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…

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 all started on the Friday when I went down to Brands for a relaxing bit of testing in the morning, intending to spend the afternoon doing some minor fettling and possibly car washing. I even had some assistance there as Tom had come along to Brands to help out which was great.

Not knowing what was to come, we got the car ready and trundled over to the pitlane for the first session of the day. I just wanted to get into an early groove and then we could try a few setup things. Out I went. I have a bad habit of taking too long to get up to speed so in the first part of the session pushed on. So then they red-flagged the session. I came in and went out again and did a 53.2 which was a way off my fastest lap of 52.8 but at least it was in the vicinity.

So, I came in an Tom checked the tyre pressures, which it turned out were pretty much correct. Nice having someone who can do this, though, while I was sitting in the car. I, of course, was wearing my new HANS device. I felt a bit like a turkey trussed up for Christmas but it’d probably  be OK.

Then I was off again and in the exit lane, the car stuttered. And then it carried on doing so for a couple of laps. I’ve had misfires before and they’re frustrating to find. I came in and we tried the obvious things, looking at electrical connections but still the misfire remained. In fact, at the end of the session I had trouble driving back to the paddock through the exit tunnel, which has a bit of a hill in it.

Back in the paddock and we couldn’t find a problem, and the car was fine driving around the paddock, even in quite a brutal fashion.

So, to cut a long story short, that was our day. We tried one thing after another trying to find this misfire, which only seemed to happen under load and at highish revs. I made a large number of forays onto the circuit to do just an out lap. Along the way we changed all sorts of things even including the fuel, all to no avail.

At the end of the day, with a race meeting the next day, we moved the motorhome over into the pits area, which RGB had been allocated for the race, and say and wondered what the problem was. To be honest, I felt pretty down about it all; it all seemed very reminiscent of a lousy weekend in Snetterton back in March. At least this time I knew it wasn’t the cat.

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, it looked a good day for racing. At least it would if your car worked. I had signed up for the BikeSports races as well and went out for an early qualifying with them, having changed a few more things overnight. Rats. It still didn’t work. So, I struggled through my three laps which you need to do to get onto the grid without having to go cap in hand to the Clerk of the Course. FL was a 62.27, good enough for last place on the grid. Sigh…

So, we changed a few more things before RGB qualification and I went out again. And, again, it was still useless. Mind you, I managed a significant improvement to 59.98 in this session, again good enough for last spot on the grid. Mind you, my qualifying time for my very first race back in 2004, which was on this circuit, was 63 seconds and I seemed to be whizzing along. I got lapped twice in the race though, even though I got the time down to 59 seconds.

Enough of the reminiscence. Back in the garage, we looked again. Things seemed to have got worse in that the engine wouldn’t run properly even without load in the garage, at least not above 8000 RPM. Then Tom noticed something, I knew it was useful having him here. He noticed that smoke coming out of the catch tank. That is, the crankcase must have been being pressurised which is really very bad news as it means something seriously awry inside the engine.

Sod it, that was my weekend done.

However, as has happened before, I got set on by others. Andy pointed out that he had another engine on his truck which I could relieve him of, in exchange for a quantity of my Earth pounds. Ah, umm. Surely we wouldn’t have time to change it would we, especially as they’d just announced that all the races had been brought forward by 30 mins?

However, there was probably no problem trying. We had loads and loads of offers of help and decided to get stuck in. Tom drove over to the paddock and arrived back with the tailgate on his car open and Andy sitting inside with a new CBR1000.

Essentially, we all, and there were lots of us, worked like buggery for hours taking the engine out, swapping all the ancillaries over like the sump and the specially modified water pump. The biggest problem was the prop bolts which are always tricky and were even more so this time due to the copious quantities of loctite on them. Tom and I were helped in all this by lots of people but special mention must go to Colin, Roger, Tim and the two Andys. Miraculously, the Locost race took ages to get going having been red-flagged and then Stock Hatch did their usual service too. So, things were looking up.

We finally got everything back together and spun the engine round to try and get some oil pressure. That just about flattened the battery but it did arrive and we tried to fire it up. The flat battery wasn’t helping but it managed it and burst into life! What’s more, all of the electrics seemed to be connected and there weren’t any fluids whizzing out. Most gratifyingly, the cooling system hadn’t needed any bleeding at all; we’d just bunged in the coolant and put the lid on it. The addition of the bleed tube had clearly been a good idea.

The RGB race had, by this time, already been called and all my co-racers were sitting in the assembly area. In the fact the assembly area marshall came along to see if we were going to make it! (This is why I like the 750 club…) I had just had time to clean the grime off my hands and get my race gear on. So, I climbed in an drove off to the assembly area, taking a rather unorthodox route with the permission of the marshall mentioned. When I got to the assembly area there was a huge cheer and beeping of horns from all the other RGBers! I was really rather touched.

I sat there for about 2 mins with the car idling. Andy was even heard to mutter that we’d had two minutes to spare and we could have done slower. And then the engine stopped!

A posse of helpers descended on the car and poked and prodded everything and, for some reason it just started again. Andy reckons that the flat battery couldn’t handle the engine just idling which is a possibility, I reckon. Finally, having promised Andy faithfully that I’d take it careful, I trundled out to my grid slot.

We got a green flag lap because there was lots of oil, and cement dust, on the circuit from the previous race. The car seemed to go OK on that and, when the lights went out I took it easy, as instructed for about 80% of the lap. After that, I though, I might as well go for it. So I did and had a ball! This was the second race from last on the grid and I passed loads of people along the way, like I did last time. So much so that the edited highlights are probably worth looking at:

I equalled my previous fastest lap in the race, which considering that I’d left off things like the undertray, is pretty good. (Or, perhaps the undertray makes no difference at all?) I ended up 2nd in class and 7th on the track which was pretty good from essentially last at the end of the first lap. In the RGB presentation later I got awarded the driver of the day award which was very gratifying, and again very touching.

Later on, I did the second BikeSports race having decided that it’d be rude not to. To be honest it was pretty boring after I’d hunted down David Wale and passed him. (David, you will remember, is the car that I spent all of the last race at Anglesey trying to get past.) Interestingly, my FL in the BikeSports race was 52.5 which is another 3 tenths faster. Mind you, my theoretical fastest lap is now 51.7 to which it’d be nice to get nearer.

But then we won’t be back at Brands now until next year. Be nice to start at the proper place when we do come back…

First thing was the undertray. As I mentioned in the last post part of the front undertray had come loose and was scraping on the ground. The photo above shows the sorry state of what was going on. It’s not surprising that it was making an unpleasant noise. So, I remade the panel, this time arranging for it to, almost, engage with the underside of the splitter. I made it out of slightly thicker aluminium this time so with luck it’ll stay together. Of course, this doesn’t explain why this happened in the first place. It could be that the mountings just got old and failed or, perhaps, I whacked it on kerb. My money’s on the former explanation but there’s no easy way to tell.

I’ve mentioned before that I get a vibration in the car as I accelerate. I’ve looked in all sorts of places for what this can be. Dan suggested that perhaps I should just try changing, very slightly, the angle of the propshaft. Seemed a sensible suggestion so I took off the tunnel side panel in order to expose the centre bearing, as in the photo. You can also seem where the centre UJ has  spun a layer of grease onto everything in sight. But, it’s still pretty clean in here.

I undid the centre bearing mounting bolts and put a 5mm spacer under each one (where “spacer” is code for a couple of thick washers). Then I bolted everything back together. I’ve no idea whether this will do anything, but it’ll be interesting to see. Any sort of change would be interesting, as that’d say I’m on the right track.

While I was in the area I cleaned up some of the video wiring which had got a bit grubby from exposure to the elements. I think I’ll remake all this wiring without things like nasty Phono connectors, but that’ll have to wait for a break in proceedings in order to find the time.

For ages and ages and ages I’ve been thinking about getting a HANS device. As a consequence of the accident in the early laps of the Anglesey race I’ve finally succumbed. One of the reasons for my torpidity on this issue is that I’m offended by the price of them. This device here cost me the princely sum of £750. That’s for a carbon fibre component, two gel pads fixed by velcro, a webbing strap, two metal clips and two plastic runners that hold the strap on the back of the device.

Oh well. I did look at getting one of the Defnder devices which is a newly arrived competitor to the HANS. However, as it’s a lot heavier than the HANS, and my helmet already has the kosher HANS posts installed, meant that I decided to use the standard device.

The next problem with using a HANS is that the specs for the device require that the angle that the rear parts of the shoulder straps make with the horizontal is a maximum of 20°. In order to achieve this I welded another horizontal bar into the roll cage over which the shoulder straps can go, as in the photo. I couldn’t, to be honest, face masking everything up so as to re-spray the cage. Hence, I just painted the bar by hand. It isn’t perfect but it isn’t too bad.

The big issue now is just getting used to wearing the HANS. Everyone says that you get used to it after a very short time. At the moment, I feel like I’ve be installed in a straight-jacket. I’m also a bit concerned about my shoulder. I have an type III AC separation of my shoulder joint, caused by shoulder charging a mountain while skiing. The mountain won. In general this doesn’t cause me many issues, apart from the fact that I can’t throw a ball for toffee any more which has put paid to my international cricketing career. However, my shoulder is sensitive to getting bashed about and I’m worried that the HANS device will just turn out to be very uncomfortable. Time will tell, I guess.

Finally, I mentioned about the possibility of ducting some air to the oil/water intercooler. I’ve put some ducting and opened up a useful hole in the front of the car. This is where the original Fury designer thought that you were going to put the front indicator but in my case it’s  just been blank until recently. When I’m next out I’ll see if this has any effect; probably by trying it both with this duct in place and with the inlet taped up. In case you’re worrying, it doesn’t contact the suspension, honest…

We’re working up now to the next race at Anglesey. As I write it’s warm and sunny outside; doubtless this presages a race weekend at Anglesey with horizontal rain. Having suffered hugely at Anglesey in the past I’m very wary about the weather there.

The big change to the car over the last couple of weeks is the appearance of various aerodynamic addons. I realised a while ago (clever, me) that with the move to class B I’m not limited to “standard” bodywork anymore. Consequently, I could experiment with additional aero devices. The RGB regs don’t allow anything having an airfoil cross-section, so means wings are out. However, there’s a large collection of other aero devices commonly used on race cars that are allowed. I’ve done a bit of reading about it, and also been talking to Tom about it. As he’s got an aerodynamics degree it’s about time he paid for his education…

So, the first thing was I made a splitter. This is a mostly horizontal ledge at the lower front of the car. The idea is that there’s a stagnation point in the airflow just above the splitter (like the streamline that stops right at the front of the airfoil above). At the stagnation point the velocity of the air is zero and hence, according to that nice Mr Bernoulli, the pressure’s highest. This pressure acts on the splitter and pushes the front of the car down. Of course, with something like the Fury the best I can hope to achieve will be to reduce the lift.

Of course, a splitter will likely also increase the drag; the aerodynamic texts, such as Katz, all talk about lift/drag ratios.

So, I made something. Tradition is that splitters are made of plywood. I mounted a small lump of this under the front of the Fury’s bonnet. It’s attached to the bonnet with various small pillars which I tried to attach to the bonnet in a manner that would mean that the splitter wouldn’t tear off as soon as the car went above 60 MPH.

Of course, if it were just as in the photo here it wouldn’t do anything as there isn’t any reason for the airflow to stagnate. Hence, I blocked up the rear of the splitter with some aluminium. Essentially making a wall up against the support pillars. I then used some red tape to cover up the ply so it didn’t look quite so naff. (Although, as you can see in the photo above, the bodywork is really starting to look rather tired. Whatever else happens to this car I’m going to have to respray it one day.)

As you can see in the photo on the right. The splitter is not actually attached to the car. That’s an odd thing to do, as you wouldn’t think it would work there. Ah well, I’ve got a cunning plan, you see…

In an ideal world the effect of the splitter would be to increase how well the front of the car worked which should tend to make the car oversteer, although along the way it might well go quicker anyway. If the car did oversteer then I’d really need something to make the rear of the car work better. As the RGB regs don’t permit a wing I’m going to have to make do with a small spoiler. So, I fabricated the aluminium beast that you see here.

This is quite a modest size, but some simple calculations say that it should have some effect. In an ideal world this will create some rear downforce (or reduce the lift) so as to counteract the oversteer induced by the splitter. Eagle-eyed readers will note that the spoiler is attached by Clekos in this photo. That’s because I wanted to take this off too, as part of the cunning plan.

So, what was the cunning plan then? Well, we were making one of our occasional forays to Spa for a trackday or two. My plan was to drive the car as it used to be and then attach the splitter. With luck I’d get barrow loads of oversteer which would go away when the spoiler was installed.

To cut a long story short, that did seem to be the case. The other obvious effect was that running the splitter seemed to decrease braking distances dramatically. My original intention had been to then take the devices off again and see if things got worse again, as it was hardly a double blind test; not even single blind come to that. However, the second of the two Spa days was wet, really wet, and the general low-quality of the organisation of the trackday (not an organiser I shall be using again) meant that I got next to no useful track time. As I’ve seen before, the circuit was filled with really expensive cars which were incredibly incompetently driven.

So, with all that done it seems worth persevering. So, I shall leave the bits and pieces on for the next race meeting which is at Anglesey. In fact, I’ve spent a while this week checking over the car in readiness for this meeting. I just hope the weather here works out well.

The only problem with all this is that the bodywork mods seem to have created a vibration. I don’t think that it’s a fundamental problem, but I do worry about things like the propshaft after the fire of a couple of years ago. I shall have to be careful at Anglesey…

The weekend started, though, in a rather bizarre manner. I had spent Wednesday through Friday in a meeting at UKC in Canterbury. So, on Friday afternoon I drove back to Cambridge, practically passing Brands on the way, packed up the bus and drove straight back to Kent. On the way we were parked in a curious long car park that is apparently called the M25. This car park stretched all the way from the M11 to the Dartford crossing and seemed to be caused by the toll booths. In a rational world, of course, the tolls would be reduced or eliminated at peak times.

Still, we parked up, chatted, prepped the car and eventually retired to bed.

I then had a horrible thought, rummaged and, sure enough, I’d forgotten my helmet and gloves. What a prat. It was midnight. I was an idiot.

I could have waited until the morning and tried to borrow something. But, I’d never have slept anyway. And, after an hour trying to sleep we set off again for Cambridge at 0130. Luckily the car park had gone away and been replaced with a motorway and we were back at Brands by 0350 in time for about 4 hours sleep…

Scrutineering was pretty uneventful and I lined up for practice right at the very head of the queue. I scored a miserable 98db on the noise test and eventually led the pack out. After a slow lap I set about things. I still didn’t feel as though I’d had enough testing and I’d done even more damper tweaking the previous evening to try and make things a bit more stable in the rushed descent down Paddock hill. In the past my best lap was a 53.75 which was made during the last class C race at Brands. I’d been a bit quicker in testing last week so surely I could beat that time now; perhaps even get into the 52s?

As usual at Brands it was a pretty busy session but I did manage a single lap in the 52s, just, at 52.96, and that got me 9th place on the grid (3rd in class) in the first race. The second fastest time was 52.98 (!) which was good enough for 6th (3rd) on the grid for the second race. Cripes, row 3!!

Later in the day it was a bit sunnier but I left the car’s setup alone. The big problem with the new engine is that I’d done absolutely no racing starts in it and there really isn’t a decent way of practising this. So, armed with a bit of advice from fellow CBR1000 racers I set off for the start line. Mind you, the race before had been red-flagged twice and there was a lot of oil down on the grid caused by a large Formula Vee crash precipitated by someone slowing down too quickly on seeing a red flag. What’s more, there was a large patch of cement dust on grid slot 9. Ah…

Sure enough, when the lights went out I got mega wheel spin and the car went alarmingly sideways. Still, I didn’t lose too many places. In fact, the lap chart says I was 8th at the end of the first lap which seems odd until you realise that I’d passed a couple (including Colin ) on the first lap and that there had been a huge coming together at the front. I’d seen Derek’s car hit the barriers hard and apparently a coming together with Steve had precipitated this. Paddock opinion, he said carefully, was divided as to culpability.

Rather surprisingly, at first, the race was not red-flagged and ran under waved yellows on the top straight for the first three or four laps and then they let us go. After that I had quite a fun time. I was in a queue with Doug and a collection of ostensibly slower cars including Tim and Al. After a while we got past most of those and I was stuck up behind Doug. He’s got a lot more power than me in his Genesis and I tried what I thought was every way to get past him. To give Doug his due you never worry about racing with him as you know that he knows you’re there. Which is more than can be said of every RGB racer. Well, it doesn’t apply to one in particular whose name is usually spouted in discussions of “turning in on me” in the paddock. At least you know he’s going to do it…

That’s essentially how it ended up. I finished 5th on the track and 3rd in class. It was interesting that Al, Tim and I all thought we might have just kissed each other a few times and there was indeed the odd love bite on the cars and tyres.   Also notable was the first person to congratulate me was Derek who’d watched the race from behind the barriers just after the start line. Given that his race had lasted all of 10 metres that was very kind of him. Top bloke…

The next day dawned even sunnier again confounding the nay-sayers at the Met Office. After a nice morning fettling we set off for the assembly area and eventually onto the track. As it was the second day we got a green flag lap which was nice to be able to warm things up. Again, though, I got too much wheel spin although John Cutmore got a lousy start and was left well behind. I really wanted to get past Doug and managed to get past on the inside into Graham Hill which left me in 4th place for a few laps.

However, John came back up and, inevitably, I screwed up at McLaren and allowed him through. However, he then spun in front of me on the way down Paddock Hill. I slowed a lot so as to try and avoid his car when it did shoot sideways. Luckily he ended up in the gravel but I still lost two places in the run up to Druids because Doug and Tim had avoided having to slow as much as me. At that the race was red-flagged as John’s car was pretty much in the firing line and the grid was re-formed for a 7 min + 1 lap race. What’s more, I was indeed now 4th on the grid as the countback had eliminated being passed by Doug and Tim.

I thought that I’d use slightly fewer revs for the second start so as to try and kill the start line wheel spin a little. I did indeed managed to avoid wheel spin; totally as it happens, because when the lights went out I stalled it! The entire field passed me before I got the damn thing going again and so I set off dead last! Sigh… That was a certain 2nd in class wiped out. Still, I could have a little fun and I set about the rest of the field.

And, indeed, fun was had. I just kept passing cars as much as I could as I knew I’d still finish a long way back on a race that was only going to be 8 or 9 laps long. All the same having left the grid in 20th place I was 16th, 15th, 15th, 14th, 13th, 12th, 11th, 11th on subsequent laps and 10th on the last lap. Along the way I’d lowered my PB to 52.8 but I’d still screwed it up.

Oddly, though, Tom and Alex were clapping when I emerged from the tunnel and I just shrugged. However, it turned out that I’d passed all the other class B runners other than Duncan who ended up in 2nd overall meaning that although I was 10th on the track I was 2nd in class. Odd how things work out…

So, a top weekend and two podiums. Or, is it podia? I’ve got a collection of small things I want to do to the car but nothing major. I do, though, want to check the cat again as today’s news is that Rob’s cat has failed again. If I find the bloke who thinks putting cats on bike engines is a simple process I’ll do something unmentionable…

With that sorted I just did a collection of little things, most of which were really cleaning activities, so as to get the car ready for the trip to Brands Hatch. This is now all done and it’s sitting on the trailer in the garage. I just need to sort out the various tools and so on to be ready. Only problem is that I need to take sufficient destructive tools with me to guarantee to be able to get rid of the cat when it fails again, which I’m pretty convinced it will do.

I got to Brands in the early morning having driven, on Thursday, from Cambridge to York (to see my PhD supervisor) to South Mimms (for the 750 club’s Race Technical Committee meeting) to Cambridge to Brands Hatch. I was knackered. There was a bit where the single lane of the M25 that existed just before the Brands turnoff (anyone’s who’s been past in the last 5 years or so will know the world’s largest road works seem to be going on here) came to a complete halt. I think they were craning something over the road. I was seriously concerned that I’d fall asleep in the cab of the bus and the chap behind would have to come and wake me up!

Still, I got there, parked up and went to bed. In the morning the weather looked fine, unlike the forecast. So, I put on the testing tyre set, of which the left rear in particular is a bit second hand these days. Doubtless Clearways would wreak its own brand of havoc this weekend.

Now, the objective for the day was to get below 54 seconds, something I’ve dismally failed to do in the past. After looking at the logs it seemed as though I could brake lots later at Paddock and Druids without ending up in the kitty litter.

Out for session 1 and I had a grotty time really. I was so frustated that I forgot to stop the logger before I took the data card out so I don’t even know what the time was anymore. If I remember correctly, it said something depressing like 54.9 on the display. I thought I’d been driving the nuts off the car, although on the video, which did work, that’s clearly not true. I also had armfuls of oversteer all over the place. I was thinking that there was something wrong with the rear of the car. In fact, on the way back to the paddock (it’s quite a trek at Brands) there was an awful lots of creaking and groaning from the rear of the car. I decided that perhaps the rear ARB was making life bad and I thought I’d try disconnecting it.

I did so and the next session was a little better. I was now back to a modicum of understeer at Clearways. If I could only persuade my right foot to be harder on the loud pedal then I might be able to kill that although I’d have to be confident enough that I wasn’t going to end up in the gravel, of which there’s several hectares around Clearways.

Mind you, the time wasn’t too impressive at 54.18. A new measure that I’ve been using that I’ve dubbed the lead foot metric was 41.3%. This is the proportion of the lap where the throttle is over 90% applied. It seems to be related to laptime in a mostly monotonic manner which makes it interesting to look at. To be fair to myself, I wasn’t on the best tyres and that the circuit was thick with marbles wasn’t helping. I had a couple of trips wide at Paddock when I overdid my efforts at late braking and the quantity of marbles made it a rather exciting experience!

Much against my better principles I signed on for the afternoon although I knew it’d be busier. (We were mixed in with the locosts which is often bad news as they get in the way all the time. Mind you, they probably get hacked off by those bloody RGB cars…)

Mind you, nothing could be as bad as the boat-tail Corvette that was out on the circuit. At least that’s what I think it was, see the video capture at the top. For this thing slow just doesn’t come into it… Still, he was probably having fun which is the main thing. It made life rather difficult getting a lap though.

Amusingly, there was a yellow Ginetta G20 out on the circuit too, with a novice cross on the back. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that the driver was a brand new novice and they seemed to be jumping nervously whenever I came up to lap them, which was quite frequently. By the end of the day the car was just being driven up to every corner on the inside of the circuit, which seems an odd tactic. They bang on at you at the ARDS test about sticking to the line so as not to surprise any more experienced drivers. This particular person was obviously not awake at this bit of the test…

After lunch I was, though, really going for it. I seemed to be able to run various bits quicker although Graham Hill Bend still seems to be a bit of a mystery to me. I put my right rear off the circuit at turn-in once which is something I’m not going to repeat in a hurry…

FL in this session was 54.83 and the LFM was a mere 36.4%. I suspect, though, that almost all laps were blocked in one way or another due to business of the circuit.

One of the problems I have at Brands is the Surtees/Maclaren bit which ends with an off camber turn uphill while braking. (See? Dead easy…) It almost feels as though the car’s jacking up at the rear as I go through here. I wonder if the rebound damping is too high? Perhaps I should have bought the double adjustables after all?

In the final session I continued tweaking things and even tried setting the dampers to full stiff at one point. A bad idea that, I doubt my dentist will be impressed…. The FL was back down a smidgeon though to 54.3 with the LFC at 43.7%. So, not good enough really. Hopefully it’ll be better with the race tyres on.

On Saturday I stayed down at the circuit even though we weren’t on track again until Sunday. So I did things like cleaning the car and deglazing the brake pads. I put the race tyres on and did a certain amount of minor fettling. For example, I rubbed the throttle pedal down: powder coating on throttle pedals is a very bad idea as it sticks to your boots. Shiny metal is much better. The only problem is it’s now going to rust. I may just have to polish up the pedal before each race meeting.

On Sunday the weather forecast was better than we’d been led to expect earlier in the week. In the assembly area we were looking at the weather, all firmly on dry settings, and hoping that the grey skies wouldn’t turn into something horrible. As it turned out, they didn’t. The sun broke through and the rest of the day was great.

I’d got near the front of the qualifying queue, always a high priority at Brands so with luck I could get a decent time before we caught up with the back markers. After a couple of laps a 53.9 appeared on the display, and a few laps later I managed a 53.82.

So, at least I’d managed to lay the 54 seconds problem. The only issue is that I was 14th, 8th in class. Martin had done an absolutely astounding 52.47 to claim the class C pole. Of course, his car’s actually on the weight limit, not least because the bodywork’s so thin that when left out in the sun it cracks. Mine isn’t on the limit you’ll not be surprised to know…

The best bit about qualifying is that I was in front of Colin, albeit by a mere .02 seconds…

The first race was at about 3pm and it was now bright and sunny. I made a half decent start although not as good as I’d planned (!) and was at the end of a train with Richard and David in front of me. I made several manful attempts at getting past David but he has to be the hardest bloke in RGB. He give the impression of not having seen you at all although I suspect this isn’t true. If I was just a bit more forceful it’d be much easier. Oh well. After a while the distant Josh in my mirrors was replaced by Colin and he got closer and closer and I eventually made a stupid mistake into Surtees (a theme of the weekend) and he got past. After that I sort of lost touch with him and finished about 2 seconds behind him in 11th place, 8th in class. FL was 53.9 but I’d done that early in the race and after that I didn’t seem to be able to string a decent lap together; there’s a whole bunch of 54.3, 54.4, 54.1s etc.

I determined that I was going to try harder in the second race. However, I got a dire start and Josh to the right of me got an even worse one and I had to dive left to avoid him. That meant that Colin got the jump on me at the start. David and I were behind him and we swapped place twice, I think. At one point I nearly managed to get past Colin when he left the door open at Druids. However, he turned in on me and we banged wheels fairly forcefully. However, it didn’t seem to do much damage although I’ll check at the weekend. Unfortunately, I was still behind him.

Then, in what is a signature move of mine, I cocked up getting past a back marker and David got past me Surtees again. After that I struggled manfully but couldn’t make it past again and that’s how we finished. I was 10th, 7th in class and just 0.4 seconds behind David at the line.

However, the FL was the best I’d managed all weekend at 53.74. However, the data loggers theoretical FL is now 52.85. If I could only string those fast sectors together, they were all done on Sunday so it’s quite feasible, then I’d be right at the front. So, consistency is still lacking, really…

Next meeting is Cadwell so I need to stock up on Ginger Nuts (for their medicinal properties). I’m also thinking about changing the rear spring rates and putting the rear ARB back on, although being careful that it’s working properly.