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.

Pembrey was characterized by lack of turn-in - there’s a very long left-hander (Dibeni Bend), and no matter what I did I simply couldn’t get the car to turn in to the corner. I even tried fitting rear wheels on the front (yes, really!). I ended up left-foot braking on the way in to try to settle the front-end, and then “pitching” the car into oversteer. Not the ideal way to take any corner, but the best that I could do with the car handling the way that it was. I’m told that it all looked pretty dramatic and entertained the spectators (who were betting on when I would get it wrong and end up in the tyre wall :-) On the plus side the car was much more predictable than it had been last year - meaning that I didn’t end up in the tyre wall ;-)

I didn’t finish the first race because the throttle stuck open (a stone got underneath the pedal) - luckily at a point where there was lots of runoff, so no damage done.

Results

Over the winter, we had increased the front springs to 700lbs (from 600lbs). The fact that the car was much more predictable at Pembrey confirmed our theory that last year’s problems were caused by the springs being too soft (and therefore hitting the bump rubbers). But the lack of turn-in suggested that we had gone too far - so I changed to 650lbs for the next event. We also discovered that one of the ribs in the front wing had gone, meaning that it was twisting under load and couldn’t have been helping with front-end grip either!

The next event was Cadwell Park, which was a one day double-header. Two races and two qualifying events in a day, in 30+ degree heat! And you all know how well I handle heat :-(

From the point of view of working out how the car was handling, the day was inconclusive. It was more about tyre wear - the heat was so intense that the car was (literally!) sticking to the ground. In fact, when I came to unload the car from the trailer after the event, the tyres tore the floor of the trailer up!

Results

Silverstone was a more representative test, and turned out to be very encouraging. The car handled perfectly, and I managed at least one lap within half a second of the previous lap record (although 2 seconds off the new lap record set by David Hodgson!). With the exception of David Hodgson, however, I was running competitively and had a number of great battles throughout both races.

We did have all sorts of problems with the brakes though - the new 6-pot callipers are clearly too powerful for the discs, and we had to change the discs during the weekend because they were starting to crack. Not good for confidence! So Jedi are going to see if they can fit a pair of floating discs for me before Oulton Park in 2 weeks time. It’s also becoming increasingly clear that I’m going to have to invest in a set of the larger sized wheels - the smaller size I’m currently using simply don’t have the grip or the longevity (I destroyed a full set at Cadwell, and then another set at Silverstone!). Oh - and I was hit from behind during the last race, damaging one of the rear uprights. So all in all, it turned out to be a rather expensive weekend :-(

Results

The second race was red flagged due to a very nasty accident in which Stuart Abbott went head-on into the tyre wall, flat out. We were all very worried for a period, but amazingly he got out of the car under his own steam. He has subsequently been found to have a cracked sternum, but all things considered it was a real testament to the strength of the chassis that got away with just that.