Snetterton race report 28th/29th August

Another great weekend for the Neil Garner run teams, our Spanish friends and team mates, Azteca just had the better of us on the day but it was a close run thing.

Testing on the Friday threw up a problem with a water hose connection, we all held our breath in case it was something worse but as it turned out, it was just a £8 hose. We managed to find one from a local Porsche dealer but that was on the Saturday morning, so the lads managed to re-cut and shape the original so that it would do for qualifying first thing on Saturday so it was off to the hotel for the evening for dinner and some soft drinks !!!

Saturday morning, and we were all up bright and early, qualifying went well enough but we were not going to push it with a doggy hose, Jay put us 12th on the grid and 4th in class, that would do nicely in the circumstances.

The new hose was fitted during the morning in readiness for the early afternoon 4 hour race, Jay took the first stint and for an hour and a half, he and the Azteca car, our stable companions, race neck and neck, Jay reckoned it was one of the best stints he had done for the pure enjoyment of bumper to bumper racing and Javier in the Azteca car said exactly the same, so we were a second apart at this point but for the life of me, I can’t remember in who’s favour !!

Jan took over from Jay and kept a great and consistent pace, again things were very close with our team mates, so far so good. After Jan’s stint, Rod took over and again we found ourselves bumper to bumper with the Azteca car, but they had changed drivers and Manuel was now at the wheel. The laps went by with Rod attacking for the position and eventually and not without a tremendous fight, he managed to get past and pull away a little. This turned out to be a short lived gain for a few laps latter, Rod missed a gear on the main straight and Manuel saw his chance to re-gain the place, which he did with some clever out manoeuvring. Unfortunately there was also another car in the mix so when it came to the turn point at the end of the straight, Rod was out of position and tried an over ambitious turn in, no contact was made but despite all attempts to keep the car on the black stuff, off went Rod in a series of 360’s which although not ending up in the barriers, did catch the car in some dramatic head banging moments resulting in Rod’s vision being somewhat two fold.

His lap times started to drop off so the team knew all was not well so he was ordered in so that Jay could take over, The team radio recorded a “Thank God for that, I’m seeing double here” from Rod as he pitted. After a little medical once over Rod was given the all clear from the attending medics and doctors and within half an hour was back to his old self. Jay meanwhile was chasing down the Azteca car once again, but this time fate intervened in the form of a rear puncture so jay had to pit for a replacement, this lost us a lot of time and together with the slight problems we were having with the refuelling churns not performing as quickly as they should have, we were now looking at a third in class finish with our team mates in second place. The class leading Marcos then pulled into the pits and parked in the garage with what we later found out to be a broken drive shaft, luck was still with us as now we were 2nd and class and our team mates 1st, and that’s how the race finished, Azteca took their maiden Britcar GT win, and we took the 19 points for second, thus maintaining, in effect, our class lead, and holding on to a potential top three overall GT position.

The Silverstone 6 hour race is next, and that’s going to be a tough one !!