It was another great weekend for Sinclaire Motorsport! Our weekend began early as usual with testing on a friday night track session, our driver Andrew Walsh has many hundreds of hours experience with Snetterton circuit, but the car had sprung some new changes since the last race and really did require a shake down before being subjected to race conditions over the weekend.
Testing passed well with the car performing faultlessly. As always, useful data was gathered from our internal logging systems and analysed to be sure the changes to the car had performed as expected. A quick scan of the numbers showed things working nicely, so testing was wrapped up very quickly and the car loaded onto the trailer, ready for its return to the workshop for its final pre-race checks. Friday evening we were introduced us to a new class A driver, Vitthal Chauhan, who was using our drivers own trackday/training car which was quickly pulled together to make a class ‘A’ racer for the weekend.
Following a return to base and check over, we arrived at Snetterton Circuit to a bright and beautiful sunday morning, it was only 7am and already the paddock was buzzing with activity. Our garage was soon set up and basic checks were made to our race car, including clearing the datalogging systems ready for the day. It wasnt long before cars were forming in the pitlane ready for the class A qualification. Vitthal had quickly settled himself into the seat of Andrews track car ready for his baptism-of-fire first ever qualify session and soon the ‘A’ grid passed smoothly out onto the track, including our supported drivers (Stuart Kirkbride and Joanna Hoddinott), and set about its qualify session. Within a few laps the usual (and deserved) leaders settled into their rhythm with Paul Quinn and Michael Edwards battling up at the front of the grid for pole position. Further back in the field Stuart Kirkbride set an excellent time of 1:23.370, only to later be stripped of the time and relegated to row 15, due to the car running 2kg under minimum weight! More fuel required! Elsewhere Joanna Hoddinott set a time of 1:26.070 to land herself on row 12 in 26th place in class, rookie Vitthal Chauhan rounded up the A class grid by setting a 1:33.390, on his first ever qualifying session – good work that man!
A few other race series qualify rounds soon passed and the time came for our ‘C’ class car to hit the track with Andrew Walsh at the helm. With everything checked, tightened and adjusted as necessary the car rolled out onto the circuit to make its presence known. Andrew put in a few laps with traffic before finally getting a reasonably clear run on lap 12 to qualify in pole with a 1:15.572, followed by Chris Pearson in second with a 1:17.300, though Chris failed to appear in the actual races due to a disqualification over power. Rounding up the top five were Martin Donnelly, Adrian Mardlin and Chris Headlam – all of whom put in great performances. Chris Randall made his return to the series for this round, but was suffering reliability problems with his Link-up Honda conversion and qualified back in seventh place with only a 1:17.671. As an interesting frame of reference, our time of 1:15.572 would actaully have qualified us in 20th place of the GT Cup field of 28 cars, despite us being on road legal Advan A048s, this interestingly would make the racer a possible GT Cup contender as slicks should in theory give around another second per lap, this along with removal of our existing power restriction would potentially see us down into the 1:13′s, making us a top ten GT car. Our qualify time was also a new Snetterton lap record for the class C cars, beating Chris Randalls time from last year of 1:15.796, though there was still more to come from Andrew Walsh yet. Following the qualification round the car was summonsed to the dyno, where TDi were power testing a number of cars, quite amusingly in a room thats around half the temperature of their normal dyno cell environment, not really ideal from a consistency standpoint. Despite the temperature differences our car went through the test on the class limit (which surely is the point?). However we were cautioned to “tune with a safety margin”, how does one do such a thing when the margin required only becomes clear after we’ve been tested off of TDi’s site for the first time? – a somewhat ill thought out comment.
With qualifying taken care of for all our supported drivers, race time for the class ‘A’ cars soon came around. Joanna Hoddinott, Stuart Kirkbride and Vitthal Chauhan all made it out to the grid without issue, and all three ran from lights to flag without problems, enduring some great battles on the way, culminating in Stuart finishing in an excellent 14th place considering his starting position on the grid. Vitthal ran particularly well for his first outing, pulling over a second off of his previous best lap time from qualifying as he got used to both the car, and the circuit. Joanna also finished well in 26th place from the grid of 32 cars. Paul Quinn and Michael Edwards took first and second place respectively, with Marcus Jewell (with Sinclaire Safety equipment, ECU wiring and gas flowed cylinder head) coming in a close third place, all three of the top runners in class ‘A’ being distinctly faster than any of the other cars in the field. Great racing in the class as always, and only a spin incident and some minor contact to dampen proceedings.
Thankfully the class ‘A’ cars look after themselves for the most part and require only a basic mechanical check over between races, which gave us a little time to kick back for a few minutes on the lead up to our first class ‘C’ race of the day. After some great racing in the preceeding GT cup, the pitlane filled with the sound of class ‘B’ and ‘C’ cars firing up, ready for the 13:10 race, which was a mix of the ‘B’ and ‘C’ classes. Following fire up, the racer gurgled its way out onto the grid in much the same well-behaved manor it always does, and following the usual parade and formation lap, the lights turned green for the start of another Andrew Walsh lights to flag victory, just as with our previous race weekend at Oulton Park. During this race Andrew also set a blistering new lap record for the class ‘C’ Elises, beating his own one-hour-old record, to set the new standard at 1:15.327, some .496 faster than Chris Randalls 2007 record, interestingly datalogging still shows more to come from the car… Chris Headlam once again drove an excellent race to bring himself in to second place and better his own qualifying time by well over half a second. Sean Bicknells Audi Powered Exige came in third place, but with the first hints of a light misfire towards the end as it came past our pit wall vantage point. Ben Pitch also put in what seemed to be the drive of a lifetime, mixing his ‘B’ class car up with the ‘C’ regulars and finishing in forth ahead of Martin Donnelly’s ‘C’ class 2-Eleven, a truly superb drive! Sinclaire customer Andrew Kell rounded out the top six with an excellent finish from his 12th place starting point on the grid, and no mechanical or electrical dramas following a recent Sinclaire rewire of a number of his cars electrical systems, and a replacement supercharger after his own unit decided to shear its input shaft off at Oulton Park! Vitthal, ever keen to gain experience also entered his ‘A’ class borrowed drive into the ‘B’ and ‘C’ races and again improved upon his previous race and qualify times as he gained further experience and confidence, our hat is off to him for driving every race he can get his hands on!
A typically motorsport specification lunch (burger and chips all around!) soon passed us by, and ever keen Vitthal was raring to get out into the second of the days ‘A’ class races, along with Joanna and Stuart, all three looking to improve their performances from the first race. Grid form up was the usual efficient affair with no dramas and everyone getting to their assigned places quickly and quietly thanks to the LOT guys and the Snetterton officials. Racing got under way quickly with Paul Quinn and Michael Edwards taking a clear lead as in the first race, but other great battles further down the line up bought some awesome crowd pleasing moments and ensured a watchable and gentlemanly race for all. Joanna had sadly lost some pace from her first outing of the day, but Stuart Kirkbride was truly on form and finished the race in an excellent 5th place. Vitthal continued his day of learning with “slightly” off-pace, but consistently improving times, more importantly perhaps he was enjoying himself! Good things to come from Vitthal as he continues his training under the watchful eye of our driver Andrew Walsh (www.carlimits.com).
More action on track from the Production BMW cars between races gave the ‘A’ class folks time to tidy things up and get themselves prepared for journey’s back home, even Vitthal decided that three races in a day was enough for one man, and agreed not to participate in the forth and final Elise race, this gave us time to make sure all was well with our car, and get Andrew Walsh belted in and ready to roll. After the BMW race it became clear that all was not well with the Armco barrier opposite the pitlane, following a minor shunt, and with the ‘B’ and ‘C’ class cars formed up ready to run, a delay ensued while essential barrier repairs took place. During the delay Chris Randalls Elise rolled out into the line up, having seemingly fixed his running issues. After 15 minutes in the pitlane it was decided to reduce the second race length from 30 to 20 minutes, which upset a few, pleased others, and made no difference to everyone else. At 15:40 (20 minutes late) the grid formed up for the final Elise race of the day, with the front ten cars on the grid in reverse order of the first race – this placed Andrew Walsh in 10th place.
After parade lap they stormed from the grid into the first corner, the view from our car (caught by our in-car camera) showed dust, more dust, more dust and then Chris Randall disappearing over the grass in what looked like some kind of demented law-mowing exercise following contact with someone, we’ve no idea who was to blame, but the confusion in the field meant Andrew Walsh made it straight up to second place behind Chris Headlam, following some super fast reaction car dodging. This continued up to the start finish straight for lap two, where Andrew got a far better run out of the Russell Hairpin and overtook Chris Headlam on the straight, from there on it was all positive, both car and driver stayed on form and drove to the flag, making our second win of the weekend, and 1st place finish number 4 in a row! Further back down the field, Chris Randall got himself back together from last place up to second (though he claims to be down on power, he did beat his own personal best from last year), but simply didnt have the pace to keep with Andrew Walsh, who lapped a clear tenth of a second faster, Chris Headlam settled into an excellent third place finish with Martin Donnelly, Ben Pitch (another star performance!), Adrian Mardlin, Andrew Kell and Steve Williams rouding out the top eight places.
A great weekend once again! One Pole position, two races, two wins, two fastest laps – job done. Our thanks as always to the LOT organisers, the officials and marshalls of Snetterton Circuit, and of course our thanks to Andrew Walsh for driving the nuts off of the racer once again! Next up, Cadwell Park!
Images courtesy of Onboardexperience.com
