Castle Combe Race - 4th May 2009

With the Donington Park Super GT race cancelled we decided to press on with the LMA Eurosaloons single race at Castle Combe on the bank holiday Monday. On the road at 4 am, arriving at the circuit at 8 am .... snore.

Qualifying

It's not a track I know that well and with the weather dry we had a fairly standard setup. The bumps around Camp corner we're a bit more than I'd I've liked and I'll confess that my lines need a fair bit of refining especially at Quarry. Still the lap times came down to 1:14.464 which meant 4th on the grid. But Mark Funnel in his Lotus Exige did one fast lap and got 1:09:500 to claim pole position and the 2nd placed contender was 4.7 seconds behind the Lotus.

I ran out of fuel on the last qualifying lap which was a bit of a worry at the time.

The supension was softened a bit to cope with the bumps at Camp corner for the race.

Mal Davison's Noble unfortunately had a repeat of engine problems and only managed 4 laps before retiring.

Race

The rolling start was fairly uneventful; a bit crowded but able to get past Ilsa Cox to get into 3rd position by Folly with Mark Harrison's Evo just in front. That was pretty much the last glimpse of Funnel's Exige who woud finish 25 seconds ahead of the rest of the field.

On Lap 2 I had a chance of getting past the Evo into Folly but backed off at the last minute to save my nose from being chopped off (as the Evo had the corner) and at around 130 mph it's not a good place to exchange bodywork. At the end of that lap the Evo went protective at Camp corner, I got a better line and exit speed and by Folly I was fully alongside. Job done, at least for the Evo, who dropped back.

Laps 1 and 2



Doug Elwood in his Marcos had the bit between his teeth and decided to "keep me honest" by harrying me for the rest of the race until breaking down 2 laps before the end. All in all a good clean race, a supportive crowd of specatators and for a bank holiday, not bad weather!

Best Lap




Result: 2nd overall, 2nd in Class A - 18 points

My best lap: 1.11.626
Current position: 1st in Class A, 5th in the Championship.
Race Report
Timings

Donington Super GT Race cancelled

The Super GT race at Donington Park on 3rd May has been cancelled because the MSA won't provide the circuit with a race license due to safety concerns. We've cancelled the test day at Donington Park on the 28th May as well.

We're definitely racing at Castle Combe on 4th May in the LMA series and hope to squeeze in some testing at Snetterton this week.

LMA Eurosaloons & Sports Cars - Anglesey 4/5 April 2009

... or if you ever needed a reminder that Motorsport is a "team effort"


Our weekend started with a 5 1/2 hour drive to Anglesey on the Friday before the races where the car was waiting for us courtesy of Jetstream Motorsport. We'd booked a test for the Friday afternoon and after a few laps we'd got big problems with overheating coolant and a head gasket looked the likely culprit.

The rest of the team arrived at about10 pm and in the paddock, in the rain, in the wind, without an awning (!) proceded to dismantle the heads to find that both gaskets were blown. At around 2:30 am they called it a night and then started again at 6 am.


Loosing a vital washer slowed down procedings but Dave from Jetstream eventually retrieved it from the sump, having loosened engine mountings and gearbox first to get the sump off. For the rest of the morning the driver stood quietly like an expectant father waiting to see if his baby would be ok for qualifying at midday.



Well, the engine was turning over at 11:30 am but with no compression accompanied with dejected looks from Adrian, Trevor and Dave. Ok, we'd missed qualifying so back to basics, strip it down and start again. After a rethink and reassembly the engine spluttered into life just after 2pm. The race was scheduled to start around 3:15 pm so having found we could run the car around the paddock and that we could start the race from the back of the grid the car was fueled, tyre changed, checked and re-checked and the driver instructed to "take it easy at first".

Race 1 (Coastal Circuit):

Assembling on the grid for the rolling start was accompanied by smoke from the rear clam, then smoke in the cockpit. I guessed rightly that it it was serious there'd be more smoke and much waving of flags and that it was just a small spillage of oil onto the exahust from the reassembly work. So off onto the rolling start lap we went and the smoke thankfullly dissapeared.

The start was taken gingerly picking off slower cars and checking engine temperature frequently. Boost was on switched low for the first 5 or 6 laps (wastegate limited) until I got more confidence and flicked the switch to "high". On catching up a couple of super tourers (John Hammersley following Bernard Hogarth) I saw that Mal Davisons's leading Noble had pulled of the track and was on fire. The Safety Car and flags came out and that was it, the race was red flagged with 7 minutes still remaining.

Result: 8th overall, 4th in Class A - 14 points

Mal was fortunately ok and his Noble was a bit singed but otherwise fine ... except that to my knowledge the fire had been caused by a head gasket failure and an overflowing oil catch tank and that ended Mal's race weekend.

All of us needed a beer after that race day!


Race 2 (International Circuit):

Onto Sunday and free practice and qualifying. We're running a new brake system this season with brake bias adjustment and revised rear brakes so free paractice was used to get the front/rear bias right and brake temperatures correct. Qualifying happened almost straight after free practice (they brought the qualifying time forward) and got us a bit rushed but we were able to get pole position with a time of 1:32.671 followed by the Nissan Primera ST of Peter Challis on 1:34.056 and Andy Harvey's Subaru Impreza on 1:34.572.

The race start was pretty good, getting into the first left hander in front of Challis and thereafter maintining a gap over the chasing Nissan until it broke a rose joint going over the kerbs several laps later, effectively ending his challenge for the lead. We crossed the finishing line over 6 seconds from the 2nd place car.

Result: 1st and fastest lap (1:33.196) - 22 points



A BIG thankyou to everyone who helped over the weekend especially Dave from Jetstream Motorsport who must have a secret stash of pro-plus pills!

Also well done to Joe Walton in his Clio Cup car getting 2nd and 3rd in his first ever races.

One of this seasons mods is longer range fuel tank (80 litres):-


Race Report
Timings

The new engine is up and running

The newly built 3.0 V6 Duratec is now installed in the car and was mapped last night on the dyno at "Track n Road". The sessions ended around 1:30 am and the power should be sufficient for the 2009 season ;-) .

New inconel manifolds



And they glow rather well





Err a bit too much camber for the rolling road resulted in this


... and yes it was a loud bang!

I'll have a spare please

Engine builder John from Mountune with the two race engines.




The old engine was in great condition and so has been rebuilt as a "loose rebuild" so that it can be used for spares or pressed into service fairly quickly. The second engine is a new build with a few enhancements and is ready for installation over the Christmas holidays. The turbos (in the cardboard boxes) have been refurbished as well. As usual Mountune completed the work according to promised timescales ... if only everyone would be that good!

Engine rebuild pics

We like shiny stuff ...


No ratchets on these tensioners ...



Some porting ...

Engine rebuild and other progress

The engine after two of seasons' racing is showing some signs of scoring, almost certainly from ingesting bits of cracked manifold but otherwise is in good condition:-



We were worried after Anglesey, where we'd broken some rocker followers and bent some valves, that we'd also damaged the block:- the head gasket was blowing and we thought the block might have warped but Mountune Racing have cleaned and checked it and given it a clean bill of health.

No scoring on this bank as Mountune proceed with the rebuild:-



The turbos have been sent to be refurbished, the clutch for relining and the reasonably new gearbox has been sent away for inspection in the (faint) hope that we can find out what components are being stressed.