Still no car :-(

Well the bottom line is I won’t be trolling over to Suffolk to get the car back from Andy this weekend. I spoke to him yesterday and although there’s been progress and they’re starting to refabricate the front end of the chassis there’s still quite a bit of work to do. It’s a pity, especially as I’m away next weekend so won’t have it until 2 weeks time, which will then leave me a fortnight to get it sorted for Brands.

We also had a chat about the bonnet, Andy’s fibreglass contacts had reckoned it was pretty unsalvageable. I did speak to Chris at Fisher about a new bonnet and although it’s not quite as expensive as I thought it might be (£500) the problem is Fisher are in Kent and I suspect popping a bonnet in the post isn’t going to be an option. I did wonder about getting one when I go over to Andy’s to get the car but even that’s quite a long way, over 2 hours. My other plan was to salvage the bonnet temporarily and pick up the new one when we go over to Brands.

Andy’s also going to source me a replacement silencer – he can get a 7″ silencer that is generally too long for our cars but can be cut down to suit. It won’t be cheap but I really need a silencer that’s going to do the job and not leave me worrying about getting through noise tests. It will mean I can get the car on trackdays as well. We’re hoping to salvage the cat out of my silencer but it’ll need inspecting in view of Tim’s debacle.

I just have to be philosophical about it. I’m confident I will be at Brands but I’m going to have my work cut out to have the car ready with just one full weekend to get it sorted.

Last weekend was pretty hectic – I’d decided to stick the Cayenne and my 2 bikes on the market. The Cayenne had had a service early in the week before and I’d had a trade bid from the dealership in Cardiff so that gave me a benchmark figure. They all went on Pistonheads on Thursday night, the bikes in MCN. I had a serious caller about the R1 Friday and he came and saw it and paid a deposit on Saturday morning having agreed the full asking price. A guy from Doncaster ended up coming down very late (arrived half past midnight) Sunday night and paid cash for the Aprilia. I had 2 dealers from London interested in the Cayenne and that went on Monday. Interestingly the dealers were offering more than the private buyers who seemed to think they could steal the car. They sounded quite crestfallen when I was telling them dealers were already bidding me over £1,000 more than they’d just offered!

So the good news is I’ll have lots more room in the garage. You might think I’d be better off financially too but of course that’s not to be. When the Cayenne was having its service the b******s at Porsche Centre Cardiff gave me a Cayman S as a courtesy car for a couple of days and to be honest it’s probably the best road car I’ve driven apart from maybe the GT3 I had. I did drive a Boxster a few years ago and although it was less powerful than the 911 I had at the time it impressed as a well balanced little car with great handling. The Cayman is based on the same chassis but is of course a bit more rigid and has more power. Having had the tiptronic Cayenne for 4 years and the F1 paddle shift 360 Spider for over 2 years it was actually really nice to get back into a manual road car again and the pedals were placed so even I could heel and toe it. Of course it didn’t have quite the punch of the GT3 but it’s less compromised as a road car – I could never use the GT3 for work cos it was too low to get down the ramp into the car park at the surgery! Jen really liked the car but wondered if she’d prefer a Boxster so we spent Saturday afternoon drinking Porsche’s coffee in Cardiff looking over cars and ended up agreeing that the Cayman looked the better car and was nicer inside – although the Boxster is nice with the roof down it’s a bit dark and claustrophobic when it’s up. I’ll stick a couple of pics up when she arrives next week

Snetterton Video

Snetterton circuit

Here’s the first 6 laps of the Snetterton qualifying session. I suppose this post is more for my own benefit than anything else, if I don’t write stuff down I’ll have forgotten it all by the time I go back to the circuit next time.

The fastest lap was lap 4 at 1:23.3, lap 5 was 1:24.16 and watching the video I got the wrong gear halfway round the Esses which must have cost me loads of time. I suspect without the fluffed gearchange I would have been below 1:23. I did that a couple of times – the logs show I was generally doing just over 130mph coming down the Revett Straight and I was doing as Derek suggested and trail braking all the way with 2 downshifts before the first left handed apex then another shift down into 3rd before the slow right handed apex then back on the power. What I did a few times was get the entry to the complex OK but instead of pulling on the right side of the paddle shift I was pulling on the left and going back up into 5th! I’ve no idea why I was doing it, I never go the wrong way through the gear box generally. Also a couple of times I wasn’t cleanly engaging 4th gear coming down the box and ending up in a false neutral from where it was difficult to get any gear.

Going round the lap starting with the first corner, Riches, my main problem was entry speed being too low. This generally became evident when I was able to get back onto the power before reaching the apex! This highlights my main driving fault at the moment, simply not being brave enough going into the faster corners and realising on the way out that I should have gone in quicker. I think what I need to do is focus on one corner for each session and concentrate on picking an accurate braking point then moving the braking point further towards the corner each lap.

The second corner, Sear, was usually OK. I generally was getting the braking right and turning in at about the right place – quite late to straighten the exit onto the long Revett straight. This was a corner where I did seem to be making up time on the slower drivers and was able to then pass them early on the straight although I’m aware that having more power than most does help!

The Revett Straight was easy enough, just wind it through the gears and keep the throttle pinned. I was however occasionally losing track of which gear I was in and trying to pull 7th gear. In my own defence this wouldn’t be happening if my gear indicator was working, which it isn’t because the speedo still isn’t working properly. I did speak to Al Massarella on Sunday, he designed the DigiDash and he explained that the reason I can’t upgrade to the GPS speedo version is because they switched to a different main processor for the later models.

I was generally fairly happy with my entry into the Esses – I think it would be fairly easy to get into trouble trying a bit too hard there as you’re coming onto the first apex quite fast in 4th gear on the brakes. Quite easy to lose the rear end I think. Again I seemed to be doing OK here relative to other cars.

The exit from the Esses was OK and I was shifting up into 4th for the Bomb Hole and again I don’t think I was ever going fast enough for this corner. I was occasionally missing the apex, which means you then miss out on the beneficial camber. I was never anywhere near the limits of adhesion on the exit and could have stayed yards away from the exit curve.

Coram was where I was losing most time. Need more brave pills. I still just haven’t got the feel yet for where the limits of grip are and have not had enough time in the car to be comfortable sliding it in a high speed corner. Getting my excuses in, when I look back I’ve actually had very few sessions where I’ve been able to drive the car without something being significantly awry. In Anglesey the suspension was completely wrong (front springs 225lbs, rear 180lbs, I’m now on 225 front and 250 rear) and the corner weights were a million miles out, Cadwell I did one full session before the Muffett diff exploded and at Silverstone I was having to drive around a missing 3rd gear. At Oulton testing was in a monsoon again with no 3rd gear so effectively since I’ve got the suspension set up and the new engine in the only sessions I’ve had were the qualifying and the race at Oulton and the ones at Snetterton.

The last complex, Russell Bend, I was again happy with. When in traffic I found I often wanted to brake later than the drivers in front of me but wasn’t prepared to try to outbrake up the inside going in. The car seemed to be handling OK on the fast right/left complex and I was fairly happy with my exit.

Towards the end of the video you can see the yellow flags around the Esses, Tony Gaunt in the silver car parked up on the left then the black car in the barriers straight ahead just coming into the Bomb Hole. My car didn’t want to turn in as I was on the spilt coolant where someone had rear ended Tony as he spun coming out of the Esses and punctured their radiator. I could also feel patchy grip round Coram and rapidly came to the conclusion that I had no chance of improving on my lap times in the rest of the session so took it pretty steady for the remaining couple of laps till the chequered flag.

Snetterton Aftermath

Here goes with the first post in the new blog. I’ve been thinking of moving from my handwritten website to a WordPress blog for some time and have finally decided to take the plunge. The old site works pretty well but this should make life easier.

This first post overlaps with the last entry on the old site so forgive the repetition, there’s a bit more detail in here though.

I had quite a long chat with Andy Bates yesterday afternoon. He’d got the car off the trailer and removed the rather drunk looking driver’s side front wheel to inspect the damage in more detail. Here’s a list of what needs doing:

• wheel damaged, needs replacing
• radiator destroyed, needs replacing
• bonnet severely damaged, he’s going to get a quote for repair
• lower wishbone damaged, could be repaired but better replaced
• chassis damaged – the upper and lower suspension mounts on the driver’s side are both damaged, the main top and bottom tubes are damaged and need replacing, the lower box section needs replacing, the diagonal brace in front of the pedal box is bent and needs replacing, the pressed steel braces across the suspension top mounts are damaged and need replacing
• dry sump tank has small dent where bottom suspension mount has impinged. He’ll inspect and if needs be weld a patch over it
• steering rack destroyed, needs replacing
• brackets for radiator and steering rack damaged and need replacing
• slight damage to top oil hose which needs to be kept an eye on, may well be OK. Miraculously the oil cooler seems intact

He was originally going to order new pressed steel plates from Fisher but thinks it’s better to fabricate some slightly modified and stronger versions. He’ll also reinforce known weak areas that were likely to cause problems in future like the bottom suspension mounts (others, including Tim’s, have failed in the past due to the design). I’ve seen the quality of his welder, Steve’s work when I visited the unit on Saturday and he showed me round the prototype chassis he’s built for his newly designed car and I’ve got no worries about that.

This is all going to cost a fortune – the daily rate Andy’s quoted me is very reasonable but there’s a lot of work there. I’ve just got to take it on the chin though, the chassis repair work isn’t stuff I could safely do myself and sticking the other bits and pieces on won’t take Andy long and is necessary to get the car back onto the trailer to bring it home anyway. If I’d brought it home I don’t know where I’d get it fixed and it’s unlikely I’d beat Andy’s prices anyway.

The positives are that it will be fixed and Andy’s hopeful that I might have it back in about a fortnight. Brands is 5 weeks away next weekend so I should have time to collect the car and maybe even take her for a shakedown somewhere like Llandow or Pembrey.