My usual start took me forward a few rows and the car felt good, although still lacking power.
I was still in ‘safety’ mode so not trying anything daft, and I’d got myself into a pack of about nine cars, so that took a bit of restraint. I’d taken to dropping to third gear for Paddock as the engine seemed to handle the revs ok, and I was still getting that flat spot in fourth.
Neil Aldridge had an absolutely terrible lap and dropped right from the front of our pack and I had a great run on him into Paddock around the outside.
As I’d committed, Vaughn Jones cut from the outside line to the inside to make a move on the cars ahead, and spun on the inside of the corner just ahead of Neil.
I saw all of this and moved another cars width to the left so that I was right on the edge of the track and Neil had plenty of room to also move left as Vaughn’s spin took him across the track.
Unfortunately Vaughn either clipped Neil or he had to dive left more to avoid him, and I was directly alongside and going past.
Neil sideswiped me wheel to wheel, causing us both to spin with him now in the gravel.
I could hear his throttle fully open as he slammed into me again, his airborne rear wheel ripping a hole through the aluminium side panel inches from my head, this hard impact sending me off at a tangent across the track to the infield.
I was on the grass with the engine still running, looking very carefully at my right rear wheel where it felt like the main impact had been.
I knew the front would be bent, so wasn’t paying much attention to it as I eased the car forwards, and it was heading in a straightish line. I cruised up to Druids and was starting to think I could crawl around and pick up points, until I dabbed the brakes and the car slewed left and over the gravel.
I knew it was race over for me, and remembering how they’d red flagged qualifying when Bill Garner pulled off at that exact spot I was eager to get the car to a safe place where they wouldn’t stop the race.
I pointed left towards the marshal post and a group of marshals there were signalling crossing their hands in front of them in the ‘no’ gesture, so I pointed to the right, to the infield of the hairpin to a dirt road that would take me behind the barrier.
I should note that all this time I couldn’t see behind me, as the crest of the road meant all I could see was the top of Paddock Hill, 300+ metres away, so there was no way I could make out any cars. Everything else was hidden in the dip.
Still pointing to the infield, I looked at the marshals who were pointing repeatedly to the spot I was looking to go.
I gave a jab of throttle and crossed the track and into the refuge area – but as I ran up the curb on the infield I saw the pack stream past me in my mirrors. Close. VERY close.
I was fuming.
You can hear me, dripping with sarcastic rage, say “I don’t think they should have told me to do that!”, before getting out and stropping around a bit, moaning to the spectators about what had just happened.
A red flag came out for Neil and the marshals came over to help me.
I asked why they’d told me to cross the track when the leaders were that close and they told me they’d been saying “No – don’t go!” and were actually pointing to the approaching pack of cars and not telling me to go…
So we’d simply miscommunicated – not surprising as there are no pre-arranged hand signals between us, and, as demonstrated here, it could all be misinterpreted. I shouldn’t have used the marshals as my eyes when I couldn’t see – they already do a hard enough job and I shouldn’t have assumed we were on the same wave length.
It’s definitely not their fault, and do a brilliant job keeping us safe.
I also realise that this incident will look Very Bad to everyone, and on the TV coverage, so wanted to at least get my side of things across! Another lesson learned, and luckily no harm done.
I’ll do a separate damage report, but we do still hope to make Croft.
Well at least this one will be longer than the Croft report. I will also look at some of the more controversial moments that I may have got myself involved in.
I entered the race at the last second, and at that stage the engine wasn’t actually back together again! We’ve used bits from the new engine that was nearly built up – but that means we have a few mis-matched bits and had to go with a ‘safe’ setting with lower compression and other compromises.
We were up at 4am and made the start of qualifying, though!
Qualifying
For once it didn’t start raining as the Vee’s lined up to go out – in fact the sun scorched down all weekend.
I had to ease the engine in so was taking it easy to get my mandatory three laps in, and these were also my first laps in the car for six months (I think we can discount two sodden laps at Coombe).
Before I could do that, the session was red flagged with a car pulled off at Druids. I was also noting that a lot of people out there were driving as if it was the last lap of the race, throwing it around both sides of the slower cars and having a whinge when they didn’t disappear – in short, I was waiting for a big accident…
And on the restart it came. Dave Wallis had lost it at Clearways, and with James Clennell left unsighted behind another car, he ploughed into him.
I had the very surreal and almost cartoonish experience of coming around Clearways to see their cars on each side of the track, and two wheels rolling up the centre of the track on their own. Unfortunately I had some camera issues meaning this footage was recorded over – but take my worked for it when I say it was WEIRD to see! And a bit scary…
I didn’t like the look of Clennells car – a lot of chassis deformity, but thankfully he and Dave were both able to walk away. Dave commented to me that if that was in the sidecar he’d raced last year, that might not have been the case for anyone involved… Which is why I chose to race with four wheels instead of two!
My car had been smoking, and we found a fixable oil leak. The engine seemed ok but not particularly sharp, but I found that getting back on the throttle to turn into Paddock Hill I got nothing. I described it as a flat-spot in the rev range that we can probably attribute to the new heads not being delicately tuned to the length of the carb manifolds.
Solution for the race? Either drop it to third gear (risking high revs), or go into the corner a lot faster in fourth gear.
So only one option, then!
Race 1
I made a great start and blasted through a few rows. This is where things can get a bit awkward, especially if you’re trying to keep out of trouble, as you’re now right in the thick of the first corner bottleneck, and if you make a great start you can be around cars that will lap much faster.
If you back off too much you get hit by those charging behind you, but if your ‘ambition outweighs your talent’ (as Stoner said) then you can take out half the grid…
I backed off more than I normally would and lost a few places into Druids.
Things settled and I was in about a seven car group, although I was towards the back still feeling things out with my car.
Everyone around me was racing hard but fair, and despite the number of us swapping and changing, I think we all trusted each other not to do anything daft. This is where you get some great racing, and you’re also not slowing each other up.
I let what seemed to be the entire field plus half the Locust grid up the inside of me into Druids as I was focusing a bit too much on keeping it safe.
Then Bill Garner starting dropping all of his oil over the track. My visor (oh, that reminds me you’re still waiting for my report on my anti-fog modifications – stay tuned for that!) was covered and it was like a wake coming out the back of the car.
Rory Melia was ahead of me when Bill overtook him going into Paddock Hill, and I could see as soon as Rory hit the brakes he lost it on the oil. I thought I could ease on the brakes and nip up the inside before he spun, but the instant I touched my brakes the back end swung around like I was on ice.
I stood on the brakes to lock everything up, but I was travelling directly backwards and all I could see in both of my mirrors was Rory directly in my path. I let off the brakes a little to get some steering back and managed to get some angle so I didn’t clatter into him, and as a bonus still stayed out of the gravel trap.
Alex Jones had an interesting view of this as he was directly behind us, and we part to let him through the middle just in time.
Tom Roper wasn’t quite so lucky, but managed to slam on his brakes to avoid me, now almost stationary in front of him as he came over the blind crest.
I wasn’t getting any lights from my dashboard to restart, so let the car roll down the hill and tried to bump start it, but even this was to no avail. Finally, just as I hit the rise up to Druids I tried the starter again and it fired in a cloud of black smoke, and I blasted off to chase down Vaughn Jones in his Spider.
I instantly felt that all was not well, and I seemed to be losing power all the time, with the engine sounding rougher and rougher by the lap. And I’d already lost a lot of time and many places…
To spice things up, at least one other car was also dumping all their oil onto the track. I remember for a few laps there were three distinct lines of oil through Surtees – the flat-out left hander – and you basically had to pick one of them and see if you could hold on!
I caught Vaughn as I neared Druids, and just caught a glimpse of the leaders right behind me (what happened to the blue flags??). I let Daniel Hands**? and Graham Gant through up the inside, taking a wide line in, and seeing Graham seriously sideways on oil and headed for the tyres (well held, that man!), decided to cut back for a late apex.
Here’s the moment where some say I knocked off the nosecone of another car:
I overtook Vaughn down the Cooper Straight and then still managed to stay stupidly wide, risking putting myself off and losing the position I’d just made to allow another two leaders to have the inside line into Surtees, all of us sliding three wide on the oil.
I don’t think some of the faster cars realise just how much effort we put into getting out of their way, and we often get sarcastic comments about “not looking in your mirrors”. Sometimes what they actually want is for you to disappear, but we still have to turn into the corner at some point as well, and if you’re so great a driver why do you expect us to be able to use less track than you? Remember that the MSA rules tell you to stick to your normal racing line and it’s up to the car behind to find a safe way past you – imagine if we all just stuck to this? Then we’d see some proper moaning.
Anyway, rant over…
I crossed the line a sorry 20th with the engine sounding awful. Speaking to Glenn we were ready to just put it on the trailer and take it home, rather than risk more engine damage, but he decided to have a look at compression readings.
This was down to what we expected, but a fair bit lower on two cylinders – still not really enough to explain the problem, though, so he checked the valve clearances as a last hope.
We found one had become very tight, and one very loose, so after a quick adjustment that seemed a likely culprit. We headed to the Kentagon for a meal and some banter with the other drivers, and were happy to give it a crack for the next day.
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.
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.
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!
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
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:
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.
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!
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?
After finishing Donington with more holes in the engine than we started with, it made sense to play it safe and not rev over 7000rpm.
Of course, in qualifying, I had a lot more than that to worry about!
Glenn had pretty much straightened out the bent front beam, and we’d found the wheelbase on the left was an inch or so shorted than the other side – so that should explain why the car had been pulling to the left. When I came through the tunnel before the session, I jabbed the brakes and the car veered massively to the right.
I thought we might have overcompensated with the set up, or maybe the piston on the left brake caliper had shaken itself back. I could only do a soft brake test before I was in the holding area, and that didn’t show anything up.
I told Glenn, who said the brake pads were also a bit low, so that might not be helping. I decided I could live with it for 3 laps (the minimum to qualify) and then come in, and then we could fix it before the race.
As it turned out, the brakes were fine – but I then started getting a misfire coming off random corners. Weirdly, this disappeared before the races – but Glenn’s tweaking, whilst not finding a cause, may have fixed this.
So I was expecting to qualify higher than I did, but wasn’t overly concerned. I was still struggling with some corners, but was much better in others than at the Festival. I don’t think I ever ran wide out of Graham Hill, and was pretty good through Surtees – but although I was faster through Paddock Hill my line was useless.
I was under a lot of pressure from behind in Race 1, and my shoddy defensive line through Paddock Hill seemed to them become my regular line when I was on my own. I need to slap myself for that!
The results weren’t great – but then with all the guys up the front being SERIOUSLY fast, that could be a problem for us this year. I do find it quite amusing that my mix-up between Maurice Gloster lapping me and my battle with Sam Engineer meant I was 3 secs per lap faster as I tried to fight back at Gloster!
The good news is that I am finally feeling comfortable with the car getting a bit out of shape.
When I had The Moment on the last lap through Surtees when the back stepped out, I made one very fast correction to the exact angle needed. There was no input needed for the recovery – I simply turned into the next corner from that with the car totally back under control. I’m pretty proud of myself, and think that might be the ‘click’ I get with a new bike when I sort-of become one with it (in hippie terms)!
I’ve said from the start I think the way to drive a Vee is to get it moving around. Now I’m sure I need to get the car out of line BEFORE the corner to have any chance against the faster and more powerful opponents.
James Harridge demonstrated this perfectly with a huge 4 wheel drift into and around Druids when he lapped me, as did John Hughes as he passed me through Paddock, with a filthy great lurid slide all the way down the hill. This was also carbon-copied by Jamie Harrison when he came back passed me in the same place!
If I can back a bike into a corner, then surely I can do it on 4 wheels? If not, I’m going to learn!
I was using lift-off oversteer mid-corner a fair bit to bring the back around and turn it in, then powering through the exit. This seems to work equally as well in slow corners like Druids as it does flat out through Surtees.
Glenn has remounted the rear shocks ready for Croft, so we’ll see if this helps with another few inches of suspension travel plus a lower car.
Race 2 felt like I drove much harder, but was actually only 0.01 secs faster. Track conditions could account for this, but overall each lap was faster – and of course I didn’t get lapped by the leaders! Having Martin Snarey as a target helped a lot with this.
My engine just doesn’t sound like it did last year, so something isn’t quite right, but we don’t know what. For Croft I’ll be pushing the engine a bit more, and revving to 7400rpm or so and seeing if all our power is still in those last 400rpm.
Croft is a circuit I only know from TOCA Touring Cars computer games 20 years ago, so I will be doing some YouTube research for it.
We can’t afford to test for this one (in terms of both money and time due to travel), so I’ll be jumping straight in and learning the track in qualifying.
If it’s dry then the fast corners should suit me, but might not suit our reduced power too well. If it’s wet… well, it might not be so bad for us at the moment!
I hope you all liked the amazing footage from the new JooVuu X camera – I will be talking about this a lot more in the near future!
See you at Croft this weekend – hopefully for some more sideways action!
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.
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!
The UK Formula Vee championship kicks off tomorrow at Brands Hatch!
Unfortunately, I’m not going to be there…
Glenn’s had the heads off the Sheane, and they look fine, so we’re expecting to find ‘problems’ with the crank. Especially as it’s still seized solid.
I shall know more shortly, and try to get pics/vids and stuff, and of course keep everyone updated.
We’ll get out there testing as soon as possible, and have a bit of support from a company who sell action cameras and lots of tech malarkey – there will be far more on this soon, and I’ll do a full blog on camera mounting and what cameras we’ll be using to capture all the action this year.
In the meantime, Brands Hatch should be fantastic!
Paul Smith will be hungry to get some results this year, especially with Martin Farmer not currently planning any Vee races as he concentrates on his excellent HRX racewear brand (seriously, check them out if you’re after a new suit etc).
The usual contenders – Buxton, Belsey, Gant, Pitchford, Probert, Ough, Jordan, Taylor – will all be out this year, and all in for a shout of at least a podium.
Ben Miloudi is still sunning himself in the Bahamas but might fly back for Silverstone, as all those beaches must get boring.
Craig Pollard is bound to be a contender again – especially if it rains!
However, my money for the championship this year is on James Harridge.
The Maverick chassis seems excellent, and was only crippled by the withheld secrets of Formula Vee engines. They’ve put their aspirations of building their own engines on hold and got a lump in there which may not be the greatest on the grid, but should be enough to see James on the top step. Maybe even at Brands Hatch.
I’m sure there will be a few rookies making a surprising entrance into the championship *waves frantically whilst trying to look nonchalent*, and some of the other drivers may make that leap to the front pack.
As ever, there will be live timing of qualifying and races online:
Motors TV will be filming at all the rounds (as far as I know), and so it looks like yet another cracking season is about to take off thanks to 750 Motor Club.
I’m going to be glued to the live timing, but my body will be at Prescott Hillclimb this weekend to have a look at something different for the first time.
I’ll probably do a write-up of that, but if you’re anywhere near Brands, get yourself down there for the best motor racing action in the UK this weekend!
James Cater Racing 