Well, I’ve been busy. I realise that’s not a good excuse but I really have, honest. I’ve just finished teaching a 4 week long class to a set of Masters students (and writing the exam they have to take) and I’ve been trying to concentrate on getting my thesis written. Problem is, I keep thinking of more things that ought to be in there so I’m actually going backwards on that one.

In the meantime, though, a few interesting things have indeed happened. Most importantly it was what is hopefully the Fury’s swansong in that we went to the Birkett. For those of you that have forgotten this is the annual 750 Motor Club’s Holly Birkett 6 hour relay race. Holly Birkett, curiously a chap, was one of the founders of the club and he came up with this race format 60 years ago. Essentially, it’s a relay race for teams of up to 6 cars which takes place over six hours, on this occasion on the Silverstone “Bridge” circuit, which is what was the GP circuit, barring one small change before they added the new “Arena” circuit this year. There is one theory that this will have been the last event on the Bridge circuit. That seems a great shame as Bridge is a great corner, swooping down and under the eponymous bridge and them up to Priory.

All the same, I’d never been anywhere near the GP circuit before so I booked the test day on the friday, in exchange for an alarmingly large quantity of your Earth pounds, so that I could have a go. The only problem, which we weren’t told of before the day, was that the test day was being run on the pukka (old) GP circuit meaning a really rather tight chicane at Club. The Birkett itself would use the cut-through which meant that Club, and the new pit straight past the new, massive, humongous, pits complex would be a lot faster during the race itself. Ho hum.

You can see the difference on this track map from the logger. The black line is the race day route, and the blue one the test day route. This made a huge difference in the times. My fastest time in this sector with and without the cut-through differed by 3.8 seconds.

Test day dawned gloomy and, as we’d decided to kip in our own bed, we set off for Silverstone to find it raining half way there. Oh good. Still, the forecast was good.

In the first session it was pretty damp on the track, although it wasn’t actually raining. So, I set to learning the circuit and at the end my FL was down to 2:13.9. Not brilliant but a start. Adrian was actually hugely pleased when he went faster in his session, which was just after mine. I claim this is because it was drying out. I’m sticking to this…

By the time the next session had come around, about 3 hours later, it was indeed a lot quicker at which point I managed to get a 2:10.9 in. That seemed to say that I now knew the circuit and there didn’t seem to be much point risking the car any more. So, i got the car scrutineered and settled down for the usual evening of RGB chat and gossip. Hopefully, the weather would be OK on the following day, the forecast was OK apart from a dodgy bit mid afternoon. They did reckon that it was going to chuck it down overnight though.

And so it did. I woke up in the night to the sound of rain hammering down on the roof of the motorhome. Still, hopefully it would stop. Surely it couldn’t be as wet as it was last year?

In the morning it was pretty cold but it was indeed not raining any more. Problem is, the track was very wet and I was due out in the first qualifying session. As that would be the first time I’d seen the real track, with the Club cut-through, it seemed to be a good idea to push a bit just to see. We lined up, on all odd places, on the Club straight (now renamed the Wellington straight in honour of the aircraft that operated from Silverstone in WWII). That bit wasn’t without tribulations as the instructions that had carefully been posted in the finals were completely wrong and, in trying to get to the right place some of seemed to drive around a large part of the Silverstone environs. Phil reckoned that he’d got as far as Northampton and who am I to disagree with him? It was nice to see that as all of us “A” cars were lined up on the Wellington straight that a bunch of B and C cars drove down the middle of the two lines of A cars and up to the barriers. Apparently they thought that they should go out in an earlier session. Nice to note that they were all Stock Hatches. Plus ça change…

Out on the circuit for qualifying then and it was mega-slippy. As if often the case at Silverstone the worst bit was the slight kink on the pits straight that is Woodcote. It’s flat in the dry but in the wet it’s “oh cripes, I’ve overcooked it, I’m going to be in the wall in front of everyone”. In fact at the race last year some wazzock in a Radical managed to spin here and total the car on the very first lap—of a six hour race…

The qualifying times are not actually important at the Birkett as grid slots are determined by the handicappers. The only reason for qualifying is that MSA regs say you have to do at least three laps before a race. So, at the end my time was a deeply unimpressive 2:42.40 but it didn’t affect our 8th place (out of 60!) grid slot.

After last year’s dismal first lap—I think I started in about 6th or 7th place and finished the first lap in about 20th due to all the heavy cars in the teeming rain zooming past our light cars skittering about on top of the puddles in our A048 wellies—I didn’t really want to do the start again and so Derek did it. I settled in for 30 minutes in the “hare” position, meaning I was strapped in, ready to go out at a moment’s notice.

However, after just nine minutes after the start, Derek approached down the pitlane. He’d had a coming together with a Scooby (one problem with light, low, fast cars is that people driving heavy turbo nutter barges don’t see you coming) and bits of bodywork were flapping about alarmingly. So, I zoomed out of the pits, got the car slightly sideways in the pit exit lane, and set off.

It was the usual Birkett fare; loads of slower cars and the odd quicker one. Great fun though and the lap times started to come down. Problem is, that quicker cars like ours find it harder to hit their handicap time because you’re always slowed alarmingly by slower cars which are still lapping at their predicted times. This is obviously a message to muscle past. However, this is supposed to be a fun event.

As it was I did 17 laps in this session which took me 37 minutes so I was pretty worn out at the end. (Heaven knows how GP drivers do 2 hours around Monaco.) Problem is we were behind schedule given the early change and when I finished we were in 16th position on scratch.

Now, the problem was that Adrian had had a problem on the test day. One of his driveshaft CV joints had exploded. That meant that we got him qualified in my car by dint of talking nicely to the CoC. However, he was now waiting for a new part to arrive at the circuit by courier. It did so and he fitted it in about 15 mins, finished scrutineering (the scrutes had done everything other that the left rear corner!) and eventually he was raring to go. He got out at some point and I was again in Hare position. However, after only a short period the chaps on the pitwall realised that Adrian had gone missing and I was flagged out urgently. Mind you, the pitlane crew were not exactly as motivated as me, as you can see in the video here. This video is some of this bits from this session when I set my FL of the day at 2:07.90. In fact, that was to remain as the team’s fastest lap which is at least something to write home about. In fact, towards the end of this video you can see me catch up with Austen in the white Fury. I seemed to wake him up because I couldn’t then get rid of him and we were in close proximity at the end of my session, 39 mins and 17 laps after I started. He said afterwards that he was really disappointed when he saw my hand go up! Problem is, the video seems to have been affected deleteriously by the low sun and what appears to be some of Austen’s bacon fat.

And what about Adrian? Well, we found out later that the CV joint had failed after just a couple of laps.

So, I’d now done 34 laps and been on track for about 76 mins. As I was supposed to have been on track for about 60 mins in the entire race I could have a rest. Worse, it was starting to rain and we were sliding down the leader board. I ended up being in hare position again and was flagged out at 1510 to do a shorter session. It was now very slippery although it had actually stopped raining hard. The problem was that at this time of year, and this time of day, the circuit wasn’t exactly drying quickly. I spent another 30 mins on track, and did another 10 laps. In that time my lap times started at about 2:41 and fell to 2:38, so that was still way outside our best time and nothing like what we should have been doing.

However, it was still great fun and I finished the day having done about 1hr 40 mins in the car at full-bore race speeds and done 44 laps. I was, to put it mildly, completely knackered. But, a great time was had by all as you can tell from the smiles in the team photo at the top of the page. We ended the day in 18th position on scratch and waaaaay down on handicap. We were 6 laps down on out handicapped target which is just not good enough. Next year, we’re going to need a better strategy.

So, that’s the Fury done. What about the J15, you ask. Well, it’s coming soon. Here’s a photo to help you.

What’s more, on the Saturday I’d signed up for the allcomers so as to get a bit of practice; I’d never been here in the class B car before. On the race day it had at least stopped raining. What’s more, the forecast was good. However, the circuit was a skating rink out for the allcomers qualification. I’d promised myself that I’d only do the race if I qualified on the front row as I didn’t want to bend the car before the RGB races themselves.

As it was, it was very slippy although a drier line did start to emerge. I never got near the ultimate lap time though, not least because the circuit was full of Locosts. Even if they’re sensitively driven it ends up being a bit of a lottery.

Before this meeting my FL was 1:57ish, although that was in the class C car. All the same, in the wet my FL was 2:14 and some change. That put me 3rd on the grid behind cars that were racing with full racing wets. Hmm, perhaps I should reconsider my cautious pre-condition?

Later on in the morning things were looking a bit brighter and it was time for the RGB qualifying. This time the track was working better, although I was still essentially learning the circuit. This time I was down to 1:56, 4th in class and 6th on the grid in both RGB races. However, there as a problem. Near the start of the session I’d noticed some smoke from the front left wheel. At first I thought this was because the bonnet was slightly mis-positioned as I’d managed to bend one of the bonnet mounting springs. However, the smoke got worse and when I got back to the paddock there was oil all over the place in the engine compartment.

That was a bit odd because I’d wondered about an oil leak and had kept checking the oil pressure but it was fine. That is, the leak must be something really small. The logical thing was the oil cooler—they’re aluminium and prone to cracking. And, so it turned out to be; the oil was coming from a small crack at the bottom of the cooler. It must have been the case that the crack was small enough that the oil pressure was still high enough for the engine to escape unscathed.

The easiest way to fix the cooler was to just remove it and I set out to do this and to remove all the gunge around the engine compartment, the wheels, tyres and brakes. That took quite a time and I missed the Allcomers race as a result.

Still, it was together for the first RGB race and I went down to the assembly area. Eventually, they called us out onto the track and we went around, almost a full lap at Oulton, the grid.

The problem was, I had a horrible misfire. This was reminiscent of last year’s problems and rather dispiriting. I pulled into the pitlane, out of the race, and back into the paddock. There I opened the bonnet and noticed that one of the plug leads was loose. Sigh, I could have fixed that in the pitlane and started the race from there if I’d just looked. Next time I’ll think of that…

So, later on I was back for race 2, this time I made it to the start grid and was still there when the lights went out. I got a rather poor start with far too much wheel spin, here we go again, but nonetheless got away. After a while there was a queue of us being Austen, in class C. He was rather too difficult to get past, at one point even jumping the Knickerbrook chicane and not yielding a place. However, eventually I we all got past and the chequered flag was out.

I ended up in 4th place in class. The consequence of that was that I ended the season 3rd in class, again, and in 8th place overall. To be honest the big problem has been lack of consistency. I started the year well but there have been too many issues, especially since Mat Green, who’d obviously been watching too many touring car races, punted me off at Brands Hatch.

That leaves us with the Birkett as the final race of the season which I’m really looking forward to. I’ve decided that I’m going to be selling the car so to concentrate on the J15. If you’re interested, I’ll be posting an advert on the RGB forum.

The biggest problem was that the qualifying sessions were numbers 1 and 3, meaning that there was precious little time to even refuel between them. So, I decided to compromise the non-championship time slightly by brimming the tank and just going straight from the track to the assembly area. I arranged for Anthea to take the type pressure kit down to the assembly area so that I could at least check that.

Before coming to this meeting, my fastest lap around Snetterton was 1:16.52 which was in qualifying back in March. However, I hadn’t had the benefit of a day’s testing and in the non-championship quali I only managed 1:17.99, not helped by some awful driving from some of the Bikesports chaps. I reckon that the track wasn’t really that quick, though, which explains some of the difference.

It was a little better in the RGB quali proper, especially as there were no longer any Bikesports cars to trip over or jump out of the way of. This time my FL was 1:17.13 which was a bit better.

When the results came out I was 2nd on the grid, and class, for the non-championship race (that’s the FRONT ROW!) and 6th on the grid, 4th in class for the real race. That’s actually a bit down on my usual grid position, but perfectly acceptable.

The issue now was whether I was going to get the thing off the line. I’d done all that work on the clutch before the Silverstone race but hadn’t really tried that hard, especially as the RGB race was wet. So, I was with some trepidation that I lined up on the front row with Duncan. However, when the lights went out I got the best start I’d had for ages. I was still second though, but at least I hadn’t lost any places. I don’t entirely know what was happening behind as Duncan and I were stuck together and we didn’t see anyone else the entire race apart from one unfortunate back marker. At the end of the first lap we were about 2 seconds ahead of Tony and that gap stretched out to 9 seconds at the end; an age in racing terms. Along the way we had a most entertaining battle. My problem was that when I got in Duncan’s tow on the back straight then I’d have been able to slipstream past were it not for the fact that I was hitting the rev-limiter. So, I just couldn’t get past. I did get a decent run at him along the start-finish straight on one lap, 7:20 into the video below, but he closed the door fairly but firmly. Later I did get another run up that straight and got past into Riches, much to Duncan’s surprise. However, he slipstreamed past easily on the straight. Mind you, looking at the video, perhaps I should have stayed off the brakes for a few tenths longer…

And that’s how it finished! Our fastest laps were only 0.07 seconds apart. Mind you, I slowed slightly at the end as the oil temperature was getting rather high and the oil pressure was dropping in sympathy. I might try some different oil before the next race in fact.

Here’s the video:

The RGB race was almost the same, in retrospect. This time I started 6th and got a pretty good start. Once we’d got past the first corner there was Duncan and myself representing class B and John and Paul representing class A in a small group that got away from the rest. We actually stayed as a group of four for a while until Paul got past John and they pulled away. Then it was back to me and Duncan doing our stuff. What’s more, the rest of the field had disappeared backwards, I still don’t know where they were. Again, the gap behind me was about 2 seconds at the end of the first lap and just grew from there.

However, it didn’t grow until the end of the race, unfortunately. As I exited the Russell chicane on lap 8 there was a bang from the back of the car and all of a sudden it felt very wrong. I pulled into the pitlane and stopped and on a cursory inspection it was clear that the rear lower left wishbone had just fallen apart. You can see what it looks like in the photo at the top of this post. Also, here’s the video of the complete race:

So, I’ve now got to fix this, I’ll probably just remake it, before the next race. Actually, remaking it is quite easy. The tedious bit is re-aligning everything. Ho hum…

So, we got up to Silverstone early-ish on the Friday and I went for a drive down one of the old runways to see if I could get the thing off the line with any degree of alacrity. The answer was no, it was horrible. If anything worse than it had been at Pembrey. What was worse, as I was driving back to the bus the clutch starting slipping and then I had no drive at all; I could put it in gear, let the clutch out, and the car didn’t move at all. Sod it…

So, I took the thing apart again, groaning inwardly about getting RTV all over the place again… I assumed that I was going to find something broken but that wasn’t the case. Luckily, I got Andy to have a quick look and he noticed that the release bearing in the pressure plate had been dislodged. In fact, the more I thought about it, I don’t remember making sure that it was properly home when I took the clutch apart in the garage. I put it all back together again and it certainly seemed to do something. However, by now it was pitch dark so I covered the car up and retired for the night.

The next morning looked pretty bright, although the forecast did talk about the possibility of showers later. However, I prepped the car—I’d scrutineered at the end of Friday—and tried out the clutch. Interestingly it felt very different. However, it could just be that it felt like what it had been before the Pembrey race after I’d moved the actuation point. All the same, it was off for the Allcomers qualifying. As usual, this was a mixed affair with all sorts of different cars out there. My original plan had been to get to the assembly area late so I could push the clutch on the exit but it was not to be. However, out on circuit the car seemed to be going well. FL before this meeting was a 1:04.49. The circuit is now a little different from last time as the GP circuit now goes down the National straight. In fact, that straight has been renamed as the Wellington Straight in homage to the Wellington bombers that were based at the Silverstone airfield in WWII. Nice touch that. I actually think the circuit is now very slightly slower as the wide exit to Becketts is now ruined by a load of astroturf! As such I reckon that times this year are a tenth or so slower than last year.

I ended up 8th in the Allcomers quali with a rather poor time of 1:05.38. However, I don’t think I’d got a clear lap because of all the slower cars on the circuit so perhaps that was OK. Interesting, there were three RGB cars, including me, all at the front of the “non slicks and wings” grouping.

Later on it was time for the RGB qualifying. That went rather better in that the FL was 1:04.48. That’s right, 0.01 seconds faster than last year. However, conditions were very different. Down the end of the Wellington straight I was 5mph slower than last year, and not all of that can have been due to the remodelled circuit at Becketts. All the same, I was 8th, again. This time 2nd in class.

Come the Allcomers race and it was going to be good to see if the clutch worked. I was spectacularly careful with it at the start and got away fairly slowly. However, it didn’t bang in and out in the way it did at Pembrey, and indeed while testing it out on the runway on the Friday evening. Does that mean that I was just driving it differently, or could the release bearing have become dislodged inside the engine? Seems very odd… A couple of people got past me at the start, including Dan!, but I quickly got past to my alotted place and after that it was really a Saturday afternoon drive. I kept getting closer and closer to the slick-shod people in front only to fall back when catching up with back markers. As I’ve come to expect these guys often don’t watch their mirrors and both someone in a Mini (a real one) and a Lotus Europa tried to kill me by ignoring my presence. In fact, the Lotus also had a go at the leader who was coming past at the same time as pulling in front of me. Oh well.

So, coming up to the RGB race, as you’d have expected, it started to rain. I trundled over to the assembly area and it promptly decided to throw it down big time. However, it looked as though it was going to stop just as quickly so I decided to leave the suspension alone which might not have been a sound choice. However, it meant I stayed dry under the umbrella! I reckon the J15 is going to be easier to adjust in a rush which will be good, assuming I ever finish it.

We got a green flag lap because of the conditions and, at the start, I was very careful again with the clutch but got away reasonably. However, at Copse Gary spun, see the photo taken by Austen’s friend Dan (a different one) on the left (as was the photo at the top). Luckily we all avoided him and set off on a very wet and greasy track. In the first couple of laps I passed a couple of class A cars (David Wale and Doug Carter) at Copse, I suspect the extra power only makes things difficult, and set off after the leaders who’d got away a bit. In retrospect this bit would have been a lot easier if I’d just softened the dampers. However, I was caught by Al (class C) who was having a storming drive. We actually had quite a good dice, each giving the other room to make a mistake which was rather important here. He got past after I screwed things up monumentally at Luffield on one lap but I stayed with him all the way to the end. In the later stages Tony (the silver car in the photo) started to catch up alarmingly. In particular, he seemed to much quicker at Becketts which necessitated some Olympian levels of blocking from me on the straight. I still don’t know what he was doing!

However, that’s how it finished. I ended up 5th on the road and 2nd in class. So, quite a good race really. To show you how different driving in the wet is, the traces on the right show the throttle position and speed traces around the fastest laps in qualifying and the race itself. As you can see there’s a considerable difference in both speed and how brutal I am with the throttle.

And, here’s a video of some bits of the race:

I had thought that the best bit was that the car was undamaged. However, since then I’ve been looking at the logs and have noticed that the oil pressure was a bit down. This is very odd and I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a consequence of fiddling with the clutch as taking the clutch out requires disconnection of the pressure sender. I hope it’s that as I don’t think I can face swapping an engine from the J15 to the Fury before Snetterton…

Before going on about that though, I suggest you go off to the 750 Motor Club web site. On the front page, at the time of writing, you can see the TV programme on the second Brands meeting earlier this year in which I feature a fair bit.

So, we set off on Thursday and took a frankly sub-optimal route to Pembrey, arriving at about 1800. Still, we weren’t getting rained on although the forecast was a bit mixed.

First session out on the test day was a bit tricky as I was finding my feet. I could remember which way the corners went but not how to drive it. Apart from the fact that I could remember it was tricky. All the same it was going OK. Come the second session I put in a super-smooth, and slow, lap right at the beginning to try and fix the circuit in my head and, while rounding the Hairpin, which isn’t a hairpin at all, something went BANG and the car started making the same gruesome noises that it had at Cadwell. At least this time I knew what it was. I pulled into the paddock and after a cursory look indeed, the diff mountings had come loose again. The brazing done at Cadwell had come adrift.

After a short discussion with Anthea about just going home and getting the J15 finished we decided to have a try for a better solution. After discussing things with the locals we found a chap up the road who could apparently weld. To cut a long story we went up there and, indeed, he could fix it back together for me. Hopefully doing a rather better job.

However, while we were at Jones the Welders it started to rain. Back to the circuit and it was still pouring and I put everything else back together. Yet again, I was going to have to leave the reverser out because it was, again, knackered. Luckily, by the time the penultimate session of the day appeared I’d got the car done and I went out on a drying track to really learn the place again. FL was 1:03.3 which wasn’t too bad (and a mile under the class B record which was clearly due for a pasting this weekend). In the last session of the day the car was finally going quite well and I was down to 1:02.9. Now we had to wait for qualifying.

Come qualifying I managed to get near the front of the queue and managed to get a couple of half decent laps in with the fastest being 1:02.65. That meant I was 5th and 6th on the grid for the race, 3rd and 4th in class respectively. Not wonderful but OK. The thing was, was I going to be able to get the car off the line. Since the Cadwell race I had modified the clutch so as to lower the actuation point for the master cylinder. That meant that the clutch was much easier; I might be able to feel the bite and slip better.

Or then again, as it turned out, I wasn’t. Yet again at the start I got passed by a stack of people. Most importantly including Gary. Then, after passing the other people who’d got past me I was stuck behind Gary. His class A car was very difficult to pass. I did get up the inside of him once but I ran wide at the next corner and he snuck past again. It was good racing though, “hard but fair” as Gary put it later. The problem was, while we were holding each other up the rest of the class B battle got away from me and I ended up 4th in class.

The next race was a similar result really. Again, Gary got past at the start after I made a lousy start again. Again, I was stuck behind him. This time I got a decent run at him at Hatchetts, which is a hairpin, but I skated past in a cloud of tyre smoke. Unfortunately in the process Lee got past as well. So, this time Gary was keeping two class B cars behind him. That was how it finished and I was again 4th in class. To be honest, I’d made far, far, too many silly errors trying to get past Gary and Lee. In the process, though, and after one error had put me back a bit I put in a 1:02.71 which turned out to be the fastest lap  of  the race so at least I get another point for that.

Next race is at Silverstone although there’s a conference that I’m presenting a paper at, and some holiday, and continued work on my PhD on this project, in the way so heaven knows whether I’ll be able to sort the car at all. At the moment I’m minded to strip the clutch to see if there’s any reason why I can’t seem to get away smoothly. I’m beginning to think that there’s something wrong in there. Perhaps I’ll buy a Barnett clutch for it to see if it likes it; Lee speaks highly of his.

As the car had been rendered rather second hand after the previous race meeting, I decided to test at Cadwell as I wanted to try and get into a groove. To summarise the test day, I was too slow; way too slow. Last year my fastest lap around here was 1:36.2. This year, the fastest I managed in testing was 1:38.2. Admittedly some of that was probably because it was so hot, some because the track had various re surfaced bits but the biggest effect was that the circuit had decided that putting us out with a collection of Stock Hatches and Locosts as the thing to do. I’m planning on a letter of complaint to the circuit about this as it essentially wastes my cash. The fastest RGB times are as fast as 1:34ish; the fastest Locosts and Stock Hatches are about 13 seconds slower than this. The end result of this is that testing was screwed up for both us and them. I’m not impressed.

But then, I also wasn’t impressed by the Stock Hatch driver who managed to roll his car at Barn on the out-lap. That is, on the second corner after leaving the assembly area, and before he’d even reached the start/finish line. Inevitably, he red-flagged the session, costing us all a load of cash. To be honest, if I knew who he was I’d include his name here so that googlers might find him. Perhaps luckily for him, I don’t know who he was. I do know that when the truck brought him back to the paddock he was studiously looking the other way. Quite a few of his Stock Hatch colleagues were monumentally annoyed with him…

As it was, I spent most of the test day twiddling with dampers. It was interesting to see that the car really responded to changes in the settings, although I didn’t really diverge the bump and rebound settings at all so as to avoid confusing myself too much. Mind you, I’m still not convinced that I shouldn’t have just left the old dampers on. I may even re-instate them for the next race meeting which is at Pembrey. (Yes, you’re right, that’s a really long drive!)

Back in the Lincolnshire countryside the first race day dawned nice and sunny again. Hopefully, without all those pesky slow cars on track qualifying wouldn’t be such a disaster. It was better—the fastest time was 1:37.4—but not as much as I would have liked. I ended up qualifying 5th and 6th for the two races, 3rd and 4th in class. Could be better, could be worse.

So, we lined up at the start. As usual, I was wondering about how on earth I could manage to get a better start and, true to form, I got a completely lousy one. I was 7th at the end of the first lap which actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it could have been as I’d been able to get past both Doug and Al on that first lap, drivers who’d passed me in the fracas of my awful start.

After that I was stuck behind Gary and not really making much headway, although no fault of his as he was driving in an exemplary fashion. Cadwell is pretty much an “overtaking by consent” place because of the narrowness of the track. As such, you really rely on the other drivers playing fair and Gary was doing exactly that.

And then, there was a truly horrible noise emanating from somewhere in the car. I slowed and left the circuit, although in retrospect I don’t really know why I didn’t just stop at the side of the circuit.

Back in the paddock it was clear what the noise was in that the reverse sprocket on the nose of the diff had machined a slot, as you can see, in the reverse motor assembly. In the process it had also destroyed a good deal of the rest of the assembly. I’ll have to re-build all that now; sigh.

What wasn’t clear, was how this  had happened as the reverse unit seemed firmly bolted into the chassis. Further investigation, though, showed that the front diff mountings had sheared away from the rest of the chassis. I wonder whether this was an un-noticed consequence of the Brands accident? That meant that the diff could tilt in the chassis and hence the fracas. So, I cleaned it all up and got Andy to braze the mountings back together. To be honest, brazing is Andy’s weapon of choice in these circumstances but I’m not at all sure that it’s the right thing really. However, it did work and we got the car back together, albeit reverse-less, without too much problem.

That evening, we held the annual RGB marshalls BBQ. That is, we RGBers pay for the BBQ and we invite all the marshalls to come for free. This year we were helped by John Cutmore’s Dad providing all the meat and bread for us. John’s a class A driver at the moment and his Dad is a fixture of the paddock and a great supporter of RGB. John, unfortunately, didn’t get to partake of the BBQ because he was changing the engine in his Spire. All the same, it’s a measure of the spirit in the RGB paddock that about 60 people paid £5 and, in all, we probably had about 75 people at the BBQ. A great time, essentially, was had by all.

In fact, the best aspect of the evening was that Cadwell Park is right next door to Jeremy Phillips’ (that is, the J15 designer) house. He came over to the circuit both days driving the prototype J15 with his wife, Stella, in the passenger seat. I spent a while in the day looking at the car reminding myself just how gorgeous it is. Later in the evening Anthea left the BBQ to go and have a look and returned sitting in the passenger seat with Stella driving. For some reason that I just cannot fathom she  turned down the chance to drive it herself. For some other unfathomable reason I didn’t take a photograph of them. We’re obviously both stupid…

Come the following day and the weather still seemed OK. I got the car finished off and went for a blast up the entry road and it seemed to work fine. So, hopefully if I could only get it off the line I was in for a better race after two DNFs.

As it happened, I didn’t. Bollocks.

In fact, I got a worse start than usual in that I completely stalled it. In fact, I got overtaken by the ambulance in the run to the first corner. He even told me where to pass him before Coppice.

After that it was the depressingly usual charge back through the field. This is much harder at Cadwell because of the narrowness of the track. Everything was going fine until I caught up with Neil in his BDN. This is very quick in a straight line which meant that I couldn’t outdrag him and he succeeded in keeping me behind him into the various corners.

While I was driving around (and this is probably one reason why I’m not a better race driver than I am) I was thinking that I ought to modify the clutch so that the pedal was lighter and went further. That way, perhaps, I could feel it biting better. I had hoped that I could do this by just buying a master cylinder with a smaller diameter but, it turns out, they don’t exist. So, I’m left thinking that I either need to use a different sort of master cylinder all together, or modify the pedal to use a different ratio somehow.

Back at the race, I carried on harrying Neil, up  until the last lap. I knew that I was considerably faster than him and tried my hardest on this lap. I had thought that there was a small chance into Barn where Neil didn’t seem to be blocking me. I hadn’t tried to dive up the inside as on a normal race lap as he’d probably just have outdragged me on the exit anyway as my speed would have been hugely compromised. However, on the last lap that might not be the case as the start finish line was only half way to the next corner, Coppice.

So, I made a superhuman effort, and Neil, as he had on all previous laps, was rather slow out of the hairpin anyway. In that position I got right up alongside him into Barn. In fact, the video and the subsequent rubber evidence shows that the nose of my car was probably about 400mm or so behind his: the diameter of a tyre. However, he obviously didn’t see me and turned straight into me and there was a thump. I recovered all right and made it to the line. However, I could see Neil spinning in my mirrors.

I can’t admit to feeling good about this, but I’ve showed the video to many people, including other racers in different formulae, and they’re unanimous in that it was a fair, although tough, move. See what you think, here’s the last lap:

Luckily Neil was very good about things later and we shook hands on it. I’m still not exactly happy about it though. Although I’ve been punted off I don’t think I’ve ever done this to another racer.

So, I need to check the car over and find a way of making the clutch easier to use. Hopefully, I’ll also put in some time on the J15 which must be feeling a bit unloved at the moment.

First thing was to clear all the gravel out of the tunnel, you can see what it was like above. Bear in mind that the car has a complete front and read undertray. That this much gravel got into the tunnel gives you some sort of indication how much there was in the rest of the car. In fact, I took all of the brakes off so as to make sure there weren’t any little bits sitting there waiting to jam up the brakes at an inopportune moment.

The biggest problem, though, looked to be this. I knew something was wrong with this suspension mounting. I’d thought I’d have to take the diff out and then I realised that I could just take the seat back off. As you can see the U-mount is partially torn away from the chassis. In fact, it doesn’t look as if my weld has penetrated too well here.

So, I took the wishbone and everything off, battered it all back into place and patched it up.

I knew that the upright was mullered and I had originally thought that I’d got a spare. However, it turned out that my spare was for the other side of the car. So, I phoned BGH and they said they had exactly one and that they’d send it to me. That it hasn’t turned up yet isn’t worrying me in the slightest…

In the meantime, I thought I’d put the wishbone and everything back in. In the process of doing this I discovered that the wishbone was twisted. It’s essentially flat but when you lay it on a flat surface one corner sticks up by about 20mm. This is probably not a Good Thing. So, swearing slightly, I dug out the jig I made a few years ago and set about making a new one. Luckily I’ve got the various bits of steel and the bushes that  I need. The photo shows it in an early stage of construction. Of course, since I made these originally, I’ve acquired a lathe; have I mentioned this at all? So, things are a bit easier now and I don’t have to traipse up to the wilds of Eloi to use Dan‘s lathe.

In fact, as I write, the upright’s arrived. Phew… So, with luck, I’ll be able to get this all back together in time for the next race. In fact, I’m considering a minor tweak in that I might fit the double-adjustable dampers that I got the other day to the Fury. As I’m doing a test day it might help to see where I can get to and will provide a bit of information to help with the J15 when I finally get the thing on track. I could easily just convert back to the single adjustables though. On that subject I phoned Protech to tell them I hadn’t paid, and they said that as I’d just bought four more dampers from them they were repairing the single adjustable for free. Super service, I’m very very impressed.

As to what caused all this grief, there’s various videos been posted so you can see where I came to grief from many points of view. What’s more, this race is going to feature in a TV programme on Motors TV in a few weeks (there will also be a copy of the programme here). You never know, you might see me in it…

Here’s Al’s video where you can see how I came to grief at Druids. Or, rather, someone else applied the grief to me at about 26 seconds in. It seems that the BTCC is having an effect…

As to the J15, well progress has stalled a bit the last few days. I did make a bit of start getting the front bodywork fitted. In particular I mounted the carbon fibre/epoxy splitter I made on the front of the car, as in the photo.

However, so far this isn’t good enough as the aluminium floor that the splitter is connected to isn’t up to the job. I did make a strap to support the splitter but it allows the rear of the panel to lift which isn’t good enough. I need to think harder how to do this, when the Fury is well again…

I’ve been thinking that I might end up doing all of this season’s RGB races in the Fury. I’ll bust a gut to get the J15 ready for the Birkett though. Especially as that’s going to be on the “Historic GP circuit” this year, which is what was the GP circuit up until this year. Of course, we’ll see the new “Arena” circuit in operation for the upcoming British GP. Pity that it cuts out Bridge though…

Last weekend we went down to Brands Hatch, again, for a two day, two race, weekend. What’s more, our race on the Sunday was quite early so I was hoping to get home to get on with the J15. I should know not to think like that…

As before what I really wanted to do was to get below 52 seconds. So, out in qualifying I was trying, again, to do so. It seemed as though every lap I did was 52.0 seconds. However, finally I managed a 51.95! At last. Back in the paddock and I was 5th on the grid, 3rd in class behind Derek and Mat, for the first race and 4th on the grid, 2nd in class behind Derek, for the second race. That was pretty successful so I settled in to wait for the first race.

Of course, by the time it arrived it was raining. Although not too badly. When we set off though, as we round Paddock Hill Bend there was Paul spinning in front of me in his pole-sitting Contour. There was one of those “I hope he doesn’t shoot sideways into my path” moment but all was well. After that things went quite well. I got past Mat at Druids (around the outside!) and then caught up with John which surprised me as he should have disappeared in his class A car. However, some thought made me remember that he’d had a big accident in testing in the wet and so was taking it carefully.

So, I managed to pass him too and at this point I must have been running in second overall, although as it had taken me a while to get past Mat, Richard and John he was 5 seconds or so down the road.

After a couple of laps John got his act together and came past. Then it was down to trying to get up to Derek. However, Mat had by now also got his act together and was getting ever closer. I thought I’d got it all in hand until I had a bit of a problem with a back marker on the penultimate lap. (I have to learn to be more forceful in these situations.) However, he didn’t manage to quite catch me and so I was 3rd at the line.

So, another podium finish and second in class. My fastest lap was 52.21, reflecting the controlled nature of the race, I guess. Here’s the edited video of the race for your delectation:

The next day was bitterly cold, as you’d expect because it was the day before the summer solstice. It did warm a bit eventually, although it also chucked it down with rain. However, when we got around to race time it looked fairly overcast but didn’t look like raining.

I lined up fourth and got a slightly better start than usual. I keep thinking that what I ought to do is to book some time at an airfield day and spend the day practising starts and then just replace the clutch. Problem is, there  never seems to be the time.

Down to Druids and I tried to go around the outside of Mat again. This time he decided that the best thing to do was to drive into me an shove me off the road which he duly did. I wasn’t the slightest bit impressed with that. Especially so as I ended up dead last.

Still, it meant a considerably interesting fight back and I set about it. I was 21st at the end of the first lap, 18th on the next lap, 17th, 16th, 14th and so on. Eventually I was 9th behind Mat and Richard. They were battling away, Richard struggling with a car that seemed determined to fly off the road and Mat using some very odd lines. At Druids they tangled (I think Richard might have nearly spun and was stopped by hitting Mat, or Mat turned into him, I can’t be sure) and I got past Mat and was now behind Richard. Around to Clearways, though, and I was faced with a spinning car in front of me for the second time over the weekend. This time, though, it didn’t turn out so well. I tried to get past Richard  on the left but he carried on spinning around and smacked into the side of me. In retrospect I’m very glad about the side-impact stuff on the chassis there.

We both ended up in the gravel trap. His car didn’t look too bad but the Fury was rather second hand. In the paddock we cleared out a lot of the stones and general mess (thanks to all the RGB chaps for the help) and I ended up with a list of damage that included:

• A few broken rod ends in the right rear suspension.
• A seriously bent damper rod.
• A seriously bent upright.
• Lots of gravel everywhere.
• At least one suspension mount torn out of the chassis.
• Some, although not too much really, bodywork damage.

I should, though, be able to fix it in time for the next race at Cadwell, assuming that I can get the damper fixed anyway. Best bit was that on my fight back up the field, in full red-mist mode, I got in a lap at 51.6 which was the fastest lap of the race and for which I get a magnificent one point!

Again, here’s the video of the race:

I’ll tell you about the J15 next. To keep you on tenterhooks, though, there’s a photo right at the top of the car on the drive wearing some of its clothes for a change.

So, I got the Fury dusted down, I even spent a while doing a nut and bolt check, before going to Brands on Thursday evening. The weather forecast was, for a change, actually quite good so hopefully I wouldn’t be spending the weekend in a confusion about whether to change the wheels, adjust the ARBs, and so on.

By the way, before you complain, my apologies for the lack of video/photos here. I bought a new video recorder (one of these) and the camera is rubbish, generating a truly gruesome vertical vibration. With luck someone will have taken some photos and I can decorate this post later.

Friday morning, true to the forecast, dawned cold and clear. It would clearly warm up soon and so it did. I was testing in the morning, just so that I could remember which way things went. I was also aiming to better my FL from last year which was 52.6 seconds. Surely I could manage to get below 52 seconds?

Apparently not. Admittedly the testing sessions were marred by a series of travelling roadblocks disguised to look like Morgans (along with a truly scarey classic Corvette that seemed to come around more than once a lap) but that isn’t really a sufficient excuse. After an hour pounding around the (resurfaced in parts) track I managed 52.38, although the theoretical time was much quicker, probably because of the traffic.

In the afternoon, I decided to treat the Fury to a new set of tyres (the ones I’ve been using so far this season are, to be honest, verging on the ancient). Surely that’d make me go quicker on race day?

The next day was again a nice day, hot even, and we lined up for qualifying at the appointed time. I’d managed to get into 3rd in the queue as it’s important to get out there at Brands as qualifying is often very busy and finding a clear lap none too easy. Problem was, we had a long time sitting in the queue as the previous Formula 4 qualifying was halted by a rather serious crash which took a while to clear. Luckily, things were mitigated by Anthea going and buying a few of us an ice cream. Club motor racing you see, it’s not quite the same as Formula 1.

When it was time to go I had to make sure that I got two decent laps as we had two races in the weekend. I got stuck in but, frankly, it wasn’t quick enough. What’s more, as a consequence of the prior fracas (which was followed by the Saxmax boys and girls getting their sessions red-flagged again) we only got 10 minutes on track which meant 11 laps. FL ended up at 52.43 with the second best lap at 52.51. I suppose at least that’s moderately consistent. That meant I was 9th on the grid for the first race (4th in class) and, I guess because of the consistency, 5th(2nd) on the grid in the second race.

Come the race later in the day I got my customary lousy start and had to spend a lap or two getting back to where I ought to have been. After that I had an absolute ball. Essentially me, Derek and Duncan (all class B) were in a gaggle behind Doug’s class A Genesis. That meant we were a bit bottled up and we spent the whole race nearly getting past each other. I’m sure on one lap we went round Druids (the hairpin) 3 abreast! Unfortunately, Duncan broke his gearchange just before the end and I passed him just before the line so I came 3rd in class, 6th on the road. Afterwards we were all bouncing, a truly fantastic race…

On the next day the weather looked a mite more inclement, and it rained a bit first thing. However, it was clearly warm as the ground dried really quickly and by the time of the race it was bone dry. This time I was on the 3rd row of the grid. However, I got an even worse start than usual and had to fight my way forward. Poor Duncan didn’t even get started as he did a driveshaft before the start and Derek hadn’t put enough fuel in and his car was missing on right handers so I got past him easily enought. I was then up behind Gary Goodyear who has a Hayabusa engined Fulcrum. Oddly, he didn’t seem to be that quick down the straights and I managed to get a decent slipstream and dive under him in the Paddock braking zone. Actually, I reckon this was the best race overtake I’ve ever done, right out of the classic driving manual, so I was well pleased with it.

Then I was up to second in class and catching Mat up in the Spire. However, when I got there he’d got the widest car on the track and I didn’t manage to get past him, although a good deal of that we because someone had put some oil down at Clearways and Mat’s car was losing water which was making the track behind him rather difficult. I did so nearly manage to pass him several times and at the start/finish line I was a whole 0.06 seconds behind him, rather less than a car length.

So, another good race and truly great fun.

Now, can I get the J15 going in the 8 week gap we’ve got before the next race, or should I just concentrate on the Fury… Suggestions on a postcard please…

It finally stopped raining at about 0345; I was awake for some reason. In the morning, though, it was bitterly cold and we all spent a lot of time standing around getting windswept.

I’d signed on for the Allcomers race so as to get a bit of extra practice and that was the first race of the day, and so we were in scrutineering at 0800, still shivering. And then it was out for qualifying. However, the track was still pretty slippery so it was clear that there weren’t going to be any fastest times set. My goal for the weekend was to get below 50s. My previous FL was 50.4 and I reckoned it ought to be possible to get below that. However, in the Allcomers quali the fastest I managed was 55seconds. That was a mere 8th on the grid, behind a couple of class C cars! I knew I was being tentative but that was annoying. Worst, really, were the number of yellow flags. I don’t think I got a single clear lap the whole time. I don’t understand why people throw their cars off the road, especially, as often happens, on the first lap. Surely, you’d spend a couple of laps looking for where the slippy stuff was? Here it was clearly at the Esses, although everywhere was fairly greasy.

Next up was RGB qualifying. This was now important and I got into the assembly area earlyish. What’s more, the weather now seemed to be decidely better and it seemed likely that a decent lap was possible. Still, I didn’t really seem to be able to get a lap together; it would have been a lot easier with a dry quali for the Allcomers earlier. And then they red-flagged the session. I can’t actually remember why and as I forgot to turn the video on I can’t really remind myself. What’s more, I got pulled up in front of the beak for overtaking under a yellow in this session. I’m almost positive that the yellow must have come out when I was looking past the post but I can’t prove it. It’s  a bit problem, in general, in that the posts are sited in a straight line along from the straights, in a misguided belief that that’s where a driver would be looking. However, we’re all looking through the next corner so it’s surprisingly hard to see the straight on posts. Oh well… The clerk did say that they’d got some enthusiastic new observers out so perhaps I was a victim of that.

After the red they, for some reason, guided us back into the paddock. That seemed really odd and I went back round to the assembly area to see if the session had really finished. It turned out that it hadn’t. I think only about four of us realised that but that meant the track was really empty. In the first session I’d got down to 50.06 but that was still above 50s! On the out lap I concentrated on getting the car warm and dropping back from the others; I was last out of this small group. Then I went for it and was immediately rewarded by a 49.8 second lap! And, that was with a rather unpleasant slide at Devils Elbow that meant I lost nearly two tenths in that corner alone.

Here’s the video of that lap, which turned out for the fastest, although another one beat it to it:

That all left me 4th on the grid, and in the class B pole which was rather pleasing.

So, after some lunch it was time for the Allcomers race. I nearly didn’t do the race but thought that a practice start would be useful. So, when the lights went out I got a half-decent start and ended up in about 6th place. I was behind Doug Carter (class A RGB) and further up the field was Colin (class C RGB) who’d got a really good grid slot. After a bit of ducking and diving I got past Doug at the Elbow where my car seemed really quick. In fact, I’d managed to get to the point of driving around it completely flat, although it needed short-shifting into 4th before the corner to do it, with 5th having to be grabbed in the exit. Then Colin was in front and I did the same thing to him, although slightly questionably because I’d slid a bit wide at the apex.

Then there was this socking great Marcos a hundred metres or so down the track. It was reputed to have a 6 litre engine was therefore really quick in a straight line, but slow around the twistier bits, not that Mallory has too many of those. However, I hauled him in fairly easily. I was then fairly lucky to come up to the hairpin in a collection of other cars and I got past him too at the Elbow. However it seemed unlikely that it’d last as he’d pass me too easily on the straight, unless I was silly about blocking him which I didn’t want to do; if nothing else his car was probably more than twice the weight of mine. So, round on the back straight he just powered up the inside and then, on turn in (for the right hander) turned sharp left into my car. I only just managed to keep it together and promptly buzzed the engine because my head was all over the place. I really can’t imagine why he did this. He was easily past me, I’d left him enough room and the corner was clearly his.

See for yourself in this video of the race, the important bit is around 6:30 into the race:

Still, ho hum. I did wonder if we were going to get called to the beak later, especially as it was at the same corner where I’d be called for earlier on. Nothing happened though and I couldn’t face some sort of process. I still can’t understand why people drive like this though.

After this coming together I instantly started driving slower. I was worried about the engine and everyone started passing me again. So, I pulled in to retire, at the same moment as the race was red-flagged anyway.

Back in the paddock I worried about the engine but we checked over it, later on the logs said I’d got up to 13,800 RPM is a bit of a concern. However, we checked the valve clearances and all seemed fine. We did discover that the front suspension alignment was slightly out, but probably not enough to explain why I was suddenly 2 seconds a lap slow. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was all in the head.

So, later on it was the RGB race. As I said, I was 4th on the grid. However, this time I got a truly horrible start and after a bit of sorting out I was in 5th place, first in class B but with Tony Gaunt (who’s also B) just behind me. This was like it had been at Snetterton last year when Tony stuck behind me like glue and managed to go way quicker in the race than he’d done in qualifying.

It seemed to be the same this time. Tony had done 50.7 in qualifying but this time he did a whole sequence of laps that were way faster than this! However, I managed to keep him behind me and, towards the end of the race, managed to pull out a bit of a gap.

Still that was another class win and I thought I ought to have got fastest lap. However, when the results sheets appeared Tony had done a 49.5 early on in the race so he got the point for fastest lap. Good on him! One encouraging aspect of this is that Tony’s car is a Riot with a home-designed body on it. In essence, therefore, it’s the same sort of car as my new J15. That at least appears to show that the car can do decent times which is a real encouragement.

So, battle is rejoined at Brands in a few weeks. I’m looking forward to it. In the meantime, I’ll get on with the J15. I’ll tell you in the next post what I’ve been doing.