2017 was the most open year of the championship for quite a few years. To pull no punches with that statement, the main reason was Paul Smith leaving Vee after dominating the series for years.
This attracted several former champions and front-runners back to the series Daniel Hands, and inspired the other front-runners like Ben Miloudi, Ian Jordan etc to step up and try to grab their chance.
Undoubtedly, some of the strongest competitors were either a bit rusty, only did part seasons, or had reliability issues – and with eventual winner Ben Miloudi not defending his crown and very strong runners like Adam Macauly moving his attention back to the Irish scene, 2018 will be even more of a free-for-all!
I’d say there are at least eight drivers likely to win the championship – and that’s without the usual surprise of a rookie jumping in at the front or one of the existing drivers stepping up to challenge the front runners.
I think Class B will be even tougher this year.
James Harridge could be the first to take A and B class together – which is both good and bad.
It’s bad that all us other Class B runners are clearly in a different league to the likes of him so we have no chance of ever beating him on track unless he has problems. This means we don’t get any trophies, but then from his point of view why win one trophy when you can win two?
The good thing is that if this does happen – and if not this year then it’s only a matter of time – it might make the organisers make some changes to make A and B class more distinct, and bring it back to the original ethos of B class being cheaper, having older and less technically advanced cars, and/or more inexperienced drivers.
And I’m not having a whinge here, because if new rules came in that excluded me from B Class I’d be totally fine with that.
As it stands, though, I’m one of the serious contenders in B, and although I’ll be starting off with a less than perfect car there is another engine on the cards along with new tyres and a few other improvements to come later in the year.
Jamie Harrison has moved to the Bears team in a new car and will undoubtedly be the one to beat other than Harridge, and I suspect Andrew Cooper will be very quick again this year (if he’s coming back?), as well as Jack Wilkinson if he does a full season.
Colin Gregory will be in Adam Macaulays car and I doubt that will slow him down too much, but I’m not sure if he’ll run that to B spec or move to Class A.
Ross Price also showed he could mix it at the front in B without much experience, so he’ll be another serious threat.
And the joy of Class B means you’re even more likely to see absolutely anyone, old or new, suddenly click and be up the front!
We have a couple of new tracks to most of us – Castle Coombe to start with and then the Snetterton 200 circuit at the end of the year, and then Mondello Park for all those travelling to Ireland for a chance to try some International craic.
Me? I still hate Brands so will be trying to break out of that this year, and hopefully Silverstone will be kind ot me for the first time ever.
If I have mildly better luck than last year it would be nice, and I will definitely be looking to *puts on a European accent* push very ‘ard.
I know both the car and myself are capable of more, so let’s see if I can unlock it!
Hope to see you all out there, and let’s have a safe, clean but hard fought 2018 season!
***On a side note, you may have seen that I’m doing a charity parachute jump on 5th May – please click the link and throw a few ponds my way for this! It’s for a great cause and massive thanks to those of you who have already given!
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!
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!
Here is the full video of the yellow flag violation:
So, yeah, I had no idea I’d done anything wrong, as I either didn’t see the yellow flag (the only thing I cared about in that race was the white car behind me) or thought the marshals further on had the green flag.
Bear in mind the camera is much higher than my eye line, and so my vision was very much blocked by the cars between me and the incident (ironically, the stationary car causing the yellow was Jamie Harrison who had just won the B class championship!).
I wasn’t intending to violate the yellow flag conditions, the safety of marshals and other competitors was in no way compromised, and I later dropped four or five places down the order so didn’t gain any advantage.
I do not in any way dispute that I overtook under a yellow flag – only the fact that the imposed penalty took me from second in the championship down to fourth in the final race deciding the season.
Called to the Clerk of the Course
My name was called after the race to go see the Clerk of the Course, and to take my video footage with me – which I did very promptly, breaking off celebrations and went straight there. I still had no idea I’d done anything wrong, and thought they were checking my footage to try to catch someone else doing something (I didn’t think I’d be able to help here, either).
I was told what I’d done after the Clerk had spoken to two other drivers, and we reviewed the footage. She said she had three choices of penalty for the offence:
Exclusion from the race.
A 10 second time penalty.
Points on my race licence.
I pleaded for her to take the third option – especially as several other Vee drivers had been caught overtaking under yellows in the previous race, and NONE of them had been given any kind of penalty at all.
She was firm but friendly, and argued that the consequences to my championship were not her consideration. Fair enough but COME ONE!
I had no choice but to sign the document to say I’d done it.
I was told that I could appeal the decision on one of three grounds if I paid the fee (about £240!!!!!!!) in cash within 30 minutes:
That the offence had never happened.
That the penalty applied was too harsh or unfair.
Another option that I don’t recall.
Of course my grounds for appeal would be that the penalty was far too harsh as it would decide my championship position, and lose me a podium trophy.
In the circumstances, I would be effectively paying £240 to make sure I held onto second in the championship. After all, nobody would be so heartless as to turn down my appeal on those gorunds, would they?
750 Motor Club were supposed to be there for us drivers, to keep us happy, and would make a sensible and compassionate decision, right?
Appealing the penalty to the stewards
I told the race organisers that I would be appealing, and that stopped the clock as I ran to the paddock to try to raise the cash – but someone had let it slip that they could take payment by card if they had to. I should hope so too! Who carries any cash these days – let alone that much?
It had already been around 2 hours after the race finish, so most were packed up and heading home. Tim Probert handed me my two third place trophies as I went past, but I gave one back telling him it was in dispute. Then I went back up to the Stewards with Glenn, Michelle, and James Harridge and chatted with them about my options and what was happening.
I had to write out a statement on my appeal form, in which I made it clear with my first point that I was appealing the penalty, but the Stewards were already pressuring me to hurry up as they wanted to leave for the day.
I waited while they sat in another room considering it, and reviewing my footage.
There were two stewards from 750 Motor Club, one head steward from the MSA, and an observer there.
They called me in and questioned me about my appeal, asking me to watch my footage again.
I thought this was a bit strange but did it, and they told me repeatedly that I’d overtaken under a yellow flag.
I already knew this, and had acknowledged that in my previous meeting with the Clerk of the Course.
The 750 Steward kept telling me I’d overtaken under a yellow flag and would not budge an inch or listen to anything I said. I seemed to be getting through more to the MSA steward, but every time I seemed to be persuading him to my side of things the 750 steward would chime in again telling me I’d overtaken under yellow.
He kept repeating that their recommendation for overtaking under yellows was to exclude me. When I asked why there were three options available to them he refused to answer or discuss it.
Again they kept going over the aspects of my yellow flag violation, speaking about the safety issue (oh, where the marshals were on the opposite side of the track, well off the track, and behind other cars??) and insisting that I had overtaken before the green flag post.
It was like I was arguing with a bunch of people that the sky was blue, but they just kept telling me that the grass was green.
The whole atmosphere was extremely hostile, with all of them against little old me. I stayed polite and calm, but couldn’t help feeling they would just bully me down on anything I said. You are technically allowed to take in a representative, but are told in no uncertain terms that this is discouraged and the stewards don’t like it.
You can call in other drivers as witnesses – which I was asked if I wanted to do – but why would I when I was arguing the PENALTY??!
They asked me to leave the room as they discussed more, and I knew I had no chance at all – and the 750 Motor Club Steward was the main one properly gunning for me. Thanks for the support.
I was called back in and they told me that their decision would stand, at which point I again tried to tell them that they were deciding the championship with a penalty, and THAT was what I didn’t want to happen!
I was threatened with total exclusion again for raising my point, so decided to just shut up.
They told me to go back and wait outside and then they would be out soon with the forms to sign.
“Can’t you post them to me?” I asked, having been there for around three hours.
“No, you need to sign to say that you agree with our decision.”
I didn’t thank them as I left, but also resisted slamming the door on my way out. There was no chance I was giving them another second of my time, so told Glenn, James and Michelle that I was leaving now and wasn’t going to say I agreed with their decision.
I was left with the feeling that the appeal process is totally pointless and just a money-making scheme. I felt that the club at least would have cared that deciding the final race of the season with a penalty (that didn’t even need to be applied!) doesn’t look great for the club, and none of the drivers would appreciate it, either!
I have some pride shining through the bitterness over it all as I got the decision through the post a week or so later, when I read the “Driver left” bit where my signature should have been.
I just have to remind myself that they can’t take away the fact that I did it on track – I won that second place in the championship with a great drive after a head-to-head scrap!
I have also filed a formal complaint with the MSA about how my appeal wasn’t even heard or discussed by the stewards in that meeting, which they have failed to respond to in their stated 10 days. I chased it up a few weeks ago and was told that it will be looked at, and they apologised for not sending an acknowledgement.
We’ll see how that goes – I’m guessing absolutely nowhere. Either way it won’t change the result – but maybe people standing up a bit will get them to change things in the future?
I’m debating uploading my full complaint letter to them, but will hold on and see what they respond with, first. So far it’s been over a month…
There is a lot to take your attention when you turn up to a race meeting. It’s a massive help if you can ‘buddy’ up with someone else for the first few races, so that you can learn how things work on a race day, where you’re supposed to go, and when.
But even then there are some things that will catch you off guard, because nobody remembers to tell you about them.
I get a lot of questions from new and potential racers, and have discovered some of these myself that hard way. So when you roll into the holding area ready to go out for your first time, and a marshal leans in and yells “IS YOUR PIN OUT?” – hopefully you’ll know what they’re talking about!
New driver briefings
If it’s your first time racing at that circuit configuration, then you MUST attend a short New Drivers Briefing. These are normally held every 30 mins in the morning, last 5-10 mins, and you can get a hefty fine if you miss them! A couple more things to note on these: 1) Check you’re using the same configuration, even if you’ve raced at that track before – i.e. if you’ve raced at Donington on the National circuit, if you’re racing on the GP (with the Melbourne Loop), you need to go to the briefing. 2) These are in addition to any other driver briefings – so you may well find you need to go to both on the same day. Check your Final Instructions for details.
How to do your belts up
I still remember sitting in my car the day before my first race, then having to telephone Ben Miloudi to ask how the Hell you’re supposed to do the 6 point harness up properly! It seems easy, but it’s a fact that even experienced racers are still doing it wrong. Get used to putting your belts on, and adjusting the straps etc – because you’ll find yourself having a flap before you go out on track, get pulled by the marshals for having done it wrong, or at worst get trapped in your car when you need to get out.
Taking the pin out
There is a fire extinguisher system in all racecars, with an internal and external way to activate it. To make sure you don’t accidentally foam yourself whilst scrabbling to get in your car, there is a safety pin on this system somewhere, and before you go out on track you may be asked if you’re taken the pin out. Find out where the pin is, and how to use it!
Sign on before scrutineering
The first thing you should do when you arrive at a circuit is go and sign on. When you do this, they give you a slip of paper that you have to hand to a scrutineer when they are checking your car. Without this slip of paper, you may find you just waited in line for an hour, only to be told they can’t check your car. You might also want to take a few spanners so you can take bits off the car. And then don’t lose the ticket that the scrutineer gives you to stick on your car to say it’s been passed…
Waving at marshals
Don’t switch that YouTube onboard video off after the driver crosses the finishing line! Now keep watching – the driver is waving as he does his cool down lap. This is unlikely to be at his fan club waving banners around the track in a Formula Vee race… No – the driver is actually waving to the Orange Army – the marshals stood at their posts! We do it because it’s nice to thank them, and also because they will be waving back at you, and you get a nice warm fuzzy feeling inside! Feel free to also wave at your wife and kids, if they’ve prized their hands off from covering their eyes after your dodgy last lap antics.
Hit the brakes!
You’re going to spin your car in the middle of a filthy great pack of race cars. Don’t just sit there swearing/crying/waiting for the bang – stand on the brake pedal (and the clutch, if you think you’re going to get going again). This will lock up your wheels and so you’ll slide in a predictable direction, and the other drivers might not clatter into you. If you don’t do this, the tyres may grip and send you flying off at very odd angles, almost certainly into the path of someone trying to avoid you.
Plug ’em up
Your engine is about 6″ away from your ears, and putting out the same kind of noise as a jet plane taking off. This is Not A Good Thing for your hearing. To save you going deaf or getting tinnitus in later life, use some ear plugs. A cheap pair stolen from the factory floor will do the job, or you can get special custom-fitted ones made up for you.
Fogging Hell
As a biker, I was prepared, but if you’re not used to wearing a helmet you’re in for a shock as the visor will fog up on the inside, and you won’t be able to see a thing! This will happen mostly when you’re coming around to line up for the race start, as you’re breathing heavily, and especially if it’s cold or wet. There are millions of anti-fog sprays and people will give you a million other ‘miracle cures’, but the truth is that the only thing that works is a pinlock visor insert – and these don’t fit 99% of car helmet visors. I leave my visor open a crack to shove a finger in and give it a wipe until the race starts, and you may see me sat in the holding area with my visor down breathing deeply – this seems to prime the inside of the visor so it gets less fogged up. Any decent helmet will have vents that clear the fog as soon as you get going, so try not to panic too much!
Pants on fire
Fireproof underwear is not compulsory. It’s a good idea, but as long as you’ve got a good race suit you don’t need it. Some common thinking is that if you only have a 2 layer suit – get nomex underwear, but if you have 3 layer suits it’s less essential.
Getting help
One of the many great things about Formula Vee, and most club-level racing, is that it’s extremely rare you’ll have a problem that other drivers and crew can’t help you with. You’re not on your own, and the chances are it’s happened to someone else (whatever it is), so don’t be afraid to get help! We all want as many cars out there as possible!
So far at Donington I’ve managed 3 corners before the engine seized in my first ever Vee drive, qualified badly after a spin losing my fastest lap plus my last one, caught a few feet of air in a crash and demolished my wrist in the first race, and then ran out of petrol whilst flying in the second race.
So this year had to yeild a bit of luck, right?
I’ve never done the National track layout before, so studied many hours of onboard footage to find braking and turning points, and decided to dial them right back to get my required 3 minimum safe laps in to qualify.
I cruised out onto the track, easing back into things as I tried to get a feel for some of the changes we’ve made to rear ride height on the car over Winter, and to just generally get my head back into driving a racecar.
Straight away I was moving past people not yet even thinking about getting my tyres up to temperature on the out-lap. I came onto the back straight and as we approached my newly learned braking zone, Ian Buxton passed me, I hit the brakes nice and early to follow him through the chicane, but as soon as he slammed on his brakes in front of me I knew I was in trouble.
Maybe he’d got his tyres and brakes up to temperature, but I could tell there was no way I was possibly going to stop before I smashed into the back of him. I was at that ‘floaty’ point on the brakes – after exceeding traction but before locking up (which is where you want to be on a fast lap on the limit) – but maximum braking is pretty useless when your overall traction levels are about half what they should be.
I threw the car to the right hoping I could pull it up before he came across on the racing line, or hoping he’d run wide himself, but Buxton didn’t stand much chance and my left front hit his side, spinning him around as I carried us both deep into the gravel trap… Not even one lap completed.
Understandably, he wasn’t impressed, and probably assumed I’d made a crazy dive down the inside. As I undid my belts I heard footsteps pounding through the gravel towards me.
Ian had a bit of a (well deserved) shout at me and then stomped off where the marshalls led him to safety. I got out and took my helmet off (this might not be the wisest move under the circumstances!) and tried to diffuse things with an apology as we waited for the snatch vehicle to drag our cars out of the gravel.
When they did, both cars looked relatively unscathed, other than being full of gravel. In hindsight, I should have jumped back in and got back on track to try and get the laps in to qualify, but didn’t think of that.
I drove the car back and legged it up to race control to see what I could do about getting the laps in so I could race, and they said I could follow the course car around during the lunch break, and then be allowed to start from the back of the grid for both races.
I went back down to the garage to pick gravel out of the poor pebble-dashed Sheane and then heard my name over the tannoy being called back up to see the Clerk of the Course. Uh-oh.
Remembering school time visits to the Headmasters Office, I slunk into the room and was asked to explain what happened.
I held my hands up to it all straight away – said exactly what had happened, and reiterated that I wasn’t trying to be stupid and was still cruising around, as far as I was concerned, but cocked up.
Then they moved on to the events after we were in the gravel trap – and it became clear that they Do Not Want any fisticuffs or threatening at the track side! This was clearly big no-no, so make a big note of that in case you end up tangling with another car!
It wasn’t anything to do with Ian Buxton, and I fully understood (and deserved!) his reaction, and so made sure they understood that I wasn’t threatened or intimidated by him etc. He had a few words in anger – I wasn’t scared for my life – there was no harm done, as far as I was concerned. I was just glad I hadn’t killed his car or hurt him!
I heard them call Ian up to the office after me, and we were both allowed to race, so I think I handled it all ok for the both of us.
We then just had to do a Drive Of Shame behind a pace car for 3 laps at hot road hatchback pace…
Oh, and Ian absolutely stormed through the grid in race 1 to finish in 6th with the fastest lap. That probably helped smooth things over for when we did shake hands later in the day.
Although he did still quip that he could have won that if it wasn’t for me!
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!
Snetterton 300 Formula Vee – Preparation and not wanting to be there
My second ever race weekend, with the goal of finishing all the sessions intact and getting signatures for my licence upgrade.
We chose not to test the day before, and set off at 5am for the long drive to Snetterton in horrible weather conditions.
At the circuit I had a quick chat to the other drivers, then signed on attended the New Drivers Briefing.
When getting the car scrutineered, I forgot to bring my signing on sheet, then forgot my gloves and balaclava, then had to trek back across the paddock yet again to fetch my camera mounting, before getting a mild bollocking about my tinted visor.
We were called to the assembly area quicker than I expected, so I donned all my kit and then found the car was totally dead!
Glenn shorted across the starter motor with a screwdriver, and luckily it fired up, so I shot through the paddock, not knowing where the Hell I was going, before eventually catching up with everyone after asking for directions (thanks for pointing me in the right direction, Steve Ough!)!
I sat in the holding area with all the other cars, staring out across a very wet track, and was fully aware that I did not want to be there at all. I don’t really know what it was, but I wasn’t happy with anything.
I’d struggled to find any videos showing the 300 layout, and only done that last minute, so didn’t really know where the track went. I worried I’d be far too slow, or just spin off everywhere, and miserably decided to trundle around and try to qualify for the (forecast) dry races.
I had a feeling I wouldn’t even get the car back safely…
I took one last deep breath and tried to force myself to focus, and then followed the pack onto the puddle-filled tarmac for my first ever lap of Snetterton, and my first time ever on a wet track with all the other Vees…
This was the peak of my fear. This was all unknown. What if I miss my place on the grid? What if I stall it at the start? I’d never even practised a race start in the dry, and even the wet ones after spinning last week were on my time and not to a set of lights!
I started my engine, took a couple of deep breaths, and followed the other Vees out of the holding area onto the track…
As I pulled up to the grid the marshals pointed my into place, showing me the exact line to stop at. I was calm and in the zone, but as the 5 second board was displayed my visor fogged up as I realised I was breathing quickly and heavily.
I got control as the red lights came on above the start line, keeping the revs up and slowing my breathing and heart rate down, and dropped into the zone as the lights flashed out.
I reacted so quickly that I actually hesitated because nobody else around me seemed to be moving. I got an ok start, but had to lift almost immediately as I couldn’t get around the car ahead.
37 cars piled into the first corner with wheels hanging out everywhere, twitching as everyone tried to find a gap.
I stayed out wide and drove around the outside of the track, having to drift wide to avoid people, and finding some bugger had put traffic cones there! I smashed into one with the left front suspension.
I kept the throttle open and the cone flew away, and the suspension looked ok as we all piled into the next turn.
The rest of the race is just a blur. I settled into the racing lines and found I was getting faster every lap. Total confidence in the little old Sheane as I pushed harder, braked less, turned in faster.
I stuck a few overtakes on people, and avoided spinning cars.
I found my car came out of the corners really strong, and after I passed people I could reel in the next car ahead even down the Hangar Straight.
I was enjoying it, cackling madly as I nailed a corner here and there. I was battling with names I’ve been watching racing Vee for years, and coming out ok!
I pulled in Nick Brown, and as he got sideways onto the Hangar straight I got a good exit, passing him into the braking area, and he switched back on the exit to regain his position, but then lost the back end through the next turn.
I had nowhere to go, and flicked the wheel right to try and get around the back of him and straight into the gravel trap.
The nose cone took a battering, but I missed Nick by millimeters, and got back on the track in a shower of gravel, shaking the wheel and hoping none had got into the calipers.
I got back the places I’d lost and found myself with a clear track ahead. Knowing it must be near the end, I got my head down to make sure I dropped the cars behind me – I was having this one!
One of the things you can’t appreciate from the outside is after the chequered flag, as you do your cooling down lap, the marshals wave to you. This actually makes you feel really special, and I almost got emotional as I gave them all a thumbs up as I passed.
We were guided into park ferme where I jumped out and chatted to Glenn and the other drivers excitedly.
I’d done it!
I learned that I’d actually taken 17th place overall, and 4th in Class B – massively exceeding my own expectations, and at last I felt like I should be out there, and had proved that. Better still, I was only around 3 seconds a lap off the pace of the leaders!
Race 2 was more of the same, but with a slightly worse start, and I knocked another half a second off my best time. I found that I could trail brake into corners and slide the back end out just enough to get me through the faster turns quicker, then get straight back on the throttle. You have to get these cars sliding to be quick.
I won’t go into more detail about the races, as this has been far too long already, and you can watch the onboard videos for yourselves!
I found I’d got myself up to 18th place and 5th in class – but better yet was passing Ed Lowndes into the very last corner. He’d been the car 20 seconds ahead of me that I couldn’t even see in the first race!
To top off an already awesome day, I was given the Driver Of The Day Award!
I know I can go faster, and so can the car, so there is more to come. With a bit of luck, I can’t see why I can’t get a top 10 place with the Sheane.
Glenn has a few modifications he wants to make, and we’re working together very well changing set-ups (told you my time playing Forza 4 wasn’t wasted!).
So that was my first ever race. It’s still all a bit surreal.
All the drivers and crews are a great bunch, and I can’t wait to get back out there!
I hope you enjoy the videos, and thank you all for reading this and your support. I hope this blog has helped show people that you CAN go from nothing to racing driver on a very limited budget, and you can live your dream.
And seriously, get out there and do it! Now I’ll be keeping you updated on the equally as hard progress forward from here, to try and climb up the order and see how far I can really take this.
With all the media assaulting us daily with ‘celebrities’ and reality TV stars, as well as sports personalities of dubious levels of morality, it’s sometimes easy to forget the true hero’s who walk amongst us.What we should be retweeting and sharing on Facebook are stories of people who actually make a difference to society in a good way.In motorsports, of course, the people we owe most to are the marshals and the medical crews.These people mostly do their jobs (without which we wouldn’t be able to partake in our hobbies) as volunteers. Sometimes they’ll get a free bacon sandwich at the circuit, or even some lunch. On very rare occasions they may get paid something towards replacing the money they pay out of their own pockets to help us to do our hobbies.Then they go out and put themselves inches away from the action, sometimes right in the line of fire, and it’s these brave souls who give us a helpful shove out of the gravel, or tow us back on the Wagon Of Shame!I read an absolutely fascinating blog from ex-F1 Doctor Gary Hartstein about trauma care in motorsport, and specifically dealing with massive blood loss. He tells it like it is and I’d thoroughly recommend following his blog:A Former F1 Doc WritesIt’s people like him who are the ones who come to help when we’re upside down, broken, and on fire.So it’s with some sadness that I saw one of the fast response medics from the Northern Irish road racing scene is no longer with us…Now, I don’t claim to know much about Dr John Hinds himself, but as I mentioned in my opening paragraphs, this is one of theose true hero’s – not just of motorsport, but in the lives of all of us. I wish I had known more about him and his work.I wish I’d seen posts about him on Facebook every day of his life, and seen people recognising his value as a person. I mean, just look at that picture! Doesn’t that inspire you? Doesn’t it make you proud that someone would be that selfless for the sport they love? That’s what a role model SHOULD be!I found an excellent article from a few months ago about some of his work, which I’d recommend you all read to understand how much of a blow it is when we lose people like this:Flying doctor: How a medic is helping to make biking saferRest in peace, Dr Hinds – and may there be many more following in your footsteps to continue your fantastic work.And thank you to all the marshals, medical crews and everyone who’s out there letting people like me live my dream.
When I had the Donington test last year, my mounting bracket hadn’t turned up in time, and so I went with the easy option – I put a bit of foam underneath the camera (a Mobius Action Camera in JooVuu waterproof case) and duct taped that sucker to the roll hoop on the Sheane.
Whilst this does work, and is very secure, it does come with a few problems. First, we found I’d taped over the LED that shows if the camera is switched on or running, so we had to guess whether it was working. It also means it’s hard to take the memory card out or charge the battery up.
For this year I’m going to make use of the bar clamp mount from JooVuu. It’s not perfect because it’s a bit too small for the 32mm chassis tube – but as I came to find when testing things out, the tube isn’t exactly round everywhere, either, so that makes things a bit tough.
The previous run with it taped on top of the roll hoop gave a good picture, but a lot of the screen was filled up by my behelmeted noggin. This is hard to get around, but with this proper mount it should raise the camera a good few centimeters up, which might make all the difference.
The best camera view will show as much action as possible – both outside and inside the car. This means mounting it on the right hand side, so you (hopefully) get a view of the gearshift and the steering wheel, and maybe even the pedals.
I may be able to get around this even more effectively by mounting the camera on the side of the roll hoop, although the mount that I currently have limits this, as you can’t have the mount in place with the camera horizontal…
This is probably what I’ll go with at first, but it’s no problem to unbolt and move the camera around a little.
As Glenn rightly pointed out, if I put the car upside down it could cause a problem for the camera with these mountings, but then I will be hoping not to do that, anyway!
We also need to consider getting into and out of the car – in a single seater it’s an even that requires an almost Olympic level of strength and contortionism, without having to worry about knocking a camera. And we need to ensure there’s somewhere for them to put a tow rope if we end up getting towed off circuit again!
I will hopefully experiment with rear-facing cameras (providing there are going to be other cars behind me on the track!), but that will need more thinking about with types of mount, heat from the engine, and vibrations from bodywork.
If the test day goes without drama, then I should have a bit of time to rethink what we’re doing with cameras, and make improvements where we can.
