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James Cater Racing

~ Realising the childhood dream…

James Cater Racing

Tag Archives: brands hatch GP

Brands Hatch GP – Race 2 (Part 3 of 3)

08 Monday May 2017

Posted by jamescaterracing in Formula Vee, Racing, Uncategorized

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blog, brands hatch GP, crash, formula vee, joovuu, Primrose Hospice, race 2, spin, VW Heritage

More drama, as the scrutineers had decided to check and seal our gearbox, and the only chance we could do that was right before the second race. I headed to the infield garages, taking all my kit and planning on going straight from there to the grid, if we could still make it in time.

As I pulled into the garage the skies opened big time.

Racing was cancelled for a while as we had hail, the tunnels flooded, the pit lane became a waterfall/swimming pool, and other assorted skallywag behaviour came from the sky.

This was, of course, because it saw me driving to the collecting area and thought the Vee race was about to start!

Eventually it settled a bit, my gearbox was sealed, and I took to the wet grid to try and salvage something from the weekend.

Race 2

I spun the wheels a fair bit off the line, so had to get back off the throttle and didn’t make my patented rocket start – but it was still fairly decent and I didn’t lose out much and was right on the back of a big pack.

Andrew Crighton got a storming start and slipped past and I thought he’d be a pretty decent car to follow for a few laps to drag me up to pace.

I got a monster slide out of Druids which I held but I lost ground on the pack ahead. I could see the red and white of Andrew Cooper behind me but still had a bit of breathing space. With all the spray it wasn’t a bad place to settle in for a while and get some laps in.

I was having to be very definite when changing to 3rd and 4th gears, but other than that the gearbox was holding up and it seemed that the days gremlins had finally gone.

I eased the brakes on nice and early for Paddock Hill bend at the end of the first lap, and instantly locked up the rears.

I was on a slightly high line and figured I’d just hit a bit of track that was more slippery. I became very aware of the wall straight ahead which was now very quickly looming closer, and gave a couple of quick pumps of cadence braking which didn’t seem to help anything.

I realised I was crashing.

I really didn’t want to hit that wall, so got right off the brakes and flung the car to the right, then got lightly on the brakes to trail it in, not thinking I could make the corner in a million years, but preferring to spin it into the gravel over the crest of the track where I wouldn’t hit anything solid.

The back end inevitably swung around, but to my surprise I caught it with opposite lock. Oh wow, I thought – I might make this!

I was still headed for the edge of the track so eased it over some more and then the Brands Hatch camber took over as I went over the crest and I had no space for a correction, this time…

More gravel spewed over me and I realised I’d stalled and was reaching for the starter button before I’d even stopped moving, as my instincts kicked in. I was only a few feet into the gravel trap, so thought I could roll it out and get back on the black stuff.

The engine didn’t fire up, so I gave the starter button another press and this time just got a clunk.

My mind flashed back to the earlier spin and the lumps of gravel I saw down the carb trumpets. I also thought we hadn’t had the battery on charge all day, and there were several long delays to the start where I’d had to switch on and off. There can’t be a lot left in the battery after that?

(A quick note here – we don’t run any sort of charging circuit on the car. It’s what I’d call a “total loss system” on a bike. Stripping the charging components out saves a lot of weight, and you don’t need it. I haven’t asked too many questions about the Vee version, but I assume it’s the same idea.)

The other option, of course, is that the engine had seized. That might explain the strange rear lock-up I’d had (I was locking the fronts everywhere else so don’t see why the rears would lock up there?). Or I’d taken in gravel when I tried to restart the car…

So once again I was towed back on the Wagon Of Shame and left to reflect on how much mess gravel makes, and how I’d paid £450 for maybe 2 competitive laps. Ouch.

James Harridge had another theory about both my spins and that the cause was the same. I’d been holding 4th gear through Paddock Hill, which is fine in the dry, but with the reduced wet speed I should really have been dropping to 3rd for it. This means I’d have been getting pushed by the 4th gear inertia as the engine braking would be a lot less than if I’d slammed it down to 3rd.

For the qualifying crash, although seemingly totally different, being in 4th on the exit meant that when the back end started to lose traction and I reduced throttle input, the engine wouldn’t have reacted as quickly as if I was in 3rd, resulting in the spin that I should really have been able to catch.

I can see his point – probably more for the qualifying spin than the second one, but still a bit of an ‘accident waiting to happen’ brought on by me. Who’d have thought cruising around a little would end up causing more problems than pushing?

Now I’ll spend a lot of time cleaning the car up – time I can only see as wasted as Glenn and myself should be spending time getting the Ray and Scarab out on track.

It’ll be a huge job as that car is absolutely covered and even after being trailered back home 200 miles there are many kilograms of gravel STILL inside and all over the engine. Once that’s looking better we can crank the engine by hand and find out if it has died or not.

Fingers crossed – if the engine is stuffed then I might be out for a while, and definitely won’t be driving the awesome Croft at the end of the month…

Brands Hatch GP – Race 1 (Part 2 of 3)

06 Saturday May 2017

Posted by jamescaterracing in Formula Vee, Racing, Uncategorized

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Tags

brands hatch GP, DNF, formula vee, gearbox, joovuu, penalty, Primrose Hospice, problems, race, safety car, VW Heritage

Race 1

The track was almost dry as we took the green flag lap, but all the help we’d had in the paddock was suddenly in vain, as I tried to change to 3rd gear and just got crunching noises and revs. 4th was also AWOL.

Brands Hatch GP is not a 2nd gear circuit, and so rather than taking my grid space (by this time I’d managed to find reverse or 2nd gears) I dove into the pits.

I managed to get 3rd gear back by desperate gear lever wiggling and selecting, and so made a pit lane start a good 30 seconds behind everyone else.

The rain started as I made my charge to catch the pack, but I was going well!

Alex Jones must have thought I looked comfortable in qualifying, so he stuck it in the gravel at Paddock Hill and brought the Safety Car back out.

Perfect. I could make all the time back and get on the back of the chain for the restart!

I caught a silver car driven by returning driver Peter Cann, who seemed to be going slowly as the rain came heavier. I pulled up inches behind him and gestured wildly for him to floor it and catch the back of the pack, but he didn’t speed up.

I thought he might not know you can speed up to catch the back of the Safety Car chain, so was fuming! I got alongside him down the pit straight and pointed GO GO GO!!! but he just let me by him. I knew I couldn’t pass, so had to let him back through and tuck in behind.

I’m not mad at Peter, and to be fair I could see that his car was a massive handful on every bend. He did come over to me after to apologise, and I was absolutely fine with that, as he was going as fast as he could. It was just unfortunate and very frustrating!

After an eternity we got green flags and I shot past, knowing there wasn’t much hope of making up places but willing to give it my best shot!

It was all going well until I suddenly couldn’t get it into 3rd gear again.

I crawled around the rest of the lap making more gear changes than if I were doing the Monaco GP, before pulling into the pits to retire.

The cause? One tiny little nut had come loose on the gear linkage! At least I’d be out for the second race – but then the marshals were telling me I had to go up to see the Clerk of the Course…

I went up to the office an announced exactly what I thought I’d done – pulling alongside Peter Cann and gesturing him to catch the Safety Car – and was told I was right.

Unfortunately they wanted to do it all to the letter of the law, and with no scope of understanding I was told the timing line said I’d overtaken under the safety car and I would have a 20 second time penalty applied.

I pointed out the race was actually still on, at that point, but even the fact I’d retired didn’t sway them. And it would be applied to the results of that race.

Ok then…

James Harridge had a bearing failure on his engine and failed to finish, and a similar time penalty applied to Craig Pollard (for just as daft reasons) meant Adam Macaulay took the win, followed by Ben Miloudi and the returning James Clennell.

Jack Wilkinson won B class in 4th place overall, with Jamie Harrison and Andrew Cooper shredding my second championship place I’d had coming into the race.

Brands Hatch GP – Qualifying (Part 1 of 3)

05 Friday May 2017

Posted by jamescaterracing in Formula Vee, Racing, Uncategorized

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2017, brands hatch GP, crash, formula vee, gravel trap, help, joovuu, Primrose Hospice, qualifying, spin, VW Heritage

The legendary Brands Hatch GP circuit.

Despite the ridiculous entry fee (£450 just to get in the gate!), as soon as I saw we were getting a rare chance to race on the full circuit, I knew I had to do it.

I thought it might also serve as a much-needed escape from stresses back in the ‘Real World’ away from racing – but as it turned out, it hasn’t helped much at all!

We opted to make the 3-4 hour journey down to Brands on the morning, already knowing it would be a very tight and hectic day ahead.

Within 30 miles the trusty VW Camper van started making a worrying rumbling sound all of a sudden. A quick check delayed us as we looked camper and trailer over to try and find the source, and after a few more miles we pulled in again to check the wheel bearings weren’t about to fall off… half expecting to have to turn around and go home.

Luckily Glenn left the engine running as we got out, and it was soon obvious that the camper had blown something on its exhaust. Happy we wouldn’t die, we carried on.

With light traffic the rest of the way, we made it there on time easily, and thought our luck had changed. We were wrong.

Qualifying

True to form, the heavens had opened as we blasted out of the pit lane for everyone’s first ever lap of the full circuit.

It was instantly obvious that it was really slippery, with everyone sliding around all over the place. I followed Ben Miloudi through Clearways on a big armful of opposite lock, then we were both sideways on the power most of the way down the pit straight as there was just no traction to be found.

The inevitable happened, and with cars off the safety car came out (still better than a red flag!) as the marshals cleaned up.

I felt pretty good with the car, but the excellent wet set up I’d found for Oulton wasn’t working for me at Brands. To be fair it was probably just too wet for anything to be of much use.

The track, however, was fantastic! I’ve said before that Brands Indy is my least favourite track, but I do like the old GP section. I lose my favourite flat-out Surtees corner, but the new version is good an challenging, as is the new angle of attack for Clearways over the crest. I’m sure both would be even better in the dry!

Anyway, the safety car… 750 Motor Club don’t normally use a safety car, so being with MSVR for the day was a good chance to see how it works. For the most part it’s great, as it keeps you moving and out of track, but I will come back to this later with some things that aren’t so brilliant.

I never actually saw the safety car itself, as the group I was following didn’t catch up to it before we saw green flags.

I got back on the pace, and a very quick Christian Goller slithered by I followed him through Paddock Hill and then got on the throttle a little bit harder and sooner down the hill, and the back started swinging around.

I made a huge correction on opposite lock but then the rear bit again and fired me sideways into the gravel trap, ripping my nose cone to shreds and showering me in gravel as I stopped just shy of hitting the tyre wall backwards.

I tried to drive out but that was hopeless as I was virtually buried. I even had gravel on the inside of my visor! I switched off and jumped out, marvelling at how covered the car was.

I’d also taken a quick look inside the carb trumpets, and could see lumps of stone there waiting to get into the engine, so I had to wait until the session ended to be towed back on The Wagon Of Shame.

Of course, the rain stopped just as I needed it to clean the car off!

I need to give a special mention here to Chris Whitehouse and Vinoth Kumar who did an excellent job of cleaning the car up, and also to Dave Jordan for the loan of a vacuum cleaner to get gravel out of the car – without them we’d have no chance of making the start of the race, so it was hugely appreciated, and yet another display of the Vee crowd pitching in to help!

Covered in mud, I used my biker skills to create a workable nose cone out of duct tape, and got to the assembly area just in time…

Oh, and despite all the drama I’d somehow still qualified 18th and 16th for the races!

James Harridge took pole by about 4 seconds from Ben Miloudi and Steve Ough.

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