'TRACKDAY', Snetterton 300 (Norfolk) - ***Thursday 2nd May*** £199

[casey]

Keep can't make it, so any other takers? Very late notice, so you'd have to be fairly local.

[New Duke]

That's so sad. I hope he stayed to get some passenger laps with you. At least you tried to offer it out.

I know that TDO margins are slim but not at least offering credit was unwise on their part towards an enthusiastic new customer.

[casey]

Indeed, very, very sad indeed. Not what i had hoped for Henry"s first trackday experience. He arrived nice and early, so we could go to the sign-on desk before it got busy. The Javelin staff were sympathetic, and listened to the story, but were hamstrung by their insurance requirement for a full licence. I offered for Henry to stay, at least for a while, to come out as a passenger and experience what a trackday is like, but he decided to leave and go back to Norwich. I do hope he will give a trackday another go, once he has sorted out his full licence.

[New Duke]

How was your track time aside from that Malcolm? Not too many red flags and car ran well I hope?

[casey]

I was first out on track, which is a first for me and felt great! Red flag after about 12 minutes, so an OKish first session, but didn't bode well for the day ahead I thought. Cause was broken down race car having cheap test day. However, remarkably, there were very few red flags after that and all were dealt with quickly. At no point later in the day did I suffer a red flag or a red flag delay me going out. I took as much track time as I and the car could take, to the extent I was down to less than 1/4 tank way before the lunch break and had to refuel to fit in another session.

In terms of weather and tracktime this was, by far, the best trackday at Snetterton and possibly overall. Cool breeze in the morning kept temps under control, so no overheating issues despite shorter cool down sessions than I normally take.

By 3pm I was getting tired and the car brakes were taking longer to cool down, so decided to bail and avoid the worst of the A14 traffic through the roadworks on the way back.

Laptimes, post event, nothing live, showed majority 2m27s, with a handful of 2m26s, which is very close to my usual quickest tines.

Car ran flawlessly* throughput, just needing to lower tyre pressures a couple of times and used over a litre of oil.

*on my last (20 min) session I felt I may have boiled the fluid in one of the front calipers, another factor leading me to decide to call it a day. I need to check, but the fluid may be due a change, despite the fluid tester saying OK on water content.

All in all, a really great day, especially (unusually) being amongst so many saloon race cars doing tests - an Audi TT race car shared my garage, complete with driver and 3 race engineers. Two Atoms wete there as well. Etiquette was top notch, I never had any issues and great fun trying, and failing, to keep up with them. Several road cars were also fun to chase down.

I am booked to go back Snetterton in September, as are many others on here, but may look at fitting in another day there in around late July or early August.

[nightfire10]

A few photos from the day (free with Javelin trackdays):