Tag Archives: test day

Where to test a race car?

27 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Formula Vee, Racing, Uncategorized

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Where to test a race car?

It is surprisingly hard to test a race car – especially if you have an open-wheeled/single seater – and it’s getting harder all the time.

A lot of the smaller (and cheaper) testing facilities seem to have moved focus towards hosting ‘driving experience’ days.

These are the circuits that you may or may not know about for testing:

Bruntingthorpe

Bruntingthorpe used to be great with it’s airfield runway layout and loads of run-off area, but this one is now out of the picture.  They want you to produce your own liability insurance to be able to test there.

This liability insurance is the type of thing that trackday companies all have for their events, and your average Joe trying to get it for a day will find it almost impossible.  If you have your own business, you may be able to find someone to cover you, but from my research it seems you’ll be looking at £250 for a day, then testing fees on top of that – so that no longer makes it a viable option.  And that’s if you can even narrow down what SCOPE of cover you need – Bruntingthorpe are very vague when you ask any questions about this, and the impression is they don’t care or want you testing there.

That said, a few people do have cover for the year, such as Alan Harding from AHS – and if you’re in one of his cars you’ll be ok.  He is not able to just let you do it on his policy, as insurance won’t allow this anymore.

I’m amazed that Bruntingthorpe don’t have their own insurance, because they are surely losing money?

Three Sisters

A forgotten little track up in Wigan, that I thought only did karts and bikes, but their website does indeed say that cars are welcome!

They seems pretty flexible, and will let you come and test whenever there’s nothing else on for £60 per hour.

They answered my email enquiry very quickly, and are helpful and friendly.  There is also a fair bit of info on their website.

Llandow

Another small and forgotten track in Wales, around 20 miles West of Cardiff, where they actually used to hold Vee and Super Vee race meetings!

I sent several emails which were answered very quickly (thanks to Sharon and Louise!), and are also very flexible and relaxed over dates and times.  Again, you can test there whenever they’re free, and they were happy for me to turn up “around 11ish” and book on whenever I was ready.  It’s a bargain at £30 per hour, and although I was expected a boring but functional track to shake the car down on, I found I loved the place!

For less than a 50 second lap you get a very tight complex with flat-out high speed turns, a tight chicane, and it somehow has a million times more character than it should!

Short of these, you’re limited to paying through the nose for pre-race test days at £300-£400! Plus it will mean in most cases another night spent at the circuit, and if anything does fail it can be a busy old time trying to fix stuff so you can get out for qualifying the next morning.

If you keep your eyes open you might be able to squeeze into a test day for another series, so it’s worth checking out where Formula Ford, F4 etc are due to race. This can mean you’re out there with seriously fast machinery, and you might find you spend most of the time trying to stay out of their way…

If you’re in a tin-top you can take your pick of the many track days organised all over the place – but then you’ll be driving amongst a pack of Average Joe’s. Even worse is the added frustration of rules limiting where and how you can overtake anyone, so you might find you’re stuck behind a gaggle of Fiat Uno’s unable to pass for the entire session! The driving might also not be as predictable as you’d hope from MSA licence holders…

If you can get a few other Vee drivers to test with you, wherever you do it, it’s a massive bonus, because you’ll have some kind of reference point of how you’re doing. I blasted around Llandow all day thinking I was doing ok, but it wasn’t until I got to Silverstone that I found the other Vee drivers were gobsmackingly faster than me! You won’t get much from a test day where you’re not doing it right!

With an increased budget it would be great to cram in all the testing I could, because that’s the best way to get faster. At this stage I don’t know how much I’ll test this year, and most of it could well be turning up at a circuit and learning the track during the qualifying session – not ideal if you want to be competitive!

If I’ve missed anywhere, feel free to let me know! I hope this is of use to someone out there!

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The Donington Park Test

03 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by in ARDS Test, Formula Vee, Racing, Technique

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The Donington Park Test

Anyone following me on Twitter and Facebook will already know that This Did Not Go Well.

Basically, the engine seized on the 3rd corner on my first ever lap, and unfortunately that means it’s season over for us!

I mentioned in my blog about the ARDS test that I have absolutely no frame of reference for driving a car on track, and although this didn’t contribute to the death of the engine, it did lead to my first spin.

I spent literally two minutes stalling the car in the paddock before deciding to hit the track and go for it.

Leaving the pit lane I dropped it into 4th (top) gear with the aim of cruising around for a few laps.  The tyres were not only cold, but hadn’t done a lap for 6 years.

It was here I also realised I hadn’t adjusted my mirrors! I couldn’t reach to sort them out properly, and could see a little, so thought I’d cruise around and pull into pit lane at the end of the lap to sort them out.

I turned through the first corner and saw some cars coming up fast behind me, and at the top of the Craner Curves a Ginetta G55 flew past me very close.  As a biker who loves filtering, this didn’t phase me, but pulling such a close pass on a Novice in the opening minutes of a test day did seem a little harsh.

No matter, I stayed in 4th through Old Hairpin, and on the exit the back stepped out.

Now, this was my first time ever driving the car.  I had no idea if I could go into that corner at 30mph or 130mph safely.  I honestly thought I was cruising at about 50% of the cars ability, so wasn’t expecting any loss of traction at all.  I took Old Hairpin FAST when I was last there on a bike!

From there it all happened very quickly.  I though it had just spun before I’d had a chance to do anything.  It was only when I watched the onboard video that I saw that I HAD corrected the slide on instinct, and kept a good constant throttle.

I’ve been drilling “Correction – Recovery” into my head for about a year.  Correct the slide then bring the wheel back to recover, so you don’t spin the other way.

The problem is I have no idea what the steering is like on this car, and as it came back into line I cocked it up and around it went.

Whee!!

I stalled it during the spin just before I remembered to get the clutch in, but caught it nicely so I ended up facing the right way and was hitting the starter button before I’d stopped spinning.

It didn’t start, so I thought it might be because I was still in 4th gear, so fumbled into first and it took a few tries before the engine roared back to life.

I felt like an idiot for spinning on a damned out-lap, but I guess I was asking too much of the car/tyres without knowing it.  

I was still perfectly calm (even with cars whizzing past me as I was stationary in the middle of the track!) and wasn’t having a flap.  I’d just take it even easier for a few laps and be ready to catch the back if it stepped out again.

I gave a stab of throttle and eased off the clutch, and it went about 10 yards and then died.

Thinking I’d stalled it somehow, I used the momentum to pull over to the right hand side of the track out the way and hit the starter button again.

*CLUNK*

I tried a few more times but just got the clunk.  I figured the battery must be dead, and got my hand in the air to let the marshalls know I had a problem.

They red-flagged the session, and I got towed back to the pits by the Wagon Of Shame feeling like a right dick-head…

Glenn knew instantly that the engine had seized, and getting a spanner on it confirmed it was locked solid…

We think it’s either a piston or main bearing, but we also had a very tight tolerance on the crank (or cam? Hell, I just drive the thing!) which could also have failed under load for the first time.

Either way, our test day was over.  And with no time in the car, even if we could get it fixed for the race on Saturday, we thought it best to withdraw our entry.

So that’s all for 2014 for me!  Gutted, but that’s racing!

We’ll make sure I get some proper time in the car to get the feel of it in early 2015, then will be able to think about doing a full season.

I hope you’ll continue to follow my progress, and thanks for all your support!

This video isn’t the proudest of my life, but I’m giving you the warts and all tale of my journey into racing, so it’s only fair you get to see this:

Testing The Waters

26 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by in Formula Vee, Racing

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Testing The Waters

We’ve had a few setbacks to our very tight, last minute testing plans.

The car wasn’t ready for Mallory Park on Wednesday.  No problem – Llandow is cheap and are bound to be quiet on Saturday, right?

Wrong.  They’re fully booked!

I did some desperation research to see if we could get testing anywhere else…

Bruntingthorpe was our original plan, but it seems they will only let you test there if you have full public liability insurance in place.  You try finding that for one day, for something that isn’t a road car!  It isn’t happening…

There are lots of small tracks around England – mainly airfield type ones.  Unfortunately, I suspect the story with them is much the same.  I think they’re all more geared up for the ‘Driving Experience’ days and corporate events that they run.

Track days are plentiful all over the UK, but what you might not know is they don’t let ‘open wheel’ cars mix it with their average customers.

Even Mallory Park’s infamous Wednesday test days run separate sessions for open and closed wheels.

I believe this was originally because of the risk of a closed wheel car riding up over a wheel and getting airborne.  That kind-of makes sense, until you have a think about open wheel cars on the track together, anyway.  Or things like Caterhams, Locosts and Ariel Atoms, which are all allowed out with closed wheel cars!

Either way it’s not going to help, though – the fact is we can’t test before Donington Park on 4th October.

Apart from the official test day on the Thursday before, right?

Umm… yeah… except I waited until I was back off holiday, and was horrified to be told it’s fully booked!

I managed to wrangle the morning, so at least that’s something.  It’s also an open pit lane (you basically go out on track when you want and do as many laps as you want), so potentially we have up to 3 and a half hours of track time available.

Then I ‘just’ have to turn up on race day and qualify…

Obviously a higher power thought I needed a bit more of a challenge!