Silverstone 24 Winner Meenan To Challenge for Snetterton C1 Honours

Donegal’s David Meenan is back in action in the C1 Challenge this weekend as the series visits Snetterton for no less than seven hours of on track action over two days. Qualifying will take place on Saturday morning before a three-hour contest that afternoon caps off the action for day one. They’ll then return on Sunday for a slightly longer four-hour bout.

Meenan was part of the winning team at the hugely popular Silverstone 24 Hour race at the end of May. Teaming up with Steven Weller, Mark James and Sam Weller to form Hybrid Tune – Full Circle Racing- they were in the mix for the duration of the 24 hours and took the chequered flag with a winning margin of just 48 seconds from the AB Motorsport squad, with no other teams within two laps of these two.

Motorsport.ie spoke to David post Silverstone to find out what his background was and how he got involved: ”

My Uncle was a rally man and got me hooked in motorsport.   I’ve been working in motorsport since 2009, I was a tyre designer with Dunlop Motorsport doing ALMS, N24, WEC etc. For 5 years. I then worked for Greaves Motorsport LMP2 doing WEC and ELMS from 2013. Had another stint in tyre industry from 2017-2020 with Goodyear.  Currently I’m working with Hybrid Tune as team manger for their Mini Challenge activities supporting the BTCC TOCA weekends.

Competition wise as with a lot it’s financially driven so difficult to get a budget together… the same old story! I would love to be doing more but sometimes have to be somewhat sensible…

I only started club Karting when at university in Swansea. I managed to do some track day trophy races in a Clio 2010-2011 with another Donegal man and won our first race out. A few years later I done another race in a BMW compact again winning our class with a friend Tim Gibson. “

“C1 wise I am a part owner of a team Ecurie Celtique, we built a car and raced in 2019, we finished P18 at Silverstone 24. We raced that year with Stephen James, James Lyons, George Grant and myself.  Stephen enjoyed it so much he bought 2 cars and we planned more races as part of another team, Hybrid Tune running 2 cars 388 and 397. We’ve done Snetterton, put it on Pole and Second. Came P2 397 and P3 in 388(I was in 388 for this one). We also done Spa 24 with both cars, 397 ended up P3 following an exclusion of race winner for a decked block.. I was P2 last year at Donnington in 388 with myself Simonds and Mockett. We were on for a win but red flag came out with 5 mins to go. My last C1 race out (pre Silverstone) was Thruxton, I put it on pole in damp conditions and we won the race in 388, with Stephen James, Ben Simonds and myself.”

The C1 Challenge races on Saturday for three hours from 3.25pm and Sunday for four hours from 2.25pm and we will be keeping a close eye on the Irish connection to see if they can keep up their recent winning form!

Action images from Michael V Greenway.