Unless you’ve been living in a cave recently you’ll know that during the winter Snetterton was undergoing redevelopment. Whatever Jonathan Palmer’s real motives were for the redevelopment, the end result is the track is now a mile longer with an infield section and a load of spectator banking. When tracks are reprofiled alarm bells usually start ringing, but the proposed Snetterton layout seemed to leave a lot of people looking forward to it, myself included. Most of the old track was staying except for Sears which was a dull corner, and the Russell chicane which broke your suspension. Corum would also change slightly on the exit which to be honest was my only complaint about the new layout as it’s not quite as much fun now.

The plan then was to visit Snetterton for a track day to learn which way the new corners go and also to shake the car down after all the winter upgrades a.k.a lets have things fall off on a track day, not during a race.

Snetterton is an incredibly long way away so the plan was to drive down Saturday afternoon, kip in a Travelodge and wipe the sleep from our eyes Sunday morning before heading down some very straight Norfolk roads. Hopefully whilst not being chased by farmers. You can never be too careful. Jon Walton was also heading up to drive the car as part of my continual pushing for him to get a race car. Only Lord will know how, but I managed to convice him! With some new gadgets to play with we were tracking each others progress using Google Latitude, and the finale was very similar to a Top Gear race. Being stuck at 56mph, Jon was closing in on us at an alarming rate, but for the final few miles things were looking good for us to take victory, and bragging rights. We arrived and checked Jon’s location, and discovered something about Latitude - you cannot hide, and everyone knows when you have taken a wrong turn. Oh how we laughed.

Sunday morning we headed up to the track with Jon following the van, showing some great restraint at not overtaking the plodding red beast. He would have achieved some unheard of fuel economy that’s for sure as Jon is a man who can get low 20s MPG out of a Citroen C2.

Once we arrived at the track there was the usual comments from people in the paddock about they wouldn’t have expected to find a car in the van, how did we get it in there, and have we shrunk the car etc. I now have preprepared answers to all these questions thankfully, all tweaked to be highly amusing. Or at least I think so. Once everything was unloaded we went to sign on to find an extra sheet to sign. Because this was only the second track day on the new layout (the first being the day before) they didn’t want people sliding off into the mud where the grass has yet to grow. Apparently it happened a lot yesterday and took 20 minutes to drag each car out, where they then discovered quite a bit of damage to the ground. Basically, if you got stuck you were going home with a bill for some repair work. Best not having any moments then!

Ian came along to the briefing as I’d also managed to convince him to drive the car. I was on a roll! The plan was he would drive the sighting laps and then go out for a run later in the day. He admitted after the briefing he was incredibly nervous, but there is always a element of scare tactics to these things I feel, especially with the muddy run off here. He didn’t need to admit it though as you could see it in his eyes, over his face, and the way he was reacting. Once he was in the car though he calmed down and drove the sighting laps at a suitable pace with some good lines. Considering he’d never driven on track before it was a good start.

As the day progressed I tried to pick up speed on the slippery track without falling off. I failed at this in the esses, which thankfully is an old part of the track with well seeded grass, and thus no bollocking. Out braking myself later on the new section was a different matter though and just managed to escape with two wheels in the mud. Now I know what they were on about. It’s slippier than greased Teflon and quite squelchy. If you went in that, you weren’t getting out. The left side of the car was now splattered in mud that resembled the results of a bull with bowl problems – lovely.

The track was drying up nicely in the afternoon and we were able to play with tyre pressures, front anti roll bar settings, and ignition timing, and even managed a mini race with the other MR2s that were there but keeping it all within track day rules, gov. Seb Fisher was also joining in the fun in his new MX-5 which was quite amusing to overtake on raw power alone. He wont be letting that one down for a while, although I suspect his car will be much quicker once he’s sorted out a few things.

Coming from my Rockingham experience of being in the car with Jon I elected to take photos and set Ian on his way in the passenger seat. In typical fashion he was pushing from the start, but my new pedal positions weren’t helping him, and he doesn’t really fit in the MR2 anyway as the seat position is fixed. He seemed to enjoy it. Now we’ll move on to Ian’s maiden drive. Again I was in the photography booth (the grassy banking at the final corner) and everything seemed to be going well, although his run was sadly cut short by a red flag. When I got back I jokingly asked if he got the back end out, where he became quite sheepish, and Jon piped up ‘you could say that’. It turns out his first corner was one that would have scored highly with the artistic impression judges, with a full spin and plenty of smoke. No damage done, and once Ian stopped beating himself up about it he saw the funny side and would like to have another go some time.

So all in all a good day on a good circuit, and best of all the car didn’t fall apart. Except the brakes, which were overheating with the new fluid we put in. Back to the drawing board on that one…