One of the main things you’ll learn about motor racing is that, much like the other ‘M’ word (Marriage), if you mention it, the costs for everything go up. So it’s best to try and ignore what you’re spending on it.
A few of you have commented on my claim to have a budget of £2000 to do a season of Formula Vee – and rightly so, because if you add up all the entry fees that alone comes to just over this figure!
Last year, I came into the UK Formula Vee championship very late, and only did the last 3 rounds. Added to this was a bit of testing, plus the non-championship Vee Festival.
So, the long and short of it is that it will cost more than £2000 to race for a season, but with a few large assumptions, it can be done for not much more than this.
The main assumptions are that you have your own car, you’ve already got a set of Hoosier tyres, you’re not testing, you don’t break the car, and you’re not actually attending every round.
The way the championship is scored means you drop your worst two scores, assuming you have attended and finished every round – because of this a lot of drivers with tight budgets will miss a round because it’s too far away or they don’t like the track.
The point I’m making here is that you can race in Formula Vee on a fairly small budget – but most people in the series don’t.
If you’re testing at tracks it’s great, and highly desirable when you’re new to it all, but you CAN turn up and learn learn the track in qualifying – as I have done for the most part. I would love to be able to test, but I simply cannot afford to, both in cash terms and time off work.
Whilst I’m spending £30 per race weekend on Shell V-Power straight from the pump (and isn’t it great that fuel costs are still down?!), a lot of the other drivers are using full-on Sunoco race fuel for £300 per weekend! Whilst there should be some advantage to the higher octane fuel, I’ll just point out that I’m beating people using this fuel – so there’s no way I could ever justify spending this! Or to look at it another way, if I had that money I’m 100% sure it would be better spent on a test day hammering around a circuit. Once I’m familiar with all the circuits this might change, but to a rookie there is no magical go-faster add-on you can buy that will help you win – you need time in the car!
If you’re hiring a car you’re going to be paying between £500 and £750 for anything competitive – but do bear in mind you can buy a car for £3000 and you’re probably going to do as well in that as a rookie as if you’ve spent £30,000 on a sparkling new AHS Dominator!
The great thing about Formula Vee is that you DO see people who are on a tight budget mixing it up with the more affluent drivers. I have the ‘honour’ of being one of the lowest paid drivers trying to race Formula Vee, and whilst that can be frustrating, it’s also very rewarding.
I don’t resent the ones with the big budgets – because whatever level of motorsport you do, you will always have teams with a bigger budget. And how much more satisfying is it to beat them?
Of course there are then travel and food costs – we cut that down by taking a lot of Aldi food (maybe I should get them to sponsor me?) and camping over at the circuit in the trusty VW Camper van! Others take tents or sleep in their car – those who can will drive back home or book into a B&B.
Another excellent thing about Formula Vee over a lot of other series is that it is, to some extent, gentleman’s racing. This means most drivers won’t go for silly moves to overtake you, and will do it safely. Of course that observation might change if you’re running in the leading pack, but it means you CAN put fears of being taken out to rest, and just drive and have fun. Nobody wants to crash, because that is expensive, and may well be your season over.
Perhaps equally importantly is that if it does all go wrong on or off the track, the other drivers and teams will do what they can to help you! We all want to be out there racing, and we want more people out there with us (as long as we can beat them)!
So, to revise my original claim with a bit more (reluctant) thought – you can race Formula Vee for a season with a budget of £3000. You won’t be able to be the best you can be, as you’ll have to worry about not crashing and barely testing (I have another blog about the cheapest ways I’ve found to test) – but that is still a Hell of a lot less than anything else you can do to race.
“Just throw it into the corner, and sort out whatever happens afterwards!”
I’ve done 3 championship race weekends (plus one non-championship festival) on a very tight budget, proved I can actually drive a proper Formula Vee race car, and realised my childhood dream!
2015 has been a pretty good year in terms of my personal development.
I’ve had huge help from Glenn Hay who’s basically carried me along the way, but have also overcome my own fears, doubts and lack of skill along the way!
Since coming to my epiphany of how to drive a Formula Vee quickly at Silverstone in my first race (hence the title, “Just throw it into the corner, and sort out whatever happens afterwards!”), I’ve realised it fits quite well with my attitude on life.
Take that gamble. Get off your ass and DO IT – and then deal with the consequences be they good or bad.
If you’re not pushing forwards into the unknown, well, you’ll never know what might have been possible for you.
I’m looking forward (bit of an understatement!!) to driving for Glenn next season, but am also acutely aware that I can’t really do this forever.
I still believe that it IS possible to do a season in Formula Vee for £2000, but I’m not sure it’s sustainable.
In my current job, that’s about all that I could spend. One big crash and that could easily wipe out my budget. Without Glenn to help me, I don’t think I’d have any chance of carrying on. Even if I keep improving and do everything right, realistically, I can’t afford this.
The obvious next step is to find some sponsorship.
I have a lot of ideas, but am also realistic in what I think it’s even possible to get from sponsors in this day and age, and in a race series that’s far from the BTCC or F1.
I may reveal my methods if they yield some success, but for the obvious reasons of competition, this may be the one thing that I won’t be very open about on my blog.
If you read this and would like to help me or the team out in any way at all, from fees, parts, to just getting your hands on at race weekends, then please get in touch!
For 2016 Glenn will be stripping the excellent engine in the Sheane, remounting the front shocks, and then working at getting the Ray and his championship winning Scarab back together, too.
Why?
Because 2017 will be the 50th anniversary of Formula Vee in the UK! We aim to have as many cars out as we can, and it should all be a huge year for Formula Vee, and for British racing!
My aim for 2016 will be more of the same. A steady improvement, and moving up the grid. I’ve proved that I can be quick even with a damaged car and injury, and I was still able to drive around these problems and get, for a total rookie, some pretty fine results!
I’ll be aiming to finish in the top 6 – especially on the tracks I’ve already been to. If I can afford to test before the races I’ll take full advantage so that I can hit the ground running. If I knock out my mistakes I can do well – if I can grab the car by the scruff of its neck and get confident with it at the limit, I can maybe surprise a few of the front runners!
I’ve had some support from JooVuu.com, and hopefully I’ll also be using one of their brand new JooVuu-X cameras. I’ve had a sneak peak of the prototype that arrived just too late for me to use at Brands, and it’s a proper quality bit of kit with loads of amazing features, and it should be huge for them. I’ll also be running multiple cameras where I can to capture all the track action!
Glenn is modifying the front shock positions, so that should also take care of anything I bent getting airborne at Donington, and then the car should be good to go.
Before that, the Vee Centre are holding their annual awards night this Saturday, with a lot of the drivers doing a bit of karting before! I’ll take a helmet camera for that, but with skinny kart experts out there I don’t expect to be winning anything there.
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!
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…
Snetterton 300 Formula Vee – 12 & 13 September 2015
As soon as I’d slithered around the first few corners I was finding cars going much more slowly than I felt I could go. All doubts gone as I dropped into the zone, I pulled out past them, opting to feel the track out at my own pace rather than take the safe option of following someone else.
After the torrentially wet Silverstone test day, I though I’d learned nothing – but maybe it had helped me. I had a lot of confidence in the car, and it was only when a car spun in front of me that I panic braked, locked the front, put a wheel on the grass, and around I went.
It was no drama, and in the 5 laps I had to qualify, I spun another 3 times – still managing to clock the 15th best time of the 22 cars listed!
Above all, I found it great fun! The times themselves weren’t worth much with massive differences making it a bit of a lottery, and I thought I’d most likely drop back in the dry for race 1.
After an ok launch the start line, I found myself up with the experienced drivers Martin Snarey, Tony Mitchell and William Stenning, when things settled down. I was up to 11th on track but then started to drop down the order, as I wasn’t able to find much speed through the first corner and most of the infield section.
After losing about 4 places in one lap (I left it in 4th gear through the infield – doh!), I gave myself a mental slapping and watched the cars in front, braking later than wherever they were braking, and soon began reeling them all back in.
I swapped positions with Tony and Martin until they both got past me again. Tony went a bit wide onto the back straight, and I got a good exit to pull out of his slipstream and outbrake him (and nearly myself!) and made up a lot of ground on Martin.
The lap before I’d managed to get my front wheels alongside Martin into Coram, and this time I thought I’d see if I could complete the move. Getting a good run through the Bomb Hole, I closed in on Martin and seeing I had room kept it pinned in 3rd around the outside of him on the dirty line.
I caught him totally by surprise and flew past, skating sideways into the braking area and just about pulling it back into line to get around the left hander onto the main straight still ahead.
Feeling pretty chuffed with myself, I then saw the chequered flag was out!
I’d snatched an ecstatic 12th place – which then became 11th after Graham Gant was excluded for being under the weight limit. By far my best result, and more than I would have ever hoped for in my second race meeting!
Massive thanks to Tim Probert and the Vee Centre for organising the free BBQ on Saturday night, too – I got to relax and chat to a lot of the other drivers and their crews over a can of beer and great food. This kind of event is especially brilliant for us shy newbies, who struggle to match up names to faces and then match them all up again with the cars and helmets on track! I’m trying to get around all the drivers for a chat, but that’s almost as hard as the racing side of things!
Race 2 saw Snarey fly off ahead but left me in a battle with Wes Burton as I watched Tony Mitchell and William Stenning scrapping it out ahead.
I didn’t push anywhere near as hard as I should have at the start of the race, and although I was 5 seconds per lap faster, everyone else was even quicker!
Wes’s engine sadly blew as he slipstreamed me down the pit straight, leaving me trailing the two ahead.
I got up to a decent pace on the last lap, finally catching Tony and reaching the finish line 0.05 secs behind him to finish 17th overall of the 19 finishers.
This might look disappointing on paper, but I drove much better, and at that pace I should have been in the big gaggle fighting for 11th place again, if I’d gone harder at the start.
More importantly, I still enjoyed it and came away happy!
To keep this short(er), I’ll do another blog with my full post-race analyses.
Snetterton 300 Formula Vee – Preparation and not wanting to be there
My second ever race weekend, with the goal of finishing all the sessions intact and getting signatures for my licence upgrade.
We chose not to test the day before, and set off at 5am for the long drive to Snetterton in horrible weather conditions.
At the circuit I had a quick chat to the other drivers, then signed on attended the New Drivers Briefing.
When getting the car scrutineered, I forgot to bring my signing on sheet, then forgot my gloves and balaclava, then had to trek back across the paddock yet again to fetch my camera mounting, before getting a mild bollocking about my tinted visor.
We were called to the assembly area quicker than I expected, so I donned all my kit and then found the car was totally dead!
Glenn shorted across the starter motor with a screwdriver, and luckily it fired up, so I shot through the paddock, not knowing where the Hell I was going, before eventually catching up with everyone after asking for directions (thanks for pointing me in the right direction, Steve Ough!)!
I sat in the holding area with all the other cars, staring out across a very wet track, and was fully aware that I did not want to be there at all. I don’t really know what it was, but I wasn’t happy with anything.
I’d struggled to find any videos showing the 300 layout, and only done that last minute, so didn’t really know where the track went. I worried I’d be far too slow, or just spin off everywhere, and miserably decided to trundle around and try to qualify for the (forecast) dry races.
I had a feeling I wouldn’t even get the car back safely…
I took one last deep breath and tried to force myself to focus, and then followed the pack onto the puddle-filled tarmac for my first ever lap of Snetterton, and my first time ever on a wet track with all the other Vees…
After finally sorting out the seized engine, we booked in to test at Llandow circuit in Wales.
We had massive problems finding somewhere to test that was suitable to our needs – I think I’ll do a separate blog about that and what we’ve found out, so that might make it easier for anyone else for the future!
In short, though, Llandow were brilliant and laid back. I had sent a few emails to Louise and Sharon, but basically they let us book up the day before, and were happy for us to turn up “around 11ish” and get three hours testing in.
Aims of the day:
Check the engine runs ok
Get the feel of the car
Gain confidence in driving the car
(personal aim) Not to spin, crash or kill the car!
I didn’t really get a chance to be nervous after arriving at Llandow. We basically unloaded the car, fine-tuned some things, and then I signed on, kitted up and jumped in.
There was a brief moment of panic when I slowly let the clutch out (at my Silverstone driving experience they advised to treat the race clutch like a hill start – this was great advice!), only to find the car didn’t move! I checked it was in gear, tried again, and still nothing…
Then I remembered that the biting point on the Sheane is stupidly high off the pedal – unnaturally so! I took my big stupid foot ALL the way off the clutch, and bunny-hopped it forwards a few times. Doh!
Just to rattle me even more, I then saw the light was red onto the circuit, so I had to stop again! When it went green I stumbled away again, then crunched the hell out of the gearbox as I tried to find 2nd gear. I couldn’t, and pulled off the side of the circuit, thinking I must look like the biggest rookie ever and that I’d be seeing a black flag waved at me soon… At least I was the only car out there!
Several deep breaths and I found second gear, deciding to pull away in 2nd to at least get rolling, then 3rd and 4th as I eased onto the back straight with no problems. I was easing the brakes on, and trying to warm the tyres whilst expecting the back to snap around on me like it did at Donington at every second, but after a few corners I realised that must have been the engine seizing that spun me, and all was now well. I could concentrate on getting some heat into the tyres and brakes.
Coming past the pits I braked progressively and changed to 3rd, then to 2nd just before I turned left… and just got lots of crunching again.
Finding 3rd gear I kept it running, and decided to stay in 3rd and 4th for the rest of the session, as getting laps in the car was more important than lap times.
I warmed everything up and after a few laps had found the line and (safe) braking points. I pushed a little harder, raising the corner speed, braking later, and getting on the power harder and earlier, before the chequered flag called me back in.
Second session, and I raised the bar even more. Faster, later, more speed!
I tried braking at the 100 yard board into the first corner, dropping to 3rd at the 50 before turning in, but, as I told Glenn after the session, “the front wheels were doing all kinds of crazy shit!”. I could see both flapping around like a rabbits ears if you gave it a good slap (err, not that I ever have, or would advise doing this – that’s just the image it gave me at the time)!
I thought this was just a combination of the bumps and crest in the braking area and me braking to the limits and locking the wheels a little (more on this later!). I found braking 25 yards earlier and a little smoother seemed to fix the problem, and I could get Glenn to add more damping.
I’d been discussing camber with Glenn on the drive to the circuit, and found exactly as he called it: more throttle in the corners squatted the car down and stabilised the rear. This was the first time I’d felt the power of camber in action, and it felt good!
Always wear a HANS device, kids!
The speed wasn’t intimidating to me at all – I’m used to 0-100mph in under 4 seconds on my bikes – but it also didn’t feel slow. I had a feeling I’d enjoy the high-speed corners, hard on the throttle through the turn, and the two coming onto each straight were indeed my favourites! The connection to the car was as close to riding a bike as I’ve found. It’s still a fair way off, but far closer than I was expecting I’d ever feel on four wheels.
It felt good, and it felt natural, as I improved gear change times and everything started to get into muscle memory. My lap times for the session were consistently within the same second, even though I was still taking the complex in 3rd gear.
I had a few twitches from the rear, but was making sure to push gently up to the limits. It was either Mansell, Senna or Skip Barber who said that if you spin you learn nothing, other than that you went past the limits, and you don’t need to spin to find the limits. Glenn told me after that he was expecting me to spin, and wasn’t sure if I was taking it easy or being smooth and sensible!
We added a click of damping to see what that did into turn 1, and did the 3rd session with me again raising the pace and feeling for the limits. I braked at the 100 yard board again, but the wheels still did their flappy thing, and I had to cadence brake to get it all back on the tarmac.
I blasted out for the 4th session – with me forgetting to switch the camera on!
I’m a bit gutted about this, because I was pushing to what I’d say was a ‘safe race pace’, and would have liked to see the onboard footage. I was fully on the throttle and not touching the brakes until the 50 yard board on the back straight, dropping to 3rd just as I tipped into the chicane, then straight back on the throttle, hanging the right wheel over the grass on the inside all the way around the curve. I was changing up to 4th on the corner exits onto both the straights just as I hit the curb, and giggling like a loon!
The front was still playing up into turn 1, and Glenn waved me in for a closer look after a particularly bad shake of the old bunny ears. And we found this:
Note the very thin metal plate where the shock mounting is welded on. We thought my shoddy braking was the cause, but looking back over the video I can see it first moves around after that very first 100 yard braking attempt in the second session!
When stationary, the mounting must have been moving back into place so we didn’t even spot anything when using the adjuster on the bottom of the shock – and although it’s clearly moving in the video footage, I couldn’t the top of the shocks from the drivers seat.
So that was day over for us, but to be honest I’d got all I needed from the day, and was at the stage where I’d just be taking risks to shave tenths off my lap times – which is not what we were there to do.
Here’s the onboard footage from the 3rd session:
Results:
The engine is strong and ran flawlessly. I’d like another 40hp, but after 30 mins in any vehicle I’d tell you that!
I got a great feel for the car, but some things need work – like changing into 2nd gear and clutch starts.
I’m fully confident driving the car to the levels that I did. I know I was pushing close to the limits, but I also know I can push closer, and then I need to know how to go over that line and still keep it on the track.
(personal aim) I didn’t spin, crash, and it appears I didn’t kill the car, either!
When I had the Donington test last year, my mounting bracket hadn’t turned up in time, and so I went with the easy option – I put a bit of foam underneath the camera (a Mobius Action Camera in JooVuu waterproof case) and duct taped that sucker to the roll hoop on the Sheane.
Whilst this does work, and is very secure, it does come with a few problems. First, we found I’d taped over the LED that shows if the camera is switched on or running, so we had to guess whether it was working. It also means it’s hard to take the memory card out or charge the battery up.
For this year I’m going to make use of the bar clamp mount from JooVuu. It’s not perfect because it’s a bit too small for the 32mm chassis tube – but as I came to find when testing things out, the tube isn’t exactly round everywhere, either, so that makes things a bit tough.
The previous run with it taped on top of the roll hoop gave a good picture, but a lot of the screen was filled up by my behelmeted noggin. This is hard to get around, but with this proper mount it should raise the camera a good few centimeters up, which might make all the difference.
The best camera view will show as much action as possible – both outside and inside the car. This means mounting it on the right hand side, so you (hopefully) get a view of the gearshift and the steering wheel, and maybe even the pedals.
I may be able to get around this even more effectively by mounting the camera on the side of the roll hoop, although the mount that I currently have limits this, as you can’t have the mount in place with the camera horizontal…
This is probably what I’ll go with at first, but it’s no problem to unbolt and move the camera around a little.
As Glenn rightly pointed out, if I put the car upside down it could cause a problem for the camera with these mountings, but then I will be hoping not to do that, anyway!
We also need to consider getting into and out of the car – in a single seater it’s an even that requires an almost Olympic level of strength and contortionism, without having to worry about knocking a camera. And we need to ensure there’s somewhere for them to put a tow rope if we end up getting towed off circuit again!
I will hopefully experiment with rear-facing cameras (providing there are going to be other cars behind me on the track!), but that will need more thinking about with types of mount, heat from the engine, and vibrations from bodywork.
If the test day goes without drama, then I should have a bit of time to rethink what we’re doing with cameras, and make improvements where we can.
Well, maybe not technically the first one ever, but the first time in this Sheane, anyway!
The MSA rules for 2015 state that all single seater drivers in cars made from the year 2000 onwards must use a frontal head restraint system, with pre-2000 cars being required to use them from 2016.
This means Glenn’s 1997 Sheane that I’ll be driving is exempt, however, after writing my previous blog about this, I decided (and my fiancée ‘told’ me!) that I’d be a fool not to be using one right from the start.
The first problem here is that these devices (which I’ll call HANS from here) come in various angles to suit seating positions – so 10 degree is for Formula One, through to 40 degrees for bolt-upright seats such as truck racing. Most single-seaters will need 20 degrees, but there’s no real way to find out which you need until you sit in the car with it on.
Secondly, compared to the 30 degree HANS used for most saloon car racing, the 20 degree kits cost at least 50% more. Whether this is pure greed (the rules to use HANS are ONLY for single-seaters), or because, as these represent a minority of racing series and smaller production runs are required, I will make no comment.
Demon Tweaks were offering an adjustable HANS for around £20 more than the 20 degree model, and as Glenn pointed out, this would mean I could use it with whatever type of car I take on track.
Delivery received, I screwed the posts in to my Koden KSC25 helmet, and attached the HANS.
You don’t have to be scared about this part. You should make sure that there is some thread locker on the screws for the posts, but mine already came with it on the screws.
The HANS attaches to your helmet by sliding the attachment onto the post, which is also spring loaded. Nice and easy, and probably something you could learn to do after putting your helmet on… I found I can put the HANS around my neck already clipped onto the helmet, and then slip the helmet on.
I don’t really know what we’d have done if we’d found it didn’t all fit in the Sheane, but luckily that wasn’t an issue.
I may have mentioned that the head rest in the car may be a little far forward for my liking, and the HANS doesn’t help here – but it’s nowhere near as intrusive as I expected it to be. You’d have to look hard at the pictures to see I’m using one, once it’s all belted up. We may use a smaller bracket for the head rest, but were most likely going to do that even without the HANS.
You CAN feel you’re wearing the HANS when you first put it on, but you wouldn’t call it uncomfortable. By the time you’ve adjusted your belts and pulled them tight (making sure it sits right), you’ve already forgotten you’re wearing it.
It makes absolutely no difference to sideways vision or movement, and, as you can see, the tethers are very slack when it’s all in place. You have to lean your head pretty far forwards before you feel them do their job.
If you’re using 3″ belts, they don’t quite fit over the guides, but the safety documentation says as long as the excess belt is riding up the neck side of the device that’s perfectly ok. We may decide to adjust the belt mountings inwards a bit more behind the seat, but I think it is workable how it is.
Other than that there are no dramas! We’ve brought an old Sheane Formula Vee up to modern safety spec, and now I just hope that we do it justice.
And with any luck, we won’t even have to make use of the proven life-saving capabilities of a HANS device.
I still went to watch the other Formula Vee’s at Donington, and I’m glad I did!
On Saturday the heavens opened and the track looked probably the worst I’ve ever seen it. This justified our decision not to race – with no feel for the car in the dry, let alone the wet, I doubt I’d have even made it to the first corner!
James Harridge, in his first season racing his home-built Maverick took a very emotional second place from qualifying. Everyone watching him power through Redgate on the throttle (the ONLY one who did this!) was a thing of beauty, and I don’t think anyone thought he’d got anything else but pole! Craig Pollard just took it, however.
I mention this here, because in all the write-ups I’ve seen so far not one mentions James’ stunning performance, and that is maddeningly unfair!
His team has battled all year with parts failing and their engine being massively under-powered. This was also literally his first time driving at Donington – no testing or anything – so his second fastest time out of all the Vee’s was set within his first 10 laps of the track EVER!
Come on! Give the man some recognition! A definite future star once they find a bit more power…
Pete Belsey also took his first ever championship race win, after some very close (as ever) racing, and Tim Probert led for the first time. Martin Farmer took the win in race 2, and if you haven’t got yourself on YouTube yet to view both races, you need to!
*Further edit: As it turns out, that was also Craig Pollards first ever pole, so a massive well done to him, to! It’s always been said that the true talent will surface when the field is equalised by rain.
Anyway, back to my own campaign…
We still don’t know what happened to the Sheane, as Glenn hasn’t had a chance to get the engine apart, yet. He’s pretty sure that the cause is going to be the float on the crank shaft. With any luck, there won’t be too much damage, and we’re already planning next season.
750 Motor Club run an early day around February for general testing and new drivers to take their ARDS test. It will be quite a fitting return for me, because it’s at Donington again.
Glenn has told me to just put the spin out of my mind and go at it from fresh. There are too many variables at work for me to have really learned much, and the tyres were old and dirty etc. I do now know that there isn’t as much grip as I was expecting, so will take it even easier and try to get a few more corners in, on my return.
A few drivers also suggested that being in 4th gear won’t have helped things, either.
Spinning a single seater is also a bit weird.
Because you’re strapped in so tightly you don’t get flung around much. I can clearly remember during the spin I was just waiting to catch the car so I could point it the right way, and didn’t move in the seat at all, until at one point my head went *dink* against one side of the roll cage.
It was only gentle, but I’m thinking of putting some padding there for extra safety.
I also have a new camera mount to try out, hopefully raising the view so it clears my helmet and shows a bit more inside the cockpit.
We have a load of things still to do to the Sheane, like moving the position of the extinguisher on to the floor of the car under my legs, improving the engine mountings, and a million other minor preparation jobs.
For 2015 we should be able to do the whole season.
It seems like a long way off, sat here dreaming about jumping in the car again (and every second thought I now have is about racing!), but I’m sure it’ll all come around quickly again.
This time we should be much better prepared, and ready to compete!
James Cater Racing 