Our last race at Anglesey was exactly a month ago (you can read about that by clicking the image below), which gave us plenty of time to regroup, try and figure out what was going on with the TT Gearbox ready for Round 3 of the Turismo-X Racing Championship at Snetterton. Whilst we had a long time between the last race and this one, we would only have 2 working days to get ready for the next round of the 750MC Club Enduro Championship, which will be taking us to Spa Francorchamps in Belgium. We decided to race with Area Motorsport in one of their Golfs for Spa and give our cars (and the guys a rest).
We didn't make much progress figuring out the TT gearbox issues (a video pleading for help is likely to follow soon!) so Ryan opted to go off roading in the Touareg and let Adam use the other TT which was pretty faultless at Anglesey. This meant I would be driving the Golf solo.

All the details and dates for our racing exploits can be found on the Darkside Motorsport Page.

Below is the layout of the Snetterton 300 Circuit:

Full Race Day Vlog

We have a full Vlog from the weekend, with snippets of the race:

Qualifying

The timetable was a little more relaxed this weekend, with Qualifying at 10am on the Saturday. We had got to the track in plenty of time on Friday and it seemed the cars were ready to go. However there is always a spanner in the works, especially at Snetterton which seems to be cursed for us. Just as we were called for Quali, the Scrutineers arrived and wanted to look over the cars. The Golf decided it didn't need brake lights!
Paul and Jake diagnosed it as a faulty brake pedal switch, but with the Tilton box, changing it was not going to be a 2 minute job. We were told we were OK to do Quali then get it fixed before Race 1, but then the guys were informed I could only complete 3 laps at the back of the field and then start from last place. I was not happy with this, so decided to roll the dice and wait for Paul to fix it before going out.

Scott Qualifying

Paul worked double hard and the sensor was replaced in about 5 minutes, no mean feat with the tight confines of the footwell, especially with my size 11s in the way!
With the long lap and smaller grid, it was easy to find space. This meant I was able to immediately get a good lap in, a 2:08.851 which put me firmly in P1 for Class A and in the top 4 overall. I was able to improve marginally on the next lap and the 3rd, settling with a 2:08.593. Not bad for my first 3 laps at Snetterton since last year! This put me P6 overall.

Adam Qualifying

Adam was right on the money as well, considering he had not driven here for 2 years. He did a 2:08.751 followed by a 2:07.256 before coming in to make a few pre-planned setup changes and 2:06.742. This was still a good 1.5s away from Pole occupied by Darren Goes in the RS3 TCR, and the E36 M3 of Gardner / Mills. We knew the TT was still lacking in the chassis department, but we are making good progress.

All our laps are below:

Qualifying Laps

Our 'fastest' laps are shown below:

Super Pole

The Super Pole was next. The top 10 cars go straight from Parc Ferme to line up for a 1 lap shootout. There is a warm up lap, flying lap and in lap, with cars setting off at 10s intervals so keep them spaced out.

Scott Super Pole

I wasn't able to improve on my lap in this session, but I only lost out by 0.09s so was very close. Garry Hufford in the E46 struggled to warm his MRF tyres so dropped back from 5th to 7th, which promoted me to his spot.

Adam Super Pole

Adam was able to jump a position in his session, improving by over a second to put in a 2:05.693, only 0.166s from Darren Goes this time.

Super Pole Laps

Our Super Pole laps are shown below.

Race 1

Adam was on the front row on the inside for Turn 1 and 2 which I think is the best place to be. I was right 2 rows behind, also on the inside.

The MSV TV Live Stream is below

Scott Race 1

The BMw in P3 jumped the start when the 5 second board was shown and bumped into the back of Adam. I then got a decent start and was battling with the lead pack of Class S and X cars. I went for a move around the outside at the first Hairpin, but it was never going to work, especially on cold tyres and all the marbles and debris from earlier sessions.
Dylan Brychta in the SuperCopa was struggling on cold MRFs as well and went wide onto the back straight, which brought me back onto his bumper. However he had too much straight line speed so eventually I was just running around on my own in the lead of Class A, the Elises not able to match the pace of the Golf with all the straights on this layout.
A 10s penalty for the E36 jumping the start meant that I was promoted to 4th overall. Richard Clarke in the Civic TCR suffered a wheel bearing failure in Quali that could not be fixed, so he didn't make the start. I think with the lenth of the straights around here, he would have been above me by the end of the race for sure.

Adam Race 1

Race 1 looked quite easy from the outside but was anything but. We took the lead at Turn 2 and built a gap of a couple of seconds by the end of the first lap.
On lap 3 a safety car was dispatched and we spent 3 laps behind it with me deliberately keeping the car and tyres as cool as possible so as to be fast away from the restart.
The Class X BMW M3 had a go at the first corner but we managed to hold him off. By the end of the first lap after the restart we had a comfortable gap again but not as much as before the safety car.
On the last lap, we ran a little wide in to Turn 2, which with hindsight may have been the start of the brake issues we had in Race 2, but managed to hold the M3 off. He actually got in front on the back straight due to the horsepower advantage but we held him off in to the chicane.
Coming out of the last corner all I could do was hug the pit wall and try to take the shortest possible line. The BMW used its power to surge alongside for a photo finish.
The BMW must have made the line by 0.019s as they actually finished 9.981s behind in 5th position.

Race one down, and a 1st in class for the Golf, and overall for the TT. Not a bad start to the weekend!

We also had the fastest laps in each class.

Race 2

Race 1 results determines the starting order for Race 2, so I was on row 2 right behind Goes. Adam was obviously in the top spot.

The MSV TV Live Stream is below:

Scott Race 2

I managed to get the car off the line way quicker than the RS3, and almost overtook Adam as well! I compromised Adam a little into turn 1, but I was trying to keep Goes behind to at least give Adam time to break away.
Everyone seemed to be tripping over themselves so we were miles in front by Turn 2. It was only short lived as the E36 had stayed out of trouble and easily passed me on the Bentley Straight. The RS3 followed on the Senna Straight and started to hunt Adam.
A few laps later, Dylan caught up and sent it down the inside at Agostini. I didn't give up and we were side by side at Hamilton before I yielded. He didn't get away too quickly but the straight line speed was too much for me to keep with him.
Things were a little lonely and boring until the 3rd gear decided it didn't want to have any teeth with half a lap to go until the end. I lost ~6s to this, but at least I was abele to bring the car home this time!

Adam Race 2

Race 2 wouldn't go quite as well but still saw us getting the best result possible given the performance difference of the cars.
Scott took the lead briefly after an excellent start in the less powerful Golf but by the exit of Turn 1 the TT was back ahead of its stablemate.
By the end of the first lap we again had a pretty good lead of 1.3 seconds to the Class X BMW M3. Very quickly I could feel the brake pedal going progressively further towards the floor. At first I decided to ignore this but it started to get worse as the race went on but we held it together. However the gap was down to 0.3 seconds by lap 3 and we ran out of brakes at Turn 2 and ran slightly wide.
It was at this point that I realised we had no chance of defending against the more powerful BMW and the MUCH more powerful Audi and on the back straight the Audi walked past us like we were standing still.
Due to the braking issue the M3 managed to pass in in to Turn 4. Luckily we had quite a large gap to the rest of the field by this point.
The brake pedal again going towards the floor at the end of the back straight meant I opted to take the short cut to avoid any contact with the lead cars. It was at this point that I decided there was no hope for an overall win and that we should just bring the car home.
Unfortunately for the M3, they broke down towards the end and we finished a 6.6s behind the winning Audi RS3 TCR car, but then had a 5s penalty for track limits. Luckily we still held 2nd place by another 10s.
As we crossed the finish line I immediately put the car in to "limp" mode as the brakes were completely cooked and I could hear bad noises.
I pulled off the circuit half way around and the brake ducting finally fell off in the paddock. It looks like me going off the track at the start of the race pulled the ducting out, which meant the brakes overheated, and this was the root cause of the brake pedal going to the floor. I was relieved to get the car home in one piece.

Adam was not happy with the result, we should be battling the RS3, but you can see how fast it drove around the TT on the straights, there was no way he would be able to keep up, no matter how much better he could be in the corners.
The Golf finished in a good position, but the unreliability is becoming an issue. Hopefully we can get that ironed out before we are back at Snetterton at the end of the month!

Most of my laps were pretty consistent, depending on traffic. Adam's were a little more spead out, based on feedback the car is changing during different phases of the race. We have some ideas to fix it, but its going to be more R&D to get the car where it needs to be,

Adam is still up in P1 overall, but Ryan has slipped to P6 by missing this round. I jumped to P3 but with the dropped scores I would be below a few of the Class S cars. I still have a decent lead in Class A which is the most important thing.

EnduroKA

After our 2nd place at Anglesey in the KAs in the first 24hr race for the EnduroKA Series, we were keen to improve with the 9hrs of Snetterton, on the shorter 200 layout.
Qualifying went well, Mark put us in the top 6, I got in and put us into the top 3 before Adam bumped us up to Pole. It was short lived as the track limit sensors were triggered, so we were demoted back to 3rd. Still, 9hrs is a long time and with the right strategy and good pace, we could do it.
Short version, I started and got us up to P1 after some questionable contact by some of the other races, and a safety car as a result of a very unfortunate roll from one of the front running Wolf Motorsport cars. The lead was snatched from us by a rogue filler cap deciding to leak sufficiently enough that the marshals radioed in for us to be given the Meatball flag.
I got us back to P6, Mark did a great stint dragging us back to 4th, Adam got us to 2nd, then my next stint saw us take the lead, where we stayed for the rest of mine and Adam's stint. Eventually winning by just over 1 lap. A great result and some really great work by all our guys in prepping the car and during the pit stops.

Photos courtesy of Mark Lees.