Category Archives: Products

What tools do I need?

21 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by in Formula Vee, Products, Rules & Regulations, Uncategorized

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A common question when people are looking to start racing in Formula Vee with their own car is “What tools do I need?”

The easy answer to this is “All of them!”, and as with everything, your collection will grow and grow. One problem we’re having at the moment is the weight of getting everything we need to the circuits using an old VW camper van – but I don’t want to digress into transport issues for this one, so back to tools.

There are some essentials that you’ll use a lot, and you need to really get these together to have any sort of chance.

I’ve asked Glenn and a few drivers what they’d say are essentials – but even that isn’t very clear as you’ll need different stuff if you’re doing your own engine/gearbox etc. Here’s a basic list:

  • Spanners from 6mm-20mm
  • Sockets from 10mm-22mm
  • Plug spanner
  • Huge filthy great breaker bar
  • Big socket nut for the flywheel
  • Hammers (ball head, soft head)
  • Philips/Flat head screwdriver
  • Pliers (thin nose and circlip)
  • Wire cutters
  • Tyre pressure gauge and pump (you can borrow these trackside but best to get your own!)
  • Brake bleeding kit
  • Jack (add stands and a quicklifter for luxury)
  • Hacksaw
  • Files (flat, round etc)
  • Feeler guages
  • Duct tape
  • Plastic ties
  • Lock wire
  • Metal clamp rings (for fluid pipe fixings etc)
  • Fibreglass repair kit
  • Fuel can 20l x 2 (you might just get away with one can)
  • A weird length of rubber to shove in the petrol tank to try and see how much you have left
  • Rags/towels (save your old socks and y-fronts!) for cleaning, mopping up and wiping your feet before you get in the car
  • Slave/jump battery
  • Some kind of heat is a massive help, be it something for welding/undoing tight bits or a hairdryer to warm your hands up.
  • Gazebo – you can survive without one, but we’ve broken and bought one, finally!

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You’ll also need the more consumable stuff:

  • Engine oil
  • Gearbox oil
  • Brake fluid
  • Fuel – Tesco and Shell do 99RON petrol at the pump, or race fuel is allowed up to a certain octane rating (see rules)
  • WD40 (the anti-duct tape)
  • Brake pads (we use standard Beetle road pads, as the car is so light they work as well as anything)
  • Brake cleaner spray
  • Gaskets (for everything gaskety – some silicone might also come in handy)

You’ll notice I’m not giving specific oils, as people get all secretive over that, and what people use will vary quite a bit! I know people using DOT3 brake fluid and DOT5.1, but we have no reason to think DOT4 won’t do the job, for example.

When you get to engine oil you’re really into stormy waters – fully synthetic oil is great, but does a 50 year old engine really need it, especially as today’s mineral oil is many times better than the best oil F1 was using back then…? Or do you go middle and get semi-synth, and what weight?

Anyway, this lot should give you a rough idea of how to come in at the cheaper end of things and still make most things easier for you – feel free to add anything you’ve missed, or pick holes in anything I’ve got down here, too!

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Ban The Grid Girls!

01 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by in Fitness, Products, sponsorship, Uncategorized

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Today, the motorsport world has been divided as the top level formulas have banned grid girls.

The Brolly Dolly, a staple of just about any televised motorsport, will now no longer be a thing in Formula 1, and this will no doubt cascade throughout all forms of motorsport.

I can kind-of see why the decision has been made, but think the reasoning misses some huge factors, and rather than stopping degradation of these women will only hurt them.

First off I should say a few things. Formula Vee does not have any women on the grid holding umbrellas for us. If there are women around the cars at all, they’re normally driving them, friends and family, or taking pictures. There is no point at our level, as grid girls are purely employed to look good and promote a brand.

Despite how everyone these days tries to be politically correct, sex still sells.

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And let’s face it, standing holding a flag on a grid isn’t exactly grinding on men in a shady club where they’re at risk of being groped.

Are they being objectified? Maybe – but they’re also earning a lot of money and every single one of those women are there through their own choice because they want/love to do it!

They work hard staying fit and taking great pride in their appearance, and although there will always be a few idiots, most of us respect them and what they do.

These grid girls are feminists and feminine – some are mothers and some hold down high level careers away from their modelling work – some begin or boost their careers by doing grid girl work.

It sounds to me like a lot of the people crying to ban grid girls think by doing so all the girls will suddenly become racing drivers, mechanics, team bosses, marshals etc, or whatever they deem to be a ‘more respectable’ job/hobby/position.

They won’t, because there are already women doing all those things, and grid girls just want to be grid girls.

And they should be allowed to do what they want without being shamed for it, and especially not told they can’t do it by someone who isn’t doing it themselves and probably has no place supporting the motorsport industry anyway.

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This is only my opinion, and please feel free to comment whether you agree or disagree – I just feel bad for the girls knowing how excited they get about being given the privilege of appearing on the grid supporting their heros or whatever their reasons for doing it.

By banning grid girls you’re not empowering these women – you’re just putting them out of work and potentially destroying their career.

So who is that helping?

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Online Racing: Steering wheel upgrade

22 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by in Products, Technique, Uncategorized

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Online Racing: Steering wheel upgrade

I’ve posted before about my first experience of iRacing – online simulation racing.

Although I am still playing iRacing, it’s not as much as I’d like to, as it does take a fair bit of commitment, time-wise.

However, the biggest change here came when I upgraded my steering wheel and pedals, upgrading to a Logitech G920 state-of-the-art wheel and pedals set!

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This was very expensive. The last generation wheels still sell on Ebay second hand for upwards of £160 – and the G29/G920 costs around £400 to buy new!

When I had decided that I may as well spend the kind of money you’d spend for a practice day on a wheel, I saw a G920 on special offer for not much more than a second-hand G27 wheel, and so bit the bullet.

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I also paid about £30 for a stand for it all, so I could set it up, sit and use it on the couch, and then put it all away again when I wasn’t using it.

Cars that were previously undriveable on my old controller suddenly felt great with the force feedback and weighted pedals.

I’d tried Project Cars before, and couldn’t even survive a lap – but now all of a sudden that game was back on.

And the way that the tyres behave on Project Cars is much more realistic. It lets you drift the cars around more, and the Formula Rookie (Formula Ford) car is closer to a Formula Vee than the Skip Barber racer on iRacing.

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Project Cars also has a fair number of tracks that we use in real life – Snetterton 300, Silverstone International, Brands Hatch, Donington Park, Cadwell Park, Oulton Park…

The gear ratios of the Formula Rookie are way out compared to the vee – especially the first 2 – but still useful for getting a feel of things.

With the new G920 the difference between driving a single seater and a classic touring car is profound, with the heavy, stable and direct feel of a Formula car pretty well mimicked, and the relative floaty, unresponsiveness of a saloon car a very clear difference.

At the moment, the quick way that I can set up a few short races on Project Cars is winning over the hour or so minimum you need for iRacing – but I’m not going to cancel my membership.

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I also made a demo video to try and show it in action:

JooVuu – Action/dash cameras!

26 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by in Formula Vee, Products, sponsorship, Uncategorized

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JooVuu – Action/dash cameras!

I get a lot of comments about the quality of the onboard footage from races.

I’m chuffed to bits to be able to say that we’ve finally got some new stickers on the car to bring British company JooVuu into the limelight, who have been supplying me with cameras, accessories and amazing support right from the start!

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JooVuu are a UK based company with an awesome range of products such as dash cameras and action cameras – go check out their website.

I started using a Mobius Action camera, as I’d used them on motorcycles and found them absolutely flawless, never letting me down, and being a much better shape than the ‘more boxy’ competition, but with the same quality and amazing support.

Even better, I saw that JooVuu were taking this idea to a new level with their very own JooVuu X micro camera! You’ll notice this massive jump in the (already good) quality over the Mobius in my footage from Brands Hatch and the recent Anglesey race.

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Still at a fraction of the price (and more on that in a moment…) of the competition, the JooVuu X boasts a huge 2.5k Super HD resolution and 1080p 60fps – In short, this gives amazing quality footage that looks extremely professional.

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The thing I like even more about JooVuu is that they are constantly listening to customers of the JooVuu X and tailoring the cameras to exactly what they want – for example it’s very easy to update the cameras with the latest free firmware releases, which iron out any bugs people have found and make subtle changes and improvements based on feedback and testing. This also means you don’t just buy a camera and live with it – it’s constantly getting better!

Despite having no screen on the camera itself, JooVuu have developed apps for Apple, Android and Windows systems that will stream footage to your mobile or let you change the massive range of settings by WiFi or cable connection.

Obviously I’m using my JooVuu X as an action camera mounted on my racecar – but they do just as great a job on the road as a dashcam, or mounted on radio controlled aircraft and drones.

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If you want to upgrade your current camera to a JooVuu X, I even have a deal that will get you one with FREE tracked shipping for only £89.99! Just enter the code YAY10 at checkout for this great deal.

It’s great to be able to highly recommend a product that I genuinely think is the best out there, and even better to have JooVuu on board with James Cater Racing and Racing Team Vee (more about RTV soon!).

Don’t forget to come to Dubtoberfest on 30 & 31 July to get a closer look at the new sponsor stickers and what the compact JooVuu X looks like on a Formula Vee racing car!

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