Snetterton Race Report – September 2022
My weekend started with rain! For the first session I went out on full wets to find where the grip was and what lines were best in the wet. Trucks were racing the weekend before which made the racing line very slippery; there was plenty of sideways action as I pushed on to find the lap times. As the day progressed the track dried up and the lap times got quicker and quicker. By the end of the day I had managed to put in some pretty respectable times.
Qualifying – qualifying was dry which I was happy with, but I had a misfire throughout the entire session which lost me valuable time under acceleration. However, even with my problems I still managed to qualify second in both races.
Race 1 – I went into the race with a five-point lead over Josh Bromley who was second in the championship. As the lights went out, I didn’t have quite enough revs and I bogged down which saw me drop to P4 by the first corner. I quickly fought back and worked my way up to third and started chasing down the leading pair. As they were battling it out, they both ran wide on the first corner which allowed me to slip into the lead. From here the race became very closely fought with plenty of position changes. I came across the finish line in second place 0.15 seconds behind the first place car of Josh Bromley. This meant that we would be going into the last race dead level on points.
Race 2 – The skies had turned dark and no one knew if it was going to rain or not but since the track was dry and the rain hadn’t started to fall yet everyone stayed on their dry tyres. However, as soon as we went out on our warm up lap the rain started to fall! Luckily it was just light rain. This time I got a great start but couldn’t find second gear, this dropped me down to third, but I regained second place by making a move around the outside on turn 2. My car and the first place car of Josh Bromley broke away from the rest of the pack but I didn’t quite have the pace in the first phase of the race to keep up with him so he was able to build a bit of a gap. The gap was extended when I had a half spin at the end of
Bentley straight and the gap stretched to over 10 seconds. However, I didn’t give up and kept pushing as the rain started to come down harder, I was able to keep good temperature in my tyres which gave me good grip and I was able to start to close the gap on the lead.
One lap I was able to take 4 seconds out of him. Coming onto the penultimate lap I had caught up and was able to slip down his inside into the first corner, from here he was glued to my rear bumper. On the final lap he managed to go around my outside at the end of Bentley straight but, I was tucked in right behind him and managed to get a run around the outside of the penultimate corner, which in turn was the inside for the final corner. I went down the inside and then it was a drag race to the finish line, we were side by side coming across the line but I pipped him by 0.05 seconds.
That 0.05 seconds has meant that I am now the 2022 MG Trophy Champion!
You can watch Joe race on YouTube – 2022 MG Trophy Championship Program 5 Snetterton 300 – YouTube
Don’t forget to follow JD Racing on Instagram and Facebook.
Check out the MG Trophy Championship page here – Welcome to the 2022 MG Trophy Championship – MG Trophy Championship (mgcc.co.uk)
