At the second weekend in September, T Sport Racing attended the sixth round of the British Truck Racing Championship taking place at Snetterton, close to Norwich. There was an autumnal feeling in the air during the weekend, heavy fog lingered over the circuit during the night time but luckily lifted on time for racing action to commence.
The weekend had all of the usual family-friendly fun – including a climbing wall, show trucks, simulators, monster trucks, many other activities and, of course, two action-packed days of close racing action of trucks and mixed support series.
T Sport Racing had the honour to welcome and look after several guests. Their visitors from PE Automotive and FP&S Truck and Trailer Parts seemed to have a fantastic weekend spending time at the hospitality tent, looking around the race truck and following the racing action from close up.
Terry´s very first time to have a go around the circuit was on Friday afternoon during a 30-minute test session. It was a great opportunity to familiarise with the track. But as the day saw heavy rain nearly all day, it was also very tricky to really get up to speed.
On Saturday morning, as the first guests arrived, the team was all set for qualifying on a slowly drying up track. Due to the fact that this round was Terry’s very first time racing at Snetterton, top concentration was required for him not to make any mistakes. The 15-minute session finished with T Sport Racing ranking 9th.
Due to some incidents shortly after the start, the first race of the weekend was red-flagged twice – and finally cancelled completely. To make up for the cancelation, the organisers tried to squeeze in a short Division 1 race at the end of the day. It was a race on a very wet and slippery track, but Terry put on a good show. He fought hard until the end of the race and didn’t let anybody overtake him, which allowed him to finish within the top 10 and thus being able to score points.
As sun burnt away the heavy fog on Sunday morning, we went straight into the second Division 1 race. The completely reversed grid allowed Terry to start from the front row. After changing the set-up on Saturday night, the team was convinced of having improved the performance of the MAN race truck. Unfortunately, Terry lost a few places due to a wheel spin at the start of the race. Throughout the race, he fought amongst the middle pack. Due to an oil leakage of one of his competitors’ race trucks, however, the track turned out to be very slippery once again. Terry crossed the finish line ranking 7th after Mat Summerfield overtook him at the very last corner.
At the second race on Sunday, Terry was doing pretty well until his truck spun off. Ryan Smith passed him very close, but Dave Jenkins couldn´t avoid a heavy contact with Terry. As a result, his followers Shane Brereton and Ricky Collett also crashed into Terry’s MAN. In the end, Terry´s truck got stuck in the gravel – mounted by Shane Brereton´s truck. After a tricky recovery, the race was cancelled.
Luckily the truck seemed to be in good condition, but the cabin took some very heavy damage. The team worked full speed to get the truck – and Terry – back out for the next race. Unfortunately, however, the organisers didn’t allow the participation of anyone involved in the heavy crash at the previous race. To top this, the very last race of the day was cancelled completely as the racing programme was running behind schedule.
It was a tricky weekend which leaves us with quite a bit of work to be done before heading to the next – and penultimate – round taking place at Pembrey in about 4 weeks. Nonetheless, we still had a very pleasant and nice race weekend with all the guests from PE and FP&S around – who definitely had a fantastic weekend!