The Classic Sports Car Club made their second outing of the truncated 2020 season at Snetterton circuit. Packed grids with a huge variety of cars promised the crowd a thriller. The weather decided otherwise with torrential rain falling just minutes before the second race of the day was scheduled to get underway flooding the track in the process.
There was little the operators could do other than cancel the remaining races to get the circuit back into prime condition ready for next week’s British Superbike Meeting.
Classic Sports Car Club
Formed in 2001, the Classic Sports Car Club has since grown to become one of the most popular racing clubs in the country. Featuring cars from the 60’s all the way through to modern machinery, a huge variety of cars are eligible to compete in one of the twelve series on offer.
Race weekends feature one 40 minute race or two 20 minute races with the classic cars generally running on the Saturday with the more modern machinery taking over on Sunday.
The mornings running featured a 30-minute qualifying session for all series (aside from the Toyo Tyres Jaguars which was 20 minutes) and with only one race, qualifying was more important than ever.
Cartek Motorsport Modern Classics: Cars from 1999 onwards
Qualifying looked set to go the way of Dave Griffin in his E36 BMW M3 until a last gasp attempt from the Blake duo in their Porsche 911 RSR saw them take pole by a remarkable 1.4 seconds.
In the race, Griffin set about getting his revenge, and he did by expertly taking the lead on lap 1 and never looking back. Blake managed to keep the gap to Griffin within a second over the first lap but then just couldn’t live with the blistering pace of the BMW.
Instead, he had another M3 to worry about. Karl Cattcliff in his E36 was maintaining close proximity to the Porsche and putting huge amounts of pressure on Blake to try to push him into making a mistake. Blake was unphased by all that Cattcliff could throw at him and held his ground with the conditions getting ever darker.
By the pitstops, Blake had somehow held off the BMW despite him being within a second for 9 consecutive laps. Cattcliff played a strategical game by pitting a lap later in an attempt to get the undercut on Blake. However, a nightmare pitstop saw him emerge 20 seconds behind the Porsche with it all do to with just 23 minutes remaining.
With the conditions darkening ever further, the rain finally came. Heavy rain was now bucketing down throughout the first sector of the lap, extreme caution was required to keep control and not spear off into the barriers.
With the final section of the lap bone dry, it was a tough call but everyone elected to remain on slick tyres. This proved the wrong decision with cars flying off left right and centre. The officials had no choice but to throw the red flag and end the race 10 minutes early once 75% distance was reached to declare the race official.
Afternoon Delays
With the mornings running completed, the expected rain started to fall once again with just 10 minutes to go before the Jaguar Saloons were due to start their first race of the weekend. This time the rain was torrential and did not ease up until 30 minutes later.
By this point, various sections of the circuit were completely flooded and with the course vehicles barely able to remain on track, the action was delayed by 90 minutes to attempt to find a solution that would allow racing to commence.
A further hour later and the track was ready for racing once again. With the cars in the assembly area, engines fired and drivers ready to go, another deluge hit the circuit reverting all the hard work done by the circuit team.
As a result, there was no option but to call it a day. The majority of drivers had already left the circuit, the Marshalls were drenched, and the circuit needed to be prepared for next weeks British Superbike Event, the highlight of Snetterton’s season.
