taking advice of other people (who, of course, were different drivers, with cars in different specifications…). Setting the ride height to the 19mm we intended to use at the front posed a bit of a problem, as our workshop floor isn’t particularly flat. At 40mm it’s fine, but at 19mm the errors in the floor were too much to be accurate. A solution was devised, made from welded steel sections and kitchen worktop material from B&Q (!), which gave us a pseudo flat-floor that we could level up (using spirit levels) and do ride height, corner weights and everything else.

The 2009 Monoposto season has begun! Sorry for the delay in writing the report, but we’ve been having a bit of a break from anything to do with racing after six months of almost non-stop work, and I’ve been ill as well. But here it is, in all its glory.

The weekend began, as usual, a few days beforehand with the loading of car, tools and stuff required, as well as dropping off the car to the paddock on Friday evening. Being our local circuit we enjoy being able to sleep in our own beds and travelling the 15 minutes to the circuit each morning.  Saturday’s first tasks were signing on and scrutineering, both of which were easy and straightforward, with no problems.  Our car was attracting some attention due to the fact that it was nicely presented, although the repainting Magic Motorsport car of Niel Harrison looked resplendant in it’s yellow colour scheme too.
Soon, however, practice beckoned, and with a stomach load of butterflies we formed up in the assembly area ready to see how slow we were. I also had to scrub in a set of tyres – slicks because the weather was dry and quite warm – which dicated a number of slow laps, a mildly quick lap, a couple of slow laps and then freedom to try and set a good time.