Noble Racecar

Castle Combe Race - 4th May 2009

2009-05-07T16:19:00.010+01:00

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

2009-04-19T21:03:00.002+01:00

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

2009-04-07T13:26:00.014+01:00

... 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

2009-03-07T00:04:00.006+01:00

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

2008-12-11T00:31:00.002+01:00

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

2008-12-05T10:55:00.007+01:00

We like shiny stuff ...

No ratchets on these tensioners ...

Some porting ...

Engine rebuild and other progress

2008-11-22T18:59:00.007+01:00

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.

The Winter work commences

2008-11-14T20:37:00.003+01:00

We've already started the preparations for next year starting with the engine rebuild which is being carried out by Mountune Racing.

Repair and fitting of the damaged clams from the crash earlier in the season is also in progress ... with luck these will remain spares for a good while.

Gearbox and clutch refurbishment is also planned plus a few secret enhancements.

TRACC Racing wins the last race of 2008: Donington Park 1st Nov 2008

2008-11-03T12:27:00.003+01:00

Rounding off the season with a win at Donington Park gave the team 2nd in Class A and 5th overall. A big thanks goes out to everyone who has helped us this year!

Qualifying:-

Donington Park on a cold damp November morining was never going to be that nice. The morning qualifying session was only going to be 10 minutes long so the task was to get out there and get on with it as quickly as possible. Fortunately it was dry enough for slicks but everyone was saying that the circuit was slippy, and they were right.

The first 4 laps were done in the 1:20's; everyone was finding it it hard to get grip, ambient temperature was only 8 deg C and so cars were bunching up. On lap 5 I managed to get clear track, tyre grip had become good and I was able to set 1:14:926 . A couple more laps of traffic and I couldn't improve on the time but it was good enough for pole and a good second and a half better than I'd managed in testing in early October.

Race:

After qualifying it rained so we prepared the car with full wets. Then as the race start time approached the track had dried enough that there was no spray but still very damp. At the last minute we changed the settings and tyres for intermediates. The two Escort Cosworths hurridely changed onto slicks believing that 4WD would get the tyres hot.

As soon as we moved out onto the circuit for the formation lap it was clear that it was more slippery than in the morning so had we got the tyre choice right or should it have been full wets? The rolling lap went well and as the lights went off I got wheel spin in 3rd, feathered the throttle and then seemed to get a reasonable start except that Rex Stamp's supercharged Exige had an absolute flyer and come through from 7th to 2nd by the time we reached the first corner. By the end of the first lap we'd both extended our lead over the rest of the pack but I simply couldn't hang onto the Exige through Coppice and had to let Rex through.

I closely followed the Exige until Lap 8 when I got enough drive out of Coppice to be able to catch him at the end of the straight going into he Esses. By lap 10 I'd pulled out a 1 second lead with back markers being lapped making life interesting, until I out-braked myself entering the Esses just recovering to keep it on the circuit but only to see Rex nip-by on the inside to take the lead.

Two laps of close racing later with lots of back marker lapping action and the Exige suddenly slowed entering the pit straight and I swept-by not knowing that the Exige supercharger belt had come adrift. Lap 14 should have been the final lap but the chequered flag came out too late and missed the first two leaders so Rex and I kept racing for another lap!

For me it was the best race of the season and Rex deservedly got the fastest lap. Were intermediates wthe right choice? ... well I've never spent so much time applying corrective steering during a race and going through Craner Curves was to say the least gripping stuff ... I'll never really know if wets would have been better but the inters worked well enough that day!

Race Results

Championship Results in full

2008 Championship : Final Positions


	Class A				Class B
1st	Nick Williamson	232		1st	Rhys Lloyd	276
2nd	Richard Gould	216		2nd	Douglas Ellwood	210
3rd	Derek Hale	132		3rd	David Pierce	148

	Class C				Class D
1st	Ian Craig	160		1st	Andrew Neal	254
2nd	David Roberts	140		2nd	Jim Mepham	234
3rd	Mike Hurst	128		3rd	Simon Jackson	162

			Overall
		1st	Rhys Lloyd	276
		2nd	Andrew Neal	254
		3rd	Jim Mepham	234

Going home at the end of the 2008 season :-(

Test day: Donington Park 7th October 2008

2008-10-09T10:15:00.004+01:00

The news that Donington Park had "used up their noisy days" wasn't that well received. Basically the race track has noise issues and can only agree so many noisy days per year with the local authorities. So they guessed the number of days in advance, probably factoring in the odd cancellation due to bad weather and as it turns out they have used up so many of them that the final 2 day double header is now on one day only and has one race with 10 minutes of qualifying. "Greedy b*ggers" are the word that spring to mind.

So it means that we'll not be able to challenge for 1st in class and have to settle for 2nd instead. Not bad for the first full season I guess.

Onto the test day then ... the forecast was rain (what a surprise) but what we got was rain, drizzle and then a dry track. Donington Park ran an open pit lane for the day so track time wasn't an issue and even with several red flags I'd say it was good value for money. We tested damper setups on wets, inters and slicks and built up some track experience. The car performed well but the driver was knackered after an afternoon of driving for around 2 1/2 hours on what at times was a very slippery circuit.

Win at Mallory Park

2008-09-30T10:14:00.009+01:00

Our first win!

A lot of hard work went into the race starting off from the Anglesey race where the engine had broken several rockers and bent valves. I've lost count of the number of times I was asked "are you sure that the oil pressure warning light didn't come on" so there was an obvious concern about the health of the most expensive parts of the engine.

Jetstream motorsport examined the heads and Trevor organised replacement cams, rockers and valves. I think one of the valves was stuck and as usual it wasn't a straight forward job. There was a bit of drama just before completing reassembly when Dave heard a click, rechecked things and found that the tensioner ratchet had clicked out of place (so we almost had bent valves again). Fortunately he caught it in time, sorted it and fired it up - it lives!

Having never raced at Mallory Park we went testing last Wednesday morning hoping that everything would be well with the engine. The first session commenced and after a couple of laps I got black flagged ... "does it normally produce that much smoke?" I was asked. We already knew that some oil had been spilt onto the exhaust wrap and although some had burnt off already there obviously was more to be combusted but I went out again and the smoke dissipated. The second session started and after a couple of laps I got low fuel pressure warning entering Gerrards, then the classic fuel supply hiccup so I backed off and went back to the paddock where upon the engine just stopped! Oh oh, not good. As I parked the car it then wee'd itself leaking coolant over the undertray and onto the tarmac. Not good, not good.

What happened next is classic "panic takes over rational thought" ... we took the rocker cover off to reveal gleaming new cams, rockers, etc, all sitting perfectly where they should be. But it wouldn't start. Starter motor maybe - nope. We bump started it and it sounded dreadful. Not good, engine knackered was the consensus. We packed up and went home :-(.

Later that evening Jetstream Motorsport reported that an alternator wire had broken, the battery was at 6V. That's all it was. To cap it all the data was available on one of the dash menus if the numpty driver had bothered to look at it! With a sigh of relief I now realised we'd be racing again at the weekend. The other fault was a split in a coolant hose - simple as that. Onto the race then:-

Sunday Race day

Qualifying:

The new way to motivate your driver if to let the entire field go out for qualifying whilst you sit in your car whilst it's jacked up in the air as they "do things to it". Yup we were running late for some reason so having missed the first 4 minutes of qualy I was kind of fired up and turned in a 47.2 to qualify second just 3/10's behind Steve Taylor's Exige. The lap time was a (nice) surprise.

Race:

Steve Taylor had to withdraw from Pole as he'd lost his supercharger pulley - it's in Adrian's pocket I think ;-) ... I was now on Pole with Rex Stamp's Exige 2nd and Nick's Cossy 3rd.

As I sat in the assembly area I was thinking what everyone else was thinking; it's raining and I'm on slicks - great, off we go then. The rolling start was for some reason, "pants". I'd been told to slow it all down before the Esses and allow the safety car to get a bigger gap to give it time to enter the pits. So that's what I did ... anyone following me close behind me? ... no not really. I went through the devils elbow on my own and thought where the hell is everyone, surely I'd slowed it down enough and now the safety car has entered the pits. The lights went off and as I floored it Rex appeared in my mirrors.

Gerrards is a long corner and 2/3rds of the way round I could see clouds of dust from the gravel trap behind me, then onto Stebbe straight and Rex was a few car lengths back, now through the Esses ... where the hell is everyone? Rex had come off at the Esses, Nick had come off at the entry to the first corner. What followed was 20 minutes of trying to be consistent, not pushing too hard in the drizzle, being careful overtaking traffic ( some cars were lapped twice as it's a short circuit) and keeping an eye out for the chasing car which towards the end of the race turned out to be Peter Challis' Nissan Super Tourer. I could see it coming into the hairpin as I exited the same corner so I responded and stretched the gap a bit a bit more which resulted in the fastest lap of the race.

Qualifying lap:-

Race (lapping traffic):-

Race Report (archived)

Anglesey Race

2008-09-09T10:18:00.006+01:00

This was one I wasn't going to do due to lack of time and too much work but as my team was so enthusuiastic we decided to go for it. With severe weather and flood warnings being announced there were times when I think we must have thought our dedication to the sport was a bit bonkers. I've never been to Anglesey race circuit before so here's the abridged version of events:-

Arrived at the circuit Saturday morning in the pouring rain and wind and set-to bleeding the brakes to discover that we had a loose front nearside ball joint which the crew eventually fixed. Brake fluid should have been changed earlier as pedal feel was back to rock solid after the fluid was changed (another lesson learnt).

Saturday Qualy (Very Wet, as in rivers of water): 8th position (ran part worn Dunlop wets)

We were running on the International GP circuit and we ran on part worn Dunlop Wets as they were already on the car. The first lap had Doug Elwood off the circuit causing his Marcos front end damage and subsequently a holed radiator, then in subsequent laps a couple of more cars left the circuit and the session was cut short. This was hardly surprising as there was deep standing water just after Church and a lot of cars including me were aquaplaning for about 50 yards. The outfield was so saturated that leaving the circuit was really to be avoided at all costs. Anyway, I felt I put in a respectable 8th position on the grid considering that it was my first drive around the course.

Saturday Race: 4th overall, 3rd in class, 16 points (ran intermediates)

By the afternoon race the track still had standing water in places so most people ran on full wets. None ran on slicks. We ran on intermediates which turned out to be pretty good.

I got caught napping at the start:- forgot to do the chinstrap on my helmet, didn't see any lights or flags to indicate that the rolling start had commenced and so sat thinking "are we racing yet"? ... Oh well, another one to put down to inexperience! On the plus side I'd manged to tell the crew team that the car was understeering around the tight bends during qualifying and so they adjusted the toe settings. The result was a much better balanced car so I was able to make good progress and grab some points.

Sunday Qualy (Dry): 2nd position (ran new slicks)

We fitted some brand new Avon slicks and I had a good qualifying session, battling with Richard Hawken in his Nissan Super Tourer to put in a decent time and getting 2nd on the grid behind Nick in the Cosworth and in front of Richard Hawken and Steve Taylor in the Supercharged Honda Exige. That was a surprise.

Sunday Race (Dry): 2nd overall, 2nd in class, 18 points (ran on slicks) .

At the start I went around the outside of the Escort Cosworth and pulled out a short gap on Steve Taylor for about half a lap. I continued to lead for the next 15 minutes until the engine developed problems and the Exige cruised around the inside of Church. B*llocks there goes the first win I thought. Anyway, I'd got oil pressure, fuel pressure, no 20 psi warning light and 5 minutes to go so I carried on trying to maximise the momentum around the bends whilst the car sounded like it had in injested a bag of spanners. I finished 5 seconds ahead of Richard Hawken who came third.

The bad news is obviously that the engine developed a fault and the head is coming off tonight. The good news is that it's been raced hard and tested hard for the last 2 seasons so it's done rather well and inspite of the weather it was yet again damn good fun - a big thanks to Charley, Adrian and Trevor ... Trevor(I'll get you some wet weather gear next time :-)

Videos - no time at the moment to process and post these. I'll stick them up later (and the Snet ones).

Race Report: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd6nsbz8_0krw2fm2b

Snetterton II

2008-08-28T16:57:00.003+01:00

Back to Snetterton for the bank holiday weekend and testing on Saturday was in the dry (hey it was almost like summer).

Sunday race day and it was wet for qualifying so we went back to the Silverstone wet settings, full wing, etc, and qualified 2nd. Mal in the other Noble got Pole by over a second and the Escort Coswrth was in 3rd on the 2nd row.

By the afternoon the sun had come out and the track was dry. Now the the trick would be to get around Mal and stay away from the Escort Cosworth which was mega quick on the rolling start, and for a change the start went according to plan as I lead into the first corner and through Sears. The Escort overtook me on lap 2 and Mal regained momentum and harried me until lap 12 where he jammed his nose up the inside into the Esses. A couple of laps later with Rex Stamps's Exige bearing down on me (I think my tryes were on the way out ... drivers excuse #2439) I overcooked it going through Russel and delicately spun onto the grass. Regaining composure I brought it home 4th ... should have done better I thought.

Lots of stuff worked well - the setup was good, the gearchange issues were all sorted, a new diffuser had been fitted,recessing of the front lights (beter aero), steering lock removed (ground off), steering rack leak fixed (new O rings) and a new passenger mirror fitted as the old one had snapped off during tightening.

Videos and pics are on their way but I need to combine front and rear camera views and find the time to post it all up. I'm a bit busy at the moment so bear with me ;-)

Silverstone - LMA Race weekend

2008-08-12T19:10:00.009+01:00

Well we made it: - Matt, Joe and Dave from Jetstream Motorsport delivered the car to
Silverstone before 8 am having test run the car at 2am that morning ... a great effort guys.

Qualifying 1:

As we all sat waiting in the assembly area the rain came down and as the pack entered the circuit it was clear that slicks were only going to work well for a couple of laps at best. Mal Davison in his Noble timed it perfectly getting to the front of the queue and setting a time of 1:o7 for pole position on lap 2 whilst almost everyone else on slicks dawdled and got caught up in the wet. On the inters I put in a qualifying time of around 1:15 and got 12th on the grid. Ok I got around without falling off but not that great a performance really.

Race 1:

The afternoon weather wet, so we fitted full Wets and softened the dampers. The setup turned out to be good and as the race progressed I gradually picked my way around the casulties and worked my way through the field finishing 2nd. I have to say that it was a really enjoyable drive, it just seemed to go. The result surprised everyone in the team!

The start:

Qualifying 2:

Day two of the meeting and the weather seemed like it would be dry but as we once again sat in qualifying, this time with everyone including me on slicks, it started to spit with rain. But that's as bad as it got and everyone set to about getting fast laps in dry conditions. Once again Mal was off into the distance but this time narrowly being pipped for pole by the Escort Cosworth. I improved a bit and got 8th on the grid.

Race 2:

I got a reasonable start and worked my way up to 3rd after fighting my way past Doug Ellwood in his Marcos. Then Derek Hale's super tourer glued itself to my back until eventually lost the place to him around lap 16. With less than 2 minutes to go I ran out of fuel (ahhh!) and just managed to get to the pits. The pit crew (Trevor) was gutted as apparently I was on full throttle for longer than I'd been in previous races and so messed up the fuel calculation ... you just can't win!

Once again I learnt loads and we had a good fun weekend with some excellent racing.

The start (poor sound quality):

Racing until I run out of fuel (poor sound quality):-

Snetterton is the next race in a fortnight and I'm looking forward to it :-)

Almost there ...

2008-08-08T12:22:00.004+01:00

The new clutch and gearbox arrived yesterday lunchtime and were fitted last night - thanks to everyone who helped on this. The ATB diff turned out to be ok so we kept that. The Helix clutch was 50% worn so this was replaced as normally you can only do this with the engine removed.

Now all that needs to be done is to put the engine back, which it tonight's job for the mechanics! The car will then be delivered to Silverstone for the race day tomorrow morning ready for scrutineering.

I'm pretty confident that the car will be ready and I'm glad I didn't destroy the gearbox a single day later otherwise I'd certainly have missed the race. It was a good move to do the trackday at Snetterton as the transmission noise was getting bad and the easiest way to confirm suspicions was to run it and wait for it to break, which didn't take long. Now that I know what sounds to listen for, I can be a little bit more proactive and less brutal.

So the new gearbox will always be properly cooled ulike the old one that clearly had at a times insufficient oil cooling and oil temps of 175 degrees C. Time will tell if the extra oil cooling, shot peening and bearing changes prove to be adequate. Of course then I'll want to turn up the torque ...

The list of other little jobs has of course been put on the backburner for this evening at least.

Let's hope the weather isn't too bad.

New gearbox internals sent off to be shot peened

2008-07-22T17:57:00.003+01:00

A new box was purchased from Ford and sent to CTS who will have stripped it down today and sent the gearset away to be shot peened and polished (a 2 week lead time).

I've not removed the broken gearbox yet and Dave will do that later this week. Then the diff will be removed and sent down to CTS for reassembly with the hardened gearset. If any other bits need replacing, including diff and clutch then we've got time to have them ready before the gearset returns from the "harderners".

Still, it's little bit touch a go to get it done before Silverstone plus I've just discovered that there aren't any Silverstone test days available until October, which will make qualifying more challenging.

New gearbox on order, faulty pump wiring found

2008-07-18T17:50:00.004+01:00

A new gearbox has been ordered and this'll be shot peened and polished as well as the bearings swapped for something more durable; it should be fitted in time for the Silverstone LMA meeting.

The gearbox cooler pump failed to switch on because of faulty 12V power wiring to a relay. On the plus side we think that the ATB diff is likley to be ok as everything except 5th works.

A few other things we could have a go at:-

1. Motec loom
2. Improve the headlight positions (they point down too low)
3. Fit steering button
4. Grind off steering lock
5. Get some wing mirrors that stay in place OR change the bolts on the existing ones
6. Fit new clutch
7. Fit new thrust bearing
8. Check for front manifold leak
9. Add a water bottle and tubing for driver refreshment

Heritage Trackday - Snetterton 17th July 2008

2008-07-17T23:00:00.006+01:00

A bit of an impulsive one but as it was local and I wanted to do a few checks on the transmission noises that had arisen during the Rockingham meeting I thought I'd give this trackday a go.

I joined Ross and Adrian who had both brought their Nobles; it rained most of the day so I ran on intermediates but Ross and Adrian struggled for grip on road tyres. All had fun but not without incident; I broke 5th gear (my suspicions were confirmed) and Adrian's rear clam flew off!

Some pics of the day (courtesy Adrian):-

The racecar and Adrian's beast :-

Adrian's car with extra aerodynamic braking device (ouch):-

Rockingham Race 12th July 2008

2008-07-12T17:46:00.010+01:00

Just back from the race so a very brief report:-

Qualified: 4th.
1st Race result: 9th.

Everyone went out on slicks but by lap 3 or 4 the rain came down so I lost ground due to lack of grip. My start was good until Steve Taylor hit me on Turn 3 (someone else shunted him into me); no real damage done to my car (cracked paint and a few marks on the rear clam) but a bit irritating after my best start of the season.

Later during the rainy part of the race the Ginetta rammed me at the hairpin and bent the aluminium diffuser; we later just beat the diffuser until straight using two blocks of wood ... the diffuser is quite a good way of protecting the back of the car, a sort of crumple zone and you don't want one in carbon fibre, at least not for full contact racing. Pit crew in action:-

A short video of the start:-

Footnote: At the driver briefing were were told that it was a "non contact sport" and that "if you'd watched British Touring Cars then you'd watched entertainment and not motorsport". All well, that message got home then!

The 2nd race is tomorrow afternoon ... hopefully the weather stays good for this one and nobody will ram into me!

....

Race 2:

The weather changed for day 2, hot and sunny for a change! I started from 9th and got to 6th by the first corner moving up to 4th after a lap or so when Tony Soper's Harrier spun after a collision. Now in 4th place I followed Derek Hale chasing the Cosworth for 2nd place, Steve Taylor's Exige had meanwhile extended his lead in first place. After a few laps Hale got past the Cosworth and I stuck to it's tale for the next 4 or 5 laps finally getting past for 3rd place at Turn one. Overall a fun race and nice to get a full 20 minutes of racing without a safety car or any contact.

The Cossy was lucky to survive:

2nd Race Result: 3rd.

Finally my Dymag wheels arrived. Only 4 months late and Dymag required a lot of nagging to get on with it!

Race Report

Brands Hatch Indy Circuit Race - 15th June 2008

2008-06-21T18:55:00.012+01:00

It's been a busy week since the race but now I've got some time to give a report.

Qualifying was crowded and had 32 cars plus reserves all trying to get a quick lap in a circuit that takes under 55 seconds to complete. Four different classes of car meant that some were doing it in 50 seconds whilst some were taking almost 10 seconds longer. The first half of qualifying was useless as I tried to leave a space in front of me and time my overtakes so that I wasn't held up; it almost worked until the session was red flagged. So a pause whilst the wreckage of a BMW and a Clio were removed from the track and then off to have another go at setting a decent time; this time some half decent times resulted in qualifying 5th on the grid.

Then the Race: Well my start wasn't great (what's new) as I left a gap for the Escort Cosworth to fill but at least I managed to get past the other Noble on the next lap. Then after the two front runners contacted I lost a place and ground to the Cosworth and gradually my lines got worse until I finished 8th. Not a great result or driving performance ... if I'd continued what I'd done of lap 2 I'd have had a decent finish position. I did manage to get into one collosal short cut from Surtees to to Clearways via the grass which was "pretty hairy" but managed to keep control of the car and to avoid a spin. Fluid a on the corner of Druids was challenging to everyone and I went around that corner with opposite lock applied a couple of times again avoiding spinning. For most of the race Paddock Hill was taken under waved Yellow with 2 cars in the kitty litter; eventually a third "off"brought out the Red flag and the race was finished.

The Start:

FirstCorner:

Seat Cupra and Noble into Paddock Hill:

Video of Start:

Mal getting his own back:

Race Report

Brands Hatch Indy Circuit Test Day

2008-06-07T12:54:00.003+01:00

After a two and a half hour drive through the commuter traffic across the Thames bridge Adrian and I had a leisurely start to the test day with the first session at 10 am. The weather was dry so we were on slicks.

During session 1 the car felt a bit loose with the back end easy to slide. Adrian did some adjustments to tyre pressures and the car started to feel better.

During session 2 I had a spin at the exit of Clearways; the car was on the limit during which I changed up from 3rd and in so doing so dipped the clutch removing traction on the rear. The tyres took a bit of a hammering, but nothing else got damaged. Later I outbraked myself into Druids and tip toed into the gravel but managed to get back onto the circuit. The vacuum cleaner came in handy when I got back to the pits at the end of the session. By the end of session 3 the slicks were well and truely flat spotted and so the only option was to try the new intermediates.

As luck would have it, heavy drizzle started 10 minutes before session 4 so the intermediates were ideal. Grip turned out to be pretty good. The only problem that we had was that the front lights had packed up. Both lights had blown bulbs. We're going to put some Wipac headlights in instead as the existing ones clearly aren't reliable (or bright) enough.

Very importantly the newly installed wiring loom has fixed the misfire. Now that it's out of the car we can see that the old loom had got very hot and consequently brittle with the insulation cracking and braking up in various places. We've added heat sleeving around the new loom to try to prevent this from happening again.

Driving wise I still have a long way to go with some fundamentals to get right. It isn't easy!

It was nice to see a couple of familiar faces and to meet another Noble owner.

Things to do before the race next Sunday

Change the front disks
Change the front pads
Get some brake cleaner
Get tubing for driver cooling
Check the accelerometer connections
Fit Wipac front lights

Ready to go for testing at Brands

2008-06-05T15:05:00.004+01:00

Tyres:

1 set Dunlop Wets
1 set Avon Slicks
1 set Avon Intermediates

Things to check during the day

Front ride height raised one turn to ensure splitter clearance. See if we can lower it again without any scraping. Check that splitter braces are done up properly.
Wiring loom is brand new. Double check connections.
Fuse holders for fuel pumps are new. Check they're still in place properly.
New alternator pulley and belt fitted.
New rear wing mounts mean that the wing is raised higher which should make it more efficient. Check the effect this has.

Other things to do

Refit DVR back into car.
Fuel car on way to circuit (it's easier than filling jerry cans).

If anyone wants to pop in and say hello we're in garage 6.

Fun at Bruntintghorpe

2008-06-03T16:38:00.003+01:00

Well I spent some time at Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground with Matt and Dave Baseley from the Noble factory. I got through 1 set of old slicks, 1 set of wets and a set of old road tyres (just for completeness). The slicks were showing the canvass and the wets from the near side rear had no tread whatsoever. Hooligan you say ... yup ... great fun. Big thumbs up to Matt and Dave

In the process we cracked and replaced a exhaust manifold, found the mis-fire was in the loom and finally blew the gasket in the front turbo. Oh and chipped the front splitter under braking.

The mis-fire was tracked down as far as faulty wiring near the cam sensor; unplugging the cam sensor meant the misfire went away. So we're replacing the wiring loom with a new one and then will try to see what wires got to hot.

The front turbo has been removed as one fixing nut and stud has gone awol and when the turbo is refitted we'll not fit a gasket, just some sealant. The gasket only blow all the time anyway! Dave replaced the exhaust manifold fitted a new custom made coolant thermostat and whilst he was at it tightened all the bolts on the rear turbo as they were all loose.

Oh and I melted the fuse holder for the motorsport fuel pump. This has been fixed so it shouldn't happen again.

The front splitter got chipped under braking because the weld on the lower fixing pin on the front clam had cracked so the whole affair drooped downwards. Again this will be fixed before the next drive.

The rear wing has now got new aluminium mounts which are much stronger and allow more adjustment. We need to be careful not to raise it too high and fall foul of the scrutineers though so I'm checking to see how they do there test measurements.

Dymag wheels ... are bloody late and they need more nagging.

Next outing is a test day at Brands Hatch (Indy) on 6th June.

Meshing in the rear

2008-05-13T17:06:00.002+01:00

I've decided to cover the IC with black mesh. This, plus a few modifications that time didn't allow, are being done by Reverie. I'll collect the car tomorrow and then Kerridges will fit the passenger seat and belt for some fun at Bruntingthorpe on Saturday where we'll test that the electrics are ok having fitted some new relays.

Castle Combe Race

2008-05-06T10:18:00.010+01:00

It's been hectic so before going onto yesterdays' Castle Combe Race a few things happened:-

The clams arrived back late from the painters at the the end of the working day on Friday and Matt and Kurt at Reverie to their credit worked late into the night fitting grills, canards, splitter, masking side repeaters, etc ... a long list of small but time consuming jobs. We stopped work around 11 pm having done enough to allow testing at Snetterton the following day. Very happy with the clams with the carbon fibre wheel arch vents painted body colour - very Mosler-like!

I arrived at Snetterton at lunchtime and was joined by Chris, Trevor and Adrian who spent a considerable time making the front clam fit more easily so that quite fundamentally we could get it on and off quickly. Also nice to chat with Matty, another Noble owner. We managed a short test session at the end of the day and that showed we'd developed a misfire, that the steering feel was very different but that the handling was still good. We also sorted out some reference tyre pressures for the Avon slicks. Lights still had to be wired in and we'd do that on race day prior to scrutineering.

Sunday was a day doing nothing on the car and getting on with the garden instead.

Monday Race day:-

On the road at 4am arrived at the circuit for 8am. It had been raining hard for the last two hours of the journey. Adrian arrived before the racecar and got the last remaining bit of ground that wasn't muddy grass, we quickly unloaded the car and Adrian got to work on wiring up the lights.

On to qualifying in the morning and the track looked wet so we went out on part worn wets. Steering was twitchy over the bumps, the track was actually dry so the tyre choice wasn't ideal, engine wouldn't pull past 6000 rpm and seemed worse over the bumps with mis-fires and back-fires. I hadn't driven on the circuit before so my confidence wasn't exactly high, esp. after the off at Oulton Park and I was consious of just getting round the circuit and bringing it back in one piece, which I did, but qualifying 2nd last as result. Still, two weeks after a major crash we were ready to race again and that was a huge achievement.

The race:

Well the order of the day was to get some points for the Championship, not to bin the car and to most importantly to have fun.

I took the start gingerly with the cars in front engaged in close racing with each other and I quickly discovered my misfire was still there despite a change of plugs. Make sure the tyres are warm this time, I thought. Then after a lap or so I started to move slowly through the field, short shifting to avoid the stuttering mis-fire and being consious that I hadn't worked out the racing lines fully. Avon rise and Quarry looked like the easiest place to bin the car so I paid a lot of attention to them. Brakes were good and a few overtakes were done purely on that and I think I was getting the knack of presenting myself to the other driver and being sure that they wouldn't just turn in on me without seeing I was there. Possibly because the car was down on acceleration some of the cars I'd got past hounded me for a few laps so I took a defensive line at times and at least one of them fell off the circuit trying to get past me. I think there were 11 DNFs in the end and I got 10th overall but most importantly managed a 3rd in class, so that'll we 16 points thank you very much.

So that's another race done, more experience gained and some solid points scored. Current Championship standing is 2nd in Class, 3rd overall and only 4 points behind the leader.

It's said so often that you can't do these things without a good team and it's true; TRACC Racing performed fantastically and Kerridges and Reverie pulled out the stops to get the car rebuilt in a fortnight. Just a bit of consolodation work to be done and we'll be be 100% on it for Brands Hatch next month.

Race Report