BEETLE FUN CUP - Round 1
25th April 2010
ABG Motorsport ran two cars in the opening round at Snetterton of this very popular and competitive series which is based on the VW Beetle silouhete body and powered by 1800cc petrol engines or the 1.9 TDi turbo diesel from the VW group. With no history or data, we went into this event cold and Friday testing would be the first time we were out on track with other Fun Cup cars.
The petrol engined car (158) was driven by Peter Belshaw and " sticker man" Ray Grimes under the Sherardize UK Motorsport banner and the diesel car (189) by Steve Bell and Simon Leith entered under Stingray RV.
There was a full grid entry of 32 cars for the 4 hour race and we were quite pleased to qualify 15th and 18th respectively just 2 secs off the pole time.
Both cars made good starts with Ray up to 8th by lap 7. Racing was close with a whole bunch of cars lapping within tenths of each other with subsequent place changes. Peter's legendary pit strategy resulted in car 158 running 2nd on lap 25 with 189 taking that spot a lap later.
Unfortunately a problem with the drivetrain started just before our first driver change and Peter Belshaw only managed half a dozen laps in his stint before it became impossible to chane gear. What made this more frustrating was the fact that he had climbed right back up to 12th from 27th after he took over when he had to retire the car.
The Stingray car meanwhile was running steadily and maintaining 13th position at both the 1 and 2 hour marks and working up to 11th at the 3 hour stage. With just 30 mins of the race to run, however the car started losing power and finally expired after 130 laps but was still classified 26th at the finish.
So whilst the end result was disappointing, we know that the drivers are quick and competitive and now having hard race experience with the cars, we look forward to the next round on 15th May at Rockingham.
