Time, money and work meant no testing this weekend, but it turned out to be a good decision as the test day was sopping wet and there were lots of red flags and some big offs, including one of our newer recruits Steve M in his red MNR. Unfortunately Steve spent 36hrs in hospital, but has no posted he is fine other than bruises and stiffness and will be back soon.
Friday evening was enjoyable as Paul and Della put on some drinks and nibbles in aid of their 25th wedding anniversary, which seems confusing as looking at them i'm sure they must have been married off in some arranged nuptials by their parents in their early teens, maybe its a strange Norfolk tradition ;-)
The sensibly timed walk back to the bus to get a reasonably early night with not too much beer consumed ready for the early start got sabotaged by Dave Watson and crew in their MNR gazebo, where i ended up being "force fed" Carlsberg until the early hours. At least i fell asleep quickly when i crawled into my bunk........
As usual the adrenalin of a race weekend meant i woke as fresh(ish) as a daisy on saturday morning and got myself and the car already for qualifying at 9.40. Qualifying was damp, with the final 2 laps suddenly drying out, although there were still some tricky little wet patches, especially around Woodcote. Woodcote is a nothing bend in a RGB car in the dry, but in the wet its nasty. You accelerate all the way through it from Luffield, in the dry fine, but when its wet the car is constantly trying to spin up the back wheels as you approach it and as you hit the apex the back can step out very easily and very quickly. This is where Steve had his incident on Friday, and demand serious respect in wet conditions. I qualified 3rd in class and 10th overall, but more importantly not far behind Al, although Derek had pulled out a good distance on both of us.
The day stayed dry up until the race before RGB, when it absolutely poured down. RGB and silverstone means wet, very wet, for the past 3 years (sice i started) it has rained everytime we have been there, including the birkett, and usually just before the RGB race. I softened off the suspension by 3 clicks all round and we all waited until the last minute to go to the holding area, not wanting to sit in the tropical storm. The track was soaked, puddles and standing water everywhere, so we got a green flag lap so we could all at least see how bad it was. It was terrible, there was no grip anywhere, and viability in the spray was horrific. The only good thing was that i do always seem to do OK in the damp, so i was quite looking forward to getting off the line. The start went well, i got a good start with not too much wheel spin and managed to make up a couple of places, including getting passed Al, but soon lost out to him at maggots where Tim P spun infront of me, leaving me no where to go, i tried to go inside but the car wouldn't turn due to lack of grip, i tried to go to the left of him but he was still travelling that way, so ended up just hitting the anchors and praying we didn't collide, luckily we didn't and i managed to turn in, but this allowed Al past. On the next lap Derek and Paul came together at the front, moving me up to 2nd, and hot on the heels of Al. Al managed to get past Rich wise in the Sabre and for few laps we all grappled for grip trying to find a way past. Derek suddenly appeared in my mirrors and got by me at Luffied, but i wasn't too bothered as i knew it would then mean him and Al holding each other up, something i could hopefully capitalise on, unfortunately a lap later little bit of over excitement on the loud peddle sent me into a long drift and slow motion spin as i came past the pit lane entry. Bugger! I didn't lose a place, but was now too far back to make up a position, and with no one in sight behind me i decided to finish of the race at sensible pace, not risking an off or a loss of points, happy to take 3rd, which i knew would move me above Matt into 5th overall in the championship. And thats how it finished, 3rd in class, 7th overall, and my highest ever finish in RGB. It was a shame i spun and couldn't have kept the pressure on for 2nd in class, but again i feel like i've made a step forward.
I'missing Oulton due to a relatives 90th birthday, but will be back for more at Pembrey, and i promise to keep upto date with the blog now, and even add some development or bus news.
Monday 29 August 2011
Late update for Snetterton - 30-31/07/2011
I decided to really go for it t snetterton and do a full days testing on the friday, ready for the double header weekend. The test day went great, a few small tweeks to the the damping and the car felt the best it had ever done, no understeer, no oversteer, just a nice drift that could be altered with a dab of the throttle. I went to bed very happy on the friday, not just to the amount of Stella i consumed in the evening but the fact i had knocked 2.5 seconds off my laptime since last visit!!!!
Some pics of the car with all its new bodywork, some say its ugly, some like it, and some say nothing, but it seems to be doing a job, and personally i think it looks great.
Practice went fine for the first 10 miniutes and i was putting some consistent 1.19.xxxx times in, but then the car started losing power down the Betley straight and i initially thought the engine was seizing (as had Paul Rickers during the test day!!), but after stopping at the end of the straight the car ticked over fine. So i decided to venture out again, i managed about half a lap before the power went again, this time i realised it was fuel starvation, but not when cornering, just when i was on on WOT. When we lifted the bonnet, the high pressure side of the system was still pressurised at 3bar, so i was confident it was something to do with teh low pressure scavenge pump or pipe pipe work. We removed the return pipe from the swirl pot and pumped the fuel through, it seemed pretty poor and the pump was making a strange noise, something i had noticed on the test day to be honest, but just assumed it was a lose nut or bolt vibrating on the internal ali panels. We removed the pump and tried it alongside a spare pump, and sure enough the spare pump floe rate was far better, so we replaced the pump and assumed all was ok. Trouble is i couldn't properly test it until the race as WOT and driving at 100mph around the paddock is frowned upon.
The race started, only to be red flagged on the first lap due to Bobs 45 seconds hell, involving 3 separate collisions (all none of his fault) and resulting in a very badly damaged green and white BDN. I'm happy to say Bob came out virtually unscathed and is already well into the the rebuild. The restart was a little less hectic, but 2 laps in the fuel starvation returned and i had to retire. But on the bright side i had qualified 3rd and 2nd for the races, beating Al for the 2nd race grid position for the first time since the engine upgrades.
Back in the paddock again, a physical check of the glass bowl filter (which visually looked clear when we checked it earlier) showed up that the gauze was almost tota;y blocked, this had caused the first pump to run under serious strain for a period of time, causing it to semi fail, but was also starving the replacement pump. Luckily the pump seemed OK, and a free replacement gauze from Andy got the flow of fuel going again.
Race 2 on sunday went well for me, and i felt that i again improved my driving, staying focused, making far less mistakes and controlling the old red mist. This resulted in my first 2nd in class F, and 10th overall. Ok my 2nd in class was less impressive due to the fact that Paul and Derek not starting due to mechanical issues, but never the less i'll take it!!!
Some pics of the car with all its new bodywork, some say its ugly, some like it, and some say nothing, but it seems to be doing a job, and personally i think it looks great.
Practice went fine for the first 10 miniutes and i was putting some consistent 1.19.xxxx times in, but then the car started losing power down the Betley straight and i initially thought the engine was seizing (as had Paul Rickers during the test day!!), but after stopping at the end of the straight the car ticked over fine. So i decided to venture out again, i managed about half a lap before the power went again, this time i realised it was fuel starvation, but not when cornering, just when i was on on WOT. When we lifted the bonnet, the high pressure side of the system was still pressurised at 3bar, so i was confident it was something to do with teh low pressure scavenge pump or pipe pipe work. We removed the return pipe from the swirl pot and pumped the fuel through, it seemed pretty poor and the pump was making a strange noise, something i had noticed on the test day to be honest, but just assumed it was a lose nut or bolt vibrating on the internal ali panels. We removed the pump and tried it alongside a spare pump, and sure enough the spare pump floe rate was far better, so we replaced the pump and assumed all was ok. Trouble is i couldn't properly test it until the race as WOT and driving at 100mph around the paddock is frowned upon.
The race started, only to be red flagged on the first lap due to Bobs 45 seconds hell, involving 3 separate collisions (all none of his fault) and resulting in a very badly damaged green and white BDN. I'm happy to say Bob came out virtually unscathed and is already well into the the rebuild. The restart was a little less hectic, but 2 laps in the fuel starvation returned and i had to retire. But on the bright side i had qualified 3rd and 2nd for the races, beating Al for the 2nd race grid position for the first time since the engine upgrades.
Back in the paddock again, a physical check of the glass bowl filter (which visually looked clear when we checked it earlier) showed up that the gauze was almost tota;y blocked, this had caused the first pump to run under serious strain for a period of time, causing it to semi fail, but was also starving the replacement pump. Luckily the pump seemed OK, and a free replacement gauze from Andy got the flow of fuel going again.
Race 2 on sunday went well for me, and i felt that i again improved my driving, staying focused, making far less mistakes and controlling the old red mist. This resulted in my first 2nd in class F, and 10th overall. Ok my 2nd in class was less impressive due to the fact that Paul and Derek not starting due to mechanical issues, but never the less i'll take it!!!
Sunday 28 August 2011
Update at last- Donington 02/07/2011
OK,OK i've fallen behind a lot!!
So just a quick recap, there has been another double header at snetterton and a single race at Donington. Plus the car has been changed a little bit!!!!! Oh and i lost my phone too, so lost all my photos of the development of the car!
Anyway to summarise, the new front end was tested at a test day at donington. The day didn't go too well due problems with the front brakes seizing, the car over heating due to the new nose and terrible driving by myself!! The only thing we learnt about the new nose was that it caused fantastic front end grip without slowing the car down in a straight line, but the resulting effect of the increased front grip was a rear end that wanted to become the front at every opportunity!! just lifting off the power caused the rear to step out, which resulted in a large spin and visit to the kitty litter at the old hairpin! The cooling issues also meant i could only try 1 hot lap before having to do a slow lap to cool down. We tried to combat this on the day by putting some ducting in from the nose to the radiator and fitting some aluminium to act as a gurrny flap at the rear to try and settle the rear end. This helped a little but not enough to cool the car or increase rear end grip. So we returned home a little miffed and contemplating binning the new nose.
With just under 2 weeks to the donington race we reflected on the results and decided the front end was worth perusing, but we needed to add some rear down force as the car was un-raceable (is that a word??) as it was, and hence the batwings were born (i have no photos of the adjustable "batwings", but the snetterton photos below shows the mkII version with them blended in). You will also notice in the rear picture we cut a lot of the rear bodywork out to save some weight, and the new curved undertray set at 15 degree
I had enetered the Allcomers to test the new setup, but due to the exhaust lamda bung falling out on the way to practice i missed the session and had to start at the back of the grid. It also meant i had no practice before the RGB session, which resulted in a time i want too pleased with, although it was still quicker than i had done before. But importantly the wings worked a treat, the car had become very settled, and after a bit of fettling with the gurney flaps on the trailing edge after practice the top speed of the car didn't seem to be effect by all the new aero aids.
The Allcomers tuned out to be the best race i've ever been in, starting 32nd (at the back) of the grid, with a lot of slower cars ahead always sounded like it would be interesting, but i never imagined it could be quite so much fun!! By red gate (turn 1) i had gained 11 places!!! Then for the next few laps i quickly climbed up the field until i met up with Dave Wale where we proceeded to have great sport for the rest of the race, trading places several times, although he did finally get he best of me, with us finishing 4th and 5th!! Not a bad result gaining 26 places and probably not finishing any lower than if i'd actually taken part in practice!! Unfortunately the camera didnt work so i have no evidence of any of these claims.
I managed a 4th in class and 8th overall in the RGB race, the setup of the car and hopefully some of my own driving development resulted in me closing the gap on the Al, Derek and Pau in class F, although i still couldn't keep up with them, but i was now racing a bit further up the field and feel like i'm getting there.
So just a quick recap, there has been another double header at snetterton and a single race at Donington. Plus the car has been changed a little bit!!!!! Oh and i lost my phone too, so lost all my photos of the development of the car!
Anyway to summarise, the new front end was tested at a test day at donington. The day didn't go too well due problems with the front brakes seizing, the car over heating due to the new nose and terrible driving by myself!! The only thing we learnt about the new nose was that it caused fantastic front end grip without slowing the car down in a straight line, but the resulting effect of the increased front grip was a rear end that wanted to become the front at every opportunity!! just lifting off the power caused the rear to step out, which resulted in a large spin and visit to the kitty litter at the old hairpin! The cooling issues also meant i could only try 1 hot lap before having to do a slow lap to cool down. We tried to combat this on the day by putting some ducting in from the nose to the radiator and fitting some aluminium to act as a gurrny flap at the rear to try and settle the rear end. This helped a little but not enough to cool the car or increase rear end grip. So we returned home a little miffed and contemplating binning the new nose.
With just under 2 weeks to the donington race we reflected on the results and decided the front end was worth perusing, but we needed to add some rear down force as the car was un-raceable (is that a word??) as it was, and hence the batwings were born (i have no photos of the adjustable "batwings", but the snetterton photos below shows the mkII version with them blended in). You will also notice in the rear picture we cut a lot of the rear bodywork out to save some weight, and the new curved undertray set at 15 degree
I had enetered the Allcomers to test the new setup, but due to the exhaust lamda bung falling out on the way to practice i missed the session and had to start at the back of the grid. It also meant i had no practice before the RGB session, which resulted in a time i want too pleased with, although it was still quicker than i had done before. But importantly the wings worked a treat, the car had become very settled, and after a bit of fettling with the gurney flaps on the trailing edge after practice the top speed of the car didn't seem to be effect by all the new aero aids.
The Allcomers tuned out to be the best race i've ever been in, starting 32nd (at the back) of the grid, with a lot of slower cars ahead always sounded like it would be interesting, but i never imagined it could be quite so much fun!! By red gate (turn 1) i had gained 11 places!!! Then for the next few laps i quickly climbed up the field until i met up with Dave Wale where we proceeded to have great sport for the rest of the race, trading places several times, although he did finally get he best of me, with us finishing 4th and 5th!! Not a bad result gaining 26 places and probably not finishing any lower than if i'd actually taken part in practice!! Unfortunately the camera didnt work so i have no evidence of any of these claims.
I managed a 4th in class and 8th overall in the RGB race, the setup of the car and hopefully some of my own driving development resulted in me closing the gap on the Al, Derek and Pau in class F, although i still couldn't keep up with them, but i was now racing a bit further up the field and feel like i'm getting there.
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