Bigpower

Well I've been a bit quiet, I know, but here are my plans for this year. A Finnish chap called Pete that I work with persuaded me to go racing with him. It's something I've thought about for a while, and talked about a bit with Eddy (...would be awesome to see the Metro out there racing), so am finally doing it.

First round is Snetterton is tomorrow, Saturday 16th. Right now neither of us have the facilities or spare time to organise a car of our own, so we're hiring for this season. Here it is:






It runs a Cooper S engine and, slightly ballasted, runs in class D, 100-125bhp/tonne. So far we've done one (wet, cold) practice day at Brands Hatch, and yesterday at Snetterton. Yesterday was a great experience, getting used to the feel of race wets on a damp surface, then scrubbing-in new A048s once it dried out. Really got a feel for the car and looking forward to tomorrow enormously...

Funnily enough, pals at work are disinclined to hang around in a drafty garage at Snetterton in March, but should anyone fancy a trip out then let me know - I have a couple of free passes and could pop over to the gate to let you in. If interested drop me a mail on adbdba at gmail.com.

Awesome, good luck tomorrow fella.

Good luck Andy.

So it was you in the mini with the yellow windows yesterday Stu said he saw your car in the paddock.

Good luck tomorrow mate, you'll love it.

Sounds ace, would love to have a guide to what hiring a ride costs good luck.

Is there a list of runners?

Good luck andy and look forward to your report on things

Best of luck Andy:thumbs:

Best of luck Andy.

Hope you got on well today and enjoyed it Andy ~Nice to see you the other day & I look forward to catching up in a few weeks

Thanks for the good wishes everyone. We had a great day:thumbs:

First up, 30mins practice shared between Pete (co-driver) and myself. Having driven many laps on Thursday in the damp on wet tyres and dry on A048s, this session served as familiarisation with A048s in the wet. Was a bit wary at first, as that combination had been real tricky on a cold December practice day, but it turned out to be fine. Very predictable on the brakes, into the corner, and it was flat-stick from apex onwards

The car's not the fastest thing out there. Class B is 175-150bhp/tonne, class C is 150-125, and we're towards the bottom of C. We have the option of running in class D (125-100bhp/tonne) with small amount of ballast, but there were only 2 cars in D on Saturday.

Next was 30mins qualifying. We managed 6th out of 11 in class, ok I guess, but then Pete managed to run wide off the corner onto the main straight, and thumped the barrier with front-left corner. Ooops. No major damage done (except to Pete's confidence) and the guys (Bubble and Kick racing) had it fixed within the next hour. Oh well, the car is due to go into the bodyshop before the next round anyway, apparently!

Race came up straight after lunch and I was gridded 22nd for the start. Got a good launch and I was level with the many cars all around. Into Riches and everyone was braking verrry early ... a gap appeared and I dived into it, taking a couple of places, and around the corner we went. Down to the hairpin I got on the inside line and, woohoo, out-braked another couple of cars. This was just like 10 years ago when I raced bikes except that I wasn't nearly so bold back then, being elbow-to-elbow rather than door-to-door! The next 7 laps were a bit of a blur really, lots of traffic, slides, and a few other cars going off. Managed to get the braking wrong at the end of Coram once which sent me onto the grass to the right, but happily managed to slide back onto the track without losing much ground. Another time a Ginetta came off the grass back onto track alongside just as I was entering the Bombhole - I tightened my line, fully expecting a bit of contact but somehow it never happened! Halfway through and I was back in the pits for Pete to take over. He drove a decent race but unfortunately was short on confidence after his earlier barrier excursion - a couple of seconds a lap down on his qualifying pace and a wee bit disappointed, as a result we dropped 2 or 3 places in that second half.

Final result, 20th out of 26 (plus 4 non-classified) and 7th out of 11 in class C. A steady start. Roll on Oulton Park in 2 weeks time ... along with Cadwell, Oulton was my favourite circuit on a bike so am really looking forward to that one