Is there really any such thing as ‘natural talent’? Can anyone just climb in a racecar and wow everyone else with their skills?
I don’t think so. At the very least, I KNOW that I certainly can’t!
I put in a lot of research before I began racing, and in a lot of ways it was that learning that fired my passion to want to race.
From an early age, most children (I’m not going to say “boys”, but writing this highlights another reason why girls might have a tougher start in the motorsports world) will play with toy cars, and watch motorsport on TV.
Then it will be the inevitable progression to video games.
Whilst this is all very fun, it’s actually teaching you a lot about the physics of how cars move, and with the games you’ll find you need to follow the racing line to win.
If you’re lucky enough, it’s around here that you’ll get to jump in a kart, and then spend the next 10 years learning race craft and driving first hand – however, if you’re like me that isn’t didn’t happen, and you’re at a definite disadvantage over all the child racers.
Then maybe you get your own road car, and learn the skills needed to drive a proper car. You may not be pushing the limits, but it’s all going into your ‘lizard brain’, where you don’t have to think about how to change gears, when to use the clutch, how to feed in the throttle etc.
Most potential racers will then do a few track days, honing those skills even more, and getting their brains used to driving quickly around a circuit.
Then there’s people like me. I did a handful of ‘arrive and drive’ kart sessions with no training or competition, rode motorbikes for 10 years (although bikes are great for sharpening reactions and getting into the mindset of improving skills), finally took my car road test around 5 years ago, and the first time I ever drove on a track was for the ARDS test!
I’ve done alright, considering – but what you won’t see from that CV is the hundreds of hours I’ve spent reading up on racecar physics, months of studying onboard videos in intense detail, and my mental preparation. It’s not easy, and there is no quick way, if you want to be serious about it all.
There are hundreds of educational racing books around. The grand-daddy bible of all of these is “Going Faster” by Skip Barber.
Another Vee driver – Ben Miloudi – kindly leant me this book when I first had the idea to race. I studied it like I was going for a PhD! Tyre slip angles, heel and toe, the grip scale, racing lines, sacrifice corners, and even what to do when it all goes wrong (clutch in and stand on the brakes!) are all in this invaluable book.
If books aren’t your thing, then there is also a cheesy 70s video version around – but, like most films, I found the book was far better!
The videos that I did find worthwhile are the onboard videos from other Formula Vee drivers. From these, you can learn the track, listen for the gear changes, and see where to hit the brakes and turn into the corners. Whilst you need to study the videos from the front-running cars, I’d also highly recommend watching the slower drivers as well. You’ll then see WHY the faster drivers are faster – braking later, getting back on the throttle faster, braking less, lifting off through corners or staying flat… It’s not perfect, because most footage seems to disappear (get your vids on YouTube Paul Smith!!), has no sound or has dodgy picture quality. And before you take a Paul Smith approach into your first ever corner, do be aware that your brain will scream “HELL NO!!!!!”, so make sure your markers are somewhere between the faster and slower drivers!
It’s also important that you’re watching Formula Vee videos. If you learn a circuit by watching an AC Cobra blasting around the place, you’re going to be in for quite a shock at how differently you need to drive a Formula Vee car!
Speaking to other racers can be a massive help, too – but do be aware that how they get through a corner in the pre/post race banter can be considerably different to what they do in reality! You’ll hear “Take that corner flat – don’t lift” quite a bit… Even if they are doing that, consider that they might have been doing it for 15 years and have the skill not to end up as a fireball against the pit wall – or they might just be a bit of a head-the-ball! So listen, but ultimately go at your own pace and push safely from there.
Glenn has been an invaluable source of information about how to drive – he’s got a championship win to prove he knows his stuff, and we’re happy to be both brutally honest with each other and realistic about what we should be achieving.
After these, the only thing left is to drive! All of the above will help you to understand how to go faster, but as I’ve said many times, there is no substitute for getting laps under your belt! Testing is expensive, but it’s pretty essential when you’re staring out – whatever experience and background you have.
If I had it my way, I’d do a test day at every circuit before race day, just to familiarise myself with it. That worked for, umm, one track last year, and this year could well be the same story.
That could be where a driving simulator like iRacing comes in to help! I’ll be posting a follow-up blog about that soon now that I’ve settled into it all…
Thanks to Tom for his comment on my last blog where he had several suggestions for future topics. I will do a few blogs trying my best to answer and give whatever information I might have, and hopefully others will find that useful, too!
I suppose the first thing for most is getting a car.
If you’re willing to go through the roller coaster that is building your own car from the ground up, you have 4 options – building a car, buying a new car, buying a used car, or hiring a car.
Build it yourself
If you are inclined to build a car from scratch, it’s worth noting that Graham Gant has been steadily improving his Worms Eye View (WEV) for years, and there is some fascinating tech on that beast. He’s a regular front-runner, and I’d highly recommend checking his car out in the paddock.
Perhaps at the other end of the spectrum, James Harridge and his Dad, Dave, have more recently used their karting expertise to build the Maverick. I’m sure you’ll be seeing this right at the pointy end of things in 2016, after they proved at the Vee Festival it’s a winner. In contrast to Graham’s tech, ask the Harridges to point out the chopped-up bits of old karts that make their chassis – and see if you can spot the Halfords socket used as the gear change shaft! This is no rat car, though, and they know what they’re doing – the stand out point would be the only Formula Vee that has TRUE ‘zero roll’ rear suspension.
The biggest problem with building your own car, is you then have the massive task of infiltrating the black magic secret MI6 type depths of engines and cams and all kinds of things that will make you go glassy eyed or fume with frustrated rage. Or just buy an engine from someone else and forever wonder if others have something that’s better!
Buying a new car
There are only a few manufacturers you can buy a new Formula Vee from.
AHS are the most prominent, and as you might expect, they’re also bloody good, and the aptly named ‘Dominator’ hasn’t seen much that can touch it for years in the hands of Paul Smith. The down side here is that it will set you back around 30,000 of your finest sterling! I believe their Challenger car is a little cheaper, and a lesser evolution of the Dominator.
Contact Alan Harding at AHS and I’m sure he’ll be happy to give you more information.
You can also buy a brand spanking new GAC 01 – details here.
And I believe the final choice currently is a Storm from SG Race Engineering.
Buying a used car
The GAC’s, AHS’s and Storms are probably first on the wanted list, but if you’re buying it is worth noting that spending £20k+ on a car won’t necessarily mean somone in a sub-£3000, 20 year old Sheane, Scarab or Ray won’t disappear into the distance! And there are people out there proving that the old cars are still competitive!
Because there are so many potentially competitive cars out there, they can pop up anywhere at any time. The Formula Vee groups on Facebook ( Formula Vee Championship UK and Formula Vee UK ) are the best place to spot these, but people will also advertise them on the 750 Motor Club and Vee Centre websites, and you’ll even see them on Ebay!
There are also lots of cars sat in sheds in various states. The Vee Centre are currently compiling a register to try and track down these cars, which will make it much easier for people to buy one. Watch this space, and I’ll post more info once the register is up and running…
For most people, assuming you can store and transport your car, this is by far the cheapest option to go racing.
Hiring a car
If you have little or no mechanical skills (or interest!), or you just want to turn up at a track like your F1 hero and jump in a racing car, hiring is for you!
There are quite a few people doing this in Formula Vee, and it’s easy to see the appeal, if you can afford it. You’ll be looking at paying around £500 – £750+ per day (it’s hard to be more exact as most hirers will tailor the package to what you want), and obviously the more you pay you’ll get a (theoretically) better/newer car with full technical and mechanical support, or they’ll just give you the car to get on with it yourself. You’ll still need to pay the race entry fees on top, possibly fuel costs, and then you’ll also pay for any damages, or an agreed maximum fee towards repairs.
AHS are the kings here, with a huge inflatable bouncy castle thing over their stable of cars, a huge transporter bringing their cars to the track and the expertise of Alan Harding and his experienced crew. Bears Motorsport run a few cars, but you’d have to get in quick to get a seat from them. Contact them directly for further info (the links for both teams should take you to their websites).
Then there are a few independent people and teams with single cars that would be tough to list here as I’m not sure if the seats are free this year! I know Peter Studer has two cars for hire this year. If you ask on the Facebook pages they’ll tell you what’s available – and if you read this and have a car for hire feel free to comment with details.
If our own plans for a full team pan out, then Glenn Hay will have 4 cars on track by 2017 and be offering them for hire.
Trackside support
There is another option midway between buying a car and hiring one, and that is to buy your own car but then buy various levels of support for race days and/or maintaining your car between races. This is also very popular, and AHS and Bears are the main ones for this, too. For extra, they may also store your car and transport it to and from circuits for you – so that part may be of use if you don’t have anywhere to keep a car yourself.
——
As to what to look for if you’re buying a car – that’s a lot tougher. Even if you’re buying a car that’s been a championship winner, it’s not to say all the best parts haven’t been butchered off it before it was put up for sale. My best advice here would be to take someone who knows what to look for with you – or at the very least ask around about the car and the seller.
So those are your choices – and there’s something there for everyone!
I’ll stress again that the best ways of finding any of these is to ask the current Formula Vee people! Sign up to the Facebook groups, have a look at the links above, and get yourself down to a race meeting and have a chat to people!
Easy, isn’t it? Now you just have to get something sorted ready for Donington Park at the end of March!
***EDIT***
As an extra, there are a few contacts listed in the newly published series regulations:
It is surprisingly hard to test a race car – especially if you have an open-wheeled/single seater – and it’s getting harder all the time.
A lot of the smaller (and cheaper) testing facilities seem to have moved focus towards hosting ‘driving experience’ days.
These are the circuits that you may or may not know about for testing:
Bruntingthorpe
Bruntingthorpe used to be great with it’s airfield runway layout and loads of run-off area, but this one is now out of the picture. They want you to produce your own liability insurance to be able to test there.
This liability insurance is the type of thing that trackday companies all have for their events, and your average Joe trying to get it for a day will find it almost impossible. If you have your own business, you may be able to find someone to cover you, but from my research it seems you’ll be looking at £250 for a day, then testing fees on top of that – so that no longer makes it a viable option. And that’s if you can even narrow down what SCOPE of cover you need – Bruntingthorpe are very vague when you ask any questions about this, and the impression is they don’t care or want you testing there.
That said, a few people do have cover for the year, such as Alan Harding from AHS – and if you’re in one of his cars you’ll be ok. He is not able to just let you do it on his policy, as insurance won’t allow this anymore.
I’m amazed that Bruntingthorpe don’t have their own insurance, because they are surely losing money?
Three Sisters
A forgotten little track up in Wigan, that I thought only did karts and bikes, but their website does indeed say that cars are welcome!
They seems pretty flexible, and will let you come and test whenever there’s nothing else on for £60 per hour.
They answered my email enquiry very quickly, and are helpful and friendly. There is also a fair bit of info on their website.
Llandow
Another small and forgotten track in Wales, around 20 miles West of Cardiff, where they actually used to hold Vee and Super Vee race meetings!
I sent several emails which were answered very quickly (thanks to Sharon and Louise!), and are also very flexible and relaxed over dates and times. Again, you can test there whenever they’re free, and they were happy for me to turn up “around 11ish” and book on whenever I was ready. It’s a bargain at £30 per hour, and although I was expected a boring but functional track to shake the car down on, I found I loved the place!
For less than a 50 second lap you get a very tight complex with flat-out high speed turns, a tight chicane, and it somehow has a million times more character than it should!
Short of these, you’re limited to paying through the nose for pre-race test days at £300-£400! Plus it will mean in most cases another night spent at the circuit, and if anything does fail it can be a busy old time trying to fix stuff so you can get out for qualifying the next morning.
If you keep your eyes open you might be able to squeeze into a test day for another series, so it’s worth checking out where Formula Ford, F4 etc are due to race. This can mean you’re out there with seriously fast machinery, and you might find you spend most of the time trying to stay out of their way…
If you’re in a tin-top you can take your pick of the many track days organised all over the place – but then you’ll be driving amongst a pack of Average Joe’s. Even worse is the added frustration of rules limiting where and how you can overtake anyone, so you might find you’re stuck behind a gaggle of Fiat Uno’s unable to pass for the entire session! The driving might also not be as predictable as you’d hope from MSA licence holders…
If you can get a few other Vee drivers to test with you, wherever you do it, it’s a massive bonus, because you’ll have some kind of reference point of how you’re doing. I blasted around Llandow all day thinking I was doing ok, but it wasn’t until I got to Silverstone that I found the other Vee drivers were gobsmackingly faster than me! You won’t get much from a test day where you’re not doing it right!
With an increased budget it would be great to cram in all the testing I could, because that’s the best way to get faster. At this stage I don’t know how much I’ll test this year, and most of it could well be turning up at a circuit and learning the track during the qualifying session – not ideal if you want to be competitive!
If I’ve missed anywhere, feel free to let me know! I hope this is of use to someone out there!
One of the main things you’ll learn about motor racing is that, much like the other ‘M’ word (Marriage), if you mention it, the costs for everything go up. So it’s best to try and ignore what you’re spending on it.
A few of you have commented on my claim to have a budget of £2000 to do a season of Formula Vee – and rightly so, because if you add up all the entry fees that alone comes to just over this figure!
Last year, I came into the UK Formula Vee championship very late, and only did the last 3 rounds. Added to this was a bit of testing, plus the non-championship Vee Festival.
So, the long and short of it is that it will cost more than £2000 to race for a season, but with a few large assumptions, it can be done for not much more than this.
The main assumptions are that you have your own car, you’ve already got a set of Hoosier tyres, you’re not testing, you don’t break the car, and you’re not actually attending every round.
The way the championship is scored means you drop your worst two scores, assuming you have attended and finished every round – because of this a lot of drivers with tight budgets will miss a round because it’s too far away or they don’t like the track.
The point I’m making here is that you can race in Formula Vee on a fairly small budget – but most people in the series don’t.
If you’re testing at tracks it’s great, and highly desirable when you’re new to it all, but you CAN turn up and learn learn the track in qualifying – as I have done for the most part. I would love to be able to test, but I simply cannot afford to, both in cash terms and time off work.
Whilst I’m spending £30 per race weekend on Shell V-Power straight from the pump (and isn’t it great that fuel costs are still down?!), a lot of the other drivers are using full-on Sunoco race fuel for £300 per weekend! Whilst there should be some advantage to the higher octane fuel, I’ll just point out that I’m beating people using this fuel – so there’s no way I could ever justify spending this! Or to look at it another way, if I had that money I’m 100% sure it would be better spent on a test day hammering around a circuit. Once I’m familiar with all the circuits this might change, but to a rookie there is no magical go-faster add-on you can buy that will help you win – you need time in the car!
If you’re hiring a car you’re going to be paying between £500 and £750 for anything competitive – but do bear in mind you can buy a car for £3000 and you’re probably going to do as well in that as a rookie as if you’ve spent £30,000 on a sparkling new AHS Dominator!
The great thing about Formula Vee is that you DO see people who are on a tight budget mixing it up with the more affluent drivers. I have the ‘honour’ of being one of the lowest paid drivers trying to race Formula Vee, and whilst that can be frustrating, it’s also very rewarding.
I don’t resent the ones with the big budgets – because whatever level of motorsport you do, you will always have teams with a bigger budget. And how much more satisfying is it to beat them?
Of course there are then travel and food costs – we cut that down by taking a lot of Aldi food (maybe I should get them to sponsor me?) and camping over at the circuit in the trusty VW Camper van! Others take tents or sleep in their car – those who can will drive back home or book into a B&B.
Another excellent thing about Formula Vee over a lot of other series is that it is, to some extent, gentleman’s racing. This means most drivers won’t go for silly moves to overtake you, and will do it safely. Of course that observation might change if you’re running in the leading pack, but it means you CAN put fears of being taken out to rest, and just drive and have fun. Nobody wants to crash, because that is expensive, and may well be your season over.
Perhaps equally importantly is that if it does all go wrong on or off the track, the other drivers and teams will do what they can to help you! We all want to be out there racing, and we want more people out there with us (as long as we can beat them)!
So, to revise my original claim with a bit more (reluctant) thought – you can race Formula Vee for a season with a budget of £3000. You won’t be able to be the best you can be, as you’ll have to worry about not crashing and barely testing (I have another blog about the cheapest ways I’ve found to test) – but that is still a Hell of a lot less than anything else you can do to race.
Happy New Year to you all! I hope you got what you wanted for Christmas, didn’t put on 3 stone in weight, and are looking forward to a great 2016!
One of my Christmas presents was a subscription to iRacing.
For those of you who are even later to the party than me, iRacing is an online racing simulation used by thousands of gamers and real life racing drivers from all over the world. You have to pay a monthly subscription fee (you can get this from $4 if you watch out for offers or take out a yearly subscription) which gets you some basic cars and tracks, and then you have to buy any extra cars and tracks you want for around $12 each.
One thing that had been holding me back is that I only have a laptop, which isn’t ideal, but at least I upgraded the CRT TV to a flat screen HD one recently! You can pay hundreds for specialist racing wheels and pedals, or even virtual reality headsets to really immerse yourself in it all.
I have an old crappy Madcatz 2 steering wheel for the Xbox 360 that I paid about £30 off Ebay. Surprisingly, when I plugged it into my laptop, it actually worked! It doesn’t have any feedback or vibrations of Ferrari logo’s, but it’ll do. A quick word of warning that my Xbox 360 controller doesn’t work with my laptop, for some reason…
I downloaded all the stuff I need directly from the iRacing website, and paid up with my voucher and details whilst that was downloading, and then after a quick calibration of my controller, I was ready to race!
It takes a while to learn how to drive a simulator, so don’t expect to be able to jump on and win everything. There is also a good/bad (haven’t decided yet!) rating and licence system, which in theory means all the nutters only into knobbling everyone else will stay racing against like-minded idiots, whilst anyone trying to race a bit more realistically has an opportunity to upgrade their rating so they are also put into sessions with equally sensible drivers.
The only problem here is that it’s very hard to get your rating up, because you either bin it as you’re learning to stay on the track, or you get taken out by idiots which lowers BOTH of your ratings – your fault or not.
Even with my controller, it feels pretty good straight away. If you get a slide on, it’s extremely difficult to get it back without spinning – but that’s what it’s really like in real life! This might put off a lot of gamers…
After my first few days of playing, my Rookie rating had taken a serious bashing (down to 2.19!) but my racing was definitely improving! Today I finally had a clean race where I finished 3rd after a great battle with someone I had a brief chat to after the race, and that endeared me to it all a lot more.
At my level all I can really do is race an MX5 around Lime Rock Park (nice little track!) on the hour every hour, or race ovals in the Pick Up Cup. I haven’t really driven any of the other tracks, yet.
Ovals are a bit crap – especially when you’re trying to stay out of trouble to get your rating up. The good news here is that there are two separate licences for ovals and road courses, so you could quite happily leave the ovals to the ‘Merkans.
You can also do Time Trials, where you have to do around 8 totally clean laps minimum within 30 mins. This is harder than it sounds if you’re used to Forza and other games!
I will have to buy some of the UK tracks to see if it helps my Formula Vee racing in real life, and the closest car in the game to a Vee has to be the Skip Barber car, so that will also be getting bought. I am looking forward to getting that out around Oulton Park, Donington and Brands Hatch. Snetterton should be in the game soon, and having just checked, not only is Silverstone there, but so is the International layout!
There isn’t any other game with those UK tracks on them, and there really are some cracking tracks from all over the world, with more being added all the time. There are also a load of instructional videos that apply to real life just as much as iRacing, and so I figure it can’t harm my race preparation.
If you’re on it, then please feel free to add me on there – weirdly enough I’m on there are ‘James Cater’.
If you’ve got any tips or advice for me, I’m open to it all – and feel free to ask me any questions, too!
Here’s all the action and moments charting the story of sliding into the cockpit for the first time, to blasting away from a race grid in a National championship!
Hope you enjoy it
You can’t believe how much work goes into videos like this – I had to go through every bit of footage, noting bits to include, train myself up on video transitions and stuff, spend hours compiling it all and getting it to fit, then scrapping so many cool overtakes that it broke my heart! Then another few hours processing, checking, and uploading it!
A lot of work – but I loved it!
Feel free to comment with any suggestion, improvements, likes or dislikes!
“Just throw it into the corner, and sort out whatever happens afterwards!”
I’ve done 3 championship race weekends (plus one non-championship festival) on a very tight budget, proved I can actually drive a proper Formula Vee race car, and realised my childhood dream!
2015 has been a pretty good year in terms of my personal development.
I’ve had huge help from Glenn Hay who’s basically carried me along the way, but have also overcome my own fears, doubts and lack of skill along the way!
Since coming to my epiphany of how to drive a Formula Vee quickly at Silverstone in my first race (hence the title, “Just throw it into the corner, and sort out whatever happens afterwards!”), I’ve realised it fits quite well with my attitude on life.
Take that gamble. Get off your ass and DO IT – and then deal with the consequences be they good or bad.
If you’re not pushing forwards into the unknown, well, you’ll never know what might have been possible for you.
I’m looking forward (bit of an understatement!!) to driving for Glenn next season, but am also acutely aware that I can’t really do this forever.
I still believe that it IS possible to do a season in Formula Vee for £2000, but I’m not sure it’s sustainable.
In my current job, that’s about all that I could spend. One big crash and that could easily wipe out my budget. Without Glenn to help me, I don’t think I’d have any chance of carrying on. Even if I keep improving and do everything right, realistically, I can’t afford this.
The obvious next step is to find some sponsorship.
I have a lot of ideas, but am also realistic in what I think it’s even possible to get from sponsors in this day and age, and in a race series that’s far from the BTCC or F1.
I may reveal my methods if they yield some success, but for the obvious reasons of competition, this may be the one thing that I won’t be very open about on my blog.
If you read this and would like to help me or the team out in any way at all, from fees, parts, to just getting your hands on at race weekends, then please get in touch!
For 2016 Glenn will be stripping the excellent engine in the Sheane, remounting the front shocks, and then working at getting the Ray and his championship winning Scarab back together, too.
Why?
Because 2017 will be the 50th anniversary of Formula Vee in the UK! We aim to have as many cars out as we can, and it should all be a huge year for Formula Vee, and for British racing!
My aim for 2016 will be more of the same. A steady improvement, and moving up the grid. I’ve proved that I can be quick even with a damaged car and injury, and I was still able to drive around these problems and get, for a total rookie, some pretty fine results!
I’ll be aiming to finish in the top 6 – especially on the tracks I’ve already been to. If I can afford to test before the races I’ll take full advantage so that I can hit the ground running. If I knock out my mistakes I can do well – if I can grab the car by the scruff of its neck and get confident with it at the limit, I can maybe surprise a few of the front runners!
I’ve had some support from JooVuu.com, and hopefully I’ll also be using one of their brand new JooVuu-X cameras. I’ve had a sneak peak of the prototype that arrived just too late for me to use at Brands, and it’s a proper quality bit of kit with loads of amazing features, and it should be huge for them. I’ll also be running multiple cameras where I can to capture all the track action!
Glenn is modifying the front shock positions, so that should also take care of anything I bent getting airborne at Donington, and then the car should be good to go.
Before that, the Vee Centre are holding their annual awards night this Saturday, with a lot of the drivers doing a bit of karting before! I’ll take a helmet camera for that, but with skinny kart experts out there I don’t expect to be winning anything there.
MSV run a yearly festival for Formula Vee at Brands Hatch, with some of the Irish Vee drivers shipping their cars over and getting out there with the UK spec cars.
We should be extremely grateful to the five drivers who made the trek this year, as not very many UK drivers entered – without the Irish it would have been very poor, and possibly been the last time MSV asked us to race…
That said, they were all really bloody fast, so without them, I’d have definitely got much better results!
Part of the poor turn-out may be because it’s mid-November, and it was so cold I thought I might actually die spending a few nights in the VW camper van in gale force winds, pouring rain, and temperatures close to freezing! How James Harridge survived it sleeping in his car next to us is even more of a miracle!
I’ve never been on track at Brands Hatch before, and not being able to afford the testing on Friday, I was planning on treating the weekend like a test session to learn the track for next season.
Qualifying
Despite the promise of a dry qualifying, it rained just as we were going out on track, and by lap 3 any chance of a fast lap was over. To highlight this, I spun on the exit of Graham Hill Bend, ending up facing the right way but on the grass. As I went through the next corner, the mud on my tyres combined with a cold, wet track resulted in a huge tank-slapper that I held on to – but the forces involved had done something to the car that wasn’t immediately obvious… I’ll come back to that later.
From there it was survival, with cars off all over the place – every time I touched the throttle the car went sideways. This was not ideal to learn the track.
All of the fastest times were set in the first few laps, and so I was pleasantly surprised to be 12th on the grid for the first race, when I fully expected to be last. Over from Ireland with his newly built UK spec Sheane, Adam Macaulay snatched pole over James Harridge, with another of the Irish – Joe Power – taking third.
The Irish Vees run on what looks like a dry track day tyre, and I thought they’d have no chance in the rain – but I was very wrong! For those who don’t know, Irish spec cars are 1600cc as opposed to our 1300cc, but they have smaller wheels, which changes the gearing and it all balances out quite well.
In the gap between races, I finally got to have a bit of a chat with Paul Taylor and his lovely other half (noticeably missing from my thank you blog as I hadn’t managed to get around to them earlier in the year). I don’t think it was related, but his car then burst into flames in the garage (nobody was harmed), which pretty much did for his weekend due to a few issues once they’d scraped the powder off!
Race 1
The camber of the track at Brands Hatch is like Rockingham – except it’s not a constant through a corner, and even the start straight has all kinds of crazy undulations that I’d never even noticed as a spectator. From my 12th place on the grid, I was pointing downhill, and had to grow an extra leg to operate brake, clutch and the loud pedal all at the same time. I actually use heel and toe braking in my road car as second nature, but not in the race car (which is what I learned it for!).
I didn’t make the greatest start, and Alex Jones stalled on the grid immediately in front of me, so I had to get around him, and Michael Sammon and Jamie Harrison both beat me to Paddock Hill bend. I tucked in behind them in a gaggle with Tony Mitchell and Colin Gregory, and whilst I was just about holding onto them, I wasn’t able to bother them at all.
I got an excellent view of James Jones getting very sideways on the power after an incident at Druids, and then with Joe Power still stationary there and Alex Jones throwing it in thepit wall, I had my very first experience of a safety car.
The course car was very slow at first, but it was a million times better than the red flag that would otherwise have been thrown, and after a couple of laps it pulled in and we blasted into the spray once more.
Tony Mitchell got a slide on out of clearways and slammed into the pit wall at the front of the group I was trailing, sadly ending his weekend (he was fine, though). Colin Gregory then spun coming onto the back straight, with Tim Probert doing the same a few laps after.
In 8th place, I could see Tim reeling me in, but there was no chequered flag to save me with MSV allowing us longer races than usual, and when he caught me with a few laps to go, I waved him straight through rather than try and block him when he was clearly much faster.
And that meant my first ever top 10 result, following Tim home to a 9th!
Better yet – I then found out the grid for race 2 would have the top 10 places reversed, meaning I’d be starting from the front row in 2nd place!
Ian Jordan brought it home first for the Brits, followed by Gavin Buckley and James Harridge.
Race 2
After having a quick chat to Colin Gregory, who’d be the pole man, about tactics and survival from the front row, Glenn Hay pushed me back out of the garage into the (still pouring) rain, but I had no gears. Fumbling around, I found something to get me down to the holding area, and Glenn got on the spanners trying to get me something driveable before we headed onto the grid.
As they waved us out, the 2nd gear I thought I could manage with turned out to be the first time all year I’ve got it into reverse gear! With the reactions of someone who realises they’re looking like a Knob-Head, I narrowly avoided putting Glenn through the fence, and found something to get me moving forwards.
I took my place at the front of the grid, hoping someone was getting some photographs, as it may be a while before I get there again – but as they waved the green flag for the sighting lap I found I was now in 3rd gear, stalling it and hoping all the rest of the cars saw me waving frantically.
I found 1st gear and blasted away, wondering whether I should be reclaiming my grid spot for the start of the race, or whether I should start at the back? Struggling to find any gears, it became a moot point, and faced with starting in 3rd gear or reverse ahead of everyone else, for safety I reluctantly peeled off into the pits. I figured I’d either find a gear and do a pit lane start, or retire so we could fix it for the final race.
Watching all the grid blast away, the marshal finally waved me onto the track. I had a pretty lonely race, but had fun with the car and finished 10th.
At the pointy end, an ecstatic James Harridge took his first ever win in the Maverick Vee built by him and his Dad, Dave – it’s still far from the fastest down the straights, but makes up for it all in the twisty bits! I don’t think the winners cap left his head for the rest of the weekend – and rightly so! Snapping at his heels was James Jones, on his first time at the track, and his fellow Irishman Gavin Buckley running at the front again.
Race 3
After a very windy but dry (apart from the Irish lads in the Kentagon bar!) Saturday night, the final race on Sunday afternoon seemed set to favour me a bit more. I’d be starting from 10th on the grid, but these would be my first dry laps of the track, and I wouldn’t have the luxury of a few laps practice to get used to it – the lights would go out and we’d be straight into the race!
Except the lights went out and I went from 1st gear to 4th, as even though we had all the gears back, they weren’t quite where they had been for the rest of the year!
This dropped me right to the back of the field yet again!
I passed a few as I got used to the track in the dry, and then I could see Alex Jones up ahead of me. After a few laps I wasn’t getting any closer to him – so I dug deep and started pushing harder.
This worked, and I found myself right on the back of him through Clearways. I knew I was still being too slow and gentle on the throttle around there, so upped my game a bit and got some great drive from the Sheane’s brilliant little engine down the main straight, pulling just in front but not able to hold the outside into Paddock, and then I made sure I got well out of the way as James Harridge blasted through to lap me into Druids.
Surtees was the only corner I’d got nailed, taking it flat in 3rd, and showed my nose up the inside but backed out when Alex kept his foot in as well, setting me up perfectly to cut back on a tighter line around Clearways. I also gave a thumbs up to the black and white #18 flag being shown for exceeding track limits at Graham Hill.
I was getting faster into Paddock, but still braking far too early, and Alex latched onto the back of me down the hill, diving to the inside into Druids (another corner I’d been pretty useless at all weekend!) and then had to back off again to let Adam Macauley come through on the lead lap.
Again my improvements around Clearways put me ahead into Paddock, and I held onto it this time and braked in the middle of the track into Druids on a defensive line even though I thought Alex had gone off, but he appeared out of my blind spot on the grass to the inside and slithered past me again!
I kept all my wheels on the track for once around Graham Hill, so I didn’t pick up a penalty, and still managed to launch well down the straight to pull alongside Alex. I moved to the right to leave him racing room as I tried to take as fast a line as I could into Surtees, but the curve of the track caught me out a bit (I actually thought Alex had moved across into me, at the time) and I had to jink left very hard to prevent our wheels touching. What I didn’t know is that Ian Jordan was also there ready to lap us (I thought we’d get through Surtees before he was on us and then I could let him through at Clearways), and he had to take to the grass as well.
I pulled out a bit of breathing room, waving Ian and Paul Taylor through when they lapped me, and then got my head down for a few laps trying to drop Alex, who was around a second behind me.
He then pulled his fastest lap of the race out of the bag on the last lap, closing right up on me through Graham Hill before I got very sideways into McLaren bend, just managing to hold a slide leaving big black lines on the track. I knew he’d move to the inside, so just straightened up and headed right for the outside of clearways to get my speed back up, before easing back over to block the tight line against the pit wall, and crossed the line 4 tenths of a second ahead for 11th place!
As an overall race weekend, it feels like I wasn’t really on the pace – but having said that I was only around 3 seconds off the lap times of the winners, so maybe it was just that all the racers who turned up were fast!
The gear selection problem was just an unlucky thing to happen, and it is very tricky to sort out gear problems on a Formula Vee because the gearbox hangs out the back of the car, and the mechanism is so long back to the gear stick that a tiny change somewhere in the linkage has a massive effect. For Race 2 I had to literally use my fingertips to change to 3rd and 4th gears up against the chassis tubing. Added to this, when I let go of the steering wheel, the car turned left, and so there must still be some damage from Donington that we need to find. Luckily, my wrist was much stronger, and was only hurting lowering myself into the car.
One bonus for us was that MSV allocated the pit garages to the open wheel cars. This is a massive thing to us, as we basically have a camper van and maybe an umbrella, and when it’s pouring with rain there is nowhere to shelter or do any work to the car. The Formula 4 boys probably weren’t quite as grateful, with their 40ft trailers and partition building teams on hand, but it makes life so much easier not to have an open topped car sat filling up with rain between races!
The festival is always good – loads of track time, great racing on a great track, and even the food is pretty decent at MSV tracks! Hopefully next year’s event will attract a lot more of the British drivers. A grid of 16 is far too low for a championship that had 37 cars at Silverstone, and again we can’t thank the Irish lads enough for not only making up the numbers, but giving us a bit of a hiding!
Massive congratulations also to Ian Jordan for his win, and James Harridge for his first ever two wins.
And so we go into the long Winter… I’ll still be finding things to blog about on here, but we won’t be expecting to turn a wheel until March.
If you want to get involved in Vee by helping us out at races, we’d be honoured with any sort of help! We’re still doing this on a shoestring budget against people spending ten times (and more!) what we are, and so any sponsorship you can offer, big or small, would be greatly appreciated – and we will work something out so all parties benefit.
I hope you’ve all enjoyed my blogs this season, and hope to see you all out there again next year!
I’ve been holding off on a season review/thanks blog – mainly because I’m racing at the non-championship Formula Vee Festival this weekend at Brands Hatch! Also, I was kind-of hoping to be able to say that my wrist is better after the Donington crash, but sadly that is not the case… And this will probably be the crappest post on this blog for most of you who read this stuff (and if you’re one of them, cheers for sticking with my ramblings!).
Anyway, I think I can now safely say that I have achieved my childhood dream.
I am a Racing Driver!
I have gone from playing with Matchbox cars on the living room carpet, to racing a full-on formula race car, and held my own out there, too! I have literally gone from no race experience – having never raced karts, raced anything at all, and not even done a car track day – to having a justifiable belief that I will finish in the top 10 of a national championship.
First and foremost I need to thank Glenn Hay – it’s been an honour and a privilege to have the help and support of a championship winner, and for him to even risk letting a total novice use his beautifully prepared Sheane has been amazing. He’s made sure I’m under no pressure at all, but in a way that’s made me want to get him even better results. He’s had to run around the paddock after me, push me and the car all over the place, and it’s 99.9% Glenn who’s slaved away on the car late into the night when I’ve had to admit I’m a bit of a mechanical numpty! I know he didn’t expect much from me as a driver, and the look on his face when I came into the holding area 11th at Snetterton was priceless!
I also have to thank fellow drivers Ben Miloudi for his advice and encouragement. Also James Harridge (who WILL be a championship winner!) for pre-race advice, braving the Silverstone Gestapo/Security to get me fuel, and race day chatter – and his mate Chris Kasch who I have a sneaking suspicion will also be on the grid at some point in the future. And Mike Oldknow and Nick Brown – who always race hard on track and have been big on advice!
When you race at a consistent pace, you find yourself mixing it up with the same people every race, and not only does this push you to beat them, but it’s good to chat to them between races and share advice. With this in mind, more thanks going out to:
Martin Snarey. He’s been a massive help to me, and we seemed to have a pattern going where I beat him in the first race, and then he beats me for race 2. I thought I might break this by beating him twice at Donington but then I cocked it up and he beat me twice instead! I’m hoping he returns to Vee next year, because not only has he been a major motivator on track, but he’s a thoroughly nice chap who’s always got time to chat, and the same can be said for all his race-day crew.
Tony Mitchell. I think Tony is one of the two people I’ve had more dices with than anyone. Again, he’s a great bloke off the track (I may as well not say this, because all the Vee drivers and crew are!), and I fully trust him to push me and stick overtakes on me safely. At Snetteron I finished a few hundreths of a second behind him, so I won’t get much of a closer finish!
Bill Stenning. This is the other car I’m normally to be found scrapping with. I managed to catch him for a chat at Donington, but weirdly before that had hardly spoken to him. I will try and chin-wag with you a bit more in the future!
Steve Bailey. His Dad used to race with Glenn in the early days of Vee, and he’s been nothing but encouraging to me since I was spectating.
Jesse Chamberlain and Jamie Harrison who are both coming on leaps and bounds, and happy to share advice with me. Also to Alex Jones, Ed Lowndes, Pete Belsey, Tim Probert (who says he’s never seen me without a smile on my face!), Sam Engineer, both Paul Smith’s, Wes Burton, Jack Wilkinson, Ian Jordan, Steve Ough (especially for pointing me the right way at Snetterton when I got lost in the paddock!), Peter Studer and Martin Farmer (who I hope gets back on the grid full time for next year). Oh, and speaking of part-timers, Chris Wilshire who’s been at the trackside this year but hopefully will also get back out there with us – He’s another driver I’ve been harassing for years with questions, and poking around his Sheane to see what he’s got that we need!
Also Graham Gant and his mate (told you I’m crap with names!) who proper saved our lives at Silverstone when we’d worked through any chance to get food, and they brought us over a few slices of pizza and a hot coffee!
And the fellow n00bs I’ve shared race nerves and new driver briefings with: Oliver Williams (you’re far too young to be that fast!), Francis Twyman, Patrick Liedke, Jack Davies…
And of course Alan Harding whose magic transporter of tools has saved many stricken Vee drivers in their hour of need! I think he was the one who came through with a steering link to get us out for race 2 at Donington.
Dan from JooVuu – who has been a huge help in making sure I’ve got onboard footage of every race. It’s the best learning tool you can have, and their Mobius camera has been outstandingly reliable, and they’ve sent me anything I’ve asked for to help out or replace components!
There are others who I haven’t had much of a chance to meet, yet, but I’m sure I will!
Not to forget all the brilliant marshals without who none of us could do this, the officials, and the trackside photographers!
And to my gorgeous fiancée Julie Kimberley, who’s had to put up with my outright obsession with all things RACECAR for the last few years, and shown nothing but support!
Lastly, I also need to apologise to anyone I’ve missed here. Even more so, I want to apologise to anyone I may have unintentionally blanked at race meetings – I’m still completely overwhelmed by the whole scene, and this combined with a crap memory for faces, an even worse one for names and matching up the drivers when they’re not in their cars, adrenaline/stress-fueled pre-race blinkers, and my pretty shoddy social skills means I’ve undoubtedly offended a few. It is a massive task for me to be thrown in with over 100 brand new people (drivers and their friends/family/crew) and to try and get to know them all! That said, I’ll chat to anybody, so if you think I’m missing you out PLEASE come and say hello.
You’ve all made me feel really welcome as a new driver – and whilst I suppose that doesn’t matter away from the racing, it does make it all a much more enjoyable experience!
A year on from the disappointment of paying over £100 per corner to test, only to get 3 corners in before the engine seized, and it was all over.
Of course, I’ve managed 2 race weekends since then – and finished 4 races, so this time coming back to Donington was greatly different.
Qualifying
Leaving the holding area, I gave it a big hoof of throttle and did a big rolling burnout up the track which was completely planned and intentional and in no way an accident. Ahem. We were the first session out for the day, and it was a bit slippery, then!
Perhaps understandably, I was a bit tentative going through Old Hairpin, but as soon as I got through that, I started building my pace up.
I’d been watching a lot of YouTube videos to prepare. Not just the top racers videos, either – I’d also made sure that I watched the onboard footage from the slower cars, to try to understand what they were doing differently, and what my margin would be.
One thing I did notice was that almost everyone was changing down to 2nd gear for both hairpins – something that is still a problem, and I’m not sure if it’s me or the car that won’t allow it! I opted to stay in 3rd gear as long as I wasn’t losing too much time…
I had done a trackday here on a 600cc Kawasaki ZX6R years ago, so knew the layout of the track quite well from that. Both of these things helped me!
I latched onto the back of Tim Probert and Pete Belsey as they came past just at the right time, as I’d found some confidence.
Coming into Redgate, I made a slight mistake that I think resulted in a bit of a block pass on Patrick Leidke, who I’d just watched get very sideways around Goddards, and with a wave of apology put in a fast lap.
It was all to no avail, as I got back around to Goddards myself to push a little too hard and do exactly the same thing myself, spinning off backwards onto the grass.
As I readied myself to get back on the black stuff, Paul Smith came around, and I could see the chequered flag being unfolded ahead, ending the session and meaning I lost out on not only my fastest lap, but one more lap to improve further!
This left me qualifying 15th for race 1, and 19th for race 2 – but I knew I was a fair bit faster than all the cars around me on the grid!
Race 1
I was confident that if I could get past a handful of cars ahead without incident, I could drop back into my own pace and pull away. It’s easy to hit the back of a group and then settle in to their pace.
I wasn’t as aggressive as I should have been, allowing a few people to come past me in the first few corners, but by the back straight I was catching Alex Jones, and knew one of my strongest zones was the entrance to Foggies chicane.
I passed Alex just before the braking zone, but he was braking very late to try and defend his outside line. I turned in, but getting twitchy on cold tyres meant I’d made a rookie error and hadn’t dropped to 3rd gear. As I straightlined the chicane, clipping a cone, Ed Lowndes flashed between me and Alex and into the gravel, and my mirrors filled with carnage as cars spun.
I overcooked it into the Melbourne hairpin, went wide, and spun, rejoining right at the back of anyone left running.
Then the red flags came out as Patrick Leidke was beached in the gravel!
As I came back around prepared to start at the back, I was chuffed to bits as the marshals waved me back into my original place on the grid for a total restart. Let’s try that again…
I made another good start, passing a slow moving Jesse Chamberlain on the grass, and did exactly the same move into Foggies on Jamie Harrison – only this time I remembered to change gear!
I worked my way up to Steve Bailey, catching him down the pit straight quickly, but didn’t think I was close enough to dive up the inside.
I broke a few feet early and committed to running deep and turning late for a cut-back pass, but he ran very deep and stayed on the brakes without turning in. I locked up my front right wheel and then it slid into Steve’s rear left, launching me a few feet up in the air. I felt instant pain as the steering wheel wrenched my wrists around, and a blinding snap in my left shoulder.
I smashed back into the tarmac, damaging my front left wheel and smashing my left elbow into the chassis, as my head, neck and back also took some punishment. Perhaps more seriously, the car veered to the left as something Not Very Good had happened to the suspension/steering.
I crawled around the rest of the lap carefully, expecting something to break or at least the tyre to go down, but as I reached the pits only a few cars had come past me. I decided to stay out and try and pick up some points.
Every time I was on full lock out of Melbourne I could feel my left wrist grinding and cracking, but it wasn’t so bad on the rest of the lap.
Alex Jones came past me as I tip-toed down Craner Curves, and I could see a pack of cars behind me with Bill Stenning. Could I at least stay ahead of them?
Yes, as it turns out! I almost caught Alex again through my strongest section (McLeans to Melbourne) and then saw yellows on the exit where Tony Mitchell and Ed Lowndes had come together.
I limped it back in 18th place.
Race 2
We found a bent steering linkage was the worst of our problems, borrowing one from (I think) Sam Engineer, and Glenn set about trying to reduce the positive camber we now had on our front left wheel!
Starting from 19th in this one, I was careful through the first few corners as we had no idea how the Sheane would handle, but it was soon clear that I’d be able to manage the handling problems and do what I could.
I started charging through the field with a pass between Tim Probert and Martin Snarey into Redgate, then battling with Tony Mitchell before eventually shaking him off to attack Mike Oldknow and Jamie Harrison.
After nipping by Jamie into Melbourne, I nearly followed Mike straight on at Goddards, but just made it around to stay ahead.
Edging away from them, I saw the last lap board and gave Glenn a thumbs up, knowing nobody was going to catch me, but also seeing I’d need a few more laps to get on the next car that was in the distance.
Throwing it into McLeans I suddenly had no power.
My instant fear was that I’d blown the engine, but quickly realised, as a few cars streamed past me, that I was out of fuel.
I faltered through the Foggies chicane – two corners to go – before the engine died, and I had to pull onto the grass.
My first ever DNF. My second time being towed back to the pits at Donington.
Perhaps surprisingly, I’m not mad about the fuel cock-up. Sure, another £1 would have probably got me to the flag, but I showed that even with a damaged car (and wrist!) I could be fast. Jamie Harrison was 2nd in the B class championship, and is certainly no slouch, and this was the first time I’ve been faster than him!
I know I still have a lot to learn, and the car is much faster than I am. The positive to take away from an unlucky weekend is that I’m confident I can improve to be close to the lap times of B class Champion Jack Wilkinson, and that means I should be aiming at the top 3 of the B class for next year!
As long as I can keep all four wheels on the ground…
James Cater Racing 