STCC Round 6 – Snetterton

Last weekend was the 6th (round out of 8) for the STCC series and the track was Snetterton, where we’ll be in a couple of weeks for round 4 of the nationals.

I decided that I’d spend 1/2 of saturday setting the car up on national tyres and the other half for stcc tyres, giving me (hopefully) a head start for the meeting in a couple of weeks time.  This seemed to work well and I was happy with the way the car handled on the track from the 2nd run after making a slight change to the shock angle on the rear of the car.

There was a big bunch of Sidcup racers there this weekend:

Myself
Charlie
Steve (making his racing return)
Chris H, who is now known as “Mr Chips”
Marlon
Jordan
Tristan (accompanied by his girlfriend Michelle)
Alex (accompanied by his girlfriend Natalie)
Phil

After everyone had finished practising, we walked over to a nearby restaurant for a well deserved bite to eat and some drinks. This turned out to be a great laugh, both at ourselves and the prices of the food.  Chris H only eats Chips though, I still can’t get over that !!!

Sunday morning came and we got set up for the meeting only to find that Maaarrrrllloooonnnn was in the top heat along with myself and Chris H.  He wasn’t happy but he did really well during his runs !

I couldn’t seem to get the car hooked up in the same way as I had done on the Saturday, but neither could anyone else from our little travelling race team.  Alex and myself qualified within 4/10ths of a second of each other to be 1st and 2nd on the grid for the B final, a race that was to become one of the talking points of the weekend !

The first final came and after a few silly mistakes by me, I ended up third, with Alex in 2nd.

The second final was where it was at though, Alex leading me away from the chasing pack until about 4 laps to go when he clipped a kerb and “roofed it” (a technical term)  This meant that I got the lead with a few laps left, but Alex was having none of it !  He came right back at me and we went into the last lap no more than a few centimetres apart !  On the very same corner where Alex had let me through, I crashed in the same exact way to let him back into the lead !!!

I ended up 2nd with Alex winning that leg of the final.

I was determined to take the win in the 3rd final for a split on the results, but this was not to be.  I overdrove the car and ended up spinning out (coming 7th in that leg) with Alex taking another win for the overall win.

3rd overall for me.  The worst result on paper, but one of the best (if not THE best) races I’ve ever had.  It’s that sort of stuff that makes us spend all this time toiling over the cars, practising and racing as much as we do.  The close race with a good mate, nothing beats it !

There’s now only two points between myself and Alex (taking dropped rounds into consideration) with two rounds left, so it’s right down to the wire !