It was an excellent weekend for Rochester-based driver Guy Pettit as he scored his maiden victory last Saturday in round seven of the MSV Trackday Trophy.
Snetterton in Norfolk played host to the latest round and the scene of a memorable Saturday afternoon for Guy and his team, storming through from the tail-end of the grid in his XLR Motorsport SEAT Leon.
Partnered with a new teammate in the form of 26-year-old newcomer Oli Withington and again supported by Cheshire race engineering outfit Trackcars4hire, Pettit was looking forward to a strong performance after the car showed so much potential at Brands Hatch in August.
With a 30-minute qualifying session followed shortly after by a 45-minute race, the team could not afford any reliability issues which have often plagued them this season. But unfortunately, they were out of luck.
On a damp and greasy track, qualifying got underway with Pettit taking the first stint before handing over to Withington to complete the session. As the car exited the pitlane for the first time, Pettit was immediately struggling to get pressure in the clutch pedal, a problem which caused the team to narrowly miss out on victory at Oulton Park back in April.
As Withington took over, the problem got worse. With a drying track, lap times were tumbling pushing the XLR duo further and further down the starting order. By the end of the session, the best the pair could manage was 19th on the grid.
Speaking after qualifying Pettit said: “My heart sank when I got in the car, the problem had got so bad that we wouldn’t have been able to start the race. The clutch fluid was pumping out underneath the car every time the pedal was pressed. That coupled with not being able to get enough heat into the tyres on the damp track made for a disastrous qualifying.”
Miraculously, and against all odds, chief engineer Phill de Groot-King managed to solve the issue just in time for the start of the race and give the car a clean bill of health.
With regular teammate Steve Johansen busy with other commitments this weekend, it was down to Pettit to make his first race start in the car.
By now the track had dried and as the lights went out, Pettit got a clean getaway. However, starting so far back meant picking his way through the field of slower cars was going to be a tall order.
Giving his thoughts on the race itself, he added: “I was nervous because Steve usually starts the race, but with him not here, everything rested on my shoulders. The only start I have made before is in rallycross, but there were only four or five other cars around me then. This was a major challenge for me with the priority being to keep out of trouble while trying to make up as many places as possible.”
As battles raged around him, Pettit managed to do exactly that. By the end of the first lap, he had already climbed eleven places to eighth, and by lap six, he was reeling in the leader before making the decisive move around the outside into the first corner.
“I knew the Vauxhall VX220 of Jeremy Hayman and Mark Penny would be one of our closest competitors, so when I managed to catch them I knew we were making good progress. What I didn’t know was they were actually the race leaders at the time. They tried to defend into the last corner, putting them wide on the exit and giving me the run alongside.
“This put me on the outside going into the next right-hander so it was all down to a battle of nerves to see who could break the latest. The best thing about the Trackday Trophy series is, even though the majority of drivers are inexperienced racers, everyone is fair as well as being competitive. All the drivers give each other room.”
From then on it was plain sailing. But no one remembered to tell Pettit that.
He added: “I was looking around for the leaders, and when I couldn’t see them, I just assumed they had disappeared into the distance. I kept pushing, wanting to hand the car over to Oli in the best possible position. It wasn’t until I pitted to change over that Phill told me we were leading. I still didn’t believe him even after Oli had taken to the track for the second half of the race.”
After a glitch with the team’s timer led to a slow pit stop, Withington re-joined the race in third. But with the pace of the car, and the superb skill and speed demonstrated by Withington in his first ever race, the XLR Motorsport car was soon back where it belonged at the helm.
Withington brought the car home for the win nearly fifteen seconds ahead of the second place car of Dan and Ben Abbitt, and in doing so set the fastest lap.
With an amazing turn of luck, Pettit, Withington and the XLR Motorsport team had managed to secure their maiden victory.
“It was an incredible team effort, but all credit has to go to Phill, who sorted the issues and made the car into a race winner, and Oli, who got us back into the lead of the race and stayed there.”
XLR Motorsport and Trackcars4hire have yet to confirm their availability for the final round at Brands Hatch next month, but will be looking to return to the track in 2015, hopefully competing in the more advanced MSV Team Trophy series.
Images by J Hatfield and PSP Images http://www.psp-images.co.uk/