my snetterton diary
Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 4:15 pm
4.30 am - awoken from my light sleep by howling wind and rain against the bedroom windows
4.45 am - decided that I might aswell get up anyway as i dont want to miss my alarm going off and miss the day
5.00 am - figure i cant wait any longer for the first cup of coffee so the coffee machine wakes my wife rachel up
5.30 am - dressed and ready after the first shot of coffee and start loading the car up
5.45 am - decide i might aswell hose the car down a bit to get previous days dirt off (it was raining at the time
)
6.00 am - coffee number 2 and rachel wakes up again
6.15 am - leave for snetterton deciding to fill up at Tesco's on the way as the shell garage is a gallon in the wrong direction. (I hadnt read the reports on crap fuel by then)
7.00 am - arrive at Snetterton and start unloading
7.30 am - the heavens open and it starts teaming down with rain so decide to have a coffee and a bacon roll in the restaurant (very very good
)
8.00 am - sign on
8.30 am - drivers briefing from Ben, Paul and guest speaker Stuart "The Plough" Staples
9.00 am - final check on car and queue up for the first session in the rain wondering whether there would be any grip
9.10 am - set off down the pitlane and discover at the first corner that there was absolutley no grip whatsoever
9.11 am - back in as someone had spun off
9.12 am - back out to try and figure out a way around the track in the wet when all I would get going into Sears was understeer, understeer, dab the throttle and then wild oversteer
9.20 am - look in the rear view mirror and see Gary from APT sideways in a wild way holding it on the power around Sears and smile to myself wishing it could do that
9.25 am - decide to throw the car into Sears (chosen cos of the huge run off) for some sideways action, the tail flicks out I hold it for a while and it snaps back in.... next time I will do better
10.00 am - out for second session and the puddles are fewer but grip still non-existent so playing is still in order and driving through the puddles to try and get the water to blow away. This time the sears experience proved more fruitful with a full on power slide attained and a nice smooth transition back to straight . Superb :thumb: Next lap I decide in my sleep deprived wisdom to try it bigger and better than before and get it badly wrong flipping completely around and facing the oncoming traffic (but still on the tarmac ) ... that wasnt too bad. I had broken my Snetterton spinning duck and lived to tell the tale Times for laps continued to fall as it dried out but still some very shakey moments.
11.00 am - session 3 and loads more grip now - this is starting get seriously quick:o With George (my trusted co-pilot) in the passenger seat and avidly watching the lap timer we knew that my record of 1.31 was going to be broken... it was down to 1.28 within a short period of time. Had a great time catching Stuart with instructor on board, passing him, slowing down so he could pass us and then proceeded to catch him, pass him and promptly spin again coming out of the Esses and again facing the oncoming traffic parked on the little stretch of tarmac that joins the track there.. again no mud on my car Whilst George and I pissed ourselves laughing we composed ourselves, waited for the oil to settle down and then set off for some more flat out laps. The chequered flag seemed to come too quickly on this session as we were having so much fun, with great brakes, fanatastic new power delivery and a dry track
11.30 am - managed to blag myself into the novice session as I Ben Devlin was going to sit with me for a while. Observing me for a few laps he started to give pointers as to increased speed: brake here, turn in now, straighten the steering and floor it whilst still at the apex SOme of this was alien to me, particularly the straighten the steering part when heading for armco but worked very well when we went through the Chicane flat in 2nd sideways leaving a plume of tyre smoke for Mark Mosely to go through
12.00 am - came in from the lapping to cool the car down as oil temperatures were a little high and opened the bonnet for a while. Lee (IWANT1) commented on how full my oil catch can was.... ie it was FULL and overflowing coating the underside of my car with oil and drained about a litre of oil out of the sump. (Thanks mate - you have probably saved me some very expensive repairs) so went to try and figure how to drain it off so I could continue. A sectiopn of hosepipe was donated by the very nice chaps in one of the workshop at the top of the circuit and a water bottle from Gary's garage and the oil/moisture mix was drained off, oil topped up and a quick road run to see if it was a significant problem. The road drive did not show anything up.
1.00pm - lovely pasta and chips helps fuel me for the day - what great food there was... awesome :thumb:
2.00 pm - afternoon open pit lane started and I drove out for a few laps to see if the oil problem continued. A few laps later I came back in to check. The catch can had filled up halfway already.... hmm. I topped the oil up again and drained the can and went out again this time taking it easy. 4 laps later - came back and no oil caught...hmm.
I went out again and this time took 4 hot laps - came back and the catch can was 3/4 full. I drained it and I had now run out of spare oil so didnt top it up. It was still about halfway between min and max levels.
The next stint of 4 laps showed a small amount of oil caught, again I drained it off thinking that this might have been stuck in the pipework and went back out.
I then took some flying laps and tried to really work it hard for half a dozen laps - and got a further 3 seconds off my best time - now 1min 25 When returning to the pit garage i checked the oil again and it seemed to be okay, catching some oil but not much. Had to be down to the increased corner G forces and a full sump. This was a mighty relief but gives me an issue to solve now with oil surge or similar problem at Snetterton.
4.00pm - I decided that I had pushed my luck far enough that day havign done about 100 laps give or take and being relatively incident free :whistle: I would quit wanting 1 more lap rather than after 1 too many laps so blagged a few laps off Gary at APT to put my speed into perspective. To say that car is fast is a wild understatement, the steering is crips, the handling spot on and the power deliver is relentless. Top driving Gary and huge thanks. I must say sorry for the rather large dent in your floor under where the brake pedal should have been on my side
4.30 pm - Mike Payne offered to take me for some passengers laps in his recently (ie that morning:) ) prepared and mapped subaru to experience the increased power. I have to say that it is a real punchy performer now and revs to figures that I can only dream about, each gear change welcomed by a punch in the back and a further whine of the turbo as it whistles faster and faster. I couldnt quite see the speedo as I was too busy praying
but it was going very well indeed and when finished should be a stunning track car.
Time now to pack up, change the track wheels and snotty RE070's back to my less than snotty road wheels (the same actually) and RE070's for a legal drive home.
The evening seemed to go very quickly with a manic rush of people chatting about the day's activities, wanting stickers, membership cards and clothing and before long it was 10pm and time to head home to a well needed bed.
What can I say but thank you to everyone for coming and making the day so great. Stuart and I enjoyed ourselves immensely and it bodes well for the club if the marshalls do not feel that they need to intervene for agressive or sideways driving like they do at other trackdays despite so many spinners and people exploring the limits and overtaking cars sideways waving out of the window (cough cough, bladey )
What a great day.
4.45 am - decided that I might aswell get up anyway as i dont want to miss my alarm going off and miss the day
5.00 am - figure i cant wait any longer for the first cup of coffee so the coffee machine wakes my wife rachel up
5.30 am - dressed and ready after the first shot of coffee and start loading the car up
5.45 am - decide i might aswell hose the car down a bit to get previous days dirt off (it was raining at the time
)6.00 am - coffee number 2 and rachel wakes up again
6.15 am - leave for snetterton deciding to fill up at Tesco's on the way as the shell garage is a gallon in the wrong direction. (I hadnt read the reports on crap fuel by then)
7.00 am - arrive at Snetterton and start unloading
7.30 am - the heavens open and it starts teaming down with rain so decide to have a coffee and a bacon roll in the restaurant (very very good
)8.00 am - sign on
8.30 am - drivers briefing from Ben, Paul and guest speaker Stuart "The Plough" Staples
9.00 am - final check on car and queue up for the first session in the rain wondering whether there would be any grip
9.10 am - set off down the pitlane and discover at the first corner that there was absolutley no grip whatsoever
9.11 am - back in as someone had spun off
9.12 am - back out to try and figure out a way around the track in the wet when all I would get going into Sears was understeer, understeer, dab the throttle and then wild oversteer
9.20 am - look in the rear view mirror and see Gary from APT sideways in a wild way holding it on the power around Sears and smile to myself wishing it could do that
9.25 am - decide to throw the car into Sears (chosen cos of the huge run off) for some sideways action, the tail flicks out I hold it for a while and it snaps back in.... next time I will do better
10.00 am - out for second session and the puddles are fewer but grip still non-existent so playing is still in order and driving through the puddles to try and get the water to blow away. This time the sears experience proved more fruitful with a full on power slide attained and a nice smooth transition back to straight . Superb :thumb: Next lap I decide in my sleep deprived wisdom to try it bigger and better than before and get it badly wrong flipping completely around and facing the oncoming traffic (but still on the tarmac
) ... that wasnt too bad. I had broken my Snetterton spinning duck and lived to tell the tale Times for laps continued to fall as it dried out but still some very shakey moments.11.00 am - session 3 and loads more grip now - this is starting get seriously quick:o With George (my trusted co-pilot) in the passenger seat and avidly watching the lap timer we knew that my record of 1.31 was going to be broken... it was down to 1.28 within a short period of time. Had a great time catching Stuart with instructor on board, passing him, slowing down so he could pass us and then proceeded to catch him, pass him and promptly spin again coming out of the Esses and again facing the oncoming traffic parked on the little stretch of tarmac that joins the track there.. again no mud on my car
Whilst George and I pissed ourselves laughing we composed ourselves, waited for the oil to settle down and then set off for some more flat out laps. The chequered flag seemed to come too quickly on this session as we were having so much fun, with great brakes, fanatastic new power delivery and a dry track11.30 am - managed to blag myself into the novice session as I Ben Devlin was going to sit with me for a while. Observing me for a few laps he started to give pointers as to increased speed: brake here, turn in now, straighten the steering and floor it whilst still at the apex
SOme of this was alien to me, particularly the straighten the steering part when heading for armco but worked very well when we went through the Chicane flat in 2nd sideways leaving a plume of tyre smoke for Mark Mosely to go through 12.00 am - came in from the lapping to cool the car down as oil temperatures were a little high and opened the bonnet for a while. Lee (IWANT1) commented on how full my oil catch can was.... ie it was FULL and overflowing coating the underside of my car with oil and drained about a litre of oil out of the sump. (Thanks mate - you have probably saved me some very expensive repairs) so went to try and figure how to drain it off so I could continue. A sectiopn of hosepipe was donated by the very nice chaps in one of the workshop at the top of the circuit and a water bottle from Gary's garage and the oil/moisture mix was drained off, oil topped up and a quick road run to see if it was a significant problem. The road drive did not show anything up.
1.00pm - lovely pasta and chips helps fuel me for the day - what great food there was... awesome :thumb:
2.00 pm - afternoon open pit lane started and I drove out for a few laps to see if the oil problem continued. A few laps later I came back in to check. The catch can had filled up halfway already.... hmm. I topped the oil up again and drained the can and went out again this time taking it easy. 4 laps later - came back and no oil caught...hmm.
I went out again and this time took 4 hot laps - came back and the catch can was 3/4 full. I drained it and I had now run out of spare oil so didnt top it up. It was still about halfway between min and max levels.
The next stint of 4 laps showed a small amount of oil caught, again I drained it off thinking that this might have been stuck in the pipework and went back out.
I then took some flying laps and tried to really work it hard for half a dozen laps - and got a further 3 seconds off my best time - now 1min 25 When returning to the pit garage i checked the oil again and it seemed to be okay, catching some oil but not much. Had to be down to the increased corner G forces and a full sump. This was a mighty relief but gives me an issue to solve now with oil surge or similar problem at Snetterton.
4.00pm - I decided that I had pushed my luck far enough that day havign done about 100 laps give or take and being relatively incident free :whistle: I would quit wanting 1 more lap rather than after 1 too many laps
so blagged a few laps off Gary at APT to put my speed into perspective. To say that car is fast is a wild understatement, the steering is crips, the handling spot on and the power deliver is relentless. Top driving Gary and huge thanks. I must say sorry for the rather large dent in your floor under where the brake pedal should have been on my side 4.30 pm - Mike Payne offered to take me for some passengers laps in his recently (ie that morning:) ) prepared and mapped subaru to experience the increased power. I have to say that it is a real punchy performer now and revs to figures that I can only dream about, each gear change welcomed by a punch in the back and a further whine of the turbo as it whistles faster and faster. I couldnt quite see the speedo as I was too busy praying
but it was going very well indeed and when finished should be a stunning track car.Time now to pack up, change the track wheels and snotty RE070's back to my less than snotty road wheels (the same actually) and RE070's for a legal drive home.
The evening seemed to go very quickly with a manic rush of people chatting about the day's activities, wanting stickers, membership cards and clothing and before long it was 10pm and time to head home to a well needed bed.
What can I say but thank you to everyone for coming and making the day so great. Stuart and I enjoyed ourselves immensely and it bodes well for the club if the marshalls do not feel that they need to intervene for agressive or sideways driving like they do at other trackdays despite so many spinners and people exploring the limits and overtaking cars sideways waving out of the window (cough cough, bladey
)What a great day.