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.

I decided, you see, to lose the little legs on the right hand (inner, or proximal as Bob would have it) end of the wishbone by putting the cross-piece closer to the end. After all, I reasoned, there wasn’t any chassis in the way of it. What’s more, as that was the bit that had failed then surely it’d be better to not have that leg flexing away?

So, I welded it all together and discovered that although there indeed wasn’t any chassis in the way of it, that the inner CV joint on the drive shaft really wanted to be in the same bit of space as that crosspiece. So, even though by this time I’d painted the wishbone I cut the mis-located crosspiece out and welded another bit in instead.

Still, that’s wasn’t too much of a pain. After the re-re-making I stuck a load of rod-ends in the new wishbone and bolted the suspension all together. At least the Fury now sat on its wheels straightish, unlike what it had done a week ago.

The biggest issue now was that I needed to realign everything. I must admit that I’m getting to hate this as it’s a tedious pain in the bum. Well, the knees actually. All the same it needed to be done. In order to do this I get Tim out of the shed, as you can see here.

Tim, you see, is 100kg of sand, thankfully represented as 4 25kg bags, that I use as, errr, Tim. This way I have a fighting chance of sitting in the car and squinting under the car to check the ride-height.

The really wierd thing about all this is that after checking everything I didn’t have to change the toe settings on the left rear at all. That is, although I’d just whacked the rod ends on then I’d miraculously got them in the right position. I suppose by the time you’ve done this a few hundred times, and it feels like that, then the probability of at some point getting it right has to get at least a bit closer to 1. But then, the same comment applies to winning the RGB tyre-draw and I’ve still never won that even after 6 years of trying.

So, the Fury was now all sorted for its trip to the last RGB meeting of the season at sunny Oulton Park. I wonder how it’s going to go.

But, you ask querulously, what’s happening with the J15? Well, essentially nothing although I could now do a couple of things. One of the problems with building cars is that when there’s a lot of things to do, which there always is, it’s hard to work out which one to do. My view is that anything’s good enough. That is, you don’t have to fuss about doing the right one. This is by way of explaining the apparent irrelevance of wrapping the exhaust headers, as in the photo.

I’ve done this because I’m a bit wary about how hot it’s going to get behind me in this car because of the proximity of the engine and the headers in particular. I’m also a bit concerned that that battery is going to get too hot as well. So, I’ve decided to wrap the headers, as here, at least in the first bit of their travel. I’ve tried not to overdo it, as that can have the unfortunately result of dumping more heat into the (GRP) sidepod which might not be good. When I get the car running I’ll check the sidepod very carefully for this. I might end up doing as I did on the Fury: cutting a socking great hole in it!

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…

Most recent progress, if that’s the right word, has been around the Fury. Since I had such a torrid time at Pembrey with starting I decided to strip the clutch out of the Fury in case there was something obviously awry. However, there was nothing obvious. The friction plates were all worn about 50% so I decided to change them anyway. However, the only other issue is that one of the steel plates had had a small groove worn in it by the anti-judder spring. If you look hard, you can just about see this on the left most steel plate in the photo. However, according to Andy this is normal. So, I put the clutch back together. This time using some new Barnett springs and after 30 minutes persuading my tube of RTV to work properly. (Eventually it did; I should have picked all the bits off my skin soon.) We’ll see how it goes at Silverstone.

Just in case the aforesaid RTV hadn’t worked I ran the engine for a short time. Well, I had intended to but it wouldn’t start as the battery appeared to be flat. Odd. I charged it with the Optimate and left it for a couple of hours at which point the Optimate said it was fully charged. As the Optimate is just a trickle charger then it seemed likely that the battery was duff; I had thought it was dying a while ago. So, I fitted the spare (that is, I nicked the one from the J15) and now the engine turned over. However, I didn’t run it because liquid was running along the coolant bleed hose to the header tank. Bugger…

So, I took the airbox off. In the process, I disconnected the fuel hose to the secondary injectors as in the photo above, expecting it to go Pftttt! as the fuel pressure was released. However, all it did was go drip. At that point I realised that the fluid I’d seen was clear, not coolant coloured and therefore was probably fuel. So, I took airbox off further. On the way down (it’s really in three layers) I discovered the the fuel filter had fallen out and was sitting on the floor of the airbox, as in the next photo . Things were going from bad to worse.

Down at the bottom layer it was clear that the original problem was that the main fuel connection wasn’t connecting properly. I fixed that and put everything back together. Luckily, this time it was fine and fuel didn’t piss out all over the place. Phew.

Now I had to repair the reverser, again. At least this time it was still pretty clean as it had only done a few laps since I fixed it last time. Again I replaced the main shaft on which the idler gears run, the broken one which has been sawn into by the gear on the nose of the diff is shown in the photo, and put it all back together. Again.

Hopefully, it’ll work here and I won’t have to take it out again, although I’ll doubtless have to adjust it again. Then I might be in shape to go to Silverstone for another RGB race. Wonder if I’ll get any time to look at the J15 before then?

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.

Hmm, yes, you’re right: as I thought it was going to, that roll cage looks absolutely awful. It might be slightly better if it matched the car’s colour. However, at the moment I have a strong temptation to remove the front hoop over the closed season and put something slightly more attractive in its place. I certainly don’t need it to be this high to clear my bonce. (Actually, it might looks slightly less bad with the rear struts in, I think.

By the way, the front of the car is at about the correct RGB ride-height, although more by luck than judgement. Something else you might see in the photo above, and in the rather manipulated one on the left, is that the rear wheels appear to be lost in the bodywork. Hopefully when I get the proper tyres, they will look a bit larger and more in keeping.

I still need to add some more clips and supports to the bodywork, although you can probably see some springs and things in the photo above.

As for the Fury, there’s another race coming up and I’ve been preparing it. This has really involved two things. First of all I’ve modified the clutch actuation so that the clevis connection to the clutch pedal is about 6mm lower than it was before. This should have the benefit of making the clutch lighter, and increasing the travel. Secondly, I’ve been repairing the reverser after it was scrunched up at the Cadwell race. I think I’ve managed to sort it, although I haven’t had time to adjust it yet and see if it really works or not.

However, for some mysterious reason I didn’t take any photos of all these things, so I can’t show you. Sorry…

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.

Still, with that fond look backwards I needed to actually get the car together again for the next meeting. As I said last time I found out that the rear wishbone was bent and so I had to make a new one. Here it is, respendent in its colourful, er, grey finish.

I needed to re-install that in the right rear of the car and then, tedium warning, set up everything. As that was such a nice thought I decided to make life much harder for myself by actually fitting the new dampers I’d bought for the J15 to the Fury. That should confuse me. Problem is, that means I’ll lose the entire suspension settings and have to reset everything up. Everything includes ride height, corner weighting, all the wheel cambers, front toe, rear toe and “stringing” (making sure the rear wheels actually point at the front ones). As everything affects everything else that’s pretty tedious. Still, it had to be done. First step, though, was to actually put it together and here’s the right rear corner with its new damper and new wishbone. The rest of it’s still pretty grubby though.

That left the bodywork. When he was over the other week Adrian had done a sterling job of patching up the sidepod. I still needed, though, to pretty it up a bit. So, I took off the mould that Adrian had used (some aluminium sheet), and waved some filler around and sanded it down. A measure of the care with which I treat the bodywork these days can be derived from the fact that the finest grade of abrasive paper I used for this was 120 grit.

After that, I waved some paint at it (see, I’m quite blasé these days) and fitted it back on the chassis, as you can see. Of course, the problem is that bodywork like this never really fits right and making everything fit is pretty much about pushing it forcefully into position.

It was done after a while and I finished off with a celebratory wash so that it looks less like a mobile shed and pushed it back into the side of the garage where it assume its prior unloved situation. Problem is, it’s probably realised that I do care about it and therefore won’t go so well at the next race meeting. I shall endeavour to thrash it within an inch of its life to teach it who the boss really is though.

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…