Last weekend was the first race meeting of the year at Silverstone. It didn’t go well…

The first piece of bad news was that sticking with my venerable 8-year-old engine for this season was a bad move. A lot of drivers have upgraded to the Suzuki GSXR, and it has a lot more power. On one occasion I exited the hairpin right underneath Frazer’s rear wing and by the end of the straight he was a good 5-6 car lengths ahead.

The second piece of bad news was that the car was handling terribly, and chewing up front-left tyres. After a lot of head-scratching, we came to the conclusion that the problem was most likely a result of the chassis not being straight after the accident at the end of the season at Snetterton.

All of that was made moot by what happened in the second race on Sunday - at the start of lap 2, Kat Impey spun on the exit of Copse (very fast - taken in a continuous 4-wheel drift in fifth gear at around 120mph). I was unable to avoid Kat and ended up hitting her very hard indeed. Two further cars then went into the back of us, and the debris hit a couple of other drivers.

The marshalls and paramedics had lots of fun getting me onto a back-board and neck brace and carted me off to the medical centre to be checked over. Luckily there wasn’t any serious damage - although I’m definitely feeling it now!

The car is a complete write-off (as is Kat’s). There are a few bits that I might be able to salvage, but basically it’s a “start from scratch” job.

So, that’s it for a while at least.

Drat.

There is a calendar on the Formula Jedi website here, but it’s already out of date :-(

Here is the current calendar as I understand it:

In lieu of the reports I should have written at the time, here’s a quick description of the highlights of the last half of 2006, (with some of the most dramatic pictures you’re ever likely to see! :-)

I’ve dragged myself into the 21st century and created one of them new-fangled “blog” thingies!

Apologies to all who have been following my increasingly erratic race reports - I will try to do better in the future now that they have a spiffy new home

All,

To “regular” readers of my race reports - sorry for the long silence :-( All I can say in my defence is that 82ASK have been keeping me busy!

This is just a quick mail to let you know that the Jedis will be on TV tonight! Race and Rally UK on Motors TV at 9pm, and then repeated at various times throughout the week :-)

It’s the Cadwell Park meeting from a few weeks ago. I’ve not seen it myself yet, but I hear that there is some very dramatic footage of me which explains how both rear uprights got bent.

link

Hello everyone - as always, if you don’t want to hear about my racing exploits, just let me know and I’ll remove you from the distribution.

The first few races of this year have been eventful to say the least. But the underlying news, from my point of view at least, is good.

It may not have escaped your notice that I’ve become even less reliable than normal with race reports recently :-) Well, this probably has something to do with an unplanned career change - I am now working as a freelance consultant after resigning from SavaJe. So if anyone out there knows of a company looking for a CTO, VP Software Engineering, Chief Architect or similar, please do point them in my direction :-)

So anyway: the racing. Since the last report I sent, there have been three events, Pembrey, Cadwell Park and Silverstone (last weekend). The story of these three races has been one of gradual progress towards getting the car to handle properly. We’re not quite done yet, but definitely getting there.

A quick summary for those who don’t want to read to the end: We seem to be making progress with getting the car working - which culminated on Sunday with me setting the Monoposto lap record for the Silverstone GP circuit :-)

Apologies for the once again delayed report. Small details like resigning from my job have kinda distracted me :-)

So, the weekend before last we were at Castle Combe for a Formula Jedi race, and then last weekend we were at Silverstone for a Monoposto race on the GP circuit.

A rather delayed report as a result of an “interesting” week at work.

Last weekend was the first race of the season, a Formula Jedi race at Brands Hatch. I’d booked a test session on the preceeding Friday to use as a “shakedown” session and make sure that the car was working correctly after the winter.

Due to the Superbikes deciding to move things around, the Formula Jedi calendar has changed (almost completely!):

All,

The provisional dates for next year have just been published. Anyone who fancies coming along to any of these events would be most welcome!

Summary: Damn! Drat! and %$&*@!

This weekend I competed in a double-header at Donington Park. This was a Monoposto round rather than Formula Jedi, so was more of a “bit of fun” than a serious race. I’ve never driven Donington before, but have always been keen to do so, partly because it’s reputed to be fantastic racetrack, and partly because it’s where we scattered my brother’s ashes a few years ago.

Last Saturday we raced at Oulton Park. This is a circuit I’ve had very bad luck at in the past - only finishing a single race in anything like reasonable shape. In previous events at Oulton, I’ve crashed, had a misfire, a slipping clutch, failed to take the start due to a water leak and missed a race because the organisers changed the time without telling anyone. I was hoping that things wouldn’t go to form this time around :-)

Many thanks to everyone who’s asked me what’s happened to my race reports recently - it’s nice to know that you care :-)

Unfortunately, things have not been going well. So here are the “highlights” of the last few events:

Last weekend was the first round of the Formula Jedi series, at Croft (near Darlington). Unlike Monoposto, Formula Jedi is a one make series, only open to Jedis. Although there are a few people competing in both series, a lot of drivers are only competing in Formula Jedi and in general the level of competition is rather higher.

Yesterday was the first race of the season, a Monoposto round at Silverstone. This would be the first time that the car had turned a wheel “in anger” after all of the work over the winter.

Getting the car ready has been rather more fraught than we anticipated. We had a few problems of my own making (for example, when I connected the fuel pump to the breather rather than the fuel inlet on the carbs - unbelievably the car did actually run like this, although it threw some impressively big flames out of the exhaust while doing so), a few problems of Jedi’s making (for example, the fuel tank being in the wrong position and impossible, therefore, to connect up) and a few simply unforeseeable problems. At the start of this week, and with considerable help from my father and a few others, the car was finally in a fit state to hit the track.

Hello everyone,

Those of you who have received race reports from me in the past will have noticed that I wasn’t particularly good at sending them last year! Little details like working for two different companies, five different CEOs, with three job descriptions and a merger have meant that it’s been a pretty full year :-) So here is a quick summary of what happened last year and current plans.