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Donington Park 2018– My View

18 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by in Formula Vee, Racing, Uncategorized

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After coming away from Silverstone with more piston problems, we were left with a few hard decisions for the rest of the season:

  • Quit and prep the car ready for 2019
  • Put a new piston and barrel set on, and risk the exact same thing happening (or worse), or
  • Totally strip the engine down, rebuild with part run-in pistons (as we had no testing time we couldn’t use a new set), and risk running out of time!

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We’re not quitters, but we’re not stupid, either, so went for the latter option with some long hours for me and even longer for Glenn!

We made it, driving down on the morning for the one-day event, and the sun was even shining enough for me to make use for my customary sun cream.

Qualifying

I still had to be a bit gentle for a few laps to run the engine in, and with the maximum of 32 on the grid (with several reserves also waiting in the wings) that was always going to be a bit risky.

For Silverstone I’d made a change to the front anti-roll bar that shouldn’t have worked at all, but weirdly it had, so I left it. Even weirder, now it chose to do what I’d expected it to do, meaning I had some horrible understeer going on! At Old Hairpin and Coppice especially I was having to really wrestle the front end in – easily fixable, and the balance of the rest of the car was great, so I was still happy.

Unfortunately the number of cars on track led to inevitable yellow flags out for cars that had gone off. This meant the only flying lap I managed to get in was red flagged into the chicane, leaving me in a disappointing 21st and 17th for the races.

As most other had the same issue, this would mean a fair few of us were out of place, so I had some work to do in the races to get back up there!

More worryingly, we had been leaking a bit of oil, which we didn’t need at all.

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Race 1

I got off the line fairly well, but then got boxed in behind Vaughn Jones. I’d still made up a few rows and could see Bill ‘Wom’ Garner and Andrew Cooper just ahead, so we had the first 4 Class B cars that close into the first corner, and changing positions all through Old Hairpin and up the hill.

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Alex Jones went to the outside of Vaughn around McLeans, and I had a good enough run to outbrake both of them, sailing through on the inside and setting my sights on the orange car of Sam Engineer ahead.

As we hit the brakes for the chicane I could see all sorts of nonsense kicking off ahead.

Colin Gregory had spun and was stationary sideways across the track, and Rik Lanyi spun in avoidance, also ending up sideays just as I was turning into the first part.

With no clear route through I scrubbed as much speed as I could before abandoning it altogether and flicking my car to the left, away from the carnage but over the gravel trap and raise ‘sausage’ curb.

After getting a bit airborne I landed facing the right way on the start straight, t back on the power – miraculously, everyone else made survived the spins without any contact, and so everyone continued!

It had shuffled the field a little, and now the orange car ahead was Ed Lowndes, with Sam behind me.

I pulled the same move as the previous lap on Ed, my front right locking slightly but still sticking the car up the inside on the brakes. I held him behind me for the next lap as I tried to get on the back of Wom, but then Ed got a great slipstream to get ahead through the chicane, and Sam followed him through on the next straight.

I now had the two Bears cars of Alex and Richard Waddingham looming in my mirrors so figured I may as well just go for the orange cars instead of worrying about defending.

Sam pushed Ed hard into Redgate, but I knew they’d both left their braking too late and let Sam slide from the inside line, cutting Ed off, and then I cut back on the normal line and was alongside Sam at the top of the hill. Not seeing me, he moved right for the kink, putting me on the grass and forcing me to brake (something he did apologise for afterwards).

I didn’t let it phase me, and got a much better run through Old Hairpin to overtake Sam up the hill, then driving hard to pull out 2 seconds by the next lap, chasing down Wom who was also getting a move on in the distance.

I’d also noticed the infamous black and white flag with the number 18 next to it – I’d been exceeding track limits, so also knew I had to tidy things up and stay well away from the green bits on the other side of the curbs. I knew I’d been taking a few liberties and cutting corners to the maximum, but wasn’t entirely sure if I was being warned for that or my excursion through the gravel trap at chicane.

Suddenly a red car appeared ahead – I could see that Tim Probert had a few bits of his car flapping around that shouldn’t be, so assumed he’d gone off or tangled with someone (I could see after he had a huge ding to his trailing arm). And like a shark I tasted blood in the water!

I hung onto the tail of him for a few laps, almost sticking my McLeans overtake on him before he finally seemed to gather himself together a bit and start to edge away.

By this time I was well clear of anyone behind, so it came as a bit of a surprise when I saw the white Sheane of Colin Gregory closing in. I took Old Hairpin pretty well, thinking I may be able to hold him behind me even though his (ex-Adam MaCaulay) is faster overall, but he flew past me up the hill doing about 20mph faster!

It was crazy! I just threw a hand up and had to watch him disappear – although he almost overcooked it into McLeans! I miss my old scraps with Colin, but will have to find a good bit more to get back on level pegging with him, as he’s on it this year!

And then I saw the chequers, bringing it home 14th overall and 3rd in class behind Wom and Cooper.

The scrutineers pulled me and a few others in to check the chassis was all matching their spec drawings, which was new to me, but again my worries were more with the excess oil from the filler cap. This was likely related to being held for a long time yet again on the grid – occasionally everyone seems to forget that you can’t do that with aircooled cars!

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Race 2

I was confident I could knock at least a second off my lap times, and this time I was starting ahead of Cooper and a few rows back from Wom.

As I chatted to my sister Michelle in the holding area, her boyfriend Mark Russell, who was helping out, noticed a pool of oil in the right side air scoop.

I flipped my mirror to have a look and knew it was over. Glenn had a quick look but there was nothing he could really do with that much time – a push rod tube had sprung a huge leak. I told Michelle to let one of the marshals with a radio know that one of the reserves could jump in to race, and we pushed the car back to the trailer.

I wasn’t even too angry about it (yeah I might have given the steering wheel a quick jab before I got out, but that doesn’t count!) – I think this year we’ve hit such bad luck it really didn’t surprise me!

As it happened the rest of the Vee’s only got a few laps in before a red flag – then with some car mistakingly following a retiring car into the pit lane rather than stopping on the grid for the restart, the race was cancelled. I bitterly thought that the car would have probably lasted long enough for me to finish!

In hindsight we should have just binned the old pushrod tubes and stuck a new set on with the rebuild (they’re fairly cheap), but it’s not something we’ve had before so didn’t know.

Don podium

It’s yet another blow to my championship, but we’re still hanging around in 4th place going into the last round of the year. We debated bothering to go to Snetterton, but other than a 15 minute fix the car is ready, and I still need to see if my improved driving is enough to fight it out with Cooper – even though he is out of reach for the B Class win.

I have a feeling Wom will be a bit handy around Snetterton after many kart laps but then me and Jamie Harrison have scrapped it out there, too, albeit in the 300 track and not the 200. Vaughn Jones has shown very good improvement through this year and so he’ll be in with a chance of tying up a championship podium, too. And will James Harridge return for the last race?

It’s set to be a good one just for the Class B battle, but you can guarantee I’ll also be scrapping it out wheel to wheel with Sam, Ed, Rik and any of a host of others!

And that’s just around me – no doubt there will be more awesome 5 way battles through the whole field, and what’s been an amazing Formula Vee season that’s been turning a lot of heads in the motorsport world.

Come along and see the best UK single seater race series – and don’t forget to drop by and say hi at Snetterton on October 13th.

SJN 2

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Brands Hatch – How it looked from my seat (Race 1)

08 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by in Formula Vee, Racing, Uncategorized

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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!

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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…

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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

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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.

spin back view

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.

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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.

SJN Photography 001b

 

From 2nd to 4th via The Naughty Step…

07 Tuesday Nov 2017

Posted by in Formula Vee, Rules & Regulations, Uncategorized

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Here is the full video of the yellow flag violation:

So, yeah, I had no idea I’d done anything wrong, as I either didn’t see the yellow flag (the only thing I cared about in that race was the white car behind me) or thought the marshals further on had the green flag.

Bear in mind the camera is much higher than my eye line, and so my vision was very much blocked by the cars between me and the incident (ironically, the stationary car causing the yellow was Jamie Harrison who had just won the B class championship!).

I wasn’t intending to violate the yellow flag conditions, the safety of marshals and other competitors was in no way compromised, and I later dropped four or five places down the order so didn’t gain any advantage.

I do not in any way dispute that I overtook under a yellow flag – only the fact that the imposed penalty took me from second in the championship down to fourth in the final race deciding the season.

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Called to the Clerk of the Course

My name was called after the race to go see the Clerk of the Course, and to take my video footage with me – which I did very promptly, breaking off celebrations and went straight there. I still had no idea I’d done anything wrong, and thought they were checking my footage to try to catch someone else doing something (I didn’t think I’d be able to help here, either).

I was told what I’d done after the Clerk had spoken to two other drivers, and we reviewed the footage. She said she had three choices of penalty for the offence:

  1. Exclusion from the race.

  2. A 10 second time penalty.

  3. Points on my race licence.

I pleaded for her to take the third option – especially as several other Vee drivers had been caught overtaking under yellows in the previous race, and NONE of them had been given any kind of penalty at all.

She was firm but friendly, and argued that the consequences to my championship were not her consideration. Fair enough but COME ONE!

I had no choice but to sign the document to say I’d done it.

I was told that I could appeal the decision on one of three grounds if I paid the fee (about £240!!!!!!!) in cash within 30 minutes:

  1. That the offence had never happened.

  2. That the penalty applied was too harsh or unfair.

  3. Another option that I don’t recall.

Of course my grounds for appeal would be that the penalty was far too harsh as it would decide my championship position, and lose me a podium trophy.

In the circumstances, I would be effectively paying £240 to make sure I held onto second in the championship. After all, nobody would be so heartless as to turn down my appeal on those gorunds, would they?

750 Motor Club were supposed to be there for us drivers, to keep us happy, and would make a sensible and compassionate decision, right?

Appealing the penalty to the stewards

I told the race organisers that I would be appealing, and that stopped the clock as I ran to the paddock to try to raise the cash – but someone had let it slip that they could take payment by card if they had to. I should hope so too! Who carries any cash these days – let alone that much?

It had already been around 2 hours after the race finish, so most were packed up and heading home. Tim Probert handed me my two third place trophies as I went past, but I gave one back telling him it was in dispute. Then I went back up to the Stewards with Glenn, Michelle, and James Harridge and chatted with them about my options and what was happening.

I had to write out a statement on my appeal form, in which I made it clear with my first point that I was appealing the penalty, but the Stewards were already pressuring me to hurry up as they wanted to leave for the day.

I waited while they sat in another room considering it, and reviewing my footage.

There were two stewards from 750 Motor Club, one head steward from the MSA, and an observer there.

They called me in and questioned me about my appeal, asking me to watch my footage again.

I thought this was a bit strange but did it, and they told me repeatedly that I’d overtaken under a yellow flag.

I already knew this, and had acknowledged that in my previous meeting with the Clerk of the Course.

The 750 Steward kept telling me I’d overtaken under a yellow flag and would not budge an inch or listen to anything I said. I seemed to be getting through more to the MSA steward, but every time I seemed to be persuading him to my side of things the 750 steward would chime in again telling me I’d overtaken under yellow.

He kept repeating that their recommendation for overtaking under yellows was to exclude me. When I asked why there were three options available to them he refused to answer or discuss it.

Again they kept going over the aspects of my yellow flag violation, speaking about the safety issue (oh, where the marshals were on the opposite side of the track, well off the track, and behind other cars??) and insisting that I had overtaken before the green flag post.

It was like I was arguing with a bunch of people that the sky was blue, but they just kept telling me that the grass was green.

The whole atmosphere was extremely hostile, with all of them against little old me. I stayed polite and calm, but couldn’t help feeling they would just bully me down on anything I said. You are technically allowed to take in a representative, but are told in no uncertain terms that this is discouraged and the stewards don’t like it.

You can call in other drivers as witnesses – which I was asked if I wanted to do – but why would I when I was arguing the PENALTY??!

They asked me to leave the room as they discussed more, and I knew I had no chance at all – and the 750 Motor Club Steward was the main one properly gunning for me. Thanks for the support.

I was called back in and they told me that their decision would stand, at which point I again tried to tell them that they were deciding the championship with a penalty, and THAT was what I didn’t want to happen!

I was threatened with total exclusion again for raising my point, so decided to just shut up.

They told me to go back and wait outside and then they would be out soon with the forms to sign.

“Can’t you post them to me?” I asked, having been there for around three hours.

“No, you need to sign to say that you agree with our decision.”

I didn’t thank them as I left, but also resisted slamming the door on my way out. There was no chance I was giving them another second of my time, so told Glenn, James and Michelle that I was leaving now and wasn’t going to say I agreed with their decision.

I was left with the feeling that the appeal process is totally pointless and just a money-making scheme. I felt that the club at least would have cared that deciding the final race of the season with a penalty (that didn’t even need to be applied!) doesn’t look great for the club, and none of the drivers would appreciate it, either!

I have some pride shining through the bitterness over it all as I got the decision through the post a week or so later, when I read the “Driver left” bit where my signature should have been.

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I just have to remind myself that they can’t take away the fact that I did it on track – I won that second place in the championship with a great drive after a head-to-head scrap!

I have also filed a formal complaint with the MSA about how my appeal wasn’t even heard or discussed by the stewards in that meeting, which they have failed to respond to in their stated 10 days. I chased it up a few weeks ago and was told that it will be looked at, and they apologised for not sending an acknowledgement.

We’ll see how that goes – I’m guessing absolutely nowhere. Either way it won’t change the result – but maybe people standing up a bit will get them to change things in the future?

I’m debating uploading my full complaint letter to them, but will hold on and see what they respond with, first. So far it’s been over a month…

JooVuu – Action/dash cameras!

26 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by in Formula Vee, Products, sponsorship, Uncategorized

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JooVuu – Action/dash cameras!

I get a lot of comments about the quality of the onboard footage from races.

I’m chuffed to bits to be able to say that we’ve finally got some new stickers on the car to bring British company JooVuu into the limelight, who have been supplying me with cameras, accessories and amazing support right from the start!

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JooVuu are a UK based company with an awesome range of products such as dash cameras and action cameras – go check out their website.

I started using a Mobius Action camera, as I’d used them on motorcycles and found them absolutely flawless, never letting me down, and being a much better shape than the ‘more boxy’ competition, but with the same quality and amazing support.

Even better, I saw that JooVuu were taking this idea to a new level with their very own JooVuu X micro camera! You’ll notice this massive jump in the (already good) quality over the Mobius in my footage from Brands Hatch and the recent Anglesey race.

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Still at a fraction of the price (and more on that in a moment…) of the competition, the JooVuu X boasts a huge 2.5k Super HD resolution and 1080p 60fps – In short, this gives amazing quality footage that looks extremely professional.

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The thing I like even more about JooVuu is that they are constantly listening to customers of the JooVuu X and tailoring the cameras to exactly what they want – for example it’s very easy to update the cameras with the latest free firmware releases, which iron out any bugs people have found and make subtle changes and improvements based on feedback and testing. This also means you don’t just buy a camera and live with it – it’s constantly getting better!

Despite having no screen on the camera itself, JooVuu have developed apps for Apple, Android and Windows systems that will stream footage to your mobile or let you change the massive range of settings by WiFi or cable connection.

Obviously I’m using my JooVuu X as an action camera mounted on my racecar – but they do just as great a job on the road as a dashcam, or mounted on radio controlled aircraft and drones.

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If you want to upgrade your current camera to a JooVuu X, I even have a deal that will get you one with FREE tracked shipping for only £89.99! Just enter the code YAY10 at checkout for this great deal.

It’s great to be able to highly recommend a product that I genuinely think is the best out there, and even better to have JooVuu on board with James Cater Racing and Racing Team Vee (more about RTV soon!).

Don’t forget to come to Dubtoberfest on 30 & 31 July to get a closer look at the new sponsor stickers and what the compact JooVuu X looks like on a Formula Vee racing car!

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Brands Hatch 2016 – Rounds 3 & 4

28 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by in Formula Vee, Racing, Uncategorized

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Brands Hatch 2016 – Rounds 3 & 4

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.

Race 1 Video:

Race 2 Video:

 

First test in a Sheane Formula Vee

09 Thursday Jul 2015

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

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First test in a Sheane Formula Vee 

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!