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

08 Monday May 2017

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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 – Qualifying (Part 1 of 3)

05 Friday May 2017

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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.

I love Donington Park – but it hates me!

21 Monday Mar 2016

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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…

2015 Formula Vee Highlights Video

09 Wednesday Dec 2015

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2015 Formula Vee Highlights Video

Here’s all the action and moments charting the story of sliding into the cockpit for the first time, to blasting away from a race grid in a National championship!

Hope you enjoy it

You can’t believe how much work goes into videos like this – I had to go through every bit of footage, noting bits to include, train myself up on video transitions and stuff, spend hours compiling it all and getting it to fit, then scrapping so many cool overtakes that it broke my heart!  Then another few hours processing, checking, and uploading it!

A lot of work – but I loved it!

Feel free to comment with any suggestion, improvements, likes or dislikes!

Donington Park GP 03/10/15

07 Wednesday Oct 2015

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Donington Park GP 03/10/15

A year on from my first ever time sitting in the Sheane Formula Vee race car.

A year on from the disappointment of paying over £100 per corner to test, only to get 3 corners in before the engine seized, and it was all over.

Of course, I’ve managed 2 race weekends since then – and finished 4 races, so this time coming back to Donington was greatly different.

Qualifying

Leaving the holding area, I gave it a big hoof of throttle and did a big rolling burnout up the track which was completely planned and intentional and in no way an accident. Ahem. We were the first session out for the day, and it was a bit slippery, then!

Perhaps understandably, I was a bit tentative going through Old Hairpin, but as soon as I got through that, I started building my pace up.

I’d been watching a lot of YouTube videos to prepare. Not just the top racers videos, either – I’d also made sure that I watched the onboard footage from the slower cars, to try to understand what they were doing differently, and what my margin would be.

One thing I did notice was that almost everyone was changing down to 2nd gear for both hairpins – something that is still a problem, and I’m not sure if it’s me or the car that won’t allow it! I opted to stay in 3rd gear as long as I wasn’t losing too much time…

I had done a trackday here on a 600cc Kawasaki ZX6R years ago, so knew the layout of the track quite well from that. Both of these things helped me!

I latched onto the back of Tim Probert and Pete Belsey as they came past just at the right time, as I’d found some confidence.

Coming into Redgate, I made a slight mistake that I think resulted in a bit of a block pass on Patrick Leidke, who I’d just watched get very sideways around Goddards, and with a wave of apology put in a fast lap.

It was all to no avail, as I got back around to Goddards myself to push a little too hard and do exactly the same thing myself, spinning off backwards onto the grass.

As I readied myself to get back on the black stuff, Paul Smith came around, and I could see the chequered flag being unfolded ahead, ending the session and meaning I lost out on not only my fastest lap, but one more lap to improve further!

This left me qualifying 15th for race 1, and 19th for race 2 – but I knew I was a fair bit faster than all the cars around me on the grid!

Race 1

I was confident that if I could get past a handful of cars ahead without incident, I could drop back into my own pace and pull away. It’s easy to hit the back of a group and then settle in to their pace.

I wasn’t as aggressive as I should have been, allowing a few people to come past me in the first few corners, but by the back straight I was catching Alex Jones, and knew one of my strongest zones was the entrance to Foggies chicane.

I passed Alex just before the braking zone, but he was braking very late to try and defend his outside line. I turned in, but getting twitchy on cold tyres meant I’d made a rookie error and hadn’t dropped to 3rd gear. As I straightlined the chicane, clipping a cone, Ed Lowndes flashed between me and Alex and into the gravel, and my mirrors filled with carnage as cars spun.

I overcooked it into the Melbourne hairpin, went wide, and spun, rejoining right at the back of anyone left running.

Then the red flags came out as Patrick Leidke was beached in the gravel!

As I came back around prepared to start at the back, I was chuffed to bits as the marshals waved me back into my original place on the grid for a total restart. Let’s try that again…

I made another good start, passing a slow moving Jesse Chamberlain on the grass, and did exactly the same move into Foggies on Jamie Harrison – only this time I remembered to change gear!

I worked my way up to Steve Bailey, catching him down the pit straight quickly, but didn’t think I was close enough to dive up the inside.

I broke a few feet early and committed to running deep and turning late for a cut-back pass, but he ran very deep and stayed on the brakes without turning in. I locked up my front right wheel and then it slid into Steve’s rear left, launching me a few feet up in the air. I felt instant pain as the steering wheel wrenched my wrists around, and a blinding snap in my left shoulder.

I smashed back into the tarmac, damaging my front left wheel and smashing my left elbow into the chassis, as my head, neck and back also took some punishment. Perhaps more seriously, the car veered to the left as something Not Very Good had happened to the suspension/steering.

I crawled around the rest of the lap carefully, expecting something to break or at least the tyre to go down, but as I reached the pits only a few cars had come past me. I decided to stay out and try and pick up some points.

Every time I was on full lock out of Melbourne I could feel my left wrist grinding and cracking, but it wasn’t so bad on the rest of the lap.

Alex Jones came past me as I tip-toed down Craner Curves, and I could see a pack of cars behind me with Bill Stenning. Could I at least stay ahead of them?

Yes, as it turns out! I almost caught Alex again through my strongest section (McLeans to Melbourne) and then saw yellows on the exit where Tony Mitchell and Ed Lowndes had come together.

I limped it back in 18th place.

Race 2

We found a bent steering linkage was the worst of our problems, borrowing one from (I think) Sam Engineer, and Glenn set about trying to reduce the positive camber we now had on our front left wheel!

Starting from 19th in this one, I was careful through the first few corners as we had no idea how the Sheane would handle, but it was soon clear that I’d be able to manage the handling problems and do what I could.

I started charging through the field with a pass between Tim Probert and Martin Snarey into Redgate, then battling with Tony Mitchell before eventually shaking him off to attack Mike Oldknow and Jamie Harrison.

After nipping by Jamie into Melbourne, I nearly followed Mike straight on at Goddards, but just made it around to stay ahead.

Edging away from them, I saw the last lap board and gave Glenn a thumbs up, knowing nobody was going to catch me, but also seeing I’d need a few more laps to get on the next car that was in the distance.

Throwing it into McLeans I suddenly had no power.

My instant fear was that I’d blown the engine, but quickly realised, as a few cars streamed past me, that I was out of fuel.

I faltered through the Foggies chicane – two corners to go – before the engine died, and I had to pull onto the grass.

My first ever DNF. My second time being towed back to the pits at Donington.

Perhaps surprisingly, I’m not mad about the fuel cock-up. Sure, another £1 would have probably got me to the flag, but I showed that even with a damaged car (and wrist!) I could be fast. Jamie Harrison was 2nd in the B class championship, and is certainly no slouch, and this was the first time I’ve been faster than him!

I know I still have a lot to learn, and the car is much faster than I am. The positive to take away from an unlucky weekend is that I’m confident I can improve to be close to the lap times of B class Champion Jack Wilkinson, and that means I should be aiming at the top 3 of the B class for next year!

As long as I can keep all four wheels on the ground…

The videos:

Race 1

Race 2