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.

I ought to point out that I wasn’t really braking in the manner I appear to be in the video; even I don’t drive down the straights with the brakes on. The logger seemed to be having some sort of fit. I suspect as a consequence of the daughter board falling out of the back of the logger in the Allcomers race. I’ll have a look at that before the next outing at Mallory Park.

Also, you will notice that the AFR reading on the dash is fixed at 9. This is because I took the wideband lambda sensor off in preparation for putting in on the J15 at the end of last year. Perhaps I need to revisit that…

Mind you, further back down the field things were rather more exciting. You can see a few other bits of video on the RGB drivers forum here.

Back to the beginning though. After last weekend getting the car fettled there was lots of stuff to do to get the bus, trailer, tyres, race gear, bedding, food, etc., etc. sorted for our trip up to Snetterton. One of the advantages of using a motorhome is that we can leave lots of things in it for the duration of the season. However, the first race is inevitably a lot of faffing about and I spent a good deal of time on Thursday getting it all done. However, we were finally done late in the evening and we (that is, Anthea and me) set off for Snetterton which is luckily not that far away from us.

On the way I remembered that one of the things I’d forgotten was the car cover. As it was scheduled to rain over the weekend I felt compelled to go back and fetch it as I didn’t fancy getting even wetter than I needed to. Lucky that we’re not far away.

After a restless night dreaming about Snetterton and listening to the rain I got up early and signed on for the coming morning’s testing. All I wanted to do was to get my brain in gear and see if I could remember how to drive a race car. I know from past experience that it’s surprisingly difficult to drive at the start of the season in the manner that you finished the previous season. The weather conditions were such that I knew I wasn’t going to get near my personal best here, which was 1:17.10 at that point.

Out on track and it was mega-slippy. I was still using the “wets” that I was using at the Birkett although they’re really getting a bit old in the tooth now. Still I spent the morning trundling round with times in the region of 1:32-ish. That is, very very slow. All the same, the car worked just fine. The only thing I needed to change was to twiddle the track rods so that the steering wheel was pointed straight ahead. This is something that you can never adjust without actually driving the car. You think you’ve got it right and then drive the car and it’s miles off. Still, it’s easy to do just by twiddling one track rod in and the other out of the track rod ends, thereby retaining the toe setting.

During the afternoon it cleared up a bit. It would have been nice to get out on circuit again but I spent the time doing some minor fettling and, shock horror, washing to car.

And so to bed, this time for a better night’s sleep as by now I could remember how to drive a car. The evening’s weather forecast had been much better too, they were promising double figures for temperature the following day.

I did found out later that this was probably correct for the rest of East Anglia. However, Snetterton was its usual self and on Saturday we were cold and wind-swept. This was because, we were told by a local, that Snetterton is on the top of a hill… They’ve a funny idea what a hill is in N’fark.

Racing on Saturday was the Allcomers race. Essentially, I was using this as a bit more testing and wasn’t really expecting great things. The entry varied from Jonathan (ex RGBer) driving a super quick Radical and, most bizarrely, a couple of chaps driving socking great Nissan 370Zs, one of which is in the photo at the top. These two had apparently won a Playstation competition to get their drives which, as they were both sporting numpty crosses, was slightly alarming as this was apparently their first real track outing and the cars were rather, errm, imposing. Apparently, the two drivers were the winners of the “2010 GT Academy” and the intention was to get them into International GT racing. Seems vastly optimistic to me, and predicated on the notion that being good at games on a Playstation implies one is good at the real life thing. If nothing else that seems extremely unlikely as the bandwidth of the sensory mechanisms in each scenario is so different and success is therefore likely to select for different sorts of people.

As it turned out, they had obviously been trained well as they were pretty responsive to other people on the track. They were painfully slow though. I really don’t understand the point of racing cars that are so slow. OK, the drivers were novices and probably therefore a couple of seconds off the pace. However,  the difference was extreme. I had a pretty good qualifying and got well on it. I ended up with a time of 1:16.7, 0.4 seconds faster than I’ve ever gone before and comfortably the fastest front engined RGB class B lap of Snetterton ever. There was probably a bit of wind assistance down the Revett straight though. For comparison, the Nissans were 1:28ish, 12 seconds slower around the lap! Mind you, there were split by a Ford Fiesta stock hatch so that perhaps indicates that driver inability is actually a large issue about what is going on.

I was pretty pleased with my time though, which was good enough for 5th on the grid. I was behind a couple of Radical-ish cars (actually a Radical and a Speads) and John Cutmore and David Wale both in class A RGB cars. John, you might remember, laid waste to the RGB class B lap record at the Snetterton race at the end of last year. That, though, is a mid-engined car and was one of the reasons why I decided to build the J15. My grid time here at least showed me that I was up to speed anyway.

Later in the day it was time for the race. The temperature had never achieved the promised dizzy heights here on the upper reaches of Mount Snetterton and there was a bitter wind and so we formed up, shivering, in our allotted spaces. The Speads car had pulled out for some reason and I was therefore 4th, although still in slot 5. Come the start and I got a truly horrible one with bucket loads of wheelspin. It’s still my Achilles heel in this car in that it’s far too easy to either get too much wheelspin or bog down (or worse, stall). Problem is, it’s very hard to find a way to practise starts, and impossible to do so in anything like the psychological state one is in at the start of a race.

So, I got jumped by both Mat Green, who is driving John Cutmore’s car from last year, and Doug Carter in the run to Riches. However, I managed to get past Mat on the run down to the Esses along the main straight. Then I was up behind Doug and imagining another race where he managed to use the straight line speed of the class A Genesis to keep ahead of me. However, first time through Sear and I managed to come out of the corner very close to the back of his car. From that position it was relatively easy to sit in the tow until near to the braking zone, pull inside Doug (who as always was very fair) and get into the Esses in front of him. In that position I pulled a few seconds clear of Doug and was up behind David. In that position I sat for several laps. David would always pull clear on the straights and I caught up on the twistier bits, especially through the Esses and the Bombhole. Later on I told him what was wrong with his line there and he commented later that in RGB qualifying he’d gone rather faster as a result! Looking at the results he was about ¾ seconds faster.

So, I sat behind David until the dash went haywire and I lost the Palm and the shift light entirely. As such I had to drive the last few laps “blind” which rather slowed me up. In a way it was worse as the shift light flashed continuously which was quite distracting. Then we caught up with the first of the two Nissans as we came down to the Esses. David managed to get past on his way into the first Ess but I decided that discretion was the better part of valour. I did dive up the inside into the second Ess, I probably need to reduce my dosage of brave pills, but David had got away and I settled in for the flag. Along the way I noticed that John Cutmore had pulled off, his ignition switch had fallen to pieces (!), and I therefore finished in third place on the road. That’s my first ever podium finish for which I got a trophy and a hat! OK, it’s only a Snetterton baseball cap but it’s right up there as far as I’m concerned. I also got interviewed by the commentator which is another completely new experience for me!

FL in the race was 1:16.71, a huge 0.02 seconds faster than my quali time but again very gratifying.

Again, there was very little to do to the car once I figured out why I’d lost the instrumentation. The DL1 daughter board had fallen off again; I need to work out a way to retain it better. So, after refueling it we settled in for the night.

The next morning and now the weather forecast said it was going to rain from about 1200; our race was a 1400 with qualifying early in the morning. This was now an important qualifying so we jostled to get in the quali queue early (good because you can get a couple of quick laps in before you catch up with the tail of the field). I then got stuck in. At the time I thought I’d not done too well, but looking at the time sheets that isn’t the case. I managed a couple of even quicker laps, this time at 1:16.52 (!) and was again 5th on the grid. Alarmingly, Mat Green was a few hundredths quicker than me. He’d been right behind me all through qualifying and I was a bit concerned that I’d shown him the best way round. Oddly, though, he’d just disappeared from my mirrors towards the end of qualifying. It turned out that he’d thrown a rod and therefore there was frenetic engine changing underway in the Spire camp.

I was only 0.7 ahead of Lee, an RGB newbie racing a Phoenix which bodes well for close racing later this year.

Later in the day, as predicted, the weather was degrading. When we eventually got to the grid it was looking pretty murky, especially for an 18 min race with the entire field on bone-dry settings. Then the lights went out and we set off. I got one of my better starts and got past Mat on the way to Riches. The problem was, about 100m clear of Riches it was immediately clear that it was now pouring with rain. Luckily those of us at the front managed to clear Riches and Sear without damage but apparently there was a good deal of spinnage further down the field. Down the Revett straight I was behind David and John. John managed to get ahead of David there, and I jumped him on the run to the Bombhole. Oddly, now, the circuit was bone dry again and I think David was just being more careful than me.

And that was really where the race ended for me. I sat behind John for quite a long time and I did toy with having a go at him. However, I knew I was in first place in the class and that would really be a bit daft. So, I sat there and tried not to pre-count the points. For the entire race I didn’t see another car in my mirrors other than back-markers that I’d passed. I did start thinking that everyone else had fallen off. It was, though, the most difficult race I’ve ever driven. The conditions were different at every single corner on every lap. One lap you could stick the front end into the cambered track around the Bombhole and floor the throttle. The next you ran wide and were wondering whether you’d run out of road. Hence, I drove really, really, carefully.

And, after a while, there was the chequered flag. So, that was another outright 3rd place, 1st in class, another trophy and another hat! What’s more, this race was being recorded for broadcast on Motors TV and there was a mini podium ceremony and an interview from a TV chap. Most unusual. I guess they’ll be transmitting the race in a week or so, you can probably see on the TV company’s website. There doesn’t, though, seem to be any clue there at the moment as to when it will be.

“Once hooked, teams return year after year, blind to the strong chance of inhospitable weather, because it’s great fun. And, given a fair wind after a summer of sprint races, plenty of mileage for your money. The perfect opportunity to wear machinery out prior to the winter rebuild is oversubscribed from the moment the regulations are published. Like being on the waiting list for a Bournemouth beach hut, it may take years to join the party, but that only heightens the anticipation.”

To me that gets it exactly right. To get another idea what it’s like, see the photo above, taken after last weekend’s race. You will probably think that we seem to exceeded the maximum number of drivers slightly, but that’s the entire team including all the hangers on. The lunatic on the left is Guy, our team manager who seems to enjoy nothing so much as bossing us around for a day. Eagle eyed readers will notice Anthea standing in front of me. (I’m the mop of unkempt grey hair at the back.)

Anyway, back to the beginning. Having spent a while getting the car sorted for the race, as described previously, we drove over to Silverstone on the Thursday evening before the race on the Saturday. The race was taking place on the Silverstone International circuit which I’ve not done before. It was also on this circuit last year but that was just after Anthea had had her coronary bypass operation and it didn’t seem sensible to get involved in such a race at the time. So, I wanted to the outrageously over-priced test day that the circuit was offering us.

We’d rented a garage so we parked up behind it, in readiness for another three members of our team to meet up on the Friday morning. In the morning it all looked a bit greasy and wet. However, the forecast was good, which was more than could be said for the race day.

We only got three 30 minute sessions for our £170 (!!!) so we got out early and found out what the circuit was like. Slippery was the answer and the fastest lap in the morning session for me was 1:50.8. My target for the day was to get below 1:35 which was the fastest lap that an RGB class B car had done in the Birkett last year. So, 1:50 wasn’t very clever but, as I said, it was slippery.

Later on and it dried up a lot. In the next session I got down to 1:34.3 and I knew I could make that about a second quicker at least. To get an idea what this circuit is like, here’s that lap:

After that session I decided to call it a day as I didn’t want to risk bending the car and it was clear that I did now know, sufficiently, my way round the circuit.

So, in the afternoon I got the car scrutineered and we moved camp over into the outer paddock. As there’s hundreds of cars in the Birkett we’re limited to how many vehicles are allowed in the main paddock. Later on, all the rest of the cars arrived and this is a fragment of our garage at the end of the day. This space would be used by a single F1 team, so they’d have two cars in here. We (and there’s four  teams of RGBers  in here) had 22 cars. Oh, and that’s the safety car over there in the far corner too.

In the night it rained.

And rained.

And, in the morning it was really wet. Ho hum. Still it was the Birkett and we were going to enjoy ourselves. We’d got load of provisions in as you can see, we had hundreds of litres of fuel and we needed to have fun. So, after we did qualifying (which is a bit daft really as the grid positions are allocated on the basis of the times we submit to the handicappers. The qualifying session is just to satisfy the regs that say you have to do three laps of qualifying. I was down to do the start, for some unknown reason I’d volunteered. As we were on row 5 of the grid that meant there were about 45 cars behind me at the start. Stalling would be a very, very, bad idea.

And, as the start time approached it rained even more. Eventually we went through the start procedure which, for the first time ever in a start that I’ve done, proceeded to the times shown on the boards. Normally, the club just goes through the 5 minute/3 minute/1 minute/30 second boards as fast as they can so as to keep the meeting rolling along. This time, as the Birkett is scheduled to start at 11:15 exactly, it was done to schedule. Eventually we were off. You can see the first couple of laps and a few other bits of my first session, which took just over 40 minutes and in which I did 19 laps, in this video.

We had been a bit worried about tank capacity before the race. This is because key to doing well in the Birkett is optimising the changeovers between the cars and running for a long time is a Good Thing. After the session I measured the tank and found I’d used a whole 10 litres. At that rate I could have kept going for another hour or so! My FL in this first session was about 2:04 which is reason for this. The problem in the wet is that RGB cars just can’t get any heat into the tyres and the cars are so light and they just skitter about on top of the puddles, which you can probably see in the video. Mind you, we were as daft as that chap in the Radical you can see in the video. He rammed the pit wall on the very  first lap. That, of course, brought out the safety car so we were doing laps at around 2:40 before they cleared up the mess.

At the end of the day, we finished in 19th position on the road which was actually in first place for our class. In that I did 42 laps and about 1 hr 20 mins on the track. It’s not wonder I was so tired later that day. The problem is we got shafted on the handicap and ended up 50th on handicap. As you can see in the video we were just being driven around by bigger, heavier, tintops all the time. (And those BMWs apparently had ABS which seems a mite unfair. How’s that then?)

All the same, we had a great time. Roll on next year. Let’s pray for non-rain next year!

Now, though, it’s down to the serious business of the winter. First thing will be to tidy the Fury away and then it’s back to the Spectre. I’ll tell you all how I’m getting on with it soon. Problem is, I’m a bit short of time at the moment as I’m lecturing on this course at the University at the moment in my copious spare time.

I took my cordless drill to Mallory, as I always do. I didn’t use it though. However, two other people borrowed it:

• Adrian was having cat problems, again, and used the drill to hack out the remains of yet another expensive waste of money
• Andy borrowed the drill to help him repair the bonnet of an MG Midget that was racing that day, although clearly not in an RGB race.

I don’t know about you, but I think that’s great.

But, what happened at Mallory, I hear you ask? Well, one of you whispered it. Most importantly, I came home with the car still working. This is important because the Birkett’s in a couple of weeks and I really, really, want to do it this time. I missed out last year because Anthea was being replumbed and the year before was when I set the car on fire.

I’d signed up for the allcomers because I haven’t done a full speed lap of Mallory for over 2 years. I’d forgotten how quick it is. Although there’s essentially sod-all run-off, especially at the hairpin (top right of the track  map) it goes very quick. My FL from the weekend is an average of over 96mph.

At least, that’s the number that’s in the race results. Oddly, the data logger reckons that it’s actually a shade over 90mph. I suspect the timekeepers have got the wrong length for the circuit, or perhaps the route one takes around Mallory somehow comes out as shorter than the official length. Certainly there isn’t usually such a discrepancy.

So, I signed up for the allcomers race so as to get at least a bit of practice. However, just about everyone else in the paddock was doing the same. Qualifying was, therefore, rather busy with a whole load of MR2s, ,MG Midgets, and so on on the circuit with us. I got a 50.35 seconds which is OK, although I’d thought I might be able to get below 50s if there was a following wind. It was, though, significantly faster than the previous FL (in the class C car) of 51.84s.

That time put me 5th on the grid for the allcomers race. However, I wasn’t totally sure that I was going to do it because I didn’t want to risk bending that car at all. This is because there was an outside chance that I could end up 2nd or 3rd in the class B championship at this meeting and I didn’t want to risk that. I had worked all the numbers out and if I finished in 2nd place, which was feasible, and Tony was in 3rd then he and I would tie for 2nd place. Unfortunately, the resolution of the tie would put me in 3rd, even though I’ve beaten him on every occasion that we’ve race, because he’s got a better finishing record than me. I was really rueing those missed races at the beginning of the season while we were chasing the problems with the cat. If I’d finished those it would have been a different story.

Come RGB qualifying and things looked rather different in that it was raining rather heavily. At least it was when we got to the assembly area so I did a minimal change to the car to get it on wettish settings by just softening the dampers. I didn’t have time to adjust the ARBs. The more I think about it, it’d be a good thing to have cockput adjustable ARBs on the new car, at least so I wouldn’t have to grovel in the mud to adjust them. But then, the way I’m planning on doing them at the moment at least they’ll be fairly easy to adjust.

I didn’t do that well in RGB qualifying in that I got rather bottled up in the wet behind other people. One of my objective for next season is to be more forceful in positions like this; I should really barge past or be more positive about finding space. I’m also too gentlemanly in the race itself.

So, I ended up 9th on the grid, with a time of 62.53 seconds.

After that, we started watching the weather. Come the time for the allcomers race it was still wet so I decided not to risk things and spectated instead. Mind you, I very nearly jumped in the car and shot off when it got to be near to race time. Later on in the day though, and the weather started to clear and when RGB race time came around it was positively sunny. So, the car went back onto full-dry settings and we lined up for the start.

I got a slightly better start than usual, although still with far too much wheel spin, and set off. The race was actually quite fun in that as I’d really qualified further back that I should have done I spent most of my time getting past people (in an over-polite manner). After a while I was up to 4th place and then Steve slowed down in front of me with some mechanical malady. He was weaving a lot and I made sure I didn’t bash into him around Gerrards but got past into 3rd! Unfortunately, the fact of slowing down to make sure I didn’t come together with Steve meant that Doug got past. He’s class A so I didn’t make too big a deal of it and came home in fourth place, second in class.

Fastest lap was 50.6 seconds, comfortably faster than Tony in 3rd, but still over a second behind John which was 1st overall, as well as 1st in class. One of the best bits is that the marshalls gave me the driver of the day award (something that we arrange with  them to choose before each meeting).

There aren’t many pretty pictures in this post. However, here’s a video of the race:

(I’ve made this video rather larger than usual. Can you tell me if it’s too large for your screen? It’s hard to know how big everyone’s screens are these days.)

That all means that I end the season in 9th place overall in RGB and in 3rd place in class B. I was working it out and if I’d done those first two races at Snetterton, when the cat melted on me, I’d have finished 2nd in B, and probably in 4th overall. That’s a real bummer. Oh well.

Now racing turns to the Birkett and lots of plans are afoot for that. In the meantime, work continues slowly on the Spectre (except it’s not called that any more as Jeremy’s had a problem with the name). I’ll tell you about that next time, and hopefully put a few pictures here of Mallory.

Consequently, I signed up for the BikeSports race so as to get a bit of track time. Before I came to this meeting my fastest time around Snetterton as the 1:18.4 that I’d done testing just before the first of the cat blow-ups. At the time that had seemed pretty quick for me, although as usual there was lots to come.

Bikesports scrutineering was first which was no problem, although the scrutineer commented on the “very free running front hubs”. Perhaps it’s about time I tightened up the bearings? I was very pleased to get a 1:17.8 in this session so that was half a second quicker. Oddly, it’d had seemed easy. I did try rather harder later in the session but ended up going slower.

Then it was RGB qualifying. By this time the sun had come out and I managed to go quicker again: 1:17.1 this time. That time is actually .3 second under the lap record which would be amazing were it not for the fact the John Cutmore had got the Spire working to such an extent that he was 2 seconds faster than me. That’s just astonishing. I have no idea at all how I could have gone that fast. The paddock supposition is that the “whale tail” Spire is actually working rather well, even though it looks ugly as hell.

I pulled out of the Bikesports race as it was a bit lonely and I didn’t want to risk breaking the car. It was, though, useful for a bit of starting practice which I’m still rubbish at with this car. However, just before the Bikesports race I’d noticed that the engine management light had come on. Quick investigation showed that the wire to the Air Inlet Temperature sensor had broken. Hence, the ECU would have been running just making a safe assumption about the inlet temperature. So, back in the paddock I set about fixing it. The break was right close to the connectors and I didn’t have a soldering iron to hand. Hence we ended up making a bit of a bodge of a solution which, all the same, will probably hold together for a while.

Finally, it was time for the RGB race. I’d qualified 5th for the race and was side-by-side with Tony Gaunt on the grid. Tony’s actually ahead of me in the championship at the moment but there’s a tiny possibility that I could catch him up as long as I beat him at this round and the next one. Hence, a good start was important.

As it turned out I didn’t get a bad start, although not a storming one. I fell behind Tony through Riches and Sear but managed to slipstream past him on the Revett straight.

After that it was a race long process of keeping in front of Tony. I kept managing to get slightly ahead of him and then made a small mistake that allowed him to close again. I’m not sure when in the race Jonathan took the photo here but we were as close as this for much of the race.

Eventually, on what was the last lap, Tony had a supreme effort and spun at the entrance to Coram. That rather surprised me when I looked in my mirrors before braking at Russell and couldn’t see him. Luckily for him he managed to recover without actually losing a place.

So, it’s all down to the wire at the final race of the season at Mallory. Depending on too many variables to think about I could finish between 2nd and 4th in class B overall. Unfortunately, too much of the variability is down to how many class B drivers turn up on the day. Of course, if I’d managed to finish all the races this season it’d be a done deal already, so I guess it’s all my own fault really.

The video below is just the start and part of the last lap. Look in the mirror to see Tony spinning on the last lap: