Praga Cup UK Round 3

Snetterton 300: 14/15 - 05 - 2022. Races 4 & 5.

Ed & Chris Bridle, with Ewan Clark, Lewis Trott and Charlotte Phelps. Photo: Miles Lacey

Last year Snetterton brought us a monsoon, this time around it was quite a bit different but still plenty of drama to report.

The Idola Motorsport team arrived Thursday with 4 cars ready for a pounding around the Norfolk circuit. One new driver in the shape of Arden Racing backed David Morales was joined by returning 2020 Britcar champion Jem Hepworth in the Arden/Idola car. Regular pairings of Ben Collins with Jay Morton, Jimmy Broadbent with Gordie Mutch, and Ed & Chris Bridle who were to provide us with a brilliant performance.

Friday testing went very well and all the pairings improved throughout the day, Ed & Chris spent plenty of time with Charlotte our Performance Data Engineer to get into the detail of where improvements could be made and to build further on the gains made at their test day last month.

Saturday morning came around with a very early start (7am scrutineering!!!) and it was good to see everyone raring to go. Jimmy and Gordie took initial pole but unfortunately a technical issue with the turbo control pipe meant Goldie was over-boosting and the strict controls put in place by the cup organisers led to the pairing being demoted to a pit lane start. David and Jem took Idola honours for a 2nd row start, the Bridles on a superb 3rd row and Jay and Ben on row 4 after a blistering time from Ben and with Jay much much improved.

Race 1 was much cleaner than last time around at Oulton Park and saw Goldie gradually climbing through the order to take the win - but again it was not to be with a recurrence of the over boosting issue meaning another exclusion. Pit lane speeding penalties applied to 3 other cars from Raw and University of Wolverhampton and exclusions for 2 cars for ride height infringements meant the results were completely rewritten and the Bridles were promoted to the podium showing that ‘you have to be in it to win it’!

Sunday was looking like the Old Wet Snett might return and treaded tyres were hastily prepared for qualifying just in case. As it was the rain held off, but the excitement came in torrents, the Bridles were topping the charts for most of the session showing a fantastic step change in the pairings performance as all the preparation clicked into place. By the end of the session the brothers were only 0.6sec off pole and sat comfortably on row 2 lined up behind Goldie on pole, with Collins/Morton and Morales/Hepworth on row 4.

Lights out and away they went for the final race of the weekend and this time it was the Collins and Morton who were the shining stars making their way up from the back of the grid with Jay putting in an astonishing performance for a driver with less than 2 seasons experience, and coupled with Bens regular pounding pace finishing on the podium for the first time this year. The Arden pairing came in 5th, with the Bridles finding themselves in 7th after a pit stop caused by getting stuck behind a stalled car in the pit lane - but a Driver of the Day trophy for Chris Bridle was testament to what could have been.

……………and the winners of race 2……. Gordie Mutch and Jimmy Broadbent in Goldie V2 - finally getting to prove that they were masters at Snetterton with pole, win and fastest lap!!!

Silverstone National in 3 weeks time where we expect to see a bigger grid, 50 second lap times and some very close racing!