Caterham Snetterton Track Evening May 2004
May 20th, 2004 by Tim Skipper
A couple of weeks ago I noticed that Javelin Motorsport were running an evening session at Snetterton, my local circuit and the venue for the first Academy race event. Obviously I am keen to drive the circuits we will be racing on in the championship as much as possible, and at £95 for 3 hours open pitlane track time it seemed like a good deal.
However, I noticed on their web site that it stated “No race cars after 6.30”. I queried this with Javelin and they explained that it was a Snetterton rule caused by some busy-body locals looking over the fence to see what’s going on during the evening, equating race cars with noise (even if they’re not) and complaining. <sigh> So this put me off somewhat. However, I explained that my Caterham ‘race car’ was really just a Roadsport 1.6 with a cage and some stickers, and no noisier than the regular road version.
They very kindly phoned the circuit management on my behalf to seek advice and were told I would be ok if I covered up the stickers. Hmm, there are quite a lot of them on an Academy car! I said I would give it some thought as to how practical that would be and thanked them for their time.
Monday of this week I thought, sod it, Snetterton is a great circuit and I can just cover the whole damned car in gaffer tape if needs be! So I booked in for the event, which was on Thursday evening.
I finished work early on Thursday and set about the car with a big roll of grey gaffer tape, covered up all the sponsor logos, novice cross, BARC shields etc. It looked a mess, but from a distance you’d probably not notice it too badly. What I did notice as I went off to fill up with petrol was a high pitched screeching noise and vibration felt through the clutch pedal, which went away as soon as you applied a tiny amount of pressure to it. I tracked this down to the clutch release bearing vibrating, which I thought odd, but unlikely to be a major problem
I toyed with the idea of taking my Academy control tyres, but decided that since it was only a short evening session I’d stick to having higher speed fun on the Avon CR500s I had bought for the Spa trip the week before. I’ve got another Snetterton track day booked for nearer the race day which I will run on the control tyres anyway.
Fast forward to 4pm, Thickthorn services on the A11. I’ve met up with a mate from the EVO forum, Ev, who is taking his Mk1 Golf GTi to the same event. We’ve aimed to be there in good time in the hope of bagging a pit garage, but when we turned up 20 minutes later that plan was a definite non-starter as a general test session was in progress and the whole paddock was full of transporters and serious looking machinery. So we parked up at the far end near the scrutineering shed and unloaded. Not much to do except sign on, get the obligatory wristband (in Gay Pride pink this time!) and sit around until the safety briefing.
I’ve never been to a Javelin Motorsport event before, so I was keen to see how they compared to Book-a-track, who in my 20+ track day experience I consider to be the benchmark operation. Certainly leading up to the event I could not complain, they were very helpful and friendly over the race-car-stickers issue, and the written final instructions I received in the post were comprehensive and clearly laid out the rules of the event.
The safety briefing was pretty comprehensive, certainly made the overtaking rules very clear (on the straight, on the left only, as is usual) and they issued yet another wristband (a more manly orange) to everyone to prove they had attended. So far, so good.
I was however very disappointed to be told we were not permitted to run video cameras in the car, as it “was a circuit rule”. I’m not sure this is really true because I drove Snetterton a month ago with BAT and there was no problem with properly mounted cameras then.
Everyone had to participate in three sighting laps behind a pace car, with two groups going out. That was really a waste of time for anyone who had driven Snetterton before, as the pace was sedentary to say the least. I suppose it’s hard to police whether people do actually know the circuit and to avoid complete novices missing out it’s easier to just make everyone do it. Fair enough, it gave me the chance to warm the car up and get some heat into the oil.
Ev and I were in the first sighting group so we were ready to go out on track as soon as the second group had finished. I took it fairly easy for the first few laps as there was a lot of slow traffic out there taking some interesting lines, and I knew my tyres would take a few laps to get up to their correct hot pressures. Even so, the difference in mechanical grip between these CR500s and the last time I was at Snetterton on CR322 academy control tyres was very noticeable – especially around the super quick Coram.
I did 4 or 5 laps behind a lot of slower traffic then finally got a three lap run on a clear track that I was able to push harder on to get some heat in the tyres. Came in, checked the pressures and as expected the left hand side were now about 3 psi over inflated and the rights only half a pound out. A quick adjustment back to 22 hot all round and I was back out again. Another five or six hard charging laps later I was back in again, this time the right hand side had stabilised to the correct pressures and the lefts only 1psi over.
I had noticed that it was getting harder to change gears and that the clutch biting point had moved lower, so I was starting to wonder whether that noisy clutch release bearing was going to turn into something a bit more serious. All the same, I went back out again for another session.
There was some interesting machinery circulating around, a few Caterhams, what looked like a Westfield on huge slicks, a 996 Turbo, a Mitsubishi 3000 GT that was pissing water out all over the track for too many laps. Thanks for that – I had a big sideways moment at the first corner because of it, and a couple of old school 2.8 Capris.
Most of the road cars were very slow around the corners, especially Bomb Hole and Coram, which are admittedly a little intimidating to take at speed. It made for some interesting moments as both of those corners are flat in my Caterham and I was catching other cars very rapidly through that section of track. However, everyone was making good use of their mirrors and I had no problem with being let by some of the quicker cars, which must have been frustrating for them down Revett straight where my top speed is a relatively low 115 mph.
In fact the only discourteous piece of driving I encountered was from one of the Capri’s – I think he had a turbo on it because it was very fast in a straight line. I caught it easily through the corners on the previous lap and he let me by, but then decided to pass me at the end of Revett straight just before the braking area, and then severely held me up again for a second lap through Esses, BombHole and Coram. No need for that really as he then had to let me past again.
In again for a minor tyre pressure adjustment and something to eat and drink (my body was telling me I should be eating dinner about now, not tearing around a race track) and to catch up with Ev. His Golf was looking good out on the track, cornering nice and flat and carrying some decent speed through BombHole and Coram, but it was using a fair bit of oil. Everyone was having fun though, which is the main thing.
My gear change was getting worse. I decided to have one last 20 minute session out and then call it a day. It was a good session, mostly clear of traffic with the odd hold-up, mostly through Bomb Hole and Coram, but the first corner is also a good place for rapidly bearing down on people. It’s just a very brief dab of brake and turn in hard on the gas for the double-apex right hander, but most people were braking quite hard and turning way too late.
There were turn-in, apex and exit cones out on the track but a lot of people were ignoring them – perhaps they didn’t realise what they were. Except the turn-in cone for Bomb Hole was too far forwards – you had not a hope of hitting the apex if you used that.
Finally I came back into the paddock for the last time. Pulled up short of the trailer and then tried to getting it into gear. Nope, not going in. I had to switch off the engine, select 1st and then even with the clutch fully depressed it was creeping forwards. Definitely something very wrong there.
So in summary, for £95 for a good three hours of track time I think it was a good value and very enjoyable evening, despite the clutch problems. Javelin Motorsport had organised it very well and they will certainly be seeing me again in the future. It’s just a shame I have no video from the event to remember it by.
