Category: Motorsport | David Coveney

What a difference a tyre makes – mini review of Yokohama Advan Neovas on track

Yesterday, finally, after a break of nearly four years, I returned to the race track. Not for a competitive event, but for a track day. And I learned a little…

The scene has changed. Maybe.

Track days were mostly full of road cars. Lotus Elises were hugely popular, but you’d see a collection of Porsches, various Caterhams and Westfields, and assorted other fast cars. There’d also be quite the gaggle of hot hatches in various states of modification, from bog standard ten year old Golf GTIs through to cars with full roll cages and stiff suspension.

Yesterday it was mostly race cars and track specific motors. There were very few number plates in evidence. There was my own Elise, a Porsche GTS, a couple of Caterhams, and a Honda. Racing or track only cars included Jordan Stilp’s new and seriously rapid Clio Cup racer, an Audi engine Elige (a motorsport bodied Lotus Elise, basically), a swarm of Caterham R300’s from bookarack’s fleet, and a few Ginettas. I soon suspected that the day was more about racers preparing for the upcoming season than about enthusiast drivers who were probably dubious about investing good money on a winter track day that could turn out to be a washout.

But I didn’t mind – the standard of driving was excellent and polite – and when people are skilled you can drive in close quarters without feeling like their cars are about to go off in a random direction.

So about the tyres then?

I don’t change my car much – basically, if it has a setup I’m happy with and that I enjoy then that’s good enough for me. But my old Bridgestones were shot from age and Ollie at Phoenix Motorsports recommended Yokahama Advan Neovas as a road & track friendly alternative. A tyre that can handle rain without trying to kill you. And they’re cheaper too. Given I don’t use the Lotus much and that the Bridgestones were worn out not because the tread had gone, but because they were hard from age, I figured that slightly shorter lived tyres wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

And here’s what happens – suddenly I was having to brake for Roberts from nearly 120mph, just as the car hit the rev limiter in fourth. Last time I went to Donington I was breaking for the old Goddards corner from about 115mph. Given that Roberts has made Starkey’s straight quite a bit shorter that’s a revelation. I was reaching the same sort of speed on the pit straight as well.

The reason was a combination of increased corner speed and superior traction – I could use all the car’s power for a lot more time. I could also carry more speed into corners, so the brakes appeared to have an easier time of it.

On top of that, you get to feel even more lateral G forces. To the degree that the car is becoming quite physical to drive – in Craner Curves at Donington you feel forces that seem out of order for a fairly standard road going car. It makes for a very exciting time if you get it wrong there, as you’re now going a lot faster – another 5mph, exiting the corner at about 110mph in my Elise.

In summary

If you’re looking for a cheap upgrade to make your road oriented track car far faster than seems reasonable, I’d recommended such tyres. Just make sure your suspension setup is capable – fitting sticky tyres to a tall, soft car can lead to a lot more excitement than a mere spin. Being upside down, for example.

Oulton Park Trackday With GTDC

After two years of going nowhere near a race circuit while I concentrated on building up the business, I finally got the Elise nicely fettled by Phoenix Motorsport in Accrington and got out with the Gold Track Driving Club.

Loved every minute of it.

My friend Gordon was there with his economy special – a BMW 325 he picked up for a mere £400. A spot of (very light) preparation later and out he went. On snow and ice tyres, because that’s what was fitted.

Below’s a full set of pictures of both cars (unedited and unchanged) taken by the lovely ladies at Fresh Orange Photography.

Photos From the Aintree Spring Sprint 2008

I’m not going to be challenging for anything much this year, but on April 26th I ambled along to the Aintree Spring Sprint and took some snaps. A selection of them are available here. Use them as you like, but don’t remove the tag. If you’d like to receive a higher quality image, just let me know and I’ll mail it to you.

Aintree Spring Sprint 2008

Each year, Liverpool Motor Club holds three sprints at the classic Aintree circuit. It’s a relaxed, sociable and efficient event.

Drucker's TVR — Such a pretty car... TVR's best?

I always thought TVR’s finest moment was the Cerbera – a combination of classic low-rider looks, power, and noise. Still handled badly, but that can largely be sorted out.

Gordon - Golf Driving Mentalist — If you try hard enough, these TDIs cock a wheel - they also go quickly...

It was great to see everyone at the event. Hopefully I’ll be driving again in the near future.

Look Before Crossing

Almost worth it for the ooh-la-la.

Stop Whinging and Learn to Drive

Sorry David Coulthard, but when I saw this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/7191512.stm

I saw red. I mean, apart from some of his astonishingly patronising comments directed towards younger drivers, he did nothing but confirm that his F1 career has been a long period of journeyman mistakes.

His ability to spin off during warm up laps was once something quite special in F1. Of course, with traction control and other driver aids this era finished. And now TC has gone, he’ll have to learn throttle control once more.

Good.

I’m looking forward to F1 that could actually be exciting for once. And as Nick Heidfeld put it – “For me, it doesn’t cross the line of being too dangerous. If you want you can just sit on the outside, and then it’s safe.”

Hillclimb and Sprint Photography

I don’t often mention other sites, but that’s more because I’m lazy and don’t do my research, rather than any intent to ignore.

But I can’t ignore Gary Thomas’s new sprint and hillclimb photo site. He takes some cracking pictures of the sprint scene and shows them off at his photo site yourftd.com where you can also order prints and electronic copies.

I’ll admit to some involvement though – my web design firm Interconnect IT was lightly involved. Unusually this wasn’t our more typical and more complex implementations – instead we installed suitable off the shelf open source software, created a nice logo, gave Gary some instruction, and sent him on his way. Keeps the budget simple, if you stick to things that have already been done. It’s not been without it’s problems, however, and I soon learned that a large collection of images – all of which need some server manipulation – can take up enormous server resources. It’s not Gary’s fault, this – I honestly thought it would be no problem given the usual performance of our sites. But with that and sniffpetrol.com hammering our machines I realised it was time to upgrade our server. So you should see some rip-snorting performance on this and our other websites – we now have a shiny new machine which we no longer share with other web firms. Woo!

I’m going to be cheeky and include a sample image from Gary’s site down below, just to show you the quality of his work:

Aintree Sprint Report, 8th September 2007

A bit slow putting this one up, but it needs doing!

It was an unusual day for me, in part, because I’d not really expected to be competing! I’d really given up on this season – with a shortage of funds and time while I continue getting my business on its feet (it’s at http://www.interconnectit.com visit it, it’s great!) I’d cut back my motorsport involvement to the very basics. However, before I’d made that decision, back in April, I’d already entered for this event.

Completely forgotten, the event drew closer and I only realised I was entered when I was volunteered for passenger rides to Juice FM prize winners! I responded that I’d be happy to help, but couldn’t as I didn’t think I was there. Reassurances that I’d entered quickly came back so, with just a week left, I quickly tried to get my car working and ready for motorsport!

The day itself was one of those where I never felt as on form as I should. A lack of circuit time certainly didn’t help, but I quickly set at 53.01 time on my first run. Problem was, I couldn’t really improve on that. David Marshall in his potent 205 GTI was all over my times and a win wasn’t assured. Gary Thomas, who I can usually rely on to push me in this class had moved to mod-prods due to running semi-slick tyres. Even he, however, failed to break his own Elise record in spite of the great tyres. I can only assume that the windy conditions didn’t favour the lightweight and relatively low powered Elise. Eventually, on the last run, I managed to pip David Marshall by 5/100ths of a second! On the final ‘fun run’ I went quicker again, experimenting with some lines and being aggressive with the kerbs, but still over a second slower than my personal record.

The picture below, incidentally, was taken by Gary. He’s now making available his images through a quick and simple online gallery application I helped him set up. Online photo galleries can be something of a nightmare, especially if you’re trying to sell the pictures – eCommerce systems don’t work well with large numbers of images, and Photo Gallery systems don’t do eCommerce very well. However, in spite of that I think we did a nice wee site, and the pictures are great – if you want photographs from sprints and hillclimbs, he’s got some great examples at yourftd.com.

Aintree Sprint, 30th June 2007 – Rain again

If you’re in Britain you’ll already be aware that for the past few weeks we’ve been getting rain of near biblical proportions, with floods causing a lot of damage in the Midlands, and just a lot of heavy rain in the rest of the country.

Aintree wasn’t much different, though not quite so bad as last September where going out on my worn out tyres I felt as if I was powerboat racing. The rain came, and stayed on all day with some strong torrents. Ultimately my car span, but I can’t take too much of the blame… more later….

I’ve always loved the Aintree sprint. On the surface of it, it shouldn’t be a great event. The circuit is relatively simple, albeit surprisingly technical, and the weather can sometimes be dreadful, but I still love it. So in this season where I’ve really cut back on the events I’m doing, I’ve made sure I get in the odd event here. And I need it, on days I do a sprint or a trackday, that’s all I think about. Although some may think motorsport is stressful, to me I love the fact that for one whole day I’m not really stressing about business – I’m forever reading books, networking with people, keeping an eye on our servers to make sure they’re behaving, trying out new software, thinking about how to build new leads. A lot is done in the office of course, but as anyone who’s started a business will know, you don’t get much relaxation in the early days.

Back to the event… well, being a wet day, no records were going to be broken. The car was, however, in good form with the rebuilt dampers freshly fitted. Of course, I hadn’t had a chance to set them up right. And I wasn’t going to fiddle with the settings at Aintree either – I ain’t grovelling in the rain!

For the practice runs I was on a conservative 60.62 and 57.78, getting me second and first fastest times in the class. David Sykes, a newbie at Aintree, showing that he gets into the groove incredibly quickly with 60.35 and 58.03 times. The other close competitor here, Russell Thorpe who beat me here in the rain back in September set 61.12 and 57.93 times. I knew it’d be close between the three of us.

I knew my first competitive run would be critical – with the rain potentially getting harder, the chance of improving wasn’t high. So I went out with my teeth gritted (you can buy suitable grit from all reputable sports shops, in case you wondered) and did everything almost perfectly. The start, the three corners. In fact, everything was going just so until about 100yds from the finish line I decided a change from fourth to fifth would help as the engine was running out of puff. So it’s a shame I manage to select third….

It’s at this point I’d like to thank the people who used to work at Rover, to thank David Andrews who built my head, and all other people who’ve bolted my engine together in the past. Because in spite of being buzzed, momentarily, to over 9000rpm, it survived! I did listen carefully for new rattles but no, everything was great.

That spoiled my run, rather – I pottered over the line about ten miles an hour slower than I should have and set a 56.81… Russell, a car behind me, set a 56.73, and David Sykes was a second behind at 57.94.

The next two runs were basically the same, but without the mistakes. Myself finding 56.18 and 55.92, Russell a consistent pair of 56.62 and 56.61 and David Sykes failing to respond until his final time of 57.30 – damn good for someone new to Aintree and in the rain. But then we suspect he may not have seen just how solid those Grand National fences are. I was happy and relieved to get the class win – like all wet events, the Elise always makes you work hard for a win. Which Russell proved when I let him borrow the Elise for the ‘fun’ run that Liverpool Motor Club often manage to fit in at the end of the day. And I got to go and have a go in his Renault 5GT Turbo – and confirm that it has a handling problem, perhaps due to an over-aggressive differential, which makes his times at the moment all the more impressive.

Anglesey Sprint, 9th-10th of June 2007

Yes, this really is my first event of the year! It won’t be my last, but sadly business and finances have to take a priority and it’s unlikely I’ll be doing much sprinting this season. I’ll do the odd track-day, however, to keep my eye in.

And it didn’t really go well – at a trackday at Aintree the week before, a start-of-season shakedown for me and the car, I quickly realised that my car’s handling was evil. I don’t mean evil as in a little tricky at the limits, but evil as in “I think this car wants to kill me” evil.

It all started off harmlessly enough – driving there, having not really touched the car in months, I thought to myself “These Elises are skittish aren’t they?” And guessed that I just needed to ease in. However, on going out I knew I should be at least as quick as another chap in his Exige. And I wasn’t. In fact, he was gaining on me and, as we rounded Bechers, the back-end of the car let go quite dramatically. Given that my nature isn’t to spin very often, especially at this point in a corner, alarm bells started to sound.

I carried on, but as we bounced out of bumps the truth dawned on me – I had a damper problem. So I gave up before having an accident, looked under the back of the car and, sure enough, the left rear damper was dribbling oil.

So for the day I gave it up, went home, got into the tow car, and tracked that instead! And I can safely say that a Saab 9-5 Estate is a rubbish track car. Not slow though, and bowling along in near silence, with aircon and Radio 4 on is quite pleasant even if it is quite difficult to follow an Archers plotline and clip the apex at the same time.

So moving on to Anglesey, and the first sprint on the new layout… well, here we had a problem – the dampers didn’t return from Nitron until Saturday morning (but credit to them for the rapid turnaround) and I had to skip that day. However, the second day was my chance to show some mettle – albeit in an Elise only class of just four cars – including Gary Thomas.

So it’s a shame that the front left damper decided to fail.

The effect was dramatic – at first there was an obvious pattering from the front left under load, but the problem really came if you found yourself sideways – that undamped spring unsettling the car considerably and causing me an enormous tank slapper.

All I can say is that I did my best. I managed to come in second, behind Gary Thomas’s always strong pace. I was pretty much in that place all day, with Lee Cliff, a relative rookie, trailing a good few seconds behind as he continues to learn the ropes.

The circuit is a cracker – beautiful views, and now blessed with a top-class surface and layout. They’ve really come up trumps on the track and I’m looking forward to many more great events there in the future. If only more sprint circuits were like this.