British GT – Snetterton – Saturday Morning
Bloody hell it’s cold. The wind is whipping off the North Sea, careering across flat old Norfolk, and making Snetterton the coldest spot on the planet. Well, almost.

Plenty of Friday / Saturday adventures to report on, most significant of which is that Steve Hyde unfortunately bent the chassis of the CDL Tuscan T400R yesterday. He lost it out of Riches, went off backwards, and hit the only solid structure in that part of the track – the marshals’ post approaching Sear.

The Wyatt / Edwards Mantis arrived last night, was warmed up this morning, and….holed a piston. Has Alun Edwards had much engine trouble with this one, Jeff? “No, none. The engine hasn’t been touched for five years! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But now it is. This team is looking for a third driver for the Silverstone ‘enduro’ later next month (May 25/26).

So with the Jaguar XK8 not here (engine rebuilt, but ECU bothers kept it away), the total present and running is 15.

Free Practice

The morning session was largely unrepresentative in terms of times: the track was oily, the weather meant getting heat into the tyres was a problem – so Eclipse, for example, didn’t use more than a few minutes of the half hour. They preferred to save the car, John Griffiths believing they will be on Mosler pace come qualifying.

The Xero Corvette was markedly slower than yesterday (1:15 against 1:11) with the front splitter coming loose and causing grip problems. An improvised mount should fix this by the afternoon, with a revised splitter ready for Knockhill.

The newcomer for this weekend was Paul Whight’s RML-tended Lotus Exige, with Chris Goodwin partnering the car owner. RML’s Phil Barker explained the thinking behind this entry: “The basic cars ran at 700kg, but with various upgrades for GT racing (bigger radiators and coolers, more water and oil), the weight is right on the 750 kg minimum. The Minster-tuned K series engine is producing about 230 bhp, and the close ratios of the Hewland sequential work very well to keep it in the power band.

“This has been our first proper test, and the car has worked exceptionally well ‘out of the box’. The problem we had this morning was getting heat into the tyres: they were running 35 degrees cooler today than yesterday.”

With set-up improvements since yesterday’s test day, Barker suggested that a 1:13.8/14.0 would have been on had the air temperature stayed in the mid 20s. The cold weather therefore cost them at least a second (1:15.007 by Chris Goodwin, with Paul Whight within a second).

That was fourth quickest in the Cup Class, behind the two Tech 9 Porsches and the Neil Cunningham / Ian Mitchell Morgan. Michael Mallock was enjoying his second ever drive in a Porsche (the first was a Belcar test) and was right with Pat Pearce / Matt Griffin times. The Tech 9 crew were sitting in the bar at the Bell Inn at Thetford last night when…a brick came through the window. The barman seemed less concerned once he was assured that the Tech 9 boys were guests at the public house. Perhaps he thought racing types are used to such incidents?

There was a brief period when Neil Cunningham in the Morgan Aero 8 was fastest in the Cup Class this morning, but Phil Hindley’s band of Porsche pilots were able to respond. Cunningham and new partner Ian Mitchell were both very pleased with the #66 Morgan though and although Mitchell may need 10 laps or so to settle in, they expect a podium finish tomorrow. This pair have raced together in the past - at the Nurburgring 24 Hours last year in a BMW M3, where they had been running in the top 10 until they suffered a suspension failure. Cunningham was very pleased with his 1:14.1 early on in the morning session: "It was coolant on the track, you could see it glinting. The Porsches went quicker than us when the track had cleaned up."

So to finally get to the point of the morning session….the Moslers were 1-2, Balfe car ahead of Short car, with the surviving TVRs third and fourth. The Glenn Eagling Mantis had a misfire on the right bank, the Ultima had gearbox trouble yesterday and an oil leak this morning, and several cars had spins at Russell - with some drivers unsure whether to blame the oil or the cold weather for the lack of grip.

Question: is qualifying relatively less important when the race is two hours long? Certainly not for Tom Herridge and Jamie Derbyshire: they're in the Moslers for the half hour afternoon session, with Piers Johnson going for the time in the Eclipse TVR....and Richard Stanton in the Peninsula car?
MC & PS