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James Cater Racing

~ Realising the childhood dream…

James Cater Racing

Tag Archives: 2016

Vee Festival Brands Hatch Analysis

07 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by jamescaterracing in Formula Vee, Racing, Uncategorized

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2016, brands hatch, gearbox, Irish Formula Vee, james cater, joovuu, pole position, racing, vee festival

Vee Festival Brands Hatch Analysis

You can read the race report on the RTV team website.

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Let me get this out of the way first: I don’t like Brands Hatch.

OK, so that’s not entirely true – but it’s my least favourite track that I’ve done so far.

There are some corners that I just cannot get right, and watching others going through them at twice the speed irritates me.

That said, I do like the non-championship Vee Festival that MSV kindly put on for us, and it’s great to see some random Vee racers entered, and to have the Irish racers come over (even if they are all the quick ones!). It’s also where I’ve scored my best ever 9th place overall result, as well as the next best 10th place.

At least this year was set to stay above freezing, be mostly dry, and so not carry with it the abject fear that I would freeze to death overnight in the camper van, like last year.

Arriving early on Friday, we got to watch a few of the Vee’s testing, and they seemed to all be on it straight away.

Our aim for the weekend was to try and survive in one piece, if possible, so we can concentrate on getting the Ray out on track for next season. We were also testing Tesco Momentum 99 super unleaded for the first time, knowing we were still down on power for reliability.

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Qualifying

I tried to look after the car for this one, steadily upping the pace. With 3 races to go, and only the grid for the first one being decided on qualifying times, it was more important to stay safe.

I was settling into a rhythm despite the car feeling very sloppy, when Tim Probert dived into the kitty litter at Paddock, and we had red flags.

This was perfect, as whilst we were sat in the pit lane I asked Glenn to stiffen the dampers 2 clicks front and rear, and then I went out again a second faster straight away. Then I took another half a second off that.

Then the car jumped out of 3rd gear going into Clearways.

I thought I must have messed up the shift, and carried on – but then as I hit the apex curb at Graham Hill it popped out of 3rd gear into neutral again, when my hand hadn’t been anywhere near the gearstick since braking for Druids.

The following lap it jumped out again, and this time I couldn’t select any gears at all. I rolled towards the rear pit entrance and pulled off the track, thinking the worst.

When I was towed back into the paddock, Glenn also thought the worst, especially with the rhythmic clunking as we pushed the car.

I thought it was the end of the weekend, but Ben Miloudi stepped in and offered his spare gearbox – which would at least give us the chance to get out for the 2nd race the following morning. This is very much the spirit of Vee, and it’s rare that you’ll be left to retire if there is anyone else in the paddock who can possibly loan you tools, parts or experience to get you back out there!

With some relief, however, as Glenn began stripping the car down, he found the circlip had jumped off the end of the shaft (don’t ask me what shaft – just the one that sticks out the back!). The problem now became how to get the shaft out far enough to get the circlip back on.

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John Bowles advised getting a lever into the gearbox and trying to hoof the shaft back from the inside, which after much heaving, hammering sockets, and head scratching eventually did the trick! Of course we still didn’t know WHY it had happened, or if it would just happen again…

No matter – we had just enough time to get it all back together (I’d have liked to do a few laps of the paddock to test it, but sadly time was that tight!), and we’d be able to take our 12th place on the grid for race 1.

Race 1

Everything felt good on the out-lap, and I was getting all gears well enough to make a go of it.

I made up a couple of places before the first turn, but it wasn’t too long before Jamie Harrison and Gavin Buckley (his first time trying an English Vee) came back past me. Hard as I tried to hang onto them, they carried on easing away, leaving me in a bit of a gap on track.

I took advantage of the track space, concentrating on braking less and throwing the car faster into the corners to try and carry more speed around.

I must have improved quite dramatically at Druids, and was turning in and getting back on the power much earlier at Clearways. Unfortunately, I just could not get a grip on Paddock Hill – braking far too much, too early, and getting the line wrong every time.

Graham Hill I felt like I was doing well, but for some reason was still a lot slower through there than everyone else, whatever I tried!

For all my pushing, the car was still like it was on rails, for the most part – so I clearly wasn’t pushing it hard enough!

I’m definitely getting faster, but until I’m drifting it in on the brakes, drifting through the corner, and having to fight oversteer on the exit in every single corner I know I still have to keep forcing myself to go faster. It’s a mind thing, now, because I’m pretty sure I do have the skills to be able to sort it out if it all goes pear-shaped, so there’s no reason why I can’t be pushing that hard.

Oops – rant over! Back to the race:

I hammered it down the start straight and saw red flags and lights everywhere, so eased off to about 80% as I went over the crest to drop down into Paddock Hill… which is where I suddenly saw cars sideways on the track right in front of me!

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Ian Buxton had hit Charles Merrill as he went to lap him, leaving an unlucky Ian Jordan nowhere to go as he ploughed into Charles, ripping both cars apart and ending their weekend, but not injuring either driver.

Buxton wasn’t quite so lucky as he hit the tyre wall backwards hard enough to bend his flywheel – then being lifted off to hospital and cut out of his race suit with suspected back injuries. (Don’t worry – he was ok enough to be seen hobbling around on Sunday morning back at the track to watch the action!)

The race restarted for a 2 lap sprint to the flag before Paul Taylor lost it at Clearways and brought out another red flag and the result was declared.

Final position for The Cater Kid – 10th, alive and unscathed.

Not bad – but the realisation soon set in that Race 2 would be a reverse-top-ten grid. To spell that out – I’d be starting the next race from pole position at Brands Hatch!

Race 2

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James Cater, on pole position to start a race at Brands Hatch.

Now that’s one for the scrapbook!

Ok, so it’s not earned by being the fastest – but don’t discount the fact that I was the 10th fastest Formula Vee at Brands Hatch on that day – so that’s still pretty special!

I’d spent the previous evening psyching myself up for the start. I knew that I could push the car more in the corners, and if there was any time to try doing that it had to be when I was starting from the very front!

I was confident that if I got a half-decent start I could lead the pack into the first turn, and then would throw it into Druids faster than ever and just go from there.

Stephen Morrin was on the front row next to me in the 1600cc Irish spec Leastone with smaller wheels, so he’d be into the first corner like a stabbed rat, but I still thought I’d have the edge.

I slept well after a celebratory pint of Guinness in the Kentagon, some fine banter, and a brief stint being dragged up to dance with a lovely marshal (Ginette?).

So I woke up to this:

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Thick, freezing fog that was keeping the race track very far from the dry grippy perfection featured in my overnight self-motivation. Basically it was exactly the kind of conditions where I’d normally let someone past me just so I could follow them and let them crash first.

But I was still starting from the same spot that greats like James Hunt, Nikki Lauda etc had started from – and rather than being intimidating, it felt oddly relaxing to roll up to that start line. Like it was my home…

I was determined to get as much heat in my tyres as I could on the green flag lap, so weaved and stamped the throttle all over the place before stopping in front of the lights.

The red lights blinked off and I dropped the clutch – but bogged down as the revs I was holding hadn’t taken the crazy camber of the start line into consideration!

The car picked up again, but that had been enough for Morrin to charge past me into Paddock, and then on the exit Pete Belsey and Ben Miloudi flew out of nowhere around the outside before I got to Druids.

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The quicker cars mugged me down to 6th place at the end of the lap, and over the next few laps the rightful order reasserted itself, and I found myself back in a lonely 10th – unable to hang with those in front, but well clear of those behind.

In fact, I’d been dragged around at a pace another second a lap faster, and so actually lapped those behind me!

The race was clean for the full distance, and I brought it home 10th – having used my time to control my breathing, concentrate on not gripping the steering wheel, and pushing for faster lines and corner speed.

Race 3 – The Final

Back down the grid to start from my last finishing position in the final, I gave a wave to my dance partner as she ran down the grid, and was prepared for another lonely race, unless I could get my claws into Jamie and Gavin who were lapping about a second faster.

With another fairly decent start I was surprised to see the blue Hawk (called Harry!) driven by John Bowles all over the back of me.

This spurred me on, as there was no way I was going to let anyone else get away from me, and I turned in some decent laps (there goes another half a second!) until I dropped him.

Luckily, I then carried on pushing hard, as I saw a red car on the grass at Graham Hill, and quickly took advantage by speeding past the recovering Gavin Buckley.

As he got back up to speed and caught me, the leaders caught us both, and we had to lift to let them through, but I stayed ahead of Gavin as he tried to dive up the inside into Clearways.

Already lining up a defensive line into Paddock, as we blasted down the start straight I saw the chequered flag being waved!

I’d stolen it just in time, as I’m sure I’d have struggled to keep him behind me for another lap!

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And that resulted in a best ever overall result of 8th place!

Even better, although totally unofficial, it also made me the first B class car home, and so if the MSV Festival acknowledged the classes, I’d have also won the B class!

So all in all, it was a pretty good weekend, and very productive.  Congratulations to everyone there – especially to the winner John Hughes.  He drove so well all weekend there was never really a doubt he’d come out on top – even with his lack of time in a Vee this season!  Results are all on the MSVR website.

Do I like Brands Hatch, now? Maybe a little more…

Next year is the 50th anniversary of Formula Vee racing in the UK, and there is talk of us using the full and very rare Brands Hatch GP circuit. Combine that with the potential to see 50+ Formula Vee’s entered, some big names on the grid (Ian Flux? Tiff Needell? Ash Sutton and Michael Epps from BTCC?) and a lot of media coverage, and we could be in for something epic!

Imagine if I can get it on pole for that, one way or another?

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EDIT: Almost forgot the videos!

Dubtoberfest Festival 2016

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by jamescaterracing in Formula Vee, sponsorship, Uncategorized

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2016, 750 motor club, dubtoberfest, festival, formula vee, mental breakdown dragster, throckmorton airfield, vw camper

Dubtoberfest Festival 2016

Racing Team Vee had the honour of being asked to display the Sheane at Dubtoberfest at the weekend.

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This is a great little festival for the VW camper van brigade, with a Bavarian theme and a family-friendly atmosphere, held at Throckmorton airfield near Pershore.

Displaying both the new JooVuu and RTV stickers in public for the first time, we joined Gary Richardson and David Leniewski with our three very different Vee’s on display.

With live music playing all through the day, loads of food on offer, a 2000hp ‘Mental Breakdown’ dragster, dog agility course, show & shine car competition, archery, and some rather nice partying each evening (in lederhosen, no less!), a great time was certainly had by all of us – and the equally friendly crowds of people seemed to be enjoying themselves just as much.

Some of them (including my beautiful fiancée, Julie) even got to experience riding on the Dodgems with a load of ultra-competitive Formula Vee racers!

It’s a great festival, still in its early days, and I’d heartily recommend it for next year!  In fact, thinking about it, this has been the first festival I’ve ever attended! 

Massive thanks to Damian Cottrell for the invite, organising things, and his hospitality!  As a racer himself (and pretty good by all accounts) and being a local, it’d be good to see him back out on a grid again soon!

I’ll leave you with some pictures from the weekend.

Croft 2016 – Rounds 5 & 6

24 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by jamescaterracing in Formula Vee, Racing, Uncategorized

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2016, 750 motor club, croft, formula vee, psychology, racing, spin, TOCA touring cars, weather, wet race

Croft 2016 – Rounds 5 & 6

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I made the call with Glenn to travel 180 miles up to Croft on the Saturday morning, rather than the night before. Glenn used to do this all the time when he raced, so I figured I’d try it and see how tired I was – assuming we made it in time for qualifying!

Glenn has remounted the rear suspension lower down. This means we get a lot more suspension travel than before which should help with set-ups, and it’s lowered the rear and thus the centre of gravity. The aim of the weekend was to see how this all worked, and also run in some brand new brake pads – so Croft would be very much a learning weekend rather than anything competitive.

I used to like the track on the old TOCA Touring Cars computer game, and spent some time watching onboard videos to try and remember which way to turn, but a lot of other drivers were there testing all day on the Friday, so it was looking like a weekend to stay safe and accept we’d be at the back.

Qualifying

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One thing you can’t account for is the weather. As we rolled into the collecting area, the rain absolutely hammered it down on us. With track conditions being borderline dangerous (they cancelled the following sessions for safety), we trundled out into the puddles.

I followed a group of cars all tip-toeing around in the treacherous conditions, eventually skating passed Tony Mitchell, but was pretty much just driving around the track boring myself.

After the first 2 laps, just as I was learning the track enough to pick up speed, the rain increased even more. It paid off for those who’d tested or raced at the track before, as they could get straight on it in those 2 laps, and lead to some excellent surprises such as Alex Jones snagging 5th place on the grid, and David Leniewski qualifying 10th!

I dribbled my way home in a deserved 19th place to start from the back in both races.

Of course, we found out absolutely nothing about the handling changes, and I had no idea if I’d even started to bed the new brake pads in. I was kicking myself, because I knew I’d wasted my time by not trying to push – but then I guess stating at the back is better than finishing in the armco barriers…

Race 1

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A mere four hours later, in scorching sun (I have pale blue, Polish skin, ok?) we lined up to go out again. Despite the drastically improved conditions, it wasn’t actually very much help to me, as I’d never driven a lap in the dry before!

I’ve had major self-doubt creeping in following a few disappointing results, and so had a lot to prove to myself to justify spending all my money on this racing malarkey…

The lights went out at the start and I got a pretty good start. As I changed to 2nd it turned into a belter of a start, as I flew passed a few cars in a hole up the middle, and then after a hesitation dived to the outside into the first turn to pick up another few spaces – 6 in all!

I was already up with David Leniewski, and having no clue what I was doing, just figured I’d copy him only brake later, carry more speed in, and get on the power sooner – and just hope I could hang onto the car! Back to my old “Throw it into the corner and sort out whatever happens” philosophy! I kept it absolutely nailed through the 4th gear Jim Clark Esses, and through the following rights as I hoped I’d remembered which of them you had to brake hard for.

I eventually eased passed him when he had some mechanical problems, but not before my next biggest obstacle – the 2nd gear hairpin.

2nd gear is such a low ratio it’s very rare that you have to find it in a Formula Vee. Which is just as well, as you can’t find the damned thing.

As I fished around in a bag full of crunching neutrals, a few cars streamed back passed me onto the pit straight. Eventually I found 2nd and fired off after them all.

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The red and white car of Darren Lomas was filling my mirrors as I tried desperately to keep on the racing line, now Jake Hockley ahead in the GAC with exactly the same dry Croft experience as me – i.e. none.

As I came back into the flat-out section my car lurched left in the turn, making me run wide and drop two wheels down the small cliff on the exit at 120mph+. I caught the resulting slide quickly and kept my foot planted, turning the wheel back the other way to recover, and by some miracle stayed not only on the track, but still stayed ahead of Darren.

He chased me hard for the rest of the race, and it was probably quite funny watching us at the hairpin as neither of us could get 2nd gear!

Martin Snarey was right on the back of us, but I held on for an excellent and much needed 13th place and 4th in class B!

More importantly, I knew I could hold my own against faster cars, and hit a brand new circuit first time out and be quick. I’d started to doubt this. And I knew I could knock a good 2 seconds of my time even if I still couldn’t find 2nd gear!

As I climbed out in parc ferme, Darren pointed at the back of my car.

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Ah.

The weld holding my anti-roll Z-bar had snapped – explaining my high speed moment in the race!

So we still didn’t really know what the rear modifications had done for the car. One thing I did know for sure was that the new brake pads were awesome already!

At the pointy end Paul Smith romped home to another win, with the 2 Bears cars of Dave Hughes and Paul Taylor coming in a chuffed-to-bits 2nd and 3rd.­

Race 2

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After a hot and sunny Sunday, precisely as we were kitting up, the skies went black again!

All thought of knocking those 2 seconds off my times were washed away in the waterfalls that hit Croft as we waited for 20 minutes for the officials to decide if it was safe to go out.

Sat under umbrellas, joking with Sam Engineer, Adam McCauley, Glenn Hay and Chris Wilshire, I figured there was no chance of them starting us, and was tempted to be the first to start up and drive back onto the trailer.

Suddenly, they waved us out on track. Good – because I couldn’t live with my wet performance from qualifying.

Already soaked, I could barely see the track even on the slow lap around to get on the grid, let alone the car ahead. And there’d be about 20 of them off the start!

The lights went out and I got away without wheelspin, but as soon as we were in 2nd gear I couldn’t see a thing through the spray. I hit the brakes about 4 times before I even got to the first corner, and could see carnage through the deluge.

I held an inside line and skittered passed a few spinners, wary of anything going into the back of me, and tried to find a compromise between having some visibility and getting between the puddles without them ripping the car off the track.

I was determined to use the conditions to get the car a bit sideways (it’s easier to do in the rain) and try and get more comfortable doing that, and found that I was really enjoying it!

Cars kept appearing out of the spray, and I was able to get by them despite locking up a lot, getting wheelspin in 4th gear on the straights, and having to save a good few slides.

Ian Buxton slithered passed me, and I hung on to the back of him fairly easily (that’s a first!) so knew I must be doing something right!

Martin Snarey was ahead, and I was flying up behind him when I had a major loss of 2nd gear at the hairpin. I watched Martin drive away down the straight, and was about half way down myself before I found a damned gear again!

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I kept powering on, actually hooking my front wheel into some of the puddles to get the car turned in better, and knew where I could grab loads more time, and then disaster struck.

I had a huge lock up as I braked for Tower, and drifted out very wide – not a problem, as I eased a bit of throttle back on to slide it back into the corner when the back end twitched again as the re-welded Z-bar broke again, spinning me off into some filthy great muddy field.

Even that wasn’t so bad, as I was ready to drive out, but the car had dropped as the z-bar disconnected, and I got beached in the mud. I tried in vain to reverse out, then had a vague recollection of an off-roading technique of rocking it out, but it was no good.

I waved for the marshalls and the race was red flagged as conditions were too bad and nobody wanted a stack of Vees growing in their turnip field on top of me.

A quick push and I was on my way again, but despite having been up to at least 12th when I went off, I was only classified in 19th at the finish.

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I’m not disappointed with that in the slightest – because I also set the 9th fastest lap overall!

That’s a huge confidence booster on its own – but combined with my dry performance in the first race it was a psychologically fantastic weekend for me!

I had brilliant fun in wet and dry, and my confidence in the car is coming on in leaps and bounds. I know I’m headed back in the right direction at last, and I know I can do much, much better – and that’s all with a damaged car!

There might be 2 James’ in Formula Vee doing rain dances for the rest of the year!

Speaking of which, James Harridge came in 2nd behind the seemingly unbeatable Paul Smith, with fellow n00b Harry Webb picking up an excellent 3rd on the podium!

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VIDEOS:

Brands Hatch 2016 – Rounds 3 & 4

28 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by jamescaterracing in Formula Vee, Racing, Uncategorized

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2016, 750 motor club, brands hatch, formula vee, gravel trap, indy circuit, james cater racing, joovuu x, onboard, race report, racing, video

Brands Hatch 2016 – Rounds 3 & 4

After the damage sustained from the crash and the engine failure at Donington Park last month, we needed to get through the weekend at Brands Hatch with the car in one piece.

Glenn Hay had straightened out the front beam and worked hard on the front suspension, but as I drove out of the tunnel underneath the circuit for the qualifying session, we had a problem. I dabbed the brakes but the car veered hard right.

Weighing up our options before we went out on track, I decided I’d see if we could crawl around the minimum 3 laps, and then we could do something before the first race.

Luckily, after the first lap the car was straight and true! I suspect it was either the camber of the tarmac that had dragged me right, or maybe a piston stuck in the brake calliper.

After a few laps I saw spots of rain on my visor, but figured I’d press on faster and faster until the car started sliding. It didn’t, but a few other cars went off.

I managed a rather disappointing 21st place out of 30 cars. Not terrible, but about 6 places away from what I was expecting.

We’d also decided to dial back the engine power until we find some reliability – and so I guess it was expected. The misfire I had on the exit of most corners, wasn’t expected – but that disappeared before the race…

Race 1

Sat on the awkward rolling hills that is Brands Hatch pit straight, I was holding the brake and blipping the throttle with my heel (the Sheane won’t idle at all if the revs drop!), but as the lights went out I caught my sole on the edge of the pedal, so got a terrible start.

Martin Snarey stole all my fortune, and shot off in the best start I’d ever seen, straight up the middle of many rows, proper taking the Mickey!

I headed a bit too tentatively into Paddock Hill behind Jake Hockley, who’d finally managed to get off the line and take his driveshaft with him. I hung onto him for a few corners before he started pulling away – great to see them finally sort their issues, and hopefully I’ll be able to drag myself up for a scrap with him once we get the car back on form!

I then got a lot of pressure from the gaggle behind me – Neil Aldridge and David Leniewski in their blue AHS cars and also Sam Engineer in his brand spanking new orange GAC. Sam has now left our little group of Sheane’s, but I was pleased he’d found a second a lap straight away in his new car, and is looking good already.

Jamie Harrison spun out of Surtees, and I had to lift off mid-corner both for the yellow flags and so I could tighten my line and get around him, but Neil unfortunately was right on the back of me and had nowhere to go other than off and into the tyres.

I then had a bit of a dice with Sam, before some of the lead cars laped us and we had to back off a bit to let them through.

Suddenly Sam came passed me and pulled out a huge gap straight away! I was pretty sure my engine hadn’t gone again, so I got my head down and gave chase in disbelief at how he’d found another 30hp!

I tried my best to hang onto him, and then the back stepped out big-time through Surtees. I was facing tyres walls at very high speed, still on opposite lock, and needed to be turning right. I have no idea how, but I must have snapped on the perfect amount of steering lock to catch the car, and much to my thrill and amazement still managed to make the next corner! This was a HUGE moment, but to look at the video you’d barely even notice it!

One thing to stand testament to this was that my FitBit recorded a heart beat of 171bpm at this moment. I will do another blog about the whole FitBit experience in another blog soon! It’s pretty interesting stuff.

I finished 18th overall, and 5th in Class B. When we were in parc ferme, I also realised the orange car I’d been chasing was actually Maurice Gloster lapping me – and Sam was still behind me in his identical car and helmet!  The two laps following Maurice were also by far my fastest up until then!

Race 2

I got a better start, but again Martin Snarey came rocketing about 4 rows forwards. I’m convinced he’s using some kind of catapult, and will be watching him VERY carefully from now on.

I out-dragged Francis Twyman and dropped down Paddock hill behind Jake Hockley once again, and just as before he steadily left me from that point on!

Francis dived to my inside into Druids and then pulled out a large gap as one of the blue cars in my mirrors disappeared into the gravel at Paddock Hill, bringing out red flags as the marshals dragged David back onto terra firma for the restart…

We sat on the grid for about 15 minutes waiting for the restart. The problem here is we’re in air-cooled cars, and if you switch off your engine it might not restart again. So I sat there, on another awkward bit of track, holding the brake whilst constantly blipping the throttle to keep it from stalling. At one point I actually grabbed my right knee with both hands and physically pushed and pulled my leg up and down, as I couldn’t do it any longer!

Finally, despite a leg now made purely from rubber and pain, I got another good restart, passing Francis and almost Jake into Paddock Hill.

I was determined to keep up with the pack ahead, so tried my best to avoid the marauding group snapping at my exhaust, and got all kinds of out-of-shape into Paddock. I saw yellow flash in my mirrors as Francis followed me deep into the corner but couldn’t quite keep it on the black stuff.

This all seemed to put the rest of my chasers off just long enough for me to draw out some breathing space, and I focused on the white Sheane of Martin Snarey in the distance, and tried to compensate for lack of power by pushing hard in the twisty bits.

I steadily reigned him in, taking huge chunks out of his lead through Paddock and Druids, only to have him pull it all back in the next corners to leave the gap over the start line the same.

I ignored the pain screaming in my arms (did I say Formula Vee wasn’t all that physical in an earlier blog?) and closed right in, but had left it too late as the chequered flag came out when I was half a second behind. One more lap and I’d have undoubtedly been all over him – but passing might have been another matter!

This left me 5th in class again, and 17th overall. Perhaps more of a victory in this one was that I didn’t get lapped! I don’t like getting lapped!

Those are the cold, hard facts – I’ll give my take on my own performance in an analysis blog.

I would like to thank Vard again for coming along to help out – and congratulations to Paul Smith who won both races, as well as Ben Miloudi and Martin Farmer who got 2nd and 3rd in race 1, and Ian Jordan and Ian Buxton for race 2.

And another very special thank you to Dan at JooVoo for the amazing new JooVuu X camera that I used to capture all the action.  I’m sure you’ll agree that the quality of the footage is amazing, and it will get even better as we learn how to set the camera up for race use.

Race 1 Video:

Race 2 Video:

 

I love Donington Park – but it hates me!

21 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by jamescaterracing in Formula Vee, Racing, Rules & Regulations, Uncategorized

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2016, accident, clerk of course, crash, donington park, formula vee, gravel trap

I love Donington Park – but it hates me!

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!

Fair point, well made, Ian. Sorry…

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