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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