MaX5 Snetterton - 23 October 05

Motorsport Month – MaX5 Racing at Snetterton

October 2005 was ‘Eastern Region Motorsport Month’ and on the penultimate ‘activity’ date of the Eastern Region Tour ’05, off we all went to Snetterton Circuit to watch the MaX5 guys in their final two races of the season.

On a lovely sunny and unseasonably warm Sunday, the Eastern Region met up and managed to attract the likes of the South East Roadsters, some North Thames members as well as quite a few others! The Hemel Massive managed to send one representative – Lizwal. She claimed that the rest of the Massive were up partying till late and chose not to join in the fun with the Eastern Region. It was certainly their loss – what a day!

The initial roll call at Sainsburys Thetford saw a total of 34 cars and over 50 people.

The resulting line up on the A11 was met with the usual looks of awe and double takes from other drivers. What – surely a convoy of 34 MX-5’s is normal on a Sunday morning?!

The MaX5 organisers had kindly arranged for us to have our own exclusive parking area at the circuit – the second roll call when we were all parked up came to just over 40 cars. We’d also managed to attract a Porsche Carrera – either that or someone had done one hell of a job with a bodykit!!

There were a few other 5’s dotted about the carpark, a perfect opportunity to flyer them and invite others to join in the MX5OC fun.

We watched the final few minutes of qualifying and then went for a wander around the ‘pits’ to find the stars of the show.

From a distance, we spotted three Roadsters decked out in the ER livery – red, white and blue! Monty, the driver of car 3, greeted us and explained that they had already been to our parking area for a look and were very impressed with the turnout.

He told us that the MaX5 race cars were all basically identical 1.6 standard MK1s, but that they use Eunos Roadsters because they come with an LSD. They are stripped out and changed into racing cars with full roll cage, race seat and identical wheels and tyres.

What it comes down to is driver skill and approaching the final two races, the top two drivers Martin Byford (an Eastern Region resident from Sudbury) and Christian Dick had only a single point separating them and Monty was expecting it to be very gripping.

The first race was certainly exciting, lots of tyre smoke and a very close call at the end!

While we were waiting for the final and highly anticipated last race, Alyn Robson (car 7 and co-founder of MaX5 Racing) caught up with us to let us know the car that’s had won the MaX5 trophy for ‘The Best OC 5 at Snetterton’. They had judged it earlier in the day and in the absence of Shiny Steve’s motor, had awarded it to (Shiny) Jon Esley instead! Jon’s car was in pieces, at the time of the presentation, as he’d managed to lock himself out again! Robbie however swiftly put it back together for a quick photoshoot before Alyn had to disappear to prepare!

Witnesses say they saw Martin Curtis sneaking off to the pits to apply special ‘Eastern Region’ stickers to a few of the MaX5 cars, hopefully the extra weight didn’t put anyone at a disadvantage!!

The final race started just as the heavens opened. The red flag came out after the first corner when a crash stopped the race. No-one was injured and the race was restarted soon afterwards.

The famous RWD set-up meant a few cars spun off onto the grass but regained their composure and carried on. The excitement rose in the crowd at the same rate as the rain slowed and the final result saw Martin Byford winning the championship 2 points ahead of Christian Dick.

Congratulations to the winner but also to all of the drivers for making it such an exciting and rewarding day.

A special thanks to Alyn for helping to arrange our parking and trophy.

Watch this space as the final date for ‘Motorsport Month’ is Sunday 30^th October, we’re going karting. Of course we’re expecting Jon Elsey to win yet again but I’m sure we’ll all have a fun day!

© 2005 Kendra Dixon Eastern Region