Britcar - Production S1 - MG-ZR duo finish well in
Snetterton 3 hr enduro.
Saturday & Sunday 13/14th May saw Mickel Racing enter its two MG ZR's run by KB Automotive in the third round of the Britcar Production S1 series at Snetterton in Norfolk.
The weekend comprised a one hour race on Saturday and a three hour race on Sunday afternoon but problems started for Kelly-Anne Smith and Sarah Bennett-Baggs in Friday's testing when their race engine blew up. Luckily, the KB Automotive team headed up by Kevin Bull were able to replace the damaged race engine with a new engine overnight. However, with the spare engine being not quite as powerful as the original, Kelly-Anne and Sarah were going to have to work even harder for their results. It was therefore a pleasant surprise when on Saturday morning the girls' car qualified 4th in class and 12th overall and the car driven by Kelly's husband Gary and Stuart Plotnek qualified 1st in Class and in 7th position overall out of a 28 car grid. Gary and Sarah started their respective cars in the one hour race on Saturday afternoon. Both made good starts and were able to pull away from the remainder of the field with the front runners. With just 6 laps gone the heavens opened and an early stop for wet tyres allowed the girls to get back out on the track before most of the other teams had time to react. Sarah was able to take full advantage of the situation and overtake several cars still on slick tyres that were struggling to stay on the track in the treacherous conditions.
A long safety car period soon followed which allowed the team to change both drivers without losing any time on their nearest rivals and an uneventful run to the flag saw Gary and Stuart take 1st in Class and 5th overall and Kelly and Sarah finish 3rd in class and 10th overall. In much better conditions Kelly and Gary started Sunday's race. Within five laps Gary had driven up into 3rd position overall when the power steering on the car failed. This meant both he and Stuart would have to drive for the remainder of the three hours without power steering - a very tall order in a front wheel drive car. The strategy provided for each starting driver to do 45 minutes stints at the start and the end of the race and for the second driver to do a longer middle stint. However, when several safety car incidents arrived within the pit stop window, both of the mandatory driver changes were made on both cars within a 40 minutes period which allowed both Gary and Kelly to get back in the cars and sprint to the flag. Despite this the boys drove extremely well to record their third win of the season and a finish of 5th overall, whilst the girls drove an underpowered car to a superb 4th in class and 10th overall.
Leda congratulates the Team on their excellent results, and are proud to be one of their Sponsors. |
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