Mallory Park 14th October 2012

Mallory is not my favourite circuit, but with the 2nd place battle set up with Steve i was looking forward to it!! I didnt qualify great but Steve had a problem meaning he was starting well behind me. I got past Dave after a couple of laps, but could see him and steve close behind, steve got past Dave and i could see him looming in my mirrors, i missed a gear at the hairpin, and steve nudged into the back of me, no problem only a kiss and we accelerated out of the corner, next thing i know there is a car on my roof, which then drives down my bonnet and bits of cars are everywhere. I end up sitting in the car on the side of the track looking around wondering what the hell has happened, Steve is impaled in the armco, and Dave (who was the car on my roof) was no where to be seen.

Luckily no one was hurt, Dave was parked on the apex of the Devils elbow (nice!) with the front car of his car missing, not upside down in the lake like i imagined, Steve was fine, unlike his badly bent car, and my dive for freedom (and roll cage) had saved my head (and life). It looked unlikely that any of us would make it out for the 2nd race, upon further inspection, Steve and Daves weren't going anywhere soon, but my car had only had its airbox and injectors pulled off and the body work destroyed (again). Luckily i actually had my old bonnet with me, so a bit of gaffer tape, tie wraps, and a big straightening bar meant i could get out for the 2nd race. I only needed to get 1 point to get 2nd in class overall, so infact only needed to line up on the grid, but stayed out there and got a rather poorly driven 3rd in class. To be fair my head wasn't up for the race at all, the accident had shaken me up, and my hatred for Mallory only confirmed.

Photos:-


So i got 2nd in class for the season, which was my aim this season, so success, and another step up the ladder. It also transpired that i achieved 4th overall so get the no 4 next year, another move up. But its been a frustrating season, lots of problems and many many hours spent in the garage repairing lots of damage. Also 5 DNF's, very irritating!!! If other class F'ers hadn't also had such a torrid season i would have never have got 2nd, so count myself very lucky in some ways.

Donington Park 2nd September 2012

Sorry its been so long, i just dont seem to have any time to keep up with this!!! I'm not going to go through everything now, plus i lost some photos off my phone and some video, so cant do a full report anyway.

After the Anglesey disaster i was feeling rather nervous about the race and my chance of 2nd in class for the season was all but over, i just wanted to finish both races and go home with the car in 1 piece. I think my qualifying highlighted this as i was 4th in class and nearly a 0.7s slower than Steve and Paul Rickers. I had an awful start in race 1, and dropped back another couple of places in class, but Steve then had a problem  (i think his undertray got bent into his back wheel) and had to retire. Colin Spicer who had got past me on the my tentative start, spun off the chicane. I then managed to get past Dave Watson (who was going well) on the 3rd lap. I couldnt catch Paul Rickers and had consigned myself to 3rd, but on the last lap i almost went off on oil at Mcleans and then saw Paul on fire at Coppice (oil leak caused the fire). I can honestly say i have never been so gutted to get 2nd place, Paul had a rotten run of luck and deserved the 2nd place

The clutch had been getting more and more snatchy through the season but i had just lived with, but after my woeful start we decided to have a look at it before the 2nd race. This turned out to be rather fruitful as we discovered 4 of the plates had broken up!! I have no idea how the clutch was still working, but it was consigned to the bin and another one fitted.

Race 2 started better, Steve was ahead of me with 2 class R cars in-between us, but it was inevitable they would get past steve so decided just to follow them round until then, then mount my attack on steve. The plan was all going well and i was tucked up right behind him, then his clutch went and he had to retire again. I was gutted as i was really looking forward to a proper battle with steve. Between us we had a lot of problems through the season and actually only both finished the same race twice! So i collected 2nd place again with an easy drive, and with steve not finishing it meant we were both on 99 points with the last race of the season at Mallory lined up as the decider.

Photos:-

Angelsey Video

Well i'm back online now so here is 32 seconds of footage!! I cut the few laps out i attempted after the collision as it wasn't very interesting other than the horrific handling! Race 2 was equally as bad and cant bring myself to edit it!

Anglesey 3rd-4th August 2012

Well i dont know quite where to start!!!!!  We managed to get the car back together with a day to spare, mainly down to dad who spent hours and hours sorting stuff out, including loading all the bus up for me as i was stuck at work. I had replaced the the lower wishbone mount, straightened the steering rack mounts and reset all the geo, then dad and i spent the tuesday before race weekend reseting and mounting the bodywork. Making the body work now we have the mould is the easy part, its all the faffing about getting it mounted that takes the time.

We set out thursday evening as had the friday test day booked, we had high hopes for the weekend, a full days testing, 2 races and the RGB BBQ should be a perfect weekend, especially if the weather would stay dry. The weekend was 3 hours in when the first incident happened, whilst unloading the bus (10 minutes after arriving), one of the spare wheels stacked ontop of the upper level in the bus decided it would try and unload itself, launching itself from the upper level, and landing ontop of my head while i was knelt down undoing the wheel straps. This almost knocked me out, i was dazed and lying on the floor, with blood dripping down my forehead. Dave came to the rescue and bandaged me up like Basil Fawlty in "The Germans"!! After cutting my head at doni in a similar fashion Bob had said he carried medical kit and could have stitched it up if he was there, unfortunately he wasn't at the circuit again, even though he had planned to be there. This time his 3 year old motorhome had decided to spit its guts out in the middle of nowhere and was waiting for various RAC people to arrive!

Waking up Friday the weather didn't look too promising, but the 3 sessions in the morning stayed dry and other than a small twiddle on the front dampers the car was feeling great and really planted. I was in the 1min 14's, and was certain i could get into the 13's in the afternoon, which looking at others times should have put me up at the front of class F alongside Al. During lunchtime we borrowed Bobs corner scales (who arrived at 7.40am after a torrid evening!) and set the ride heights. During lunch we had a heavy downpour, but by the time our first afternoon session arrived it had stopped and the track looked ok. I decided to go out and was surprised how grippy the circuit was. The next session is when the weekend took a turn for the worse, whilst approaching Church i saw yellow waved flags, so i backed off and soon saw Arthur (owner of Geoff Masons old Spire) sideways on the xit point of the corner, i had 2 choices, try and come inside him, or scrub off a bit more speed and take to the grass. I chose the latter as decided it was less risky, which in a normal situation would have been the correct decision, but following some distance behind was a locost who obviously feels the need to ignore yellow flags, doesn't understand the flag system or is completely blind and proceeded to punt me up the backside, removing my rear undertray and bending the stays. I was fuming, something you will see in my video when i get round to uploading it (no broadband at home at the moment, thanks Virgin!), the only saving grace was my damage was repairable and the impact with me probably saved Arthur from being T boned by the idiotic locoster!!! Just to rub salt in the wounds i had to go and see the first aiders and bumped into the offending locoster, he never even made an apology just saying he had no where to go, which i suppose is true if you dont bother slowing down for stationary cars and yellow flags!! William did find the car later and give it a kick which made me chuckle.

Spaghetti bolognese and a few beers were consumed with team greenway and mortimer in the bus, listening to rain pounding outside. Dad and Jen attempted to drink as much wine as there was water failing from the skys, only giving up when Bobs home brew dried up!

Saturday morning arrived and was dry, we had to refit the undertray after the previous days repairs and then headed of the usual fun of scrutineering. I went out for practice towards the back of the pack, but managed to get a clearish 3rd lap and then had a decent 4th lap but ran wide on the exit of the final corner and ran over the grass, this caused lots of grass to fill the radiator mesh nd i had to pull over as the car started to get too hot. These 2 laps put me 12th (3rd in class) on the grid for both races, which was a little disappointing as the times i was heading for on friday would have put me alongside Al. Before th race we had nothing to do so decided to fit the new stickers from my new sponsor. Autotech (www.autotech.co.uk), who i work for, have agreed to sponsor me (hence the new website title). They are starting up a new training academy, taking on 20 fresh faced young people to help them with their continued growth and expansion. We finbished the stickers with only minutes to spare for the race. Dan decided that he would get some shots during the race to show the new livery off. But the weekend was about to get a lot lot worse..... I had another below par start and entered the first corner on the inside of Tim H's rear end, Dave Watson was in a similar position on my inside and his front end and my rear corner had a small kiss, this slight touch sent me into a spin, collecting Tim, after 180 degress of spin my rear corner struck Daves rear wheel in a fairly hefty blow, lifting my car into the air and accelerating my spin, sending my front end into tims rear corner again. The resulting evasive action of other drivers had caused James W to lose his bonnet and throttle bodies after catching the rear of David Wales BDN, plus numerous other cars taking to the grass. This incident finished Dave Watsons, Tims and James's race. I continued for 5 laps, and although the car seemed to be handling OK it was getting very hot, and i ended up pulling off after the first corner and hastily removing the bonnet as smoke started to come from the front side pod. This turned out to be the GRP smouldering on the exhaust, so thankyou to the marshalls for helping me pull it all clear.

So after that rubbish race we spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening trying to patch the thing back together with aluminium, pop rivets, tie wraps, ply wood and miles of gaffa tape. If it had been raining we wouldnt have bothered and just turned to the wine and beer and missed sundays race, but as it was dry we decided it was againts the RGB spirit and got on with it.

I was supposed to be on the burners for the RGB Marshalls yearly BBQ, but ended up making a late entry due to all this messing about. Lukily my fellow RGBers, Mr Strongbow and Mrs Stella made me forget my troubles and we had a fantastic evening, involving a pyromaniac doctor, chinese lanterns and finished of by a reverse Houdini father (you all know who you are!!)

Sunday was dry again, but the rather patched up car was about as good to look at as myself and few of my fellow revellers. By the time the race came i was feeling normal and ready to try and redeem the weekend. I made a tentative start just trying to keep out of trouble. Dave Watson got ahead of me, but at church there were a few spinners and i was  3rd in class behind Dave. Dave was going well and i had a couple of rear engined cars nibbling me from behind, the car wasnt feeling right though, the back kept stepping out and i was struggling to hold the car on line. Tony and Dave Wale got passed me and there was now a bit of a gap to Dave Watson infront, i managed to close the gap down, but the car really didnt want to grip at the rear, i was aware the temperatures where getting very hot and i think the water was starting to boil over, lubricating the track just infront of my rear wheels. This all ended in a spin coming into the corkscrew, and i watched colin spicer, bob and steve bell come past me.

 I was determined to try and get infront of steve as he is my rival for overall 2nd in class for the season, but the car just wouldnt handle and it was getting even hotter. I ended up running wide at the first corner and doing some seriously high speed grass tracking, folding the front of the bodywork under the car and launching the car into the air. After getting back on the track it was obvious something was now very wrong, the temperatures went through the roof and the steering was all over the shop so ended up pulling off and retiring again.

From speaking to others it turns out the front was dragging on the ground after the first lap, the repaired bracket had pulled out of the GRP and allowed the front end to drop on the ground. Hopefully this was the cause of the unstable rear end and the airflow issues

So to sum up, a cr@p weekend of racing of the biggest magnitude, i've kissed goodbye to anychance of 2nd in class for the year and we have loads of work to get the car ready for Doni next month. On a plus side it was a great social weekend, and even after all the problems i wouldn't have missed it for the world!!!

We would just like to say a big thankyou to everyone who helped us over the weekend and lending us tools, parts and materials. I will be bringing a box of gaffa tape to doni to hand out replacements for the rolls we used!!!

Dans pictures of the weekend:-



Videos to follow once i have broadband again

Bus Habitation

After Emma's breif stay in the bus at Donington it was clear the bus needed some more creature comforts. The next job on the list was a set of overhead cupboards for the plates, mugs, pots and pans. We had already got 2 draw fronts left over from the initial kitchen build, these made perfect doors for the overhead. Rather than using heavy chipboard to create the frame, we decided to use plywood with a framework, then cover the ply in the same vinyl as already used to covered the fridge door. This is the stuff B&Q sell to cover your old melamine kitchen cupboards in an attempt to make them look better, but from our expirience of trying to lay the stuff without bubbles or crinckles i doubt any kitchens look better once this stuff is applied. We sprayed contact adhesive to the ply first to aid stickiness, so once the fake wood finish touches the surface it makes cleaning soiled blankets seem like a walk in the park!!!

There are a couple of wrinkles in this photo, which seemed to get worse as the eveing went on, no matter how often they were rollered down. But after a hot day everything shrunk a tad and the finish became perfect. We are not sure if its the glue causing this, or just what this material does, but the final finish is pretty damn good. The edges around the radius arent great though as they have started to lift, so we may add some U shape channel around these edges to hide it. 

I had a couple of hours spare on saturday morning so decided to and crack on with the flooring. The plan was to have a wipeable area around the entrance of the bus and the kitchen, and some sort of carpet in the seating area. Rather than normal lino that likes to stretch and rip, i thought it would be better to use some of the wood effect self adhesive vinyl tiles. These are only £5 a square meter and look pretty hard wearing. The floor of the bus is a softish, smooth type of rubber, so the self adhesive tiles should stick well to it, but to aid adhesion i decided to coat the floor in more contact adhesive before laying them. I have added an edging strip to the rear edge and will purchase some more for the other raw edges in an attempt to stop any of the edges lifting over time. I am pretty impressed with the result, and the shag pile rug i have bought for the seating area floor will finish it off a treat!!

Post Donington Assesment

Dad wasn't too pleased that i had destroyed the new light weight front end on only its second outing, and my suggestion to bin it and build a replacement wasn't met with much enthusiasm.

We may have the a mould, but the laying up is the easy and quick part, dad has put many hours into the finishing, preping, spraying and fitting of the numerous incarnations of the front end and bonnet. So the best option we came up with was to cut the damaged section off completely and put it back into the mould, and lay up the missing section.

The front undertray had also come delaminated, so we cut of the delaminated part and added a fresh layer

Once it had all gone off, the part was popped out the mould. It had come out brilliantly, just requiring a small amount of filler and a bit of rubbing down (dad likes this ;-) )

Back in my garage i stripped off the front end to assess the mechanical damage, praying there was no more damage that what we had seen from out initial inspection at Donington. I was really worried about what had happened to the scuttle area as the steering column had moved about an inch closer to the dash board and we hadn't removed the centre tub. Luckiy it turned out to be just the column slipping through the mounting clamp, so no damage in this area

 So after pulling it all apart the following the list of damage is as follows:-

• Bent lower Wishbone
• Bent rear lower wishbone pickup, chassis is fine, just the U bracket is bent
• Small dink in joining chassis member between upper and lower main chassis rails
• Bent steering rack mount
• Twisted oil cooler
• Mangled aluminium radiator ducting/floor

 

So although there is a bt of work to be done it isnt too bad at all. The damage has all occurred on the same corner of the chassis i rebuilt a couple of seasons ago (Pre 2010 prep), i used rather beefy tube to do this, added loads of gussets and my welding was obviously strong as rather than the entire corner being ripped out like a normal fury, it is all fine apart from the pick up bracket bending, infact it has completely bent, but the welding and tube is untouched. I have attempted to straighten the bracket, but am weighing up the option to cut it off and reweld a new one on. 

The steering rack bracket is bent slightly, but enough to move the rack to the jaunty angle and pull the rack forward, i haven't attempted to straighten it yet, but am thinking a small slice in the tube, bend it, then reweld it up.

  

Donington Park 23rd & 24th June 2012

The forecast was terrible, Friday morning was a complete washout, but by the afternoon it dried out and everyone who was there managed to get a few quicker sessions in, once all the red flags had stopped. I had an issue with my brakes, the front were locking up very easily and the pedal didn't feel right. Initially thought i had air in the system after refitting the rear axle, so we bled them again and did find a small amount of air. On trying them again, they were still not very good, the fronts would just suddenly lock up with no warning and the pedal was all over the place, no amount of messing with the brake bias made any difference. So we then turned our attention to the front, the pads were worn, and at home in the garage i thought they would be fine for one more weekend. On bleeding the fronts, black fluid came down the bleed tube, indicating it had been boiling. After a few pumps the fluid was clear again and no bubbles. Removing the pads showed the usual Hi-Spec trait of wearing the pads at a horrible angle, and all the paint had burnt and peeled from the pads. This must have been caused as the pads were too thin (worn), so we set about fitting the spare pads we had in the truck.

Unfortunately the standard elise pads which are the same shape as the Evo8 pads Hispec quote as the part number for these callipers, but are a few mm thicker but half the price. Normally dad puts these on his surface grinder and thins them down to fit, but this time he hadn't got round to it the, so he improvised and made a rather scary looking surface grinder from a hand grinder, a few clamps and a camping kitchen

You can see in the foreground an unground pad compared to a thinned pad. After about an hour of grinding and fitting we had the pads in place. A quick test showed that the brakes were back to normal, crappy and wooden, but at least i knew when they would lock up.

Friday evening a group of us went to a local pub Dave Watson recommended, the BOGOF offer was fully utilised as 75% of the group ordered the American grill which consisted of most of Derbyshire wildstock!! A few pints of pedigree were also consumed, making a dangerous concoction for Saturday!!!

Saturday arrived, initially looking sunny, but soon turned wet and Windy, but surprising the weather man was correct and it dried up. We had a late qualifying session so the track had completely dried out. So with the car on full dry settings i headed out, hoping i could close the gap on my Boulton, and keep ahead of Steve, Paul and Andy. Last year i was a long way of Al here, although we had just fitted the front end and was still trying to get it balanced. As it turns out qualifying was a bit of a black banana, most laps in the first 5 minutes had a yellow flag, then Mark Conroy in his rebuilt mission stuck it in the gravel at Coppice. I do think they should have red flagged the session, as for the rest of the session the marshals attempted to remove it under waved yellows, meaning we all had to back off, something i was especially careful to do after my rollocking at the start of the season from Viv! So the grid was going to be a bit of a lottery, and i really had backed off so was half expecting to be near the back of the grid. But to my surprise i was 11th overall and 2nd in class, so about standard or maybe even slightly better than usual for this season!!

Race 1 was fun, a reasonable start getting past Scott but letting Steve Bell get ahead off the line. By the time we came down Craners i was tagged onto the back of Steve, and then almost rear ended him at xxx as he slowed at the apex. The I then defended the line from Scott, although we aren’t actually racing class R cars, getting another car (what ever the class) in between you and the car you are battling with is not ideal! As we came down Cranners for a 2nd time i was carrying a lot more speed than steve and came past him on the right hand side, i turned into the old hairpin and all felt good, but ended up running all 4 wheels wide onto the grass, Steve must have liked the look of this so he added 2 of his wheel to the grass and we headed up the hill side by side cutting the lawn. Obviously as he was on the tarmac he managed to accelerate alot quicker than me, as did Scott and Tony and they all passed me, bugger! Watching the video back i managed to undo all my good work by over correcting and literally steered myself off the circuit, this is a habit i have to kick!! For a couple of laps i tried to get past Tony, which then allowed Matt to catch us after his spin at the pit entrance. I tried to defend my position so not allow another between myself and Steve, but all this achieved was to widen the gap to Steve as i was going slower. Once Matt was past i gave chase, and did close the gap down to Steve, until smoke was seen coming from his car and he retired. This left me 2nd in class with a decent gap behind to the next class F car, so i toned it down a tad and bought it home to break my run of 3rds this season.

My wife Emma and my 2 youngest boys came over in the morning to watch the race and were staying in the bus for the first time on Saturday night. Emma likes things to be clean, something the bus isnt. An old race truck that only has men sleeping in it at weekends, and an oily race car in it the rest of the time is never going to be the most hygienic of places, although i do admit we need to get our fingers out with the cleaning a bit more in the future. So Emmas first job on Saturday was give the place a spruce up, she said she couldn’t stay in it in its current state. I tried to blame Dan as he is our gimp and should keep everything in check, but she wasn’t buying that, so I borrowed a dust pan and brush from Bob and gave it to her. Emma had had the foresight to bring some of her favourite things, anti bacterial wipes, with her, so then proceeded to wipe down everything she could reach. The evening was a jolly affair, 3 BBQ's on the go, and another counties supply of livestock cooked and washed down with plenty of beer.

I was woken up in the night by heavy rain, very heavy rain and i imagined a soaking wet race and unhappy wife and kids. But as it turned out it dried up again, and the sun actually came out!! Race 2 didnt start as well as race 1, and it then deteriorated massively. I let a few people through after a fluffed start, and was alongside colin coming down craners. I wish i had kept my foot down and got past him as then the next sequence of events wouldn't have happened. Going down starkys straight i was tucked up behind him, but as we reached Goddards everyone infront braked fairly early so i popped out to the left and went past him, i turned into Goddards and headed towards the 2nd apex, unfortunately so did Colin and had rather a large impact with m y offside wheel. Colin span off (but managed to get going again) but i stayed on the track. As i went over the start line i was aware the steering was at a jaunty angle and the car did feel a bit skitty, especially under braking into Redgate. I thought i'd carry on for a bit and on the right hander of redgate its seemed ok(ish) but as i headed down to craners it all got a bit wobbly and it took all my effort to keep the car in a straight line. At this point i knew it was time to retire from the race, something i had not had to do before in a RGB race due to a collision.

The car looked a bit sorry for itself, the one side of the new nose was destroyed, the new bonnet is cracked, wishbone is scrap, chassis pickup is bent, oil cooler is twisted, steering rack mounts bent and headlight is no more.

So a successful Saturday, not so great Sunday, but all in all i still had a great weekend. Just to finish the weekend off though, the bus decided to bite my head while loading the car up and i had to go over to the medical centre to get it glued up. I think i may have ended up at the cafe by accident, as the woman who glued it up made a bit of a mess, applying far too much glue and dripping a load more into my hair in another patch (the dark patch below the blood). I am writing this 5 days after the event and my hair still has huge lumps of glue in it!!

Dans Photos of the weekend

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Get your own

Power sapping

I had suspected at Brands that the car was down on power, and at Cadwell i was convinced as i could only hit about 117 down park straight and the car really wasnt pulling well up the hill. Nearly everybody i asked was hitting 125mph+ up there, even the MNR boys in there mobile bricks. I checked the compression and valve clearances while in the paddock at Cadwell, and although maybe very slightly low and a couple of tight valve clearances it didnt seem to tie up with the loss of power, especially up the top end. But i decided to swap out the engine with my spare, which by all accounts stands a chance of being a better engine if what the guy i bought it off was telling the truth. So tonight we were just about to start removing it, but while i was just making a start, dad rolled underneath to have a listen to the noisy bearing in the diff that John had picked up on at Cadwell to discover a huge amount of backlash in the diff. When dad had rebuilt the diff at the start of the season he said the crownwheel and pinion where pretty worn and looked as if the case hardening had just about worn through. He said we should change as soon as possible when one popped up for decent money, but up until now it had been put to the back of the list. So after stripping it down we were greeted by the sight of a hugely fubared gear set:-

I think i was lucky to even finish the last race at cadwell as there isnt much left on those teeth!! At least this means no need to swap the engine and i still hopefully a have a decent spare. But was it does mean is a hurried hunt for a replacement 3.54 crown wheel and pinion.

Dad also brought up with him the modified lightweight bonnet, now sporting a rather huge growth

As the bonnet doesnt have a the central bulge like the old heavy bonnet, so a modification was required to the new light nose cone fitted for cadwell, the part removed has left space for a new air intake scoop, again made by dad from GRP. Its a bit like a Rolf Harris drawing at the moment, but you will all see how it works in the next instalment 

Cadwell Park 26/27th May 2012

Being a gluten for punishment i decided to travel up to Cadwell on the tuesday night for a day of driver tuition from Tim Harmer on the Wednesday, then return home that night, only to return again on Friday. Dad would be missing his first (and only) race of the season this weekend as he was in Monaco for the F1, it was gonna be a long and tiring week of driving!

So back to the driver training day with Tim, earlier in the year i had attempted the same event only to have the day cut very short with a cracked front disc. This time i was hoping for a better day, but after 3 laps the fuel pump packed in again!!!!! I had a proper hi-flow facet pump spare in the bus, so after 30minutes we were up and running again and set out with Tim in the passenger seat for a few laps. The car was handling like crap due to the extra weight causing the car to bottom out on every right hand bend, but Tim used this initial session to just evaluate my lines and gear selection. His first suggestion was to try taking some of the corners in a higher gear so as not to be so brutal with the engine, and also to gve me that bit more time (not banging through the box) to concentrate on my lines and trail braking. We wound all the dampers up by 3 clicks and headed out again. The handling was transformed just by doing this, ok it wasn't a sharp as normal but at least it wasn't trying to kill us every corner. We spent the rest of the morning and first half of the afternoon tuning my lines, trailing the brakes and trying to get me to dance the car through hall bends. I found this mentally and physically exhausting, thinking about so much stuff, and trying different things left me feeling completely drained by the time i went out on my own. After the first solo session my times were the same as last year and first run in the morning, but the difference was i felt like there was plenty in reserve and i wasn't on the ragged edge all the time, and i still hadnt mastered hall bends. I almost didn't do the final session as i was so tiered but after a handful of skittles and a sugar rush i felt upto another bash. This time i reduced my lap times very slightly, but came away happy knowing i could knock more time off by experimenting and carrying more speed through a lot of the circuit.

See the new lightweight front end and lights, saving 6kg!!!!

Returning to Cadwell on Friday without checking the car over since wednesday was a little unnerving but i just didn't have the time, or inclination as i was totally fubared to do it on thurday evening. So an early start on Saturday was required so i could give it the once over before scrutineering, as it turned out everything was fine and i was all fueled up and ready to race way before scrutineering. Scruitineering turned out to be a real joke, a couple Furys were pulled up on roll cages by a scrutineer obviously having a bad day and dreaming of some new rules the night before. This didn't effect me, my experience was of the most lax scrutineering session i have ever been subjected to, infact it was a complete waste of time and the guy didn't even notice my 2 cameras so when i went into the holding area i was pulled up by the marshal for not having video written on my pass ticket. I was then told i was over the noise limit and was almost made to return to the bus to repack the exhaust. As it happens i managed to blag my way through it and promise to get t repacked for Doni, but as it turns out nearly every car was pulled up for noise, so i suspect the noise meter was rather broken!!

Practice went OK, 3rd in class (again) and 16th overall for both races, but still off the pace from Al, who again was miles out in front from the rest of class F. More disappointing was that i hadn't really improved from my best time on tuesday, recording a 1.37.68. I had hoped to be scraping onto the 134's or at least the low 135's so i was a long way off. I still knew there was time in places i could go quicker, or at least try and string a lap of better sectors together, but realised my hopes of 134's were not going to be reached.

Race 1 started well with a staller on the inside allowing me to move up a few places on the outside and get upto 2nd in class. After a few laps john Goodwin came past in the spire, and my mirrors were full of Steve Bell (again), i made a few mistakes, plus watching the video back i definitely needed to drop the car down a gear in a few of places as it was lacking acceleration, something that can be seen looking at the rear view. But i knew this at the time and was trying to concentrate on getting the lines and trail braking right. Steve got past cleanly down park straight, closely followed by Colin in his BDN. The following lap Matt Higginson forced his way through at Park, causing contact as he ran out wide after a rather ambitious manoeuvre. I purposely didn't defend the line, as he was well behind me as i turned into park, but i was then aware he was coming up the inside with no way of leaving any room for me to continue my line or even stay wide without leaving the track, so i pulled out and backed off to avoid a big collision. There then followed a small amount of contact as i tried to stay on the track as he ran out wide leaving me no where to go. I did similar things when i first started, and ended up with a bit of a reputation (and constant battle scares on the car) and received one or two talkings to from various racers and Clerks of the course, but in response I like to think i have changed my driving style. So Matt if you are reading I'm not criticising or having a pop, just observing from the otherside of the fence this time ;-) . So i ended up with 3rd in class again, oh and a broken bit of new front end, sorry dad!!!

Race 2 again started well, getting up to 2nd in class of the line again, then being part of a gaggle of cars for the first half of the race with some exciting side by side moments, but eventually losing my place to Steve (again) and rolling in 3rd in class (again).

 Apologies for the video quality, i converted it using the wrong settings.

Trusty side kick Dans photos

Lightening the load

Before Brands we smoothed out the new front end into the bonnet and cast a mould. This meant the front was even heavier than before, but it means that we can now start the next step, reducing the car by 30kg! I doubt we will get this Fury down to the 530kg, although it would be very easy by just remaking all the bodywork, but the amount of time it takes will hold up the new car. But remaking the front endand using the lightweight front bonnet we have should reduce the car by about 10kg without trying too hard.

The front undertray was a bit battered n the existing front, plus we wanted to leave the existing front entact as a spare, so we made a new undertray. This was done with our existing mould, just a piece of hardboard and some D shape trunking. we tried using 2 layers of 300GSm this time, but it was just too floppy, so added another layer to the bottom surface, which also closed off the open sections left by the trunking.

Its looks good and very strong, but has turned out only marginally lighter than using 5mm ply, so next car we will use ply rather than going to all this effort!

Next up was the actual front end, 2x layers of 300gsm, with an extra single layer strip around the edges, produces a great piece, strong enough around all the curved syrfaces and corners, but the flatish front was still ver soft and would break if just pushed in with a finger. Adding another single layer to just this area increased it rigidity by about 3 times. With all the brackets and braces added the front is very stiff and only weighs 6kg, compared to old front end weighing 14kg! The lights are still to be added, but we should have saved 7kg making this front end!!!

Dads on holiday this week but will get it sprayed for Cadwell. Meanwhile i will be checking the car over, cutting down the the lower wishbones slightly to allow us to run slightly less negative camber and resetting all the geo based on this