Bob's FuryBusa Site - Silverstone August 2008

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Thursday 21st August, 2008

I got a lot of my stuff together in the morning before going into work but Knew I had a long lunch break so planned to load up the car and get the fury on the trailer then so I could just come home from work and set straight off in the evening. It was all going swimmingly till I came to put the Fury on the trailer to find there were no brakes! Oh yes and the reverse broke almost straight away. I suspected the heat from the welding may have boiled the fluid so I pushed it back into the garage to bleed them. This didn't go well - I was using one of those EaziBleed thingies that uses tyre pressure - as I soon realised it was dumping all the fluid on the floor under the rear of the car! Investigation soon revealed a cracked copper brake pipe just at the rear of the tunnel. This must have happened when I moved the pipe around to weld the brackets.

After a brief panic attack I shot out to the local motor factor for some replacement pipe and spent my remaining hour before returning to work chopping the old pipe out, routing a new on in its place and getting the ends swaged. When I got back at 6pm I finished fitting it then bled the system and checked for leaks and put all the panels, wheels etc. back on. We still managed to get away by about 7.45 so it was a pretty good disaster recovery I thought.

A good mate of mine lives about 15 miles from Silverstone so David and I were staying with him for the weekend, we were a bit later than I'd hoped but still managed to chill with a couple of beers before heading for bed.

Friday 22nd August, 2008

After the short drive to Silverstone we soon found the RGB section of the paddock and I said hello to some of the guys - it's 7 weeks since I last saw most of them and it was good to be back. They're a really friendly bunch of guys and I was looking forward to a couple of days at the circuit with them. I went and signed on and got the car off the trailer and went round sorting the tyre pressures - I'd done as Adrian had suggested and pumped them up above the pressure I need using the compressor in the garage so all I had to do was lower them to the correct levels.

9am and the first session was upon us all too soon. I found my way round to the pit lane and got in the queue - I deliberately didn't get there as soon as they called us as I didn't want to be anywhere near the front! The pit lane light went green and off we went - my first drive of the car with the 'new' diff'. I was being really steady the first couple of laps and the main thing I noticed was that the car was smoother and quieter then before. Everything seems to be be pretty hunky dory and I gradually learned the track. The car was a bit squirrely on the brakes and the right front tyre was still locking up quite easily. I also hit a neutral a few times changing down from 5th to 4th and it was a bit difficult to get it back into gear - this got worse throughout the day. When I pulled back into pit lane Tim was there so I pulled over next to him and he kindly went round checking my tyre pressures which were all pretty much OK.

The lap timer was working fine this time and I got down to a 1:09.09 on my 17th an last lap. The next session I got a bit quicker although there was a lot of traffic and I don't think I ever really got a completely clear lap in. The change down from 5th gear got worse - I realised it wasn't really a neutral as there was a load of clattering going on so I drove around it by hitting the brakes and banging the box down 2 gears to 3rd before letting the clutch out again. It never gave any trouble changing up from 3rd so wasn't really having too much of an effect. I got down to a 1:08.5 which I was happy enough with. The third session was pretty uneventful - busy again and best lap was again about a 1:08.5. My speedo had been wonky which didn't really matter except without it the gear indicator doesn't work but I was only using 3 gears anyway so that wasn't an issue.

Early afternoon I checked the car over - checked all the prop bolts, the drive shaft bolts etc. and they were all fine. There was nothing to do in the engine bay so I cleaned the car up, topped up the fuel and downloaded the data from the dash and the video from the flash card. Rob and Andy Grant were parked up near me and Andy had offered to check the corner weights as he has a set of scales so he came over with those mid afternoon. This was quite enlightening as they were miles out which probably accounted for the front wheel locking up - not all driver error maybe! The weights were as below:

Total weight was 502.5kg empty (I know the numbers above don't add up to this but I scribbled them down quickly and rounded some of them) and 592kg with my lardy carcass in it. This was with about 17 litres of fuel.

The most interesting bit is the 36kg difference between the fronts when I was in the car. Andy then was kind enough to grab his C spanner and grub around the suspension making adjustments which didn't actually take very long. I told him not to spend ages faffing with it and to accept it when it was close enough. We ended up with the numbers below so a huge improvement down to a 4kg difference across the front axle which is the most important. I was looking forward to seeing just how much difference it made.

We then heard that we could sign on for tomorrow's race and get scrutineered so it seemed sensible to get all that sorted as it would de-stress the morning quite a lot. The scrutineer had a look over the car and recommended locknuts on the bolts locking the Sierra steering column where the bottom bit clamps onto the top bit. He also found there was a tiny bit more play than was ideal in the nearside front wheel bearing but was happy enough.

After that we stuck the tarpaulin on the car and headed off back to Richard's and out for a few beers and a nice meal in Jamie's Italian in Oxford. We didn't see Jamie Oliver of course but the food was pretty good. Richard's friends Bob and Jane were out with us and came back to the house for more drinks after. I didn't drink and excused myself at 12.45 which was altogether too late really with an early start in the morning. Earlier in the evening I'd checked my email and found one from Derek sent on Thursday night with some tips for driving the circuit - how thoughtful's that!

Saturday 23rd August, 2008

Race day! We didn't need to rush this morning as all I had to do to the car was get the tarpaulin off it and stick the steering wheel on! Loads more of the RGBers were now here and I had a chat with Derek, Tony Carpenter, Adrian etc. I had to go to a 'first time at circuit drivers' briefing which covered stuff specific to Silverstone, like where the assembly area was, pit entry/exit etc. Also a warning that they would try to run ahead of the scheduled times if they could to allow themselves breathing space if there were any incidents.

When we got called to the assembly area I drove the car round, got noise tested then was called forward to the queue. The marshal then asked for my scrutineering ticket which I realised was back in the Cayenne. Doh! I legged it back across the paddock but David and Richard had gone off to find somewhere to watch the race and David had the car keys. It was a warm sunny day, I was wearing long nomex underwear and a 2 layered nomex race suit and I was out of breath and sweating cobs. Yes, it sounds funny but I wasn't laughing at the time. I found David in the second grandstand I went to and we ran back to get the ticket and drove back round to the assembly area. I was really hot and sweaty but did my best to settle myself down and relax. The qualifying session went fine but I wasn't terribly fast. I made a bit of a mess of the first corner (Copse) on the first flying lap on cold tyres and just managed to catch the car on the exit so it took me quite a while to build courage back up there. For some reason my speedo was now working fine so I had my gear indicator back. The difference on the brakes was phenomenal, the car was dramatically more stable and I could brake much more confidently and trail brake a bit more. My dash gave my quickest lap as 1:07.99 on lap 3 but the official timing said lap 13 was my fastest at 1:08.27, so I'd made a small gain on yesterday. Once the tyres got up to temperature there really was masses more grip and I knew every lap that I could go faster round Copse but simply wasn't brave enough yet - about 85mph. The other thing that happened was that Phil Alcock had ended up in the gravel trap just off the apex of Becketts resulting in yellow flags. This means no overtaking but you're also supposed not to be in maximum attack mode. I backed right off round that section for a few laps resulting in poor times. Overall I was happy enough, my main goal for this season is to get the car sorted out and handling reasonably and for me to just get used to driving it. As it turned out I qualified 23rd out of 26 but I really don't care how far back on the grid I am for now.

After the session I got back in and refuelled the car and that was about it. David and Richard wanted to see if they could get in the stands overlooking Luffield so we went across the bridge over the start/finish straight and walked around. We could indeed get to the stands and the view from there was pretty good, also worked out it was easy enough to bring the car round the other way and save a long walk. We had a burger and they all had a pint while I went to a briefing for all drivers. The main point of this was to say that they were a bit fed up with the number of drivers who were creeping while on the grid before the start lights went out. They'd tried to address this by holding the lights on for longer but it had clearly failed so they now planned to hand out time penalties. After this we had an RGB drivers meeting to discuss issues relating to regs etc.

The time dragged a bit then waiting to be called to the assembly area but eventually it was time to head round there. We were all lined up in our correct grid rows till the Formula Vee race before ours finished, then off we went out onto the circuit. The assembly area exit is just on the apex of Brooklands, we trundled slowly round Luffield and onto the grid. I was on row 12 and a long way back so I was actually on the bend at Woodcote but had a clear view up the right hand side of the bend as the grid positions are staggered. At the back you can't see any of the '10 seconds' boards so I just waited till I heard the engines up front start to rev to flip my visor down then pretty much straight away the start lights came on then off again and we were off. I got a reasonable start unlike Tony Gaunt 2 places in front of me who'd gone nowhere and Stuart Tanton immediately in front of me had had to manoeuvre round him. We accelerated up through the gears but once I got to 5th I backed off to keep myself a bit of space round Copse - there was room for me to go up the inside but at this stage in my career I'm prioritising staying out of trouble over trying to gain places on the first corner. Had I been in 4th gear I'd have probably gained a place between Copse and Maggotts but from my logs I'd apexed Copse at 70mph in 5th so even the Busa didn't have the grunt to pick up very quickly from what was 5750rpm. As I lifted early for Maggotts Adrian Moore who must have had a worse start came alongside on my right and I kept over to the left to leave him some room. There was a cloud of smoke followed by dust as Stuart locked up and went straight on onto the grass on the right. As Adrian passed me and I was heading for the apex another car had taken a bit of kerb and then some more and spun back onto the track. As I came in he was right in front of me facing me head on. I pulled right and followed Adrian past him on the right then saw Stuart returning from his little cross-country trip coming back onto the circuit from the right. He spun right in front of Adrian who had nowhere to go and hit him, I had to do a quick jink right to avoid Adrian and hoped there was no-one coming up past me on my left. there wasn't and I was through - phew, I'd just survived my first pile-up!

To be honest the rest of the race wasn't desperately eventful. I pretty soon had Tony Gaunt hassling me and coming into Copse for the second time I slowed down way too much and he came alongside on my left. Generally when I've hit the apex there going too slow it's meant I could get straight back on the power early and straighten the car up early and go out to the kerb but I left him space and he went through. He's in a Wolfe ZXR which apparently he's designed and built himself, it looks a bit like a sort of angular version of a Radical - I was told the car's in development but that he's quite an experienced racer. I clearly had more grunt than him but he was braking later and was quicker round the corners. I lap and a half later I came round Copse to see Tony spinning and coming to a halt on the right side of the track facing me. After that I was on my own for a couple of laps till Adrian appeared in my mirrors. I was way too wimpish and left the door open turning into Luffield and he went through. Looking at the video the marshals were waving oil flags at the exit of Luffield and I had some wheelspin as I accelerated out in 3rd gear behind Adrian - there was a white Fury (Stuart Tanton I think) pulled over on the left at Woodcote, I gathered later his engine had blown up rather spectacularly leaving oil on the track. I was even more cautious round there for the next couple of laps!

Tony reappeared in my mirrors again for the final lap or so, I just made sure I didn't make any mistakes in the corners and kept to the apexes as I didn't want to lose the place back again. Then the chequered flag was out and to was time to back off and wave to thank the marshals as I did the cool down lap. Even though I'd come in 18th I felt great coming back into pit lane behind Adrian having completed the race. We were directed into parc ferme as we were all being weighed - my car was unsurprisingly lighter than the day before, I think it was about 496kg and 585kg with me in it. The minimum weight for a front engined Class A car is 530kg so I don't need to worry about that unless I lose half my body mass!

while I was packing up I met another old e-acquaintance - Dave Hackett came and introduced himself. Dave had been helpful when I was building my Westfield a few years ago having just completed his own MegaBird. It's good to put faces to names and meet people you feel like you've known for ages! I'd also met Tim Cheney earlier, he's building an MNR Vortx and had emailed me with advice on the diff.

So, a successful weekend. I've got some work to do at some stage as 4th gear is very sick. I had a chat with Andy Bates who reckoned I've probably got rounded dogs. I need to decide whether to strip the engine and fix 4th gear or bite the bullet and get another engine. I'm tempted to do the latter - I'm sure this engine has had a hard life as a racer previously. Despite having a reconditioned crank with new big ends the oil pressures are ridiculously low (6psi!) at idle when it's hot. According to the logs it's dropping to 25psi in the slower corners. Apparently the problem with Busa's is that the oil pump case expands when it gets hot making the clearances inside the pump larger resulting in low pressures. There are a couple of things can be done I think including a new gear to actually drive the pump faster.

My driving had been more conservative than in Anglesey as I really didn't want to spin this weekend. I know I need to get used to cornering faster and getting used to the car moving round more but I'm pretty patient and know it'll come with time. Certainly the new diff has worked great and the car feels much better than at Anglesey with the new springs, ride height adjustments, front ARB and corner weights. I feel now that the basic setup is OK and I can now just concentrate on learning to drive it faster.

I'll get some photos on here when I can. I've got full video of every session including great footage of the melee at Becketts on the first lap but had to sign a video disclaimer agreeing to pay Silverstone £25,000 if I publish any of it! Seems silly really but there you go.

P.S. following emailing Silverstone they've said they have no problem with non-commercial use so here you go: