Brands Hatch

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It’s a long trek to Brands but a fairly easy drive down the M4 and M25 and I was there by about 9. I pitched camp next to Colin and got the car unloaded. Tim arrived and there were quite a few RGBers around so it was the usual evening spent wandering round catching up with people.

Saturday morning I managed to get out on the bike and did 4 laps of the GP circuit which really brought home just how hilly it is! Of course I’m not the first to ride a bike round here and my iPhone app Strava made me 11th fastest up there. After a rather cool shower it was time to get some breakfast and get signed on etc.

The weather forecast was pretty poor for the day but the first session was dry and I set about reminding myself of the way round. The gear change did actually take a bit of getting used to and I was still fluffing a couple of gear changes. Once or twice I reached for the paddles most alarmingly the first time was on the way into Paddock Hill resulting in a brief blood pressure peak! My fastest lap at 54.2 seconds wasn’t fast but was 0.2 seconds quicker than my fastest race lap here in the BDN last year.

The second session was horrid, extremely wet and slippery. Early on Dan Bromilow came charging past me exiting Graham Hill Bend only to do a graceful pirouette in front of me at the right handed kink at McLaren. He did start rolling backwards towards the gap I was heading for but got onto his brakes again and I slipped through unscathed. I really had no idea how much grip I had and was really tippy toeing round but had an identical spin to Dan’s just befroe the end of the session. I got my clutch in quickly and stopped about mid-track actually facing the right way leaving plenty of room for a couple of the quicker boys behind me. I got going again and did one more lap then came in.

The afternoon sessions were dry and pretty uneventful. I stayed out for the full 30 minutes in the final session and felt I was going OK but couldn’t improve my lap times and was pretty despondent and annoyed with myself. I’m simply not carrying enough corner speed, this is sometimes down to braking too early but sometimes just staying on the brakes just a bit too long. I got the rear to move around a bit exiting corners a couple of times but at no stage did I lock a wheel on the brakes or feel the front end move meaning I’m not working the front end hard enough.

After the last session Tim pointed out that my airbox was looking a little second hand. When I made the Fury airbox I went a bit OTT with the GRP and it was very strong but very heavy. I think I over-compensated with this one and it’s light but a bit too flimsy and I think it’s actually the induction impulses that have been gradually killing it off. It was cracked in a couple of places and a complete chunk had fallen off where I’ve secured the spring for the secondary throttle spring via a 6mm bolt and repair washers. I got the airbox off but decided to fix it in the morning – scrutineering wasn’t till 9:40 with qualy at 11:20.

Austen arrived just before 9 and we had a couple of beers and a chat as the paddock continued to fill up, RGB seems to be a formula that other drivers aspire to – Gary Goodyear was Kitcar champion prior to joining us and last year’s Locost champion Scott Mittel has joined us this year.

I started work on the airbox at 7am Saturday morning and it turned out to be more tricky than I’d expected and by the time I’d got it patched up and refitted to the car it was 9:40 and time to take it for scrutineering. This was a bit of a shambles, I was near the back of the queue of 30 RGB cars and the scrutineers didn’t actually start our lot till about 10:10. I realised time was going to be tight so I ran back with my overalls and got changed into them so I was ready as soon as I’d been scrutineered. I was right and we’d already been called to the assembly area so I toddle doff round there with my umbrella as it was really pretty wet by then. My goal for the session was to get enough laps in to qualify and bring the car home in one piece which I did achieve albeit somewhat slowly – in fact slower than my fastest lap in Friday’s the morning session even though it wasn’t quite as wet as it was then.

As I came down pit lane at the end of qualy I got waved to one side by the marshal and instructed to go to race control. I had no idea why but it turned out that my one overtaking manouevre of the session was allegedly under a yellow flag – apparently when I overtook Rew there was a stationary yellow at the station on the right before Druids and waved yellows at the top. I accepted my ticking off but went back to the motorhome and had a look at my video which showed a yellow flag being lowered out of sight at the first station and no flags whatsoever at the top of the hill.

I was 25th on the grid for Saturday’s race, just in front of Rabid RGB team mate Steve Malyon and 26th for Sunday’s race just behind Steve.

It carried on raining off and on all day and I was feeling pretty despondent and really didn’t feel like going out for the race. I softened the dampers off even more and on Colin’s advice removed one of the front ARB link rods thus disconnecting it entirely. We’d already been warned there had been a fuel spillage around the start/finish line making it particularly slippery, due to all the stoppages they’d also shortened our race to 10 minutes. Oh joy. I sat in the car in the assembly area under my umbrella and started to wonder what I was doing there. We got out onto the grid and as the lights went out I got away and could just see a mass of cars in front of me all going sideways as the guys tried to find some traction. I was on the inside line but I headed for the outside as we went towards Paddock Hill and indeed as I crested the brow I could see Gary Goodyear spinning and heading backwards onto the grass on the inside. I was behind Steve for the first lap but felt I could go quicker so when I got the chance I overtook him up the inside going into Druids.

There were loads of spinners and I had a succession of faster guys getting back past me as they tried to recover their positions. Visibility was appalling so you couldn’t see who it was behind you and despite my pre-race despondency something happened inside my head and I wanted to try to race so I decided not to move over for anyone, the faster guys could find their own was past. Steve didn’t trouble me once I was past him and the next car in front was Colin Spicer but he was trying to get Dave Masters. The recovering quick guys (and there were more!) delayed progress but I soon got past Dave exiting Clearways and started to chase down Colin. On the last lap I managed to close right up behind him round Clearways and managed to get onto the power earlier and was about to go past him when I saw a waved yellow flag on the right. I backed off and there was poor old Tim Hoverd neatly parallel parked facing the wrong way alongside the pit wall.

I’d thoroughly enjoyed the race and was a much happier bunny parking the car up under the awning. I’d started 25th and finished 19th, most of the places gained were from non-finishers but I did manage 2 overtakes and was confident I’d have got past Colin Spicer with another lap. The evening was spent in the Spire awning for Steve Robinson’s birthday barbecue.

The rain was bouncing off the motorhome roof all night and with the wind buffeting it around I was awake early. After a bit of blog updating and some breakfast I went for a stroll round but it’s a bit boring in the paddock when everyone’s tucked up in their motorhomes hiding from the rain. During the lighter spells of rain I refuelled the car and got it ready for the race. The forecast was predicting the rain clearing up before our race but I left it with the wet settings until early afternoon – it finally stopped raining not long after 1pm then we had sunny spells and it was quite warm.

The track was completely dry by the time our race was due apart from a small river running across the track just after Clearways. I got a good start and got ahead of Steve and was just behind David Masters around Paddock Hill and going into Druids. Steve got past me on the exit of Graham Hill and I was a bit boxed in behind David but got around the outside of him round Clearways. I closed on Steve down the straight and went past him on the inside into Paddock Hill. At that stage I was fairly pleased with myself. Then as I got onto the power out of Graham Hill Bend the car’s master switch had a brief glitch resulting in me losing the engine for a half a second or so which was enough to let Steve past again. I recovered but the loss of concentration caused a few fluffed gear changes and just as I caught Steve again the car cut out at exactly the same place exiting Graham Hill. I caught Steve yet again round Paddock Hill and up into Druids but then completely messed up my gears on the drop down to Graham Hill and lost touch.

I think my brain was a bit frazzled by then and although I gained a bit on Steve again I simply wasn’t driving well, messing up gear changes, messing up lines etc. and pretty soon the leaders were lapping us and I lost ground. Although I finished the race I was pretty frustrated.

Here’s race 2, no data this time as the log file got split each time the electrics cut out.

We then got called into scrutineering again and I could see they were sticking us on the scales. Even though I knew it should be fine I was still a bit twitchy after being underweight at Silverstone. It turned out they were weighing us, checking ride height and checking our reverses worked. I was 567kg this time so I now know I can run a lighter fuel load, I had about 5 litres left at the end of the race. Sadly James Walker and Lee Baverstock both had non-functioning reverses and got disqualified.

So I need to look at the master switch wiring, the fact that it cut in the same place twice means it’s likely I’ve got a dodgy connection, it’s not a big job to check them all out.

The main problem though is the wiring inside my head, I’m simply not going fast enough round the corners. Although I’m getting the rear of the car moving around a little exiting some of the corners I’m not working the front end hard enough – I didn’t lock a wheel once on the brakes all weekend and at no stage ever felt a trace of understeer. Al Boulton helpfully commented after watching the last test session on Friday that it didn’t look like I was doing anything wrong – my lines were OK and I looked smooth. I just need to gain the confidence to attack the corners a bit harder and let the car slide a bit. John Goodwin had followed me round for a few laps on Friday and said the rear of the car looked unstable round Clearways and was hopping across, his opinion was that I couldn’t have got it round there much faster. I did soften the rear dampers off a bit after that but it was then very wet so I couldn’t really tell if it improved the situation. Anyway, I won’t be giving up. I don’t think more instruction will give me confidence and I can’t buy it so I’ll just have to get some more seat time and persevere.

 

Pulled Pork Recipe

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No-one seems to have been hospitalised following the RGB BBQ last night so here’s the recipe for the spicy pulled pork.

Ingredients

  • Pork Shoulder
  • BBQ sauce (couple of bottles)
  • Paprika
  • Chili powder + flakes
  • Onions
  • Brown Sugar
  • Cayenne Pepper
  • Garlic powder
  • Gherkins
  • Rolls

Mix together the spices and the sugar, trim any fat/rind off the pork joint then rub the spices into the pork, wrap in cling film and leave in the fridge overnight. No quantities are given for the spices, use your imagination! I use a fairly hot cajun BBQ sauce but you can use a milder one.

Next morning chop the onions and add to the slow cooker with the BBQ sauce and cook slowly for 8-12 hours.

Once it’s done remove the sauce with a ladle and transfer to a pan, heat and reduce till it’s fairly thick. Shred the pork using a pair of forks (that’s the pulling bit!) then stir in the sauce. Serve with bread rolls and some sliced gherkins. And beer :)

Brands Prep

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After a week’s R&R I was keen to get the new gearshift sorted when I got home. So on Sunday morning I fitted the gearbox end of the newly arrived cable (having removed the reverse motor and its mounting plate) and marked up where the retaining bracket for the cable outer should be at the other end. I then made up a bracket out of 3mm aluminium angle and fitted a couple of rivnuts to the chassis tube then trial fitted it connecting the inner to the new gear lever via a rod end. It seemed to work fine although you can only test it so much static in the garage – apart from bike gearboxes being generally clunky without the engine running the Kawasaki has a mechanism to stop you selecting 2nd gear until it’s running. I did notice however that the aluminium bracket I’d made was flexing, this meant that it would ultimately fatigue and fail so that was no good and I set about making a steel version.

This of course then needed painting which delayed proceedings somewhat. While waiting for that I got on with replacing the regulator/rectifier with the one I’d got from Malc Curnin so I could give Dan Bromilow his back at Brands. I also replaced the number plate that had fallen off on the way to Silverstone this time using some M5 screws. I cut a slot in the passenger side bulkhead to accommodate the new gear cable and fitted a grommet and some rubber trim then replaced the bulkhead. I also refitted the DigiDash having adjusted its position slightly to allow a bit more room for the gear lever and reassembled the reverse motor.

After watching the Bahrain GP the bracket paint was dry so I fitted that and got the cable fitted and connected up. It was now that I reaped the rewards of all that work getting the car IVA’d and registered – I could now take it out on the road to try out my new gear lever! It had been a typical April day with brief periods of sunshine with some heavy showers but by 5pm it was sunny and the roads were dry. The gear lever was fine and worked very well but I decided it needed a little adjustment. The lever was a bit close to the dash and since I’m using the original very short Kawasaki lever on the gearbox shaft I decided to move the rod end up a hole on the lever – this would increase the mechanical advantage at the expense of slightly more throw. After 5 minutes with the spanners I was ready for another test and it was a definite improvement with the shift action a little easier but still very crisp.

The new lever really makes gear selection much easier, it was all a bit of a fight before and with each track session my hands would get more and more tired/sore and I’d start missing gears. At Silverstone on the test day my afternoon sessions were slower than the morning and I attribute much of that to the gear change. I’ve booked the whole day testing at Brands on Friday and am now looking forward to getting used to the new lever.

On Tuesday evening I got the car back on the scales. According to my scales I reckon she was about 561kg with me and my gear and the fuel level from the end of the second race at Silverstone. I guess if the scrutineer had actually disqualified me I may well have asked to see the calibration certificate but seeing as he was being nice I didn’t want to antagonise him. So I bunged 5.5kg of lead back in there so even with an empty tank she should be comfortably over the 560kg limit.

I then did a couple of other bits and bobs – re-gluing some of the rear cover insulation mat where it had started to come off, refitting the clutch return spring I’d forgotten about, then I removed the old gear shift paddle and cable – I’ll take them with me to Brands in case there are any issues with the new bracketry. Then it was time to nip up to the local garage to fill the fuel tank ready for the weekend. It was also another reminder that she’s a really mental road car :D

Post-Silverstone Tinkering

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It’s a pity my DigiDash logger messed me about at the weekend, the quicker laps I’ve got on video have no data to go with them and on Sunday I’ve got data but no video. I really find it much more helpful looking at the data on a video rather than just in the ETB analysis software.

What I do know is that I wasn’t going fast enough on Sunday although interestingly my fastest lap was my last when I was chasing down Rew Chapple in his Striker to lap him. The positives from the weekend were that both I and the car came home unscathed and I did actually improve my lap time by over 2.5 seconds from my last visit there which is actually quite a lot. My quickest laps were on a par with Dan and James which is definitely progress as I wasn’t even coming close last season.

One ongoing problem is the gearshift. Using the paddles is a real PITA especially on a multisession day like testing or a trackday causing some pain but also missed gears towards the end of the day. It seems it’s just that the Kawasaki box isn’t as slick as the others. Since the problem was identified early last season the intention has been to change it for a small stick shift like Colin’s fitted, I wanted to delay it though until after I’d got IVA out of the way as the paddles are exempt from the radius rules being behind the steering wheel. So I’ve spoken to Brian and let him know I want one of the levers although I realise that he’s pretty chokka right now trying to get Rob’s car sorted. While I’m waiting I can work out how I’m going to bracket the gearbox end of the cable, I can do this on the old engine that’s still sitting in the engine stand.

Another plan was to sort out a spare engine for the season – this one has done me proud but they do get a hard life even with me driving and it won’t last forever. One option was to buy a bike and break it myself thus increasing my chances of getting a good engine but having ordered a replacement regulator/rectifier from Mal Curnin at Yorkshire Engines he reckons ZX10R engines are only going for £750-800, including the 2008 motors.

There’s clearly a power hike between the 07 and 08 motors across the board and I’d already been considering upgrading to an 08 over next winter. There seems no reason to switch from Kawasaki – Gary Goodyear with his 08 ZX10 seemed to have similar straight line speed to Paul Rogers’ Suzuki powered Contour and the Hondas don’t seem to be making more power, both the Honda and the Suzuki are more expensive than the Kawasaki. A couple of email exchanges with the RGB Kawasaki expert (Tony Gaunt) confirmed that the engine mounts and sump are the same on the 08 engine as on mine which makes the decision a bit of a no brainer. I’ll need a new loom and airbox of course so there will be quite a bit of work involved. It seems my manifold will fit but may not be optimal performance wise. Tony also has a spare 06 engine he says I can scrounge in case mine dies before I’m ready for the upgrade.

I then started tackling the engine bay end of the gear shift – this cable will of course be coming into the engine bay from a different direction so needs a new bracket for the cable outer. I plan to revert to the original shorter splined lever which should be fine with the new mechanism. I decided on a 5mm aluminium plate mounted on the alternator cover bolts with a couple of turned bobbins to stand it off and keep a bit more ‘meat’ on the mounting lugs. I then had to construct some bits of aluminium angle off this to mount the cable at the correct angle. After a couple of different attempts I was fairly happy – being able to weld aluminium would have made the job a lot easier but this should work fine. Having the old engine on a stand made it much easier fabricating the bracketry and getting the alignment correct.

 

The gear lever arrived from Brian on Tuesday, a steel mount with bolts and rivnuts, a laser cut pivot plate and the turned gear knob. After a bit of experimentation I worked out where I wanted the lever and got it fitted on the chassis tube. I’ll need to move the dash a bit but that’s a minor issue.

With the gearbox bracket completed I removed the passenger side bulkhead panel to work out a cable route and measure up. I’d planned to run it immediately above the fuel tank but trying it with my spare cable this means fairly close proximity to the exhaust manifold, it also put quite a sharp bend to take the cable down over the alternator cover. Routing it just over the manifold heat shield and the rad hose worked well, it does mean it then has to curve again to line up with the gear lever but it’s a pretty smooth curve and should be alright.

Before heading off on hols I rang Cable-Tec to order a cable. The guy there said they do normal cables or high temperature ones. I asked if they were much more expensive and he said yes, they were but he’d work out a price. Turns out the increase was from £31 to £33! So that should be waiting to be fitted when I get home from a week’s R&R in Fuerteventura.

Season Start – Silverstone

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The last time I raced the National Circuit at Silverstone was 3 years ago when I got caught out by the increased power of the replacement engine and new airbox in the Fury and having powered past Colin and Al ran out of talent at Brooklands and ended up spinning and collecting Austen. My fastest lap then was 1:06.99 so that was my target for the weekend.

On Thursday evening I had to work till 6.30 so it was almost 11pm by the time I pitched up at Silverstone. I’d booked a garage to share with Austen but by the time I arrived the gypsies had beaten me to it in the form of Tim and Colin. They’d saved me a nice space though so the BDN got unloaded and into the garage and we had a chinwag until it was time for a rather late bedtime. My first problem of the weekend was that the BDN’s rear number plate had fallen off on the way there!

The forecast for Friday was for sunshine but instead we had a murky grey sky, the good news was no rain was forecast for the weekend although it was going to be much cooler than the lovely week leading up to it. I got the car ready and signed on. Our first session was at about 10 and frankly I was feeling pretty apprehensive. Last season was for me frankly quite awful, I never really got to grips with the car and my confidence gradually ebbed completely away as the season progressed with the spin at Llandow necessitating an engine change before the season opener at Mallory, the big crash at Snetterton necessitating a complete rebuild, the warped cylinder head woes that marred the weekends at Oulton and Pembrey then the spin into the gravel at Maggotts in the Birkett testing when the rear undertray parted company.

The session with Tim Harmer a couple of weeks ago at Anglesey was really useful, but good as Tim is you don’t regain confidence in a single day’s coaching. So prior to going out at Silverstone I gave myself a good talking to and told myself that the first session as about getting reacclimatised with the car and the circuit but that I then really had to start pushing myself a bit out of my comfort zone and get a bit nearer to the car’s limits.

The first place I really started working on it was round Luffield – it’s slow and there’s loads of run off so I started pushing the car a bit harder round there until I could feel it starting to slide a bit. I also tried going into Copse faster. My fastest lap was 1:05.59 so an improvement of over a second on my previous fastest. The second session was pretty uneventful and I made a bit more progress down to 1:05.38. In the afternoon sessions I didn’t match those times, it was a combination of just getting caught in traffic and particularly in the final session getting tired – the gearchange is still very hard work and hands and wrists start to get very tired and sore towards the end of a day resulting in a few missed gears. Overall thoygh a very good day with the car behaving impeccably.

Jen and David arrived Friday evening and we joined up with Austen and Ken Greenway and Afghan Dan for a chilli. We ended up with more of the RGB gang in the pit garage for a very sociable evening.

Friday was forecast to be cool and overcast but dry and so it turned out. I stuck some new front brake pads in in the morning – at the IVA there was an imbalance between the front left and right brakes which remained in the retest despite me having cleaned them up and re-bled them. I was feeling more nervous than usual in the assembly area and as I was strapping in my battery warning light on my dash started flickering. I switched the display and gave the throttle a blip to see the voltage hovering around 11.8-12 volts with no sign of a rise. It then went out so I decided to try to forget about it and get on with qualifying. On the first flying lap Steve Robinson went off into the gravel at Copse so we had yellow flags there until they got him recovered. By the time they cleared there weren’t many laps left, I felt like I was going OK but then the battery light came on again so I decided to come in.

Back in the garage I borrowed a battery charger and got it on charge and with assistance from Brian and Colin’s friend Roger we eventually decided it was a failed regulator/rectifier. The only other Kawasaki runners are Tony Gaunt and Gary Goodyear but neither of them had a spare. Plan B was to try one from another make and try to make up some sort of adapter harness, otherwise run the car on a total loss basis hoping it would survive for 15 minutes. Dan Bromilow became my favourite lawyer as he provided a spare regulator from his R1 spares and much to my surprise and joy the connectors were the same and my loom just plugged straight into it.

My fastest lap was a rather disappointing 1:05.81 putting me 20th on the grid for Saturday’s race with my 2nd fastest a measly 1:06.19 putting me 21st.

In the assembly area Colin was making a point about it being his first race start in his new BDN and pleading with people not to run into him if he stalled it. I certainly assured him I wouldn’t be trying to pass him alongside the pit wall! My game plan was to get away cleanly but with no heroics, with a big grid the first couple of corners could always see someone fall victim to a bit of over-exuberance.

I got my clean start and settled into the first few corners losing a bit of ground on the cars in front with my lack of confidence on cold tyres. After a couple of laps things settled down and I had Dan Bromilow quite a way ahead of me in his stealth black Fury. Dan had qualified about a second quicker than me and had been quite a bit quicker throughout the test sessions on Friday so I resigned myself to the fact that he’d gone and concentrated on staying ahead of Steve Malyon in his red MNR who was filling my mirrors. I gradually eased out a gap on Steve then realised I was reeling in Dan.

As I gained in confidence I was able to get onto the brakes later and ended up right behind him. I did ease alongside a couple of times but had no real intention of trying to force a pass. Particularly not when I recall the favourite lawyer of mine nearly taking me out at Snetterton in the past! Each time leading cars lapped us I lost a bit of ground then made it up again. And there I finished, behind Dan. I certainly felt like I’d been going quicker but for some reason didn’t have lap times.

We got called into scrutineering where we all went on the weighbridge. I was confident my car was OK as I’d allowed for about 4 litres of fuel more than I needed to be on the limit. But I was wrong and the scales showed 359.5kg! I was let through with a warning.

When the results sheet came out I was delighted to see my fastest lap of 1:04.69 which was in fact quicker than either James Walker’s or Dan Bromilow’s in the 2 places ahead of me and importantly almost a second quicker than my previous best from the day before.

I was pretty pleased with the race, I’d really enjoyed it, had really felt like I was both getting more of a handle on the car as well as actually going a bit faster and as a bonus the car needed nothing doing to it. I checked the fuel to find I had 10 litres left which was enough to make it 363kg according to my corner weight scales. Indeed everyone else who’d previously weighed their cars thought the Silverstone scales were under-reading.

Here’s the video of the race – sadly no data overlay as the DigiDash recorded about 20 little files instead of one long one. Before you email me I already know what I’m doing wrong – losing too much ground at the start being over cautious on cold tyres, braking nice and hard and then calling for a taxi to take me to the apex cos it’s another half a mile down the track, simply not carrying enough speed round the apex, not making a sensible attempt to overtake when the opportunity arises and losing far too much ground letting the quicker guys through. But apart from that … :D

I refuelled the car adding a bit more than for this race to ensure the car wasn’t underweight again and did a bit of tinkering then settled down for an evening in the RGB paddock. It was Colin’s birthday so we all drank his bubbly then Jen, David and I joined the Greenway camp for more drinks and some spicy pulled pork.

Sunday started very cold but lovely and sunny with no clouds. I didn’t have much to do to the car, I cleaned off some of the rubber marks and confirmed that the dodgy DigiDash logger was due to the switch not earthing properly due to a loose nut. I was ready in plenty of time and we were joined by a couple of my medical mates, Richard and Sally – Richard lives nearby and Sally hadn’t been to a race meeting before and had been threatening to come for a while.

I was less nervous for this start and was hoping to build on my performance the day before. I was hoping to have a race with Dan (black Fury) and James Walker (white STM Phoenix), whose times I’d pretty much matched during Saturdays race. As it happened it didn’t happen! I don’t really know why but just didn’t really get it together, I had a good start and was cautious again on cold tyres but then made a couple of mistakes in the first few laps and never really got going. It didn’t feel slow but my lap times were down on Saturday’s race, I think some of it was because I was in a sort of no man’s land. I started behind Steve Malyon but fairly soon got past him and saw him and Dave Watson gradually recede in my mirrors but Dan and James were well up the road and well out of reach. Still, there were no dramas and the car behaved herself well and came home in one piece. We got called into scrutineering again – I think they were mainly looking at splitters and spoilers/rear undertrays to make sure we were all sticking to the regs. We then got weighed again and I was horrified to find the car was 558.5kg this time, a kilo lighter than Saturday. I had to wait on one side while the scrutineers finished with everyone else. Meantime I looked around to find a cushion to stick down my trousers :( I was profusely apologetic and explained that I really thought I’d stuck enough fuel in and in fairness the scrutineer was very reasonable and just threatened me with severe penalties if it happened again. Which it won’t, the lead’s going back in!

It’s probably just as well I’d forgotten to stick the memory card in the camera as I think the video of Sunday’s race could probably bore people to death. I was hoping to be able to post a trace of my heart rate during the race – I wore my Polar monitor and downloaded the log file afterwards to find that it was telling porky pies. My resting rate is currently around the 60 mark but as I was getting my race suit on etc. it was already up to 90 and once we were in the assembly area and I was belting up and started it recording it was up to 100. It rose to 116 per minute as we set off on the green flag lap but at the race start the monitor reckons it went up to 227 and stayed between 205 and 232 for the duration of the race. I’m confident that’s not possible, I’m not sure what my max is at the moment but even when I was very fit a few years ago it was only in the 180s and recently I haven’t pushed very hard on the bike but haven’t seen more than high 150′s. If it was genuinely anywhere near 200 I’d have felt rather unwell and would have known about it! Never mind, I’ll try again at Brands. It would be nice to try to incorporate it into the log file and overlay it on the video!

Final Pre-season Prep

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With two weeks to go till the season opener at Silverstone I had plenty of time to get the car prepped, and it doesn’t actually need much doing to it. I wanted to get it looking a bit better – prior to the Snetterton crash I’d decorated it with some green vinyl which I thought worked quite well, but I’d never really got the time to redo it following the rebuild. When I did it last time I hand cut the vinyl which was quite time consuming. This time I decided to try to do it with the vinyl cutter which meant digitising the shapes I needed. Using a combination of photos imported into Inkscape, measurements and some of Ian’s PDF drawings I got them as accurate as I could then started cutting some out. There was a bit of trial and error – cut one out, try it for size mark up where it needed to be bigger or smaller then adjust the drawings and try again. I had a roll of brown vinyl that I was never likely to use so I used most of that up getting the shapes sorted. I then cut them out in the green vinyl.

On Sunday I Stuck the green wheels on the car. These are fitted with Toyo Proxes that I got prior to the Birkett and used for a very short session as they seemed to offer almost no grip at all and resulted in me spinning just leaving pit lane! In fairness the surface was very slippery and the tyres were brand new and unscrubbed. I applied the vinyl which this time round didn’t take long at all then took a few photos of the car prior to going out for a quick spin.

She was pretty low on petrol and instead of filling her from jerry cans I now have the luxury of driving to the local filling station. So I took her out on Sunday afternoon once the sun had come out and the roads dried off and stuck some fuel in. The tyres seemed fine and I couldn’t resist a slightly circuitous route back to have a little blat :)

At Anglesey Tim Harmer had commented on my gearing being too high and reckoned it would have a big effect on lap times. On checking I currently have a 52 tooth rear sprocket fitted and then remembered swapping that from a 53 for the Birkett as the slight additional gearing was needed for the Hangar Straight at Silverstone. I dug out the 53 sprocket, cleaned it up and swapped that over. It’ll only knock about 2.5mph off top speed but I don’t really want to go much lower anyway.

There’s not much left to do to the car to prep it for Silverstone – redo the corner weights making sure I know how much fuel to keep on board to make the minimum weight limit (last season it was 10kg lead + 8 litres of fuel), add the race numbers, remove the passenger seat/harnesses and that’s about it.

The Silverstone weekend will be pretty full – I’ve booked all day testing on the Friday then we have qualy and race on Saturday followed by the second race on Sunday. Getting excited now!

On the road

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I had a phone call from DVLA on Tuesday afternoon to say my documentation was ready to collect but couldn’t get away from work so had to wait till Wednesday to find out what the car’s registration number was. I managed to get up there Wednesday lunchtime to collect the tax disk along with the V948 that allows you to get a plate made up, then called into a motor factors to get a registration plate.

The next challenge was mounting the tax disk. The obvious place was the dash but there isn’t enough room there. I don’t really want it on the exterior as there’s nowhere obvious I can put it without it sticking out like a sore thumb. So it ended up getting stuck onto the centre rail next to the video camera switch.

The car then got a quick wipe over and a bit more air in the tyres and we were ready to roll. Iv’e driven the car down the drive loads of times before but it felt really strange carrying on going and pulling out onto the main road. Of course I’m well used to driving the car, the main thing I noticed was that the roads are much bumpier than race tracks! Also the Power Commander mapping may be great for racing but it could do with a bit of work on the part throttle area!

I’d been thinking of somewhere to take a couple of pics of the car that would provide the most contrast with a race paddock and came up with … Tesco! So I tootled round there, parked up, took a couple of photos then came home via a slightly more scenic route including a brief stretch of M4. It was all surprisingly undramatic, the car’s great to drive on the road but of course it’s trying to entice you to take it above 9,000rpm all the time.

Later I took Chris out for a spin and had a great laugh when I saw his cheeks doing a very Clarksonesque wobble once we were ‘making progress’ :D

So, mission finally accomplished, we have a road going BDN :D

Anglesey Trackday

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It was a massive relief to get the IVA out of the way but particularly so as we’re approaching the start of the new racing season, what I really didn’t want to have to do was get the car back to race trim and then back to IVA trim again. Austen had arranged to go on a Bookatrack trackday at Anglesey with some instruction from ARDS instructor and former RGB racer Tim Harmer. I arranged to share the instruction with Austen and Daniel who has bought Doug Carter’s old ZX12 engined Genesis. Since then Austen’s pulled out but I decided to go.

On Thursday I nipped over to the local DVLA office with my V55/4 form which is quite confusing with lots of boxes to fill in many of which I thought weren’t applicable to my car. The chappie on the desk wasn’t sure either so called the guy who deals with kitcar registrations. He was a bit prickly to start with, I’d taken all my receipts and he only wanted to see the major ones, I got flustered and couldn’t find the bits I needed. Once he realised my paperwork was actually all there and I wasn’t trying to pull a fast one he relaxed a bit and was very helpful. I’d arranged insurance but as the cover note was handwritten I was waiting for it to arrive in snail mail. He said he didn’t need to inspect the car but wanted photos of it – I’d sent loads off with the IVA application but of course that’s VOSA and not DVLA.

So on Friday I headed back with my paperwork all neatly sorted out, cover note (£237 fully comp for the year :-) ) and photos. I’d been hoping they might have sorted it there and then but I had to pay my £55 registration fee and £130 for the tax disk and they said they’d send my documents out within 2 working days.

There was lots to do to the car to prep it for going back on track. I want to keep it OK for the road but the ride height needed sorting, corner weights re-doing, fire extinguisher and master switches refitting, race harnesses fitting etc. This all took most of Friday and half of Saturday. I then got the car and motorhome loaded up and headed off to North Wales on Saturday evening having decided trekking up there first thing in the morning wasn’t viable. You’d think a little jaunt from south Wales to the north of the country wouldn’t be a big deal but it is. There are myriad different routes possible, all of them horrific! Going on A roads via Aberystwyth worked out at about 180 miles, I did briefly consider the slightly less tortuous A49 route but Google maps reckoned that was 240 miles!

By the time I crossed the Britannia Bridge onto the island of Anglesey it was 11pm so I parked up in the first layby I came across and bedded down for the night. I got up early and was in the paddock at 7.30 and got a space right next to the hook-up points and got on with some breakfast.

When I booked the trackday it was for the Coastal circuit, the one we’ve raced on before but when I printed off the info on Saturday it said the GP circuit, which Jonny from Bookatrack confirmed was due to the new pit garage complex being incomplete and meaning the Coastal circuit was unavailable. Tim and Daniel arrived and unloaded the Genesis.

The first track session started at 10am so Tim fitted a bluetooth intercom into my helmet and we went off for the sighting laps. This was of course fairly undramatic but at least let him get a feel for the car and make sure everything was working OK. I was feeling decidedly rusty after almost 5 months without driving the car and I hadn’t driven the circuit for almost 2 years. Having been initially negative about the out-and-back via a hairpin GP loop it was actually very good and overall Anglesey is a fantastic circuit with some great corners and fab gradient changes.

The only issue was a non-functioning speedo but that was sorted by reducing the gap between the transducer and the magnet on the front hub. Once the car had had a little rest we went out again. After a couple of laps to get the tyres up to temp I upped the pace a little bit then we went in for some feedback. I’ve been well aware that the main thing I’ve lacked has been confidence, in both myself and the car; I also didn’t expect Tim to be able to give an instant injection of that! However he did give me some very useful and very focused feedback on my driving and helped me to understand what’s happening to the car dynamically round a corner and how to get the best out of it. I think Tim was actually a little surprised at the engine performance, he’s used to the bigger bike engines and I suspect had expected my weedy little ZX10 to be a bit gutless compared to the ZX12 in Daniel’s Genesis. The main issue of course is me simply not carrying enough speed into, around and out of the corners but there was also advice on positioning prior to corners, gear selection around corners and throttle application out of them in addition to advice about the lines for each individual corner.

With that food for though I went out for a solo session and really enjoyed myself out in the car. Everything was working very well and I gradually gained a bit of confidence and got to the point of getting it out of shape a bit on a couple of occasions. It really was a joy to be back out in her again after all these months getting her sorted for the IVA and the Anglesey circuit is really fantastic and fairly forgiving with quite a bit of run-off.

My brother Andy had arrived just as we were about to go out for the sighting laps and Daniel had kindly taken him out for the sighting session. For my next session I took Andy out in the BDN. The last time Andy was out on track in a car with me was at Llandow in the Evo many years ago. He’s been well aware of my confidence issues and has been very supportive, as well as working like a trojan when we rebuilt the car for Oulton Park last season. His first words on getting out of the car were that he hadn’t observed much to suggest I was lacking confidence and that he’d actually been quite scared :-)

During the lunch break we went for a walk round the track and Tim spent some time talking Daniel and I through the lines round the section of track approaching and round Rocket – this is the fastest part of the circuit and one I’d been particularly poor at. We also had a good look at the section around Peel and on towards the Corkscew looking particularly at the cambers. This photo’s taken from the top of the hill exiting Peel as you head down towards the Corkscrew.

After lunch I wanted to try to get Andy in the driver’s seat. As those who’ve met Andy will appreciate I’m the runt of the family at a mere 6′ 5″, Andy’s 5″ taller than me and when we’d tried him in the car back home in the garage he’d failed to get into it. So we took the seat out and replaced it with just a pillow and although he was far from being comfortable he did fit in and could just about manage the pedals. So we toddled off for a quick session in which he did remarkably well – he hasn’t driven on a track for about 10 years, he’s never driven a bike engined car before and his driving position was pretty compromised. We didn’t stay out long but I was really pleased that he’d at least had a chance to have a go.

Once back in the paddock we noticed some oil in the engine bay but it was the slightly frothy emulsified stuff that comes out of the breather and I realised the catch tank was full and had overflowed. It’s a bugger to get to so it took a little while getting the tank drained and the oil cleaned up. The car also needed some fuel – the tank had started the day with its full complement of 30 litres as a hangover from the IVA where you have to present the car with a full tank – and of course the chain got some lube but didn’t need adjusting. And that was the extent of the attention the car needed during the day.

I had another solo session then went out for an extended session with Tim. Around the faster bits the intercom was useless but I could hear him OK around the slower corners and he could use hand signals for the rest. His main frustration was trying to get me to stay on the gas for the transition across the track from the left hand curb at the end of the main ‘straight’ to the right hand side for the braking area for Rocket. Trouble is by this time I was getting knackered, the main problem was that my neck muscles were starting to get tired but it’s surprising how your concentration starts to suffer towards the end of a day. I was definitely doing better everywhere else on the circuit though and just needed to gain some consistency to string it all together. We came in at the end of this session and after some feedback from Tim I decided that going out again was counter-productive, particularly with a 4 hour plus drive back home ahead of me.

I didn’t actually get Tim to drive the car himself but his analysis was that the balance and setup of the car was fine, with it slightly favouring the front end with just a small tendency towards understeer but no signs of any instability or tendency to snap away. I didn’t fiddle with any damper or ARB adjustments – this was deliberate, the game plan is to leave the car alone while it’s working OK and concentrate on improving my driving. Once I improve a bit and can start to analyse more of what the car’s doing for myself then it’ll be time for some tweaking but not before then. All in all a very successful first day of the season, the cobwebs are well and truly blown away and I can prepare for Silverstone in 3 weeks knowing that the car’s ready to go. I’ll have a look at my logs and video and get some uploaded later this week.

Oh Yes :-)

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Be afraid, we’re about to have a road going BDN :-D

After a night working in the out of hours centre I got home and gave the car a clean prior to loading her onto the trailer and getting the tools sorted. It was a lovely sunny day and warm at 14°, quite a change from being in the garage over the winter. I got there a bit early and had to wait a bit till the office opened after lunch. Once I’d stuck my visitor’s hi-vis jacket on I went round to the car with Bob Stafford the inspector and he went through all the minor things on the list of failures – centre mirror, rear lights, trim, warning light tell-tales etc. This left just the emissions, headlight alignment, handbrake, steering self-centring and noise to go …

Next it was into the IVA bay for emissions. This took quite a while, some of it while I was tinkering with the Power Commander map via the laptop but mostly because Bob was having trouble with the machine. The fast idle at 2500-3000 rpm is difficult to get right because the engine really doesn’t like sitting there – you set it up on the idle adjust screw and think you’ve got it right then it speeds up. You adjust it down a tiny bit and it drops to 1800 …

Anyway after one set of adjustments Bob was on his mobile to someone and I was keeping an eye on the readings and could see they were all within limits so I waved him over and he hit his little button that set the timer. I kept everything crossed for what seemed like ages then he said we were OK and to drop it down to the normal idle speed. That was OK and the job was done! The engine was getting pretty hot and bothered with the fan running and the oil pressure in its boots at idle so we left her to cool off for a bit.

Next onto the ramp to have a look at the new wishbones and check the headlight alignment. All was well so it was onto the rollers to check out the handbrake. At the first test it was giving 14% of the power of the service brake and needed to be 18%, today it was 15% so still failing :( Bob decided to get the brakes warmed up and try again. There was someone doing a truck test so we couldn’t drive round the car park for a bit so he tested the noise next. First time round this had been 103dbA with a limit of 99dbA and although I was confident my sound deadening had made a difference I was pretty anxious about it and was careful to build the revs slowly without peaking above the required 7,800rpm. It sneaked in at 98.7dbA so that was another box on the list ticked.

We drove round to check the self-centring and warm the brakes up with me driving this time. Bob said to drive at about 20mph and try turning the wheel over then let go and see if there was any self-centring motion. So I swung the car to the right and lo and behold the wheel moved back! It did the same on a left turn so it was time to recheck the handbrake. This time I was in the car and gave the lever a good heave-ho. Bob was still a bit pessimistic about the numbers on the screen but when he went to the summary the computer said 18% and PASS :D

So that was that. I loaded the car back onto the trailer and waited while Bob wrote out the IAC (Individual Approval Certificate). The M4 back home was chock a block but I didn’t care, I was proudly towing my shiny BDN home with my certificate on the passenger seat of the Audi and ringing everyone I could think of who I thought might be vaguely interested!

A big vote of thanks to Ian and Brian Baldwin for their help and support getting here, also to Bob Stafford at the Cardiff VOSA station – he’s been a thoroughly nice chap throughout, interested, personable and helpful whilst being very thorough. Next step is to get her registered and insured.

Ready for IVA resubmission

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After a busy week mostly spent in Croydon it was good to get back to the car on Friday. The rad ducts on the BDN are beautifully made and very light GRP mouldings that duct the air from the ‘nostrils’ in the bonnet through the radiators in each sidepod and then exhaust the hot air into the channel between the rear wheel arch and the engine cover. They’re sealed around the rad ensuring extremely good flow of air through the rads, hence needing to actually tape up one rad when I went to the rolling road last year. However when I fitted the new nearside duct after the Snetterton crash I didn’t trim quite enough off the rear edge of the duct meaning that it projected a bit too far forward. Apart from looking a bit unsightly it meant the edges of the duct were visible and contactable by the VOSA man’s sphere of doom. So my first job on Friday morning was to remove said duct, remove the retaining brackets and trim a centimetre or so off the rear edge. I then refitted it and rebonded the brackets onto it with PU sealant.

The sealant of course took ages to go off in the near freezing temperatures. I then removed the offside sidepod to make a start on fitting the side impact protection bars. After my crash at Snetterton it was clear that I’d been quite lucky not to have a broken leg and Ian immediately started thinking about how the footwell could be reinforced. It’s a weak area on any car due to the lack of clearance between the front wheel and the chassis. I think Ian considered a few options, including a composite aluminium honeycomb but decided in the end on a length of aluminium square box section. Very simple but a surprisingly easy bolt-on fixing via one of the 10mm bulkhead bolts at the front (as shown in the pic to the right) and an 8mm bolt at the rear that required a rivnut in the chassis tube. My rivnut gun won’t do 8mm nuts so I used a bit of steel bar and an 8mm bolt and nut as described here.

The box section sits immediately below the front rad duct and is barely visible even without the sidepod on. Here’s a pic of the rear end of it bolted onto the chassis rail. On Saturday I set about trimming the sidepods to fit around the new additions – this took a bit more time than I’d anticipated as the aluminium box section in places runs along the line of the lower curve of the sidepod and needed quite a few trial fittings before I was happy. As a consequence I only got the offside one done.

The nearside one of course didn’t take quite so long and once I was happy with it I refitted both sidepods. I hadn’t been completely happy with the new mirror and decided it could do to be a bit higher so I turned an aluminium mount to raise it by an inch or so. And that was that for another weekend.

I rang to rearrange the test and the first date I could fit it in with the inspector was the afternoon on Friday 2nd March. The weekend before this I set up the front wheel alignment using my trusty aluminium angles and string box. Although the general recommendation on the Locostbuilders forum was for some toe out to achieve some self-centring Ian advised that because of the geometry and kingpin angle on my car a bit of toe in would be better. Along with the reversed steering arms to reduce the Ackerman angle and the new wishbones I’m hoping to have solved that little problem but haven’t really got room to test it out.

The trusty motorhome is three years old in the first week of March so it needed its first MOT. I booked it into the local Halfords as my local garage couldn’t get it into their bay. After waiting for a while I was informed that it had failed with a loose CV joint boot and a brake light bulb not working. The guy was writing out the paperwork when the manager came along and said he’d get their guy to stick a new clip on the CV boot and slap a new bulb in and pass it. Well chuffed, even more chuffed when it turned out they had a deal on MOTs at £27.50 :)

At the IVA there had been a slight imbalance between the left and right front brakes, not enough to be an issue for the test but I wasn’t terribly happy with it. I decided the only reasons it could be were glazed pads on one side, a contaminated disk or a bit of air in one side. So I cleaned up the pads on some emery cloth, cleaned up the disks with brake cleaner and re-bled the front brakes.

With that the car’s ready bar slapping the seats back in, reprogramming the DigiDash (so the mph display is always visible) and temporarily fixing the headlight covers back on (so I can easily adjust them at the test centre). Although I’m hopeful the car will pass it’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t. The season’s getting close though so I’ll need to get the car back into race trim at the weekend anyway, you get 6 months grace after each fail to resubmit so I can retry in a longer gap in the middle of the season. I’ve got a trackday booked at Anglesey on Sunday 11th March along with a bit of instruction. Following Colin’s testing at Mallory (Tim Grey diagnosed it as having too much front downforce compared to the rear) I’ve been in discussion with Colin and both Ian and Brian Baldwin, clearly my car doesn’t seem to have as much imbalance as Colin’s (possibly due to Colin’s having a full cage) but the plan is to keep the splitter as high as possible to minimise front downforce.