More points on the board for Howard & Smyth at Snetterton

 
The Barwell Motorsport-run Aston Martin DBRS9 of Andrew Howard and Jamie Smyth survived an incident-packed weekend of British GT action at Snetterton. The Beechdean Ice Cream-backed car notched up two more useful points-scoring results, with sixth and fourth in the GT3 standings after some hectic race battles.

Race 1 – Saturday, 1-Hour (50 laps)

The Howard/Smyth Aston had a colourful journey on its way to claim sixth position in GT3, but the fact that it was running at all was a testament to Barwell Motorsport’s resources and fantastic technicians. The DBRS9 was dong some promotional work for a film crew in the pit lane on Friday evening, and unfortunately the out-of-the-ordinary demands of this continual ‘stop-start’ work led to the clutch overheating and exploding in spectacular fashion during a filmed run. During this extraordinary incident, the disintegrating clutch assembly smashed its way through the thick cast alloy bell-housing and destroyed the torque tube, propshaft, left-hand exhaust manifold and pipes, clutch hydraulics, starter motor, lambda sensor and various other ancillaries and components in the engine bay. Despite the extensive and unusual damage, we carried 90% of the parts in our spares stock, and what we didn’t have on-site we arranged to be brought up from the Barwell workshop on Friday night. Our skilled crew of mechanics then set about the major rebuild job and carried out on-the-spot fabrications and repairs until the DBRS9 was back in one piece as dawn broke on Saturday morning!

The car ran fine all the way through Saturday’s practice and qualifying sessions, and Andrew then gave it a work out during the first half of the race as he battled hard against the weaving Ferrari of Hector Lester. Despite being barged into by the Ferrari during the course of this battle, Howard survived the resulting spin and gathered things up to hand over to Jamie in seventh place (sixth in GT3 point-scoring positions). Jamie then enjoyed a mighty fight with the Ford GT of Michael Bentwood, frustrating the ex-F3 driver’s attempts to pass him for lap after lap. Bentwood eventually muscled his way past on lap 32, however, and soon after Jamie reported an increasingly ‘long’ brake pedal. As he was safe in sixth place in GT3, Jamie then just nursed the car to get a finish. The problem was later traced to a knock-on affect of the previous evening’s damage to the master cylinders, which had taken some time to reveal itself.

Race 2 – Sunday, 1-Hour (50 laps)

The pace was incredibly hot at the start of Sunday’s encounter, with the ‘pro’ drivers all fighting bare-knuckle style for track position around the high speed sweeps of Snetterton. The Simonsen Ferrari got away cleanly from pole, but Bentwood’s Ford GT was slow away and blocked Olly going into the first corner. This allowed Wilds’ Ferrari to sneak through and grab third place from the Barwell Ginetta, and a few laps later the ex-F1 driver also grabbed second from Bentwood in a robust manoeuvre at the Esses. With the Ford GT getting knocked out of the way Olly was promoted back to third but still had the scarlet Ferrari to deal with.

Meanwhile Jamie’s Aston Martin DBRS9 was embroiled in a stonking battle of his own, as part of a train of four cars that were all fighting over fourth place. This was initially headed by the fast starting Viper of Scott, who then had the Wilcox Ferrari, Jamie and the Bentwood Ford queuing up behind him. This high-speed ‘train’ whirled round for 15 laps before the Viper’s tyres started to struggle and he got shuffled down the pack by the Ford and the Ferrari. Unfortunately Jamie then got stuck behind the big American machine for the next 10 laps and lost 10 seconds on the Wilcox Ferrari that he had previously been shadowing. Smyth clearly still had very good pace at this stage of the race, but the power of the Viper made it a very tricky proposition for him to pass.

Jamie handed the Aston over to Andrew in seventh spot (6th in GT3) with 19 laps to go, after what had been a very strong stint from the ex Formula Ford ace. After all the pit stops had shuffled out, the early stopping Mosler had sneaked ahead of the Barwell-Beechdean Aston. We were still in 7th spot, however, as during the course of things the Mosler had nudged the Viper into a spin and thus removed him out of our way as well! Andrew thus set about hunting down the Burton/Wilcox Ferrari, and after a consistent run had cut the gap down from 10 seconds to four in just 10 laps.

With eight laps to go he was all over the back of the Italian car and enjoyed a good scrap with Burton for three laps. With the Ferrari hard to pass in the braking areas, Howard got creative and used his superior speed through the fast Bombhole corner to get a run on Burton into the following 120mph Coram bend. Andrew then stuck his Aston down the inside of the Ferrari as they turned into Coram, and claimed sixth place with a ballsy move. He was then rapidly closing in on the Cameron/Wilds Ferrari, but ran out of time. It was a good stint from the Beechdean Ice Cream man, however, who had taken 14 seconds out of leader Lester despite having to battle with and overtake other cars.

Then shortly after the race had finished, news came through that Lester had been excluded from the results for contravening a technical regulation, thus promoting Andrew and Jamie up to fifth overall and fourth in GT3.