On Sunday 22nd April 2007, after the arctic conditions of the season opener at Brands Hatch in March, the Elise Trophy moved on to Snetterton in Norfolk under blue skies and unseasonably warm temperatures. The Lotus factory is just up the road in Hethel, and the Lotus F1 team used Snetterton as its local test track, so the Elise Trophy cars really were coming home.
A number of cars attended test days at the circuit during the week before the races, and while a lot of the front-runners were being a bit cagey about their times, it looked like Andrew Walsh (6 - Elise S1: the scratch race overall winner from Brands Hatch) wasn't going to get it all his own way this time, with Chris Randall (88 - Exige S1) in particular looking particularly quick. As happened at Brands before the opening round Lotus brought along a GT3 race car, set it up with the Elise Trophy race cars and shared Elise Trophy track time to get a bit of testing done before it headed off to Donington to race on Saturday.
Qualifying Most drivers were up bright and early on race day, well in fact they had to be with a new drivers' briefing at 07:45, followed by sign-on at 08:00, scrutineering at 08:10 and qualifying at 09:00. It all felt a bit rushed but at 09:00 all 35 cars were ready to go. With its long straights, Snetterton allows cars to spread out pretty rapidly and most drivers found it easier to make some space for themselves than it had been at Brands. As always seems to be the case with qualifying, the session went by in a flash, with things getting particularly interesting about halfway through, when one car dropped a load of coolant on the exit of Sears corner - more than one car had an interesting moment or two braking for the Esses at the end of the Revett straight with coolant all over their tyres! Chris Randall confirmed his testing pace by being on pole, with Simon Scuffham (58 - Elise S1) 2nd and Andrew Walsh 3rd.
Once again, support from Lotus enthusiasts on the day was amazing, with hundreds of Lotus cars parked up and throughout the day, the paddock seemed to be full of people giving encouragement and support. Lotus brought along the new Exige GT3 to take centre stage in the paddock amongst a selection of other current factory models. A lot of people also seemed to be asking lots of questions about car preparation and what it takes to get on the grid, which bodes really well for the future of the series.
Race 1 - Class Race We had a couple of hours to wait between qualifying and our first race, allowing for some last minute tweaks to the cars, but at about midday we headed down to the collecting area. Everyone seemed pretty calm and after the usual pre-race banter we lined up on the grid for the scratch race. It sounds ridiculous but it's surprisingly easy to forget whether or not you've done the green flag lap wen you're on the grid, but everyone seemed to know what was happening as we slotted ourselves into our grid positions. The final countdown always seems to happen in super-fast time: 1 minute board, 30 second board, 5 second board, engines rev, red lights on, red lights off and go go go!
Everyone got away cleanly, with Chris Randall, Simon Scuffham & Andrew Walsh getting away in order at the front. The first corner (Riches) seemed absurdly crowded but everyone gave each other plenty of respect and we all got through the first 2 corners safely, before heading along Revett straight for the first time. Nick Kaye (40 - Elise S1) had a flying start and was 3rd at the end of lap 1, unfortunately retiring shortly afterwards with a problem with his supercharger.
Other fast starters included: Sean Bicknell (19 - Exige S1) who made his way from 11th on the grid to 5th by lap 3 (before retiring); John Thorne (61 - VX220T) who qualified 27th and was 9th by lap 2; Russ Treasure (11 - Exige S1) who qualified 32nd and was running 10th by lap 2 and 6th by lap 7.
Meanwhile at the front, Chris Randall had got away cleanly, while behind him Andrew Walsh managed to get past Simon Scuffham on lap 3, and looked like he was all set to take the race to Chris, before retiring on lap 4 with engine failure. Graham Walsh (8 - Elise S1), clearly desperate for his 15 minutes of fame, retired on lap 4 with an engine fire. In the end Chris Randall had a relatively clear run to the flag, with Simon Scuffham taking 2nd and Steve Williams (18 - Elise S1) taking an excellent 3rd in his class B car, Andrew Kell (67 - Elise S2) 4th, Christian Watkins (3 - Elise S1) 5th, and an excellent result in his first ever race for Neil McKean (81 - Elise S1) in 6th overall.
Congratulations also to Gavin Kirby (95 - Exige S2), who came home 13th overall and 1st once again in class A.
David Scott, head of MSVR presented all 9 trophies that were supplied by Reverie.
Race summary - 38 entries (FULL), 33 starters, 25 finished and no red flags.
Race 2 - Handicap Race We had a few hours to recover, and in some cases give our cars some much needed TLC, before the handicap race, which was pretty much at the end of the day. Among others grateful for some time to sort their cars out was Graham Walsh, who managed to repair his car following his fire in race 1 and did well to get his car on the grid for the handicap race. The handicappers had once again applied their magic formula to work out (theroretically) how to get all the cars crossing the finishing line at the same time! To achieve this some cars had to complete different numbers of laps and we were started from the grid in 4 groups, 0/25/40/55 seconds apart respectively. It seems the handicappers had done a good job once again, and some cracking chases & battles developed throughout the race.
Race 1 winner, Chris Randall, started 25 seconds behind Simon Scuffham, and drove like a man possessed to catch him throughout the 13 lap race, in the end finishing 4 seconds behind him.
Jez Braker (27 - Elise S1) had a good battle with Malcolm Sanders (21 - Exige S1) before getting past him on lap 9 to take 9th overall.
Hans Baumhardt (14 - Elise S2), Paul Harding (69 - Elise S1) & Martin Roberts (9 - Elise S2) had an entertaining 3-way battle for most of the race, only 0.5 seconds covered the 3 of them when they crossed the line, with Martin Roberts coming out on top.
Steve Williams, clearly fired up after his success in the class race, started pretty much at the back of the grid and carved his way through the field and was up to 6th by lap 9. For 4 laps he and Andrew Kell had a titanic struggle, until on the very last lap, Steve, being the wily old ocelot that he is, displayed that there really is no substitute for experience as he passed Kell round the outside of Coram to take 3rd place by 0.1 seconds, just 0.3 seconds behind Matt Bartlett (13 - Elise S1), who took 2nd.
Congratulations to Nick Kaye who drove very consistently to take the race win. David Skeggs (82 - Elise S1) was 5th, with Simon Scuffham 6th.
The handicap format made for some very exciting racing, with close finishes throughout the field, and it was good to see the podium being occupied by drivers from all 3 classes. Thanks to David and Colin for persevering with this, as the season goes on the racing will get closer and closer.
Race summary - 30 starters, 28 finished and no red flags.
The races will be televised on Motors TV during May (first showing Friday 18th May 8pm).Next race is at Oulton Park on Sat 19th May, followed by visits to Silverstone, Castle Combe, Donington Park, Spa Francorchamps and Brands Hatch.
