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Snetterton: 30th March 2008
The Opening Meeting of the Season
The weather forecast for the opening meeting of the year was for cold, rain and wind, but race day turned out to be warm sunny and dry. Obviously the drivers were being rewarded for clean living over the winter break!
Qualifying:
Qualifying yielded a few surprises and some disappointment. Graham Heard, last year’s champion could only manage 5th on the Grid and would have his work cut out at the start of the race. Gary Chandler in his first ever qualifying session was only one place behind him! There was disappointment for Nico Ferrari. His car, which had been running perfectly the day before, refused all attempts to start the engine and he missed the qualifying session.
Pole position went to Will Penrose, with Simon Regitz and Matt Davies just a little slower.
Race One:
Nico’s misfortunes continued. His engine having at last been persuaded to run, now dropped its oil on the track at the start of the green flag lap, necessitating a second warm up lap for the field while Nico sat out the race in the pits.
When the red lights went out, Graham Heard on the third row and Richard Mowbray on the 4th , got particularly good starts with rather different results. By the second corner Graham was in second while Richard had tangled with Alastair Kirkham dropping them both well back, so the leading four, Will Penrose, Graham Heard, Simon Regitz and Matt Davies were able to open out a gap. On the second lap Graham took the lead which he held for the entire race with Will snapping at his heels.
Coming into the Russell chicane on lap 12 Alastair Kirkham was in fourth place and tucked up close behind Simon Regitz. Unsighted, he took too much of the kerb which destroyed much of his left front suspension and he retired.
On the final lap Will attempted for the umpteenth time to get past Graham as he made a mistake, but a resolute block from the leader saw Will hit the back of Grahams car and lose so much momentum that he dropped to fourth. The podium places went to Graham Heard, Simon Regitz and Matt Davies with Simon also taking the fastest lap of the race.
Race 2:
Nico’s luck had finally turned. Engine running he took the start of the last race of the day, albeit right at the back. Also taking the start from the rear of the grid was Alastair Kirkham after feverish work to rebuild the front suspension. When the light went out Alastair got an unbelievable start to conclude the first lap in fourth place! Graham Heard converted his pole position into a race lead at the end of lap one.
The second race was run at a very slow pace, with many of the laps being three seconds slower than qualifying and the pace in race one. This bunched the first half dozen cars right up so that they were tripping over each other. It made it a very exciting race for the spectators with places being swapped at almost every corner, but the end result was a set of very frustrated drivers and a lot of damaged cars caused by running in such close proximity. Through it all, and despite making a lot of mistakes, Graham was able to keep the lead by making his car “very wide” on the straights.
One of the highlights of the race was Richard Mowbray’s huge sideways moment under braking at the end of the Revett straight. Despite being completely at right angles to his direction of travel he managed to get round the next corner!
Nico’s luck ran out once more and he retired on lap 6. Alastair was again in the wars, losing more of the left front of his car. This time it was the bodywork rather than the suspension.
The first three were Graham Heard, Alastair Kirkham and Richard Mowbray. It was another symptom of the bizarre way the race pace worked out, that fastest lap was set by fourth place Simon Regitz.
The next round will be at Silverstone on 13th and 14th April where a larger field is expected because some cars were not ready in time for Snetterton.
Photographs of the races at Snetterton Photographer: Sophie Davies
Race Results and Time sheets provided by Timing Solutions Ltd.
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