Snetterton: 24 June 2006

We made the long trip to Norfolk and set up the awning the night before. Since the last race we have acquired professional flooring to complete our paddock set up, and with the grassy area allocated to us in the Snetterton paddock it was just as well.

Heavy rain overnight cleared to a bright sunny day – the initial threat of showers in the morning failed to materialise.

Since the Castle Combe weekend we had also acquired new 10” wide rear wheels - it would be interesting to see how much of a difference these made. As it turned out, ‘not well’ was the initial answer! The wider rear tyres provided far more grip under braking – so much so that the rear wheels locked up repeatedly under braking, causing the car to want to swap ends. I kept winding the brake bias to the front, but with just 15 minutes of qualifying, we were unable to complete a very fast lap as the car just did not inspire confidence under braking. We had to settle for third on the grid behind Tim Hood on pole and Darren Dowling in second.

Darren was warned that he needed to fit a working timing transponder – more of this later.

Back at the awning we worked to get the brake balance right, and ended up with the bias almost on full front. Note to self – remember to wind it back again should we fit the narrower tyres in future!

On to the grid for the race – lights out and dump the clutch, feather the throttle to control the wheel spin and then nail it…. straight past Tim Hood immediately in front of me. This took me to the left and my momentum took me all the way alongside Darren. Unfortunately whilst we were quicker at that point, the first corner was a right hander and we were therefore on the outside. Darren took the inside line and I tucked in just behind him.

Tim, meanwhile, had pulled off the track after just 200 yards – a section of his under-floor had become detached.
Darren and I pulled away comfortably, lapping between one to two seconds quicker than the pursuing Tuscan of Dean Cook. I was pushing hard to stay with Darren and went into the chicane just too quickly, locking up and running over the grass, losing a second or two. As I accelerated up the straight I felt a slight misfire but pressed on regardless.

Darren was now about two seconds clear – however word had spread up the pit lane that he had been disqualified for failing to fit the transponder we mentioned earlier. The transponder is the identifying beacon that allows the timing equipment to allocate lap times to the correct cars. Although the time keepers can and do allocate times without this, Darren had not heeded several requests to upgrade his transponder to the new model. According to the race officials, Darren was not in the race.

This meant that I was now leading the race, although I was oblivious to this and focussing more on the worsening misfire. I slowed, starting to think whether I could nurse the car home, when I noticed a large cloud of white smoke in my mirrors as I lifted off to brake. I wasn’t entirely what I had seen – was it another lock up – so continued up the straight, watching the temperature gauges. As I turned in for Riches a large plume of smoke from the exhausts confirmed what I feared – another head gasket failure and I pulled off the track on the fifth lap.

Darren went on to ‘win’ the race by a country mile, with Dean Cook trailing almost a lap down. The race win was credited to Dean, although this was subsequently reversed by the TVR race organiser John Reid.

We were bitterly disappointed that the same head gasket had blown – clearly there was a problem with the driver’s side cylinder head and we resolved to fully investigate the cause. A small crumb of comfort was we were credited with the fastest lap- although even this was of little consolation as Darren’s times had been disregarded.

A lot of work to do before the next race at Rockingham on 9 July in two weeks…

Race Results