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.

The first of these is something I’ve been meaning to try for a long time as Carroll Smith bangs on about it a lot. This is a rather more sophisticated bump stop, something that gives a more progressive aspect to the spring. The standard bump stop on my dampers is that black thing on the left of the photo. The yellow thing at the side is a progressive rate version, made by those nice Powerflex people. These look like, and perhaps are, the same sort of thing that appear on Paul’s new car and it was that that provoked me to try it.

So, I’ve mounted a collection of these on the car, we’ll see how it goes. Of course, I’ll probably end up changing everything else in the process and confusing myself again.

Next thing was to change the way the rear ARB articulates. I’ve also “indexed” it by adding a lump of steel with some holes in it. It was squeaking before, rather alarmingly, which I think was due to the mechanism binding and I’m hoping this will sort it. As I said at Cadwell I was making all this stiffer and stiffer so I may end up making a fatter bar entirely.

Since the photo here I’ve found the rod ends that I couldn’t find at the time and straightened up the linkages so that everything is closer to a right angle, before you all start telling me that this is horrible. (In other words, yes, I know… )

I’ve also done some minor things like changing the oil and so on.

The major thing I want to do before going to Spa, though, is to make some aero parts.I hope I manage to get round to it as it’d be really nice to know that it made a difference…

Watch this space…

New: I do now have a couple of photos. Many thanks to Dave Hackett for these.

We drove up to Cadwell on Thursday evening, braving the flatlanders on the scenic route, and got to Cadwell at about 8pm. We parked up by the fence near Tim Gray‘s encampment in his usual spot, pitched the awming as at the time the forecast as pretty grim and it seems as though some protection would be useful over the weekend. And, as Cadwell’s on grass, it’s actually possible to peg the thing down moderately firmly. A good job we did as over the Thursday night the wind blew and blew.

Friday morning dawned clear and sunny, but very windy and bitterly cold. I went for a bike ride round the circuit first thing (that is, at about 6am) and really wished I hadn’t done so after a while as it was so cold. The day’s sessions started at abou 0930 and I set off to relearn the circuit with the CBR1000; it was bound to be different as the gearing’s quite a change from the CBR900.

The wind was a headwind down the Park straight and so would probably have an effect on the times if nothing else. In the afternoon the weather turned less clement and it rained sporadically. Very odd track conditions though, I guess as a consequence of the wind. One lap it could be teeming down with rain at Park and the next lap it was bone dry there.

I started the day with a previous FL of 1:39.82, and that achieved after an age of trying to get below 1:40 in the class C car even though the theoretical lap was much quicker. The problem is that Cadwell is such a long and complicated lap that getting all the sectors right (enough) is pretty difficult.

The first session was cut short because I was feeling sick (this is a problem of mine at Cadwell) as I’d forgotten to pop the appropriate pills. After that the times tumbled and I finished the morning with a FL of 1:37.84. That is, 2 seconds quicker than before. Mind you, I was taking Coppice flat in 6th which, I can tell you, is quite a sphincter clenching experience. The theoretical lap was still quite a lot faster though so there was more to come.

I’d signed up for the Bikesports race on the Saturday which they’d opened to RGBers to attempt to swell the grid, depleted after the BESCAR fiasco, so I had an early start and an extra qualifying session to fit in. I managed to make a few things work rather better (and, perhaps most significantly, the headwind had dropped) and the FL in the session was 1:37.64. So, that was another couple of tenths in the bag.

What’s more, when we got the times I was on an unofficial “RGB pole”.

RGB qualifying was next and, unlike in the Bikesports qualifying, I made sure I was at the front of the queue. It’s hard enough getting past at Cadwell as it is without it having the potential to ruin one of the small number of laps that you get in the session. This time it was just 9 laps in which we needed to find two lap times for each of the two races.

When done I’d got down to 1:37.27, so yet another couple of tenths. What’s more, that wasn’t a fluke as a couple of the other times were in the same vicinity. In fact, I was pretty convinced that I could get in the 1:36s as that time was set on my last lap of qualifying where I’d passed Neil in the little short blast from the Hairpin to Barn. That must have lost me at least 2 tenths as it was.

The car now was absolutely flying. I’d used the test day to make some progress on the setup and I’d essentially spent all of the day stiffening everything. It seemed to be responding too. Problem is, I was running out of travel on the ARB adjusters. I might have to make some thicker bars before heading off to Spa in a couple of weeks time. I do, though, have a cunning plan to make the whole car quicker. What’s more, it’s legal.

Most notable thing in qualifying though was Tim Gray. He’d put his class C(!!!) car on outright pole with a time of 1:35.98. That was absolutely stunning. His Dad proudly says that Tim went round Cadwell before he was even born and the track is a favourite of his. His time through the Hall Bends, in particular, is absolutely amazing. I reckon I’m pretty good at this bit of the track now but he’s in a league of his own.

Next up was the Bikesports race. This was a 28min affair and, as such, you can see why the club had opened it up for RGBs as there were only 9 kosher Bikesports entries. With us it was double that. The race, though, was tedious. I just ended up on my own, completely out of touch with anyone. I did manage to get the laptime down again though, this time to 1:37.10. That was until I decided that I felt too sick. I pulled off on my 18th lap as I decided that I really wasn’t going to make another lap with inside of my helmet still moderately clean. I was pleased with the time though, at least I was after I’d sat very still for an hour…

After lunch I’d taken more drugs, scoffed a lot of ginger (that is, yet more drugs) and consumed a nice fatty lunch. There was an 18min RGB race in the afternoon and I was rather more pumped up for this one. I was on row 4 of the grid, alongside a new chap, Rob Spencer, who has a ZX12 in a Locost chassis. Hence, lots of power… I was also determined not to stall the s0dding thing after the Brands debâcle.

So, inevitably, I got bucket loads of wheel spin at the start. (Colin was just behind me and his video is like looking at a dragster burnout!). As such I got swallowed up by several people including Doug, the back of whose car I’d spent ages looking at at Brands. Still, I got stuck in and passed a few people on the first lap and was soon, hunting down Doug. I got behind him and after only a lap or so managed to outbrake him into Park after getting a decent tow out of Charlies 2. With that I was a bit of a way behind Rob in the ZX12 locost. This car, like Doug’s, is a class A car with lots of straight line grunt. Over a couple of laps I slowly hauled him in and also managed to get past at Park.

The next target was then John Cutmore, who at least was in my class. I made a little bit of time to him but I’d never have caught him, at least with the car as it stands. However, John’s engine started cutting out and eventually I passed him on the Park straight. He was quite amusing afterwards as I was clearly closer to him than he had thought.

That was pretty much it. Best bit, though was the lap time where I’d managed to get down to 1:36.23! That was to remain as my Cadwell FL to date but is a pretty good time.

Assuming that it works you should be able to see a link to the video of this lap here. Not too much wheel to wheel racing but it does give you a decent idea what it’s like. The experts will note that I’ve lost about 3 or 4 tenths by messing up Charlies 2. That car right in front of me at the end is Bob Mortimer, who clearly enjoyed himself at Cadwell.

That lap was actually faster than Duncan’s (also class B and the winner thereof) FL, albeit only by a couple of hundredths. Problem is, before stopping, John had done a 1:35.73. All the same, that was all very satisfying. There was just another 28min RGB race on the Sunday now. The thing was, would I be able to take that much time on track??

Again, the Sunday looked to be a fab day. I got up early and prepped the car, including a bit of psychological warfare in changing the rear left which was now well past its sell-by day. Mind you, Tim declared that it had several races left in it yet… I was in the much the same grid slot as before but Rob wasn’t there this time as after I’d passed him in the last race he’d blown his engine. Apparently he was running wet sumped which we know is daft for a ZX 12…

This time the start was better but I still got swallowed up by Doug and Henry, who had Rob’s empty grid slot in front of him, also capitalised. I then started a very frustrating race. First of all Henry was in the way and doing his best to make sure I stayed behind him. I have to admit that he had clearly read the advice in the club mag that “you can zig but you can’t zag” and as such made it possible to get past once I’d got a decent run on him.

Doug was a different kettle of fish though. After getting past Henry it took me a few laps to catch up with Doug as our lap times weren’t that different. However, I got there and then spent the rest of the race glued behind him. He clearly hadn’t read that particular article as there was quite a lot of zigging and zagging going on. What’s more, his car was chucking out oil and I was getting covered in it and my visor was getting harder and harder to see through.

That’s how it finished. I was 2 tenths behind Doug at the line and, to be honest, a bit frustrated as I could see John not that far in front of Doug. Mind you, I’d never have caught him.

So, that was quite a good weekend. In each RGB race I was 5th on the track and 2nd in class so that’s two more pots to go with the two from Brands. To be honest, this was the first time that I’d really “got” Cadwell. Lots of people really like the track but I’ve never quite sorted it. It’s different now. It’s only a pity that I’ve got to wait for next year for another go at it.

Best of all, there was a new photo on the wall of the club house at Cadwell of a cluster of RGBs at the head of which is me!!! It was from the Brands weekend so they’ve clearly just been updating the photos…

Much like last time out at Brands I came to Cadwell wanting to get under the 1:40 barrier which I’d never managed before. I wasn’t testing this time though, although I had signed up for the Allcomers/Hot hatch race on the Saturday to try and get at least a little testing in. Hence, we got to Cadwell on the Friday evening and set up in a surprisingly empty paddock.

In the morning I got signed on and scrutineered; the nice thing about doing the allcomers races is that you can get scrutineered for the whole weekend in one go. On this occasion this meant that Sunday morning was going to include at least a little bit more of a lie-in. All assuming, of course, I emerged unscathed from the Allcomers race.

The big problem was the weather which looked pretty poor for the whole weekend. When it came to the allcomers qualifying it was clearly going to take place in a monsoon. So, I bolted on the cut A048 “wets” that we’re now allowed to use, shown here in their pristine state. After the usual bout of softening dampers and ‘bars we set off into pouring rain.

I have to admit that I had a great time! These wets really do seem to clearly standing water much better than the unmodified A048s so I’m well pleased. The big problem with them, though, is that deciding which set of tyres to put on is a real pain.

However, I trundled round, passing many people and being passed at high speed by those with proper wets. I think the Radical here is in the latter category but he was clearly not enjoying himself as I shot past him. (This bit of the video is on the way down to Park corner.)

When the results came out I was 12th on the grid out of 27 so that was quite decent. The time was a rather irrelevant 2:04.48.

The race itself wasn’t really as much fun. I got stuck behind a gaggle of tintops at the beginning. It took me a while to get past them as they were all pretty quick in a straight line. That meant that I had to get a decent tow fromm one of them and get them under braking into somewhere like Park.  That was slightly alarming as you never know whether they’ve actually seen you or not, and the metal things really do tower alarmingly over the top of a little plastic Fisher Fury.

I ended up 5th behind three much faster cars and, annoyingly, Colin Chapman. The time was 1:41.67 which was also not really clever. Although the race had been dry I’d actually left the wets on as a bit of an experiment. I felt that although they were OK that they were actually slower than the uncut tyres. The time seems to bear that out.

RGB race day, and we had two races, dawned looking pretty much as gloomy as the day before. However, the forecast was for better weather at least in the morning. So, I put the proper tyres on and sorted the car for qualifying. When I did get out it seemed to be going pretty well. I managed to get a couple of laps below the magic 1:40, although only by a couple of tenths. The big problem is that Cadwell is a long circuit and it’s reallly easy to mess up the lap, or have it messed up by a backmarker. What’s more, we only got 9 flying laps in in our qualifying session. The annoying thing is that although the logger says that my fastest lap is now 1:39.82 the fastest theoretical lap is actually 1:38.2. Now, if I could actually manage to string those 5 fast sectors together then things would be going well.

Come the race, though, and it was all a bit academic. I was a meagre 10th on the grid, 7th in class and just at the side of Steve Robinson (class A Genesis). When the lights went out Steve set off really quickly. I also got a decent start and actually got past Richard who had been directly in front of me on the run down to Coppice. However, in front of me Steve and Henry had had a coming together and I backed right off. Richard shot past me again right into a horrible melée. There were cars all over the place and Richard’s wheel, liberated from its attachments, even went bouncing past as you might be able to see on the video frame here. Miraculously, I avoided the carnage—Richard later congratulated me on doing so, I did wonder if by getting past him I’d actually unsighted him from Henry and Steve coming together—and the race was, inevitably, red-flagged.

Back on the grid and there was now a big hole in front of me. The start was great and I was right up behind Colin. What’s more, I seemed to have the legs on him and eventually got past him at Park. I then even managed to catch up with Al in front and was thinking about how to get past. Then I had a stupid lapse of concentration (the story of my racing career really) and ended up coming out of Mansfield in the wrong gear. The end result was that Colin managed to barge past me on the way into the mountain.

However, I was still with him and caught right up again on the bottom straight.

And then it all went wrong.

On the exit of Coppice I ran wide and onto the grass, spun round, went back across the track and hit the barriers fairly hard going backwards. First the first time ever my helmet did something as it hit the helmet pad fairly hard. The crash was at 1.7g according to the logger. Not huge but enough to make me bite my lip in the process.

Oh well, and things had been going so well.

Back in the paddock I got some sterling help from people like Colin and Dave Hackett. As it turned out the damage was actually mostly bodywork, or so it seemed. So, with the liberal application of gaffa tape, resin and CSM I was ready to go out again. The only problem was that the steering wheel was no longer straight. So, the suspension must have been knocked awry, at least to some extent. All the same, I went for it..

The race was actually faily uneventful. The car was clearly sick and I couldn’t even get out of 4th gear on the bottom straight. I presume this is because the car was running rather a lot of toe somewhere. Still it was still going, albeit slowly. In my mirrors I could see Rob Grant getting closer and closer and I could see that he was fancying his chances. However, I managed to hold him off. I had thought I was quite a way away from him but this last photo shows that I was probably fooling myself!

Oh well. I’ve now got a lot of repairs to do. The only problem is, there isn’t enough time to do them…