Paul Butcher - Home

Well, that's that then...

2007-04-17T13:56:00Z

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.

2007 Calendar

2007-01-31T19:26:00Z

There is a calendar on the Formula Jedi website here, but it’s already out of date :-(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

Date	Track
14-15 Apr 2007	Silverstone National
12-13 May 2007	Pembrey
09-10 Jun 2007	Cadwell Park
21-22 Jul 2007	Rockingham
04-05 Aug 2007	Snetterton
25-26 Aug 2007	Silverstone International/National TBC
09 Sep 2007	Brands Hatch
13-14 Oct 2007	Snetterton

As you can see, it’s all concentrated very much in the “middle” of the country - apologies to those of you in the North or the West Country. No Donington, Croft, Castle Coombe, Thruxton :-(

In some respects, we’re the victims of our own success - we have enough entries that we can only go to circuits which can cope with large grids. As it is, we’re likely to need heats and a final at Cadwell as we won’t all fit on the track at once.

What happened at the end of 2006

2007-01-30T20:48:00Z

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! :-)

My aim for the year was always to get myself to the point that I was part of the “fast group” who were competing for wins. This I pretty much achieved (although on occasion I was hanging on by my fingernails!). In most events, I was there or thereabouts, in particular in the changeable conditions at Brands Hatch and Thruxton. A few silly mistakes on my part, plus some bad luck, meant that I wasn’t always able to convert that pace into results, but it was very encouraging all the same!

The most dramatic event was, without question, the last of the season at Snetterton. I was in the middle of a battle for 3rd with Nigel Reuben (who won the championship by a mile) which I was enjoying hugely. At one point, we went through the Russell chicane side-by-side and crossed the line with less than a hundredth of a second separating us :-) The lap after that, however, we came across a group of backmarkers fighting among themselves as we approached a very fast right-hand bend. Nigel went to the left and I went to the right. In the process Russ Melrose and I found ourselves both trying to use the same piece of tarmac at well over 100mph. We touched wheels and this was the result!

You will be pleased to know that Russ walked away - the only serious injury he sustained was some scalding from engine coolant which sprayed on his shoulder from a fractured pipe. The car, unfortunately, did not fare so well, with nothing salvageable whatsoever :-(

I have to say that Russ has been unbelievably understanding about the whole incident. I wouldn’t have been surpried if he never spoke to me again, but he has in fact been extremely gracious. He’s certainly going to have a story to tell down the pub which will trump just about anything!

The other recent highlight was the Autosport Show in early January - in which we put on a show 4 times a day in the “Live Action Arena”. Lots of fun (if hard work!) and an excellent advert for the series!

The series looks to be going from strength to strength, with the factory unable to build new chassis fast enough. A lot of people are upgrading their engines though, so I’m going to have my work cut out to stay in touch with my trusty, but now somewhat outdated 1999 engine on carburettors!

At last!

2007-01-19T23:37:00Z

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

Jedis on TV!

2006-09-22T20:10:00Z

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

Race reports - first few events of 2006

2006-05-28T20:08:00Z

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.

The first race (at Silverstone) was something of a damp squib. I booked a place in the Friday practice session mainly to shakedown the car after its winter rebuild (many thanks to my father for all his help with that!). Unfortunately the engine developed an oil leak from the output shaft seal and that was the end of that :-(

The next race was a double-header at Pembrey. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. The minor issues included the door falling off the motorhome, the fridge not working, the awning falling off the trailer, the solenoid failing so we couldn’t start the engine and the oil-pressure warning light burning out.

There were two big problems though. The first one was the worst - the towbar fell off the motorhome. Luckily, it went at 10mph while I was turning into the circuit. I’ve been having nightmares about what would have happened if it had failed on the M4 at 60mph - it doesn’t bear thinking about. Anyone want to buy a second-hand motorhome (absolutely fine as long as you don’t want to tow anything with it)?

The second problem was another oil leak during qualifying - which this time turned out to be a result of the camchain tensioner falling off. By rights, we should have been going home with a wrecked engine, but somehow the camchain managed to stay where it should and apart from a huge cleanup job, all we needed to do was find a replacement tensioner. We did, but it was at a breakers 60 miles away. When they heard that we needed it to go racing, however, they dispatched a rider with it, who met my father halfway at a service station on the M4 :-)

By contrast, the racing went incredibly well, especially given the fact that I shouldn’t really have been able to race at all! I qualified 7th, and in the race found myself in a 5-way battle for 2nd place. All of us were lapping within a couple of tenths of each other, and the battle went all the way to the last lap with places changing several times. I ended up finishing 4th, which I was delighted with.

The second race was largely a repeat of the first, with five of us again fighting for second for most of the race. I finished 4th again, so clearly I need to work on my racecraft, but the fact that I’ve got the pace to be in the middle of the battle is fantastic and bodes well for the rest of the season!

Full results here

Last weekend, we were at Donington (thanks again to my father who towed the car there, given that the motorhome isn’t capable of towing anything any more!). I have mixed memories of Donington - I’ve only ever raced there once before, when it was soaking wet. I was in the lead and pulling away, when a halfshaft failed depriving me of what would probably have been my maiden win.

Qualifying was dry, but by the time the race started it was thoroughly wet. I was fifth on the grid, but got a good start and was second going into the first corner behind Nigel. Nigel was clearly having problems (I found out afterwards that he had got the gearing wrong) and I passed him at the end of the first lap and started pulling away.

For a while, I managed to extend my lead, but after a couple of laps, Frazer also got past Nigel and started closing on me. He was on my tail after a few more laps, and passed me into the chicane. This allowed me to watch his lines (one of the problems with leading in the wet is that you have to work out how much grip there is for yourself without any references). I followed him for a couple of laps, and was starting to think that I might have an idea about how to do something about him, when the halfshaft (yes, the same one that failed the last time was at Donington) failed. You couldn’t make this stuff up!

Overall, a very encouraging weekend. I led the race on merit and was fighting for the lead when the car failed. It does make me wonder if Donington has something against me though!

Results

The next event is at Snetterton on June 24th. It’s going to be a busy day, as its going to be a one-day double-header. As always, anyone who fancies coming along to spectate, pitcrew or laugh as I disappear off the circuit backwards is very welcome!

Delayed race reports

2005-07-21T20:03:00Z

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.

Castle Combe and Silverstone race reports

2005-05-01T20:02:00Z

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.

The main feature of the Castle Combe event was brake problems. The brakes were completely unpredictable - sometimes the car would stand on its nose, and on other occasions the pedal would go long. And Castle Combe is not a circuit where you want to have a lack of confidence in the brakes (it’s very fast, and there’s very little runoff)! In retrospect, this problem might well be the reason why I ended up in the kitty litter at Brands in the previous event :-(

The net result was that I qualified 8th and finished 5th. Not a bad result (and I did at least finish!) but I inherited the positions I gained as a result of people dropping out for various reasons and wasn’t able to drive the car as I would have liked.

It turns out that I’m not the only person who’s been having these kinds of problems with the new 6-pot front brakes. John Corbyn of Jedi has been trying to diagnose the cause, and came up with a theory. The 6-pot callipers need more brake fluid movement to work properly than the 2-pot callipers on the rear. This meant that the front and rear brakes were acting in very different ways (the rears were engaging before the fronts even started working).

So before Silverstone, I fitted a larger bore master cylinder for the front brakes. It was a bit of a “punt” as we wouldn’t have time to test them before qualifying, but worth a go.

I’d been looking forward to the Silverstone event ever since I heard about it. It’s extremely rare for club racers to get a chance to race on the full GP circuit (exactly the same circuit as is used for the British GP).

Qualifying was always going to be interesting, given that I would be learning the circuit and testing the brakes at the same time! As it happened though, it was much more difficult than I expected. Firstly, the traffic was awful - we were sharing the grid with much slower Mono1600 and Mono1800 cars, and it wasn’t at all unusual to come across three cars across the track, all trying to overtake each other, and find nowhere to go. And then with just a few laps gone, I spotted clouds of smoke pouring out of my car in my mirrors, so pulled into the pits :-(

It turned out that the oil filler cap had vibrated loose, spraying oil all over the rear of the car and the exhaust (hence the smoke!). Luckily I’d spotted the problem before the engine spat all of its oil out, so no permanent damage done (although there was lots of mess to clear up!).

I’d managed to get one half-decent lap in before pulling into the pits, so ended up 9th on the grid (not as bad as it might have been!).

We were scheduled to be the 2nd to last race of the day. The race was supposed to have been 15 minutes (which is only 8 laps because the circuit is so long!), but as the day went on it became increasingly clear that we were running out of time. Sure enough, while we were sitting in the holding area, we were told that the race had been reduced to 10 minutes :-(

In the race, I got my trademark terrible start (I just can’t train myself to be as brutal with the clutch as you need to be with flatslides), but quickly started making up places. At the end of the first lap, I was lying 5th, a few seconds behind the lead group of 4 cars. Over the next couple of laps, I gradually gained on them, but then all of a sudden the chequered flag was waving. Three laps and the race was over :-( There were some very unhappy people after the race - it’s a lot of money and time for 3 laps!

On the plus side, the brakes were much better (still not perfect - they’re suffering from pad knock back, the pedal goes long if I run over the kerbs) and the handling was much better than last year - I was able to “play” with the attitude of the car with much more confidence in how it would behave.

And then when I got the results sheet, I had a very nice surprise. I’d set the fastest lap of the race, and as it was the first time that Mono had run at the GP circuit, that meant that I was the lap record holder :-) Which is a nice consolation!

The next race is a Formula Jedi race at Pembrey on the 14th and 15th of May.

Brands Hatch race report

2005-04-13T20:00:00Z

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.

Unfortunately the drama started before we even managed to get to the circuit. When we were around 10 miles from the circuit, I smelled burning and decided to stop at a service station to investigate. When we got there, I discovered that I had five tonnes of motorhome, two tonnes of trailer and no brakes - the pedal went straight to the floor! Luckily, we were only doing around 15mph at the time, so we didn’t hit anything. Nevertheless, it is not an experience I would like to repeat!

There followed a long saga which I won’t bore you with involving many calls to the RAC, the eventual upshot of which was that they recovered the motorhome and we arrived at a hastily booked hotel towing the trailer behind my father’s pickup truck (thank goodness they decided not to come in Sallie’s Audi!) at around 1am.

The car has had a fair bit of work done on it over the winter in an attempt to cure some of the problems we had last year. It has new 6-pot front brakes (very smart!) and had a full chassis setup at the Jedi factory (on the assumption that I’d got something wrong which was the cause of the handling problems I had last year). It was slightly out - but not really by enough to explain the problem - so we also uprated the front springs (on the theory that if I was fast in the wet but slow in the dry and therefore probably running the car too soft).

The test day demonstrated that the car basically worked, but was suffering from clutch problems. A bit of bedding in improved things considerably, although it’s still not quite right.

The race was an event which I, and most of the grid, were particularly looking forward to as it was on the Grand Prix circuit (club racers normally only get to race on the shorter Indy circuit). It would be the first time that any of us had a chance to drive it (which made for a very well attended drivers briefing in the morning :-)

Learning the track and qualifying at the same time was fun - with me ending up 6th on the grid. The car behaved itself very well indeed, although the brakes weren’t quite what I hoped they might be. After some advice from Jedi, we tried winding the bias further toward the rear for the race.

I managed to make up one place on the grid before the race even started - Russell Small who qualified just ahead of me didn’t manage to get off the line and had to start from the back of the field. My start wasn’t great (I still haven’t got the hang of getting the car off the line with flatslide carbs!) and I dropped down to sixth. I managed to get fifth back before the end of the first lap, however, but by this time there was something of a gap to David Cameron in fourth. Over the next few laps, I did my best to hold onto his tail, but he was consistently edging away. I was determined that I wasn’t going to just trail around by myself, so decided that I was going to try to find a bit more speed somewhere. Unfortunately I tried a little too hard, and ended up in the gravel on the outside of Druids hairpin, and that was it - race over :-(

On the plus side, it did mean that I could watch the fantastic battle for the lead between Frazer and Felix - Felix pushing Frazer very (very!) close indeed.

So, not a great weekend, but not too bad either. The car is working well and should be a good platform to develop for the rest of the season.

The next race is at Castle Combe this weekend, and then it’s Silverstone GP the following weekend :-)

(Oh - the race calendar has “evolved” a few times since the calendar I sent out a while ago - the final version is here

Changes to 2005 race calendar

2005-01-16T20:57:00Z

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

April 3rd, Brands Hatch (GP), Single Header
April 16th, Castle Combe, Single Header
May 14th & 15th, Pembrey, Double Header
June 19th, Cadwell Park, Double Header
July 16th & 17th, Silverstone, Double Header
July 30th, Oulton Park, Double Header
August 21st, Brands Hatch, Double Header
September 10th & 11th, Croft, Double Header
September 24th & 25th, Snetterton, Double Header
October 28th/29th/30th, Brands Hatch, Double Header

The Brands meeting in October promises to be interesting - we’re going to be supporting the Formula Ford festival, which is one of the best attended meetings of the year. There’s even a chance that the race might be televised!

There are no announced changes to the Monoposto calendar except that the first (non-championship) race on March 5th has been cancelled.

Mary and I went to the Autosport show yesterday, and had lots of fun eyeing up expensive toys and replacing a few worn-out bits of kit. I had a very nice surprise at the show. The BRSCC were giving away a leaflet entitled “So You Want To Go Motor Racing?” with my car as the picture on the front :-)

2005 Racing Calendar

2005-01-01T20:54:00Z

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!

As next year, I’m planning on going to all of the Formula Jedi events and one or two of the Monoposto events.

Both series are definitely “on the up” - Formula Jedi will be racing on the Grand Prix version of the Brands Hatch circuit, and Monoposto on the Grand Prix version of the Silverstone circuit. It’s very rare indeed for club racers to get a chance to drive either of these circuits :-)

Formula Jedi:

March 28th, Oulton Park (International), Double Header
April 16th, Castle Combe, Single Header
May 14th & 15th, Pembrey, Double Header
June 5th, Silverstone, Single Header
June 19th, Cadwell Park, Double Header
July 23rd & 24th, Donnington Park, Double Header
August 21st, Brands Hatch (Indy), Double Header
September 10th & 11th, Croft, Double Header
September 24th & 25th, Snetterton, Double Header
October 8th & 9th, Brands Hatch (GP), Double Header

Monoposto:

March 5th, Silverstone, Single Header (non-championship)
March 12th & 13th, Brands Hatch, Double Header
April 24th, Silverstone (GP), Single Header
April 30th, Silverstone, Single Header
May 21st, Oulton Park, Single Header
June 11th & 12th, Pembrey, Double Header
June 25th & 26th, Anglesey, Double Header
July 8th & 9th, Spa, Single Header (non-championship)
August 7th, Mallory Park, Single Header
August 28th, Donnington Park, Single Header
September 24th & 25th, Croft, Double Header
October 8th, Castle Combe, Single Header

Expletive deleted (or Donington Park Race Report)

2004-10-24T19:51:00Z

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.

The weather overnight was terrible and the ground was still damp for qualifying. Perfect conditions to learn a track then :-) Most people (including me) went for slicks, but there was very little grip. Under the circumstances, I was pretty pleased with 5th on the grid :-)

About 30 minutes before the race, it started raining and with about 5 minutes to go it started raining heavily. I wasn’t entirely unhappy because it meant that there was no difficulty working out which tyres to choose and because I always seem to go well in the wet.

My start wasn’t great, but I managed to hold position into the first corner. I quickly found that I was much faster than the cars around me, and it was very easy to overtake. By the end of the 2nd lap, I was up into second and closing on the leader. By the end of the 3rd lap, I was in the lead and pulling away!

This was the first time I’ve ever been in the lead of a race - and it would have be my first ever outright win (I’ve won hillclimbs and sprints before, and I won the Monoposto winter series a couple of years ago, but I’ve never actually taken the chequered flag first before). It would also have been the first time that Richard Cottrell would have been beaten in Monoposto this year (I found out afterwards that I had a lot of people rooting for me on the pitwall :-) I could see Richard in my mirrors, but he was gradually falling back, and I seemed to be having an easier time getting past the backmarkers than he did. All I needed to do was keep the car on the road and hope that it held together.

It wasn’t to be, however. Two laps before the end, coming onto the main straight, I changed up and thought that I’d found a false neutral - the engine was revving, but the car was going nowhere. I tried to find another gear but there was a terminal problem somewhere in the transmission :-( I pulled off onto the grass and became a spectator :-(

I got the fastest lap of the race, which partly made up for the disappointment, but it would have been nice to get my first win!

The problem turned out to be a broken halfshaft. We had plenty of time to drive down to the Jedi factory to pick up and fit a replacement in time for the race on Sunday. This was slightly complicated when all of the lights on my father’s truck failing in the middle of a dark and rainy M1, but the RAC managed to get us illuminated again fairly quickly :-)

Conditions on Sunday morning were similar to the previous day, but I decided to gamble on wets. This turned out to be a very good decision indeed, and I got pole position, 1.5 seconds clear of Richard Cottrell in second place :-)

What we could see of the track was dry by the time the race was due to start, but I decided to keep the wings set to maximum downforce because I guessed that Craner Curves would still be damp. This turned out to be a mistake - the track was bone dry all the way around :-(

I got a terrible start (bogged down again - I really need to learn how to start with this new engine!), and was down in 4th place into the first corner. Richard Cottrell was in the lead, followed by Andy Cowell (who got a great start) then John Carding and me. John and I quickly got past Andy (who I later found out had fuel pressure problems) and then had a great battle for 3 laps, passing and re-passing each other. Very fair, very competitive and great fun! We slowed each other up enough, however, to allow Bob Couchman past into second. After the first few laps, John seemed to find another gear and pulled away from me and passed Bob for second. We carried along like this until the 2nd to last lap, when all of a sudden John slowed and was passed by Bob. As I caught John, Bob also seemed to be slowing (I later found out that they were both running out of fuel). I passed John halfway around the last lap, and had very nearly caught Bob by the chequered flag for a final position of 3rd.

All in all, I have to consider the weekend to be a success. Clearly the most competitive I’ve been all year and my first real opportunity to win a race. But I can’t help but feel robbed :-(

Results here

Next race is the last Formula Jedi round at Brands Hatch in 2 weeks time.

Oulton Park Race Report

2004-08-24T19:48:00Z

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 :-)

On the Wednesday night before the race, it looked like my Oulton luck was holding strong - I didn’t sleep a wink due to an ear infection I picked up from somewhere or other. I got some antibiotics from the doctor, and kept my fingers crossed. As it turns out, I was deaf in one ear for most of the weekend, but it wasn’t bad enough to cause any particular problems.

The series is clearly going up in the world - we had been allocated the garages for the first time ever. Given that we were sharing the bill with the Radicals and ARP F3, this was pretty impressive! Luxury! I could get used to this :-) No need to erect the paddock tent, a perfectly flat floor, lighting, power, water, and to top it all rather than having to wheel the car to the scruitineering bay, the scruitineers came to us :-)

Qualifying on Saturday was rather fraught - someone managed to drop oil all the way around the circuit during the first lap, and then another car blew up on lap 4 and dropped oil around one of the few corners not already affected, so times largely depended on who was prepared to take the greatest risks. Given my history at Oulton, I decided to play safe :-) My qualifying was largely uneventful until the last lap, when I noticed that my backside was feeling rather wet and warm. I didn’t think that I’d scared myself enough to have that kind of an accident, so pulled into the pits to discover that the whole of the back of the car was soaking wet - obviously there had been a major water leak.

We initially thought that the problem was a holed radiator, but it turned out to be a hose which had become detached. There wasn’t a drop of water left in the system, so there was a real danger that I could have cooked the engine, but luck seemed to be on my side and everything seemed to be working just fine.

I had ended up qualifying seventh. I’m still trying to perfect my starts with the new flat-slide carburettors, and I had problems this time as well. I reacted well, and was initially making progress against the two cars on the row in front of me, but the engine bogged down and seven or eight cars ended up passing me :-( I worked my way up over the next few laps, but two problems were becoming apparent. Firstly there were a lot of yellow flags which meant that I had to back out of a number of overtaking manoeuvres. Secondly, the brakes clearly weren’t working properly; I consistently had to brake a long way before my normal braking points. I ended up working my way back up to sixth, which was OK under the circumstances.

We think that the braking problem is glazed discs and/or pads. I had had new discs and pads fitted just before the last race at Cadwell Park, and because the car failed during qualifying hadn’t had a chance to bed them in properly. If this is the case, then I might be able to cure the problem with some emery paper. There is a chance that the brakes will need upgrading, however - we’re getting fast enough now that the brakes I have aren’t really up to the job. On the subject of speed - our fastest lap (by Frazer Corbyn) was almost a second faster than the fastest lap in the ARP F3 race :-) This means that we can pretty much claim to be the fastest club series in the UK at the moment. If the number of people stopping by the garage to ogle the car and ask questions about it is anything to go by, it looks like we’re going to continue from strength to strength.

Jodie Hemming managed to make the headlines after the last event by winning the 600cc class with 4 races to go (the first of any of the BRSCC series to be tied up). I was chatting to Jodie in the paddock to see if she had decided what she was going to be doing next year (thinking that maybe she’d move up to the 1000cc class). She’s moving up alright! Next year she’ll be racing a 1997 Jordan F1 car in the EuroBOSS series! I’m delighted for her - when I’m not bright green with envy…

Next race is 12th September at Mallory Park.

"Race" reports

2004-07-19T19:46:00Z

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:

At Snetterton, we ran the new tuned engine for the first time. Unfortunately it didn’t have the race cams fitted, as they weren’t ready in time. On the rolling road it developed 0.5bhp less than the standard engine. So that was 2 grand well spent then :-) The new close ration gearbox was great though - although the engine still had a large hole in power curve, the new gearbox allowed me to drive around it. We very quickly discovered that the engine was still suffering from fuel surge though - it wouldn’t pull cleanly through Coram (a very long, fast, right-hander), turning into a kangaroo about 3/4 of the way through the corner :-(

The first race turned out to be very short - after turning in to the first corner I heard a banging noise from the rear of the car and pulled off. Embarrassingly, it turned out that I’d failed to tighten the bolts holding the rear sprocket on, and they had failed. We managed to patch things up for the second race, and tried fitting a new fuel pump in an attempt to cure the fuel surge problem. This didn’t work, and although I managed to finish the race I was well down the field.

This event was notable for one other thing - it was the first race where we used our new support vehicle. We are now the proud owners of a “Fleetwood Tioga” American motorhome, with a 5.7 litre V8 engine :-)

The car had to go back to Jedi to have the damage caused by the rear sprocket failure fixed, which meant that we missed the next race. We should have gone to the following race at Brands Hatch, however when coupling the trailer to the motorhome, I noticed that the towball dropped when under load. I looked underneath and it was clear that the welds on the towbar were failing :-( It wasn’t safe to drive, so we had to cancel the event. Apologies to my father and Sallie who were halfway to Brands when they found out!

The next event was Cadwell Park. For this event, the engine was sporting both the race cams which should have been in from the start, and a brand-new set of Keihin Flat-slide carburettors. This combination resulted in an approx 12bhp increase in power, which is about what we were expecting :-)

Qualifying did not, however, go well. I only managed a couple of laps before the wheels came off (and unfortunately, I don’t mean that as a euphemism). It turns out that Jedi had given the car back to me without any nuts on the bolts holding the two rear top-links on. It’s my fault - I prepare the car and should have noticed. But red faces all round.

Luckily we could repair the damage before the race, and the clerk of the course was kind to me and allowed me to start even though I hadn’t completed the requisite 3 laps in qualifying. From the back of the grid, I made up a few places before the race was red-flagged. In the second race, I made up a few more. My times weren’t great, but the encouraging thing was that the engine ran perfectly in both races - the first time it’s behaved itself this year :-) This means that, hopefully, we now have a platform we can start to develop from and extract the performance that the car really should be capable of.

As a final insult to injury - we managed to lock ourselves out of the motorhome and therefore spent a happy 2 hours waiting for the RAC to come and break in for us. Hey ho…

Croft race report

2004-04-23T19:43:00Z

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.

The weekend did not start well - the journey up to Croft was awful, partly because of several traffic jams but mainly because the trailer developed a nasty “snake” at one point. This was a very frightening experience (particularly as not very long ago one of the mechanics at Jedi had the same thing happen to him, and he ended up with the van he was driving on its roof). Luckily nothing so severe happened to us, but I will definitely be taking steps to stop the problem recurring!

We went to the circuit armed with various suggestions from both Jedi and the rolling road who set up the carburettors for things we could try in order to cure the engine problems we had at Silverstone. I thought that we’d found the problem when I removed the needles from the carbs and discovered that cylinders 1, 2 and 4 were running almost full rich whereas cylinder 3 was running full lean. Unfortunately, making the settings consistent didn’t have any noticeable effect on the track, and neither did anything else we tried throughout the weekend :-(

The track was mainly dry for qualifying, but there were still a few damp patches from the overnight rain and even a few patches of standing water. I ended up 6th overall, which was actually rather better than I expected given the engine problems. I was in the middle of a group of cars approximately 3 seconds off pole (which is a very big gap!). I’m not going to be able to challenge for the front of the grid until I have the new, tuned engine ready (hopefully in time for the next race!).

After practice, the whole field was called to see the Clerk of the Course for a wrist slapping. He said that he’d had the largest pile of reports from the marshals he’d ever seen and was worried that the race would be carnage. As it happens, he wasn’t far wrong…

The race started OK - I picked up one place at the start, but I very quickly came under pressure from two cars behind me. I was able to stretch my lead through the faster sections of the track, but as soon as we got to anything twisty the engine would bog down again and they would be right on my tail. On lap 2, we passed one of the leaders who had stopped with mechanical trouble and then on lap 3, the red flags came out to stop the race.

For the restart, I was in 4th, but the 3rd place car was missing (presumably involved in the incident which brought out the red flags) so it was a “virtual” 3rd. I didn’t get a great start, and I went into the first corner side-by-side with another car. We both tried to outbrake each other and as a result, both braked too late. He left it slightly later than I did and ended up spinning in the gravel trap. I also went into the gravel, but managed to keep the car pointing roughly in the right direction and get back onto the track. Unfortunately, in the process of getting back onto the track, I tangled with John Lord and we hit (my right-hand rear to his left-hand front). This deranged my suspension and I had to pull off at the next corner :-(

The race turned out to be something of a demolition derby with several cars hors de combat by the end. Only three of the top 7 qualifiers finished!

The collision had written off the right hand rear upright and a couple of rod ends - not too bad considering how bad it could have been. My pit crew put in their usual sterling effort, and the car was back together, with all of the wheels pointing where they should be, in time for the second race the following day.

My DNF in the first race meant that I would be close to the back of the grid. I got a pretty good start, and picked up around 6 places before the first corner. I made up a few more places throughout the rest of the race, and eventually finished 11th. It should have been higher, but on the second to last lap, I spun at the hairpin as a result of trying to keep the engine revs up and avoid bogging down. This allowed two cars past, and gave me an unpleasant moment when my visor immediately steamed up making it very difficult to see whether it was safe to restart!

All in all, not a very good weekend :-( Full results are here

The next race is in 5 weeks time at Snetterton on May 22/23. Hopefully I will have the new tuned engine in by then, and working properly!