Kelly Rogers Racing
Qualifying started at 10.50 am with the sun slowly breaking out of the clouds after a damp and misty start to the day. As normal a 15 minute session to push the car to its limits of adhesion and power to find the quickest time possible for a reasonable grid position. At Snetterton getting pole position is not so important as slip streaming plays such a big part in the race at this very fast circuit. The normal top 3 were all pushing hard to at least get a top 5 grid slot, with others towing each other round to try and play the mind games of "my car is faster than yours". Kelly was at ease, pushing hard but not trying to break the land speed record, recording a time of 1:20.977 after 11 laps. This put him in a comfortable 2nd place on the grid for the race and a time that was 1 second quicker than his qualifying time a couple of months ago at this circuit.
The race was set to start at 3.40 pm but due
to a few delays through the day the start was put back until just after 4
pm. All the cars were waiting in the assembly area as the time drew closer,
a lot of mathematical calculations were going on in peoples heads as the
Championship is slowly drawing to the last few rounds. The whistle blew for
the cars to roll out onto the grid to start there warming up lap.
As all the cars slowly came round the last chicane the tension was mounting,
finally everybody took there grid positions and waited for the lights to go
out. The lights went out and all the 15 Miglia's raced up to Riches corner
fighting for a good position. Kelly slotted nicely into 2nd position just
behind Baldwin, with plenty of laps to go to try and get his maiden victory.
After completing lap one, both Sollis and Chandler were slowly reeling in
the two leading cars. Lap 3 saw Sollis take second position from Kelly and
Chandler making a nuisance of himself behind the top three cars. Both Sollis
and Baldwin had pulled a couple of car lengths on Kelly by lap 4 and
Chandler had at one point passed Kelly but was soon put back to fourth spot.
Lap 5 and Kelly was trying to pull the gap back to the front two, noticing
that flashing brake lights from the 2 leaders were saying "Brake problems".
With only 7 minutes gone in this 20 minute race there was certainly time to
reach the leaders and challenge for the lead. Lap 7 and all was good, the
car was pulling hard and slowly the gap was decreasing to the 2 front cars,
lap 8 and as Kelly approached Russell he saw a mountain of waved red flags.
The race had been stopped due to an accident at the end of the Revett
straight, the race was declared a result as from the end of lap 7 so Kelly
was awarded 3rd place.
A cruel end to such a good race, with still another 9 minutes to run Kelly was sure he could have caught the leaders and made a challenge for the lead by the close of the race. Once again on to the next round, to Kelly's home track, Brands Hatch, hopefully this being a drivers circuit and not such a power issue circuit the spoilers in the race will not get a look in.
Round 7
Snetterton
