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Snetterton 300 Formula Vee – 12 & 13 September 2015

16 Wednesday Sep 2015

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Snetterton 300 Formula Vee – 12 & 13 September 2015

As soon as I’d slithered around the first few corners I was finding cars going much more slowly than I felt I could go.  All doubts gone as I dropped into the zone, I pulled out past them, opting to feel the track out at my own pace rather than take the safe option of following someone else.

After the torrentially wet Silverstone test day, I though I’d learned nothing – but maybe it had helped me.  I had a lot of confidence in the car, and it was only when a car spun in front of me that I panic braked, locked the front, put a wheel on the grass, and around I went.

It was no drama, and in the 5 laps I had to qualify, I spun another 3 times – still managing to clock the 15th best time of the 22 cars listed!

Above all, I found it great fun!  The times themselves weren’t worth much with massive differences making it a bit of a lottery, and I thought I’d most likely drop back in the dry for race 1.

After an ok launch the start line, I found myself up with the experienced drivers Martin Snarey, Tony Mitchell and William Stenning, when things settled down.  I was up to 11th on track but then started to drop down the order, as I wasn’t able to find much speed through the first corner and most of the infield section.

After losing about 4 places in one lap (I left it in 4th gear through the infield – doh!), I gave myself a mental slapping and watched the cars in front, braking later than wherever they were braking, and soon began reeling them all back in.

I swapped positions with Tony and Martin until they both got past me again. Tony went a bit wide onto the back straight, and I got a good exit to pull out of his slipstream and outbrake him (and nearly myself!) and made up a lot of ground on Martin.

The lap before I’d managed to get my front wheels alongside Martin into Coram, and this time I thought I’d see if I could complete the move. Getting a good run through the Bomb Hole, I closed in on Martin and seeing I had room kept it pinned in 3rd around the outside of him on the dirty line.

I caught him totally by surprise and flew past, skating sideways into the braking area and just about pulling it back into line to get around the left hander onto the main straight still ahead.

Feeling pretty chuffed with myself, I then saw the chequered flag was out!

I’d snatched an ecstatic 12th place – which then became 11th after Graham Gant was excluded for being under the weight limit. By far my best result, and more than I would have ever hoped for in my second race meeting!

Massive thanks to Tim Probert and the Vee Centre for organising the free BBQ on Saturday night, too – I got to relax and chat to a lot of the other drivers and their crews over a can of beer and great food. This kind of event is especially brilliant for us shy newbies, who struggle to match up names to faces and then match them all up again with the cars and helmets on track! I’m trying to get around all the drivers for a chat, but that’s almost as hard as the racing side of things!

Race 2 saw Snarey fly off ahead but left me in a battle with Wes Burton as I watched Tony Mitchell and William Stenning scrapping it out ahead.

I didn’t push anywhere near as hard as I should have at the start of the race, and although I was 5 seconds per lap faster, everyone else was even quicker!

Wes’s engine sadly blew as he slipstreamed me down the pit straight, leaving me trailing the two ahead.

I got up to a decent pace on the last lap, finally catching Tony and reaching the finish line 0.05 secs behind him to finish 17th overall of the 19 finishers.

This might look disappointing on paper, but I drove much better, and at that pace I should have been in the big gaggle fighting for 11th place again, if I’d gone harder at the start.

More importantly, I still enjoyed it and came away happy!

To keep this short(er), I’ll do another blog with my full post-race analyses.

ONBOARD VIDEO FOOTAGE:

Qualifying:

Race 1:

Race 2:

Silverstone National Test 14/08/15

19 Wednesday Aug 2015

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Silverstone National Test 14/08/15

This was my first test on a ‘proper’ track that’s been used in the Formula Vee UK Championship in recent years, and so should have given me my first real benchmark in where my lap times would put me on the grid.

As it turned out, it was ridiculously wet!

As I signed on in the morning, we were all being sternly warned that the trucks had been there the day before, and so there was lots of rubber down, making it all extremely hazardous combined with monsoon conditions.

I did want to drive the Sheane in the wet so that I could test the limits of the car and push past the handling limits to see what happened.  I certainly did that!

I went out on track being very smooth and cautious.  Glenn has adjusted the clutch so that it’s not all or nothing at the end of the pedal movement, and this gave me much more control to pull away.

We were also using the brand new and shiny Hoosier tyres for the first time.  There is a recommended run-in and settle cycle, but being so wet we never even got any heat into them, and so kept them on the car all day, rather than switch back to the Dunlops.

I slammed down from 4th gear to 3rd as I came up to the hairpin, and the back end came around.  Ah.  Time to readjust the brain to how slippy it is, and carry on, then!

It wasn’t quite like driving on ice, but it was the next best thing!  I had my first taste of severe understeer mid-way through the left-hander coming off the back straight, and the back end stepped out with even the slightest jab of the throttle anywhere.

It was a bit disenchanting to see the MSA Formula cars and Formula Ford’s blasting past me, and my main mission became “Stay out of their way and don’t kill the car”.

In that first session I had another spin around Copse, where I just couldn’t find any grip all day, and think I actually managed to take a decent line through there once!  This time, the back went out and I caught it, corrected, and then it went again.

The third spin of the session was powering through Woodcote in 4th gear, having not had a single problem any other lap.  I thought about a Sheane that was written off there in 2010 when it spun and hit the pit wall, and just as I thought “As long as I don’t do THAT…” I lost the back again on the exit!

As it spun a couple of times I made tiny steering inputs when I could feel the tyres bite a little, and came to rest facing the right way inches from the pit wall!

OR, as I prefer to tell it, I decided to have a go at practising my race starts, and flamboyantly spun it onto the grid, where my test start went extremely well!

I decided to reign it all back in after that.  More than 3 spins in a session is bound to attract the attention of people holding black flags, and it was clear that I couldn’t find grip anywhere and wouldn’t be even attempting any lap times.

We disconnected the front anti-roll bar for the next session, but I think it was just too wet for anything to make a difference.  All that happened was it was even less happy about turning into Copse.

When it finally stopped raining for 20 minutes before the last session, I went out only to find someone had driven the Exxon Valdez around three quarters of the track, as a 5ft wide slick of oil had taken ownership of the racing line!

I actually really enjoyed that session, with a huge opposite lock drift around Luffield as I was watching a FF behind me just as sideways doing the same thing!

So, Formula Vee’s are pretty lethal in the wet.  The Sheane was well balanced, and I did manage to recover most slides, and wasn’t just spinning helplessly everywhere.  I was pleased to find my biking instincts meant that I kept my foot on the throttle whenever the back lost grip, rather then snapping the throttle shut on instinct and making everything worse.  This will probably help me better in the dry than the wet, though… And, of course, it should be noted that everyone else was spinning off everywhere, with loads of flags and stoppages!

The custom made waterproof case from JooVuu for my Mobius camera was flawless, and despite the rain I did get some good footage.

Here’s the full first session, warts and all – remember this is my first time ever on a wet track, and my second ever time lapping in the car!