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Anglesey June '08
Cadwell July '08
Silverstone Aug '08
Oulton Park Sep '08
Snetterton March '09
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Friday 6th June, 2008
The journey up was pretty uneventful and I arrived at the circuit at 8.30. I'd expected to see the RGBers in the area allocated to us for the weekend and found myself a space amongst the motorhomes and trailers. I recognised Steve Robinson's race number and went over to introduce myself. Over the next half hour quite a few of them came over and said hello, and I got to meet a couple of the guys who've helped me out with advice over the last few weeks and months.
I got the car off the trailer ready and went and signed on with the others. Our first session was at 10am, we were all in the session together along with some of the car engined kitcars. I got all my nomex stuff on and got into the car and made my way down to the pit lane and joined the queue. I went through my little mental routine, getting the dash displaying what I wanted and as the lights went to green I switched the logger on and concentrated on setting off without stalling.
I've watched loads of laps on YouTube so roughly knew the circuit. Of course I've never raced and never been on a test day before, every trackday I've ever done the first sessions are always very steady with everyone feeling their way round after a lengthy briefing telling them not to overtake without consent, 'spin and you're in' etc. Today there was no such briefing and by the second corner cars were coming past me thick and fast, lots of movement in the corners as they discovered the grip. I made myself go faster than I'd normally dream of in my first session but I was still a mobile chicane! The trouble is when you're not used to people diving up the inside when you're close to your personal limit it's hugely off-putting and frankly I made a huge mess of lots of the corners by going offline. I was thinking I must look like someone who's never driven a car before. The rear of the car was really moving about a lot as soon as I did anything in a corner.
Anyway, I didn't hit anyone and started to find my way around. After a couple of laps I switched the dash to display lap times to see if that was working and indeed it was, showing my best lap at 1:23:56. Anglesey Coastal Circuit is wild, up and down, constantly twisting, you come out of one corner and you're almost straight into another. The only 'rest' was the 'straight' after Church but of course it's a long right hander where I was hitting top gear and about 120mph before coming into the Rocket complex which is the slowest corner on the circuit. So not a rest then ...
There were a few spins but mostly I was seeing marshals waving blue flags a lot! The trouble was that I wasn't getting into any sort of rhythm through letting people through all the time. I know everyone says to just drive your own line and let them worry about getting past you but it really isn't as simple as that - you're just about to turn in, someone makes a lunge up the inside, changes their mind, locks their brakes and you hear the tyres squealing a few feet from your ear so you lift and move away from them and the car goes out of shape then you try to get it all together again. Lap 12 was good, I managed some semblance of a tidy lap and the dash said it was 1:21.71. The next couple were in the 24's through mistakes and traffic then the session was over. I came in a bit shell-shocked but pleased I'd survived and confident I could go faster next session.
I was knackered - it's rare to stay out more than 15 minutes on a trackday but this session was 25 minutes. I was pretty hot and sweaty and glad to get the balaclava off. After settling down I started checking the car over, first job was prop bolts then the drive shafts. I'd had a couple of oil pressure warnings again after the right hander so I filled the sump tank to the top. Paul Rogers came round and told me it was good to check tyre pressures immediately after coming in and get them to about 22psi. Mine were all about 19-19.5 so I stuck a bit more air in. Talking to the others after they were all complaining about how slippery it was which made me feel a bit better!
The next session was definitely better and although my best lap was only a second better at 1:20.72 I was just feeling much better out there and starting to be able to think about how I tackled each corner. The extra tyre pressure made a big difference, the car felt much more planted and I was getting braver coming into Rocket - there's a sharp kink at the end and I could see the other guys were still on the power going round it and only hitting the brakes halfway up the hill. I was still lifting before the kink but was making a conscious effort to do it later each time.
Time for lunch and Steve Robinson had stripped the front end of his car down - he'd had a slight coming together with someone else and his radiator and splitter were the worse for wear. Steve seemed to have a fairly large pit crew and one of them disappeared off to find a motor factor for a replacement radiator - Montego Diesel allegedly.
The third session got better again, only improving to 1:20.30 but it was all feeling much better and just a slight increase in pace meant I wasn't getting passed as frequently so I was able to keep a rhythm going. The best times were in the 1:15s so I was feeling reasonably happy and Paul Rogers reckoned that probably wouldn't see me at the back of the grid.
The last session was at 4.05 and my driving was much better again. Lap 4 was 1:20.91 then on lap 6 as I was on the 'straight' there was a car behind who'd been there for most of the lap. I wondered if he'd go up my left on the inside so as I hit the brakes for Rocket I checked I wasn't going to turn in on him. He was nowhere to be seen so I got on with the tight left hander then as I came over the crest saw him spearing across the track in front of me taking out another car! They both ended up on the right hand side edge of the track so I slowed and then spotted a helmet rolling across the track in front of me. I did wonder if there was a head still inside it but then saw the driver sitting in his car in his balaclava looking OK. We were red flagged then. Waiting in pit lane I stopped the engine then the bugger wouldn't start I think just cos it was hot. Steve gave me a push and I was off again. This time I was more consistent, lapping at 1:20.35, 1:21.1 and 1:21.23. As I crossed the line on the next lap the chequered flag was out for the end of the session and I looked down to see 1:19.39. Well chuffed!
The evening was spent having a few beers and a barbecue with the RGBers and very pleasant it was too, they really are a great crowd and made me feel very welcome. I had an early night, I was generally pretty knackered and had quite a few physical aches and pains, especially my neck. Anglesey's a pretty physical circuit and despite telling myself repeatedly to relax I found myself tensing everything I'd got even when it was all going OK let alone when the car was getting squirrelly or I was conscious of other cars in close proximity. I'd enjoyed the day tremendously though, the car had been good and although I knew I had a really long way to go I felt I'd learned loads and improved a lot during the day. There was lots of spannering activity in the paddock - there were 2 engine changes going on and when I left at about 10 Andy Bates of AB Performance had a FireBlade engine apart on the tailgate of his truck rebuilding the gearbox! I'd met Andy earlier on, he sponsors the series and seems to know everything there is to know about all things bike engined car related.
Saturday 7th June, 2008
I was awake pretty early and after breakfast and a shower I got back into the paddock to the car. There were quite a few things I'd wanted to look at. I wanted to check the prop bolts and the diff mounting bolts and I'd stuck extra oil in the sump tank the day before as I was seeing a few low oil warnings - it had seemed to work. On checking the oil it looked quite low and needed over a litre adding to get it back to the top of the tank. I was a bit worried about this, it sort of reinforced my lack of confidence in the engine. Ten minutes later though I realised there was oil in the offside sidepod. Closer inspection revealed that it looked like it had come from the breather filter on top of the oil catch tank, and sure enough the tank was full explaining the apparent heavy oil consumption! I drained it all out and cleaned up the oil then tightened the propshaft bolts that had worked themselves a bit loose. This was puzzling me as they're nylocs with additional threadlock on them. I got the rear tub off to find 3 of the 4 studs holding the diff in the chassis were loose, the 4th was missing altogether! I tightened them up but suspected the problem was the thin walled steel tubing I'd used as spacers between the diff and the chassis lugs.
All the cars were back together for scrutineering including the two who'd had engine changes and Andy Grant who was the one who'd been T-boned at Rocket II - there had been some pretty frantic activity with an angle grinder, welder etc. to get his chassis sorted and the bodywork was all patched up. Quite remarkable. I was quite nerevous about scrutineering but needn't have been, it's a pretty quick check and I soon got my little slip of paper to stick on the car.
Chatting with the other guys in the assembly area I wasn't feeling as nervous as they seemed to think I would be - so far as I was concerned this session was just like the sessions yesterday. I know the lap times did count today but I now knew my way around the circuit and knew I could drive at a pace that wouldn't make me look an idiot. As it was I had a good session but didn't really get many clear laps. You hear about it all the time when you watch motor racing on TV but it's only when you're timing yourself that you realise that one poor corner through either a mistake, letting someone through or even being temporarily held up by someone (yes, I was no longer the slowest out there!) really badly affects your lap time. Consequently my fastest lap was 1:20.22, almost a second slower than my fastest lap on Friday afternoon. That was lap 6 which was the first of 3 consistent laps, lap 7 was 1:20.42, lap 8 1:20.23. They use your fastest lap for you grid position for race 1 and your 2nd fastest for race 2 so for Saturday's race I'd be starting 27th out of 31, 26th on Sunday. I was happy with that - a 1:19 would have put me half a dozen places further up the grid and frankly I didn't want to be in the thick of it for my first ever race start! Of the 4 behind me the fastest time was almost 3 seconds slower than me I shouldn't be under pressure from behind until the faster guys started lapping me.
On pole was Derek Jones who hadn't been testing on Friday and had never driven the circuit. In the single practice session he learnt the circuit and posted a 1:13.43 and a 1:13.87! Quite astonishing. Steve Robinson in second slot was almost a second slower and he in turn was over a second quicker than Tim Gray in third. Certainly when Derek came past me I simply couldn't believe the speed differential.
Early afternoon my brother Andy arrived and he helped me go over the car tightening prop bolts and stuff again. The engine had blown all the excess oil out again and this time it had gone everywhere, in the sidepod, around the engine bay and had dripped down into the footwell making my feet slide about. Our race was at just after 4pm and we had the car ready in plenty of time. I surprised myself a bit in the assembly area - sure, I was nervous, but to be honest I don't think I was any more nervous than the guys around me and it wasn't an unpleasant nervousness, more of an excitement. The Formula Vee's started their cool down lap so we all got in our cars, helmets on, harness straps tightened and engines running. There was to be no green flag lap because we'd already been out on the circuit that day, so they marshaled us out of pit lane and straight onto the grid. This was easier than I'd expected as a marshal just stood on my space and pointed at me to line up in front of him. We got a 30 second warning, then about 10 seconds later the 5 second warning (I'd already been warned to expect this!) then the row of red lights across the track came on and everyone was holding their engines revving like mad ready to just side-step the clutch. Of course I've never attempted a race start in the FuryBusa but I wasn't too worried. The lights went out and I dropped the clutch and got a good start, plenty of wheelspin initially then I just dialled the throttle back a bit to get drive, then into second gear. I could have attempted to make up a place but had decided long ago that my main goal was to stay out of trouble, so I just held my position round the kink at the end of the start/finish straight, likewise into the 180° corner called Banking. The long right hander called church was next and I kept up with the cars in front, a lift in 4th gear around the bend then up through 5th and 6th gears to about 120mph coming round the kink before the hard brake into Rocket. I kept well back - it looked a bit frantic round the very sharp left hander with cars everywhere. After that I settled into a rhythm behind Adrian Moore and Neil Palmer and was just about keeping in touch with them. A little gap opened up and after a few laps Derek came past me, closely followed by Steve, at which point I lost touch with the guys in front and had quite a few laps pretty much on my own. I didn't push too hard as there was no point, the main goal today was to finish my first race with both me and the car intact. To be honest it's difficult to drive as hard when you're on your own, you tend to come out of a corner realising that you've been a bit 'lazy' and that you could have gone in a bit quicker. I did catch and lap the cars that had started behind me although I didn't really know who they were - it was certainly fun chasing someone down and working out where and how to pass them. Of course I had the advantage that I was in a more powerful car than they were which meant I could out accelerate them up the hill out of Rocket into Peel or on the long back section between Church and Rocket. I had no idea how long we'd been going, the race was scheduled for 28 minutes plus a lap but it didn't feel very long to me to be honest, I was just concentrating on driving as tidily as I could and it was a bit of a surprise to come down into Banking to find myself catching everyone up as they were slowing down.
It was a very good feeling driving the car back round having finished my first race. I'd really enjoyed it, even the start had been fun rather than scary and to be honest my first race had been nowhere near as scary as the first test session the day before. I finished 24th, fastest lap a 1:19.43 on lap 22. Derek of course won having lapped me twice with his fastest lap a scorching 1:12.35, almost 2 seconds faster than Steve Robinson's best effort.
Back in the paddock there was oil in the footwell again although none of it was fresh, it was the remnants of the previous leakage that had run down when the area got hot. Apart from that the car seemed fine and my fears about the engine going pop at any second seemed pretty unfounded. Andy had commented that I'd looked very comfortable out there and that my driving was generally very tidy - probably a bit too tidy, he reckoned the faster guys were getting very lairy coming out of some of the corners and that I could probably afford to push harder.
Andy and I had a couple of beers chatting to some of the others. The planned 750MC Club hogroast was a bit of a let down as they ran out of hog before we got there so we just had a bar meal before sitting in the tent with a bottle of wine.
Sunday 8th June, 2008
The guys were all up and about fettling their cars quite early and I made a leisurely start as our race wasn't till 4.20. I was chatting with a couple of them and said if I'd known in advance that I and the car were going to be OK at this stage of the weekend I'd have entered the All Comers race. A couple of weeks ago it hadn't seemed like a good idea, especially at an additional £100 for the one race but in fact I'd discovered yesterday that there was an additional practice session for the race. The guys said there was still time to enter so I thought I may as well go for it. One of them went off to negotiate terms with Robin Knight - we didn't want to have to go through scrutineering again and he thought he might negotiate a slight discount ;-) This all went to plan meaning I had less than an hour and a half to prep the car as the practice session was at 10am.
During the morning someone came over to say hello - Ian Kelly had been following my build diary and had built himself an R1 engined Fury last year. We had a little chat - it's nice to meet folks. Over the weekend I'd had loads of people coming over looking over the car. Seeing cars with motorbike engines is a new thing for many!
Andy was a great help - he's a more accomplished spannerman than me and he did a lot of the bolt checking while I got some sponsor's stickers on there and cleaned a load of the bits of rubber off the car. At 9.40 I trundled down to the assembly area for our practice session. There was an eclectic group of cars there, 8 other RGBers including Tim Hoverd, 3 Radicals a couple of other kitcars and 2 Citroen Saxos. I soon found out I was much faster than the Saxos and some of the other kits and of course significantly slower than the Radicals with their slicks and huge carbon fibre wings etc. I had a great session feeling more confident and throwing the car into the corners a bit quicker. I was passing quite a lot of cars and getting better at the overtakes as the session went by. I finally found the limits of adhesion on the corner onto the start/finish straight and spun towards the end of the session. For a moment I thought I was going to catch it but then round she went and I was facing the wrong way on the track although not on the racing line. I'd managed to dip the clutch and keep the engine going so I banged it down into first gear then promptly stalled it trying to set off! The starter again couldn't turn the hot engine so I raised my arm and waited for the marshals who pushed me off into a recess in the barriers out of the way. I only missed 2 or 3 laps then they pushed me backwards to the start of pit lane and gave me a push to bump start her. In some ways I was glad to have spun, it was inevitable that I'd spin at some stage and I simply didn't know what it would feel like, or if I'd have the presence of mind to get 'both feet in' as they say, i.e. dip the clutch and get hard on the brakes. I was mentaly bouncing though as my dash told me my fastest lap was a 1:18 10!
I got back to the paddock and got my sweaty gear off. After I'd cooled off and had a drink I wandered over to the circuit office to get the qualifying times to find I'd qualified 5th! So all I had ahead of me on the grid was Tim and the 3 Radicals! Tim was half a second quicker than me and I was almost half a second quicker than Adrian Moore. Andy and the other guys said I'd looked noticably quicker out there and funnily enough I felt like I could still make up more time.
We got the car prepped again as the All Comers race was at 2pm. I was OK again in the assembly area and this time we did have a green flag lap, this was because the Radicals were on slicks and couldn't do a start on cold tyres. The view from P5 on the grid was very different from the back yesterday! We set off and the Radicals set a fairly slow pace, weaving about a lot trying to get some heat into their tyres. For some reason Adrian kept going ahead of me but after a couple of corners I decided to ignore him and just concentrate on my own driving. We came round to the grid and I found my slot behind one of the remaining 2 Radicals, Adrian was alongside to my right and Tim was in the row in front on the right. The lights came on, I got the engine revs up and dropped the clutch as soon as they went out. I had a brilliant start and came alongside Tim in first gear, slotted second thinking I might get the inside line on him going into the first left hander and I got there ahead of him and managed to stay ahead of him as I hit the brakes behind the Radicals into Banking. As we accelerated out the Radicals started to pull away and I was as brave as I could be going into Church on fairly cold tyres. Tim pulled alongside me (and I later learned Adrian was alongside him!) but I kept the car flat out through 5th and 6th gears and got to the kink at the end of the 'straight' first, stood on the brakes and turned into Rocket ahead of him. The next 6 or 7 laps were fantastic fun, I was in third place with Tim crawling all over the back of me in the corners. There were a couple of places where I seemed a bit quicker, most notably I think the corner where I spun in practice but generally I was managing to stay ahead of him by maximising the benefit of the the grunt of the Busa along with taking defensive lines and making sure I stuck tight to the apexes. The car was moving round a lot on the corners but I was surviving. I knew it was pretty inevitable that Tim would get past me but after a few laps of defending my place I started to wonder if I might make it. My left hand bonnet clip had come undone and the bonnet was lifting and flapping about which didn't help concentration but eventually I made a mistake at Peel and spun just after the apex. I managed to dip the clutch again and this time gave her enough revs to get away cleanly. Only 2 cars had gone through, Tim and Phil Alcock I think so I mentally put it behind me and tried tog et back on the pace. Shortly after this my other bonnet clip came undone and my bonnet was lifting quite alarmingly at speed. I thuoght I could cope with it until I came into Rocket and as I stamped hard on the brakes the bonnet flipped completely up and I couldn't see a thing. I remember looking left as I sailed past the apex kerb and I kept on the brakes and spun again as I went off onto the grass. I got going again but had lost more places and couldn't carry on at race pace. In retrospect I should have pulled into pit lane for someone to refasten the bonnet but I wasn't sure what I was allowed to do and was worried I'd be pulled off and be a DNF. So I drove the remaining laps slowly making sure I got out of everyone's way. Everyone passed me but the 2 Saxos.
I wasn't too disheartened, it was brilliant to have started up the grid and to have got ahead of Tim at the start, and I'd really enjoyed dicing with him. You worry before you go racing that you might not be cut out for it, that you simply won't be fast enough, that you won't be able to cope with driving a car fast while watching what someone else is doing and adjusting your lines but this race had very definitely convinced me that I definitely could race and enjoy it. I have no illusions that I'm anwhere near as fast as Tim but I was fast enough to give him a race and keep him honest for a few laps and that was a real positive. The car had a bit of damage to the front of the bonnet where it had snapped up and grounded when I left the track but it's pretty minor and again is one of those things I knew was inevitable at some stage. I had a chat with Tim after - I'd been a bit worried that he might be miffed with me trying to keep him behind me but he didn't seemt to be, we were supposed to be racing after all. He commented that I was quite a bit slower than him in the corners, especially on the exits. Of course this is mainly down to lack of talent and experience, but I reminded myself that it's the first time out racing with the car while Tim's been doing it for 5 years or so, he's also had that long to develop his car, getting the suspension set up, corner weighted etc. Mine's had none of that. Tim thought perhaps I was actually going into the corners a bit too quick which of course could be true.
I did some thinking during the afternoon and wondered about my tyre pressures - the aim is apparently for 21-22psi hot and about an hour after this race mine were all on 20 and feeling quite cold. I figured this explained why the car was sliding out of shape so much and let a couple of psi out of them all.
The race in the afternoon was a disappointment. As I drove round to my grid slot on the green flag lap I thought the transmission was sounding a bit graunchy. I had a reasonable start and was holding my own round the first lap then accelerating up into Peel there was a big bang and I suddenly lost all drive. I raised my arm and freewheeled off onto the grass and parked up by the tyre wall and got out and over the wall. A marshal came and we pushed the car out of the way, Andy came over and we watched the race from the side. At the end the marshals gave me a push up over the hill and I freewheeled down the Corkscrew and back into pit lane. There was a big dent in to top of the transmission tunnel so it looked like the propshaft had given way, I thought it had probably detached itself from the diff. Andy and I got her back onto the trailer, said our goodbyes and I set off for home.
OK, so the car's broken but I can fix it. I've had a great weekend, 4 test session, 2 practice sessions and 2 and a bit races. I've learned a lot about myself and about the car and the RGBers have proved to be a fantsastic bunch. I won't be able to make Brands Hatch in 2 weeks as I'm away next weekend in Le Mans but I can hardly wait to get out there at Cadwell. I'm not a fast driver but I'm only going to get faster as I gain in experience and develop the car.
I had a couple of emails from readers of my website inculding one from Ian Kelly with a couple of photos, one of which shows me facing the wrong way after spinning while racing Tim who you can see going past - I think I can just about make out a smile under his helmet ;-) The other pic shows the bonnet flapping in the breeze.
Derek very kindly sent me a few photos his Dad took that happened to have me in them so here they are. The first one shows the back straight just after I've gone past Derek - only joking, Derek's closing speed on me along there was scary! The next is me in the background coming in to Peel, then coming out of Peel - this one looks like I've only just made a vague acquaintance with the apex - and the final one is in the braking zone coming into Rocket.
Andy's sending me a DVD with the footage he took so I'll edit some bits and post em up on YouTube when that arrives. For the next race I hope to have my own on-board video - I've found watching some of the other guys' footage really useful. Here are Some from Derek, Paul Rogers and I think the other is Al Boulton.
On Thursday I was looking at my mail logs and found my fetchmail program was barfing on a 14Gb email from Derek so I grabbed that from Nildram's webmail to find the folowing pics of my little tussle with Tim. I've obviously gone a bit deep into Rocket 1 in the first pic which allows Tim to get alongside but I think we both knew there was no way he was going to get me round the outside of Rocket 2! I was actually doing the Rocket complex in third gear and had pretty much got Rocket 2 sussed so as soon as I was at the apex I could plant the throttle and the Busa's torque was plenty to keep me ahead and I could hold third gear all the way up to and around Peel and even throught the Corkscrew. The 4th pic is proof that I did occasionally visit the apex at Peel!
And here's the spin on lap 5 - I'd ended up way too deep and had to try to yank the car round which resulted in me losing the back end. I'd never really felt I'd got to grips with Peel, it was a tricky corner to get right particularly since you didn't really want to end up on the exit kerb as you had to get the car back across to the right side of the track for the entry to the Corkscrew.
I'm still waiting for Andy's raw DVD to arrive in the post but he did produce a clip that I could download and here it is:
On Monday 7th July the 750MC magazine arrived and amongst the pictures from the Anglesey weekend was a nice action pic of me! Sadly it's not one of my finer moments, it's when the bonnnet flipped completely up obscuring my view coming into Rocket resulting in me overshooting and going off. It looks fairly dramatic but I have to say it didn't feel as bad as it looks!
