Category: Event Reports and Previews

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.

Thoresby Park Sprint, 23rd September 2006

I question the validity of any sport that involves early morning starts. Sadly that seems to include most of them, so at 5am I woke up, startled myself by spotting a grumpy looking animal staring back at me from my mirror, and bumbled out of the door to drag my trailer to somewhere in Nottinghamshire. Somewhere that I wasn’t too certain of how I’d find it, but thanks to the wonders of sat-nav and Stuart Tranter – fellow competitor who was out to enjoy a day on the other side of the safety fencing – I reckoned we’d stand a chance of making it.

And we managed it with a mere three u-turns and one sandwich stop. Incredible!

Arriving in the early morning mist it struck me that it was a truly beautiful location, set amongst parkland that fringes Sherwood Forest I was impressed as the hall loomed large over the paddock. I had a little more trouble when it came to parking, however, as the Saab’s tyres are pretty much at the end of their life and geared towards sports driving – not towing a trailer off-road. Thoresby isn’t blessed with a nice tarmac paddock, and while grass is pretty it’s not easy to tow on when wet.

After inadvertantly trying to rip the number plate off the Lotus while unloading we were all set for the day. Thanks to Gary Thomas, Stuart and others for their help in saving my number plate. A shame that they weren’t watching when I loaded up at the end of the day… Still, the Elise looks nicer without a front number plate, so it can stay off…. If anyone knows where I can get one of those neat stick on plates, please let me know.

The track itself is short and incredibly tight, with three first gear corners and two chicanes. All corners are also marked with barrels topped by tennis balls – for each ball you knock off you lose a second. I did wonder whether it’d be worthwhile simply barging through the barrels and accepting the points, but in the end I settled against it as not being in the spirit of the competition. More to the point, it might scratch the car even more than it already is!

The class was a specific Elise class with four entries. I had to do well to stand a chance of winning the Liverpool and Chester Championship where I was runner-up last year. I needed Andrew Dobson to either do very badly or drop out, and I had to score 98 points or more. In other words, I needed to be have a competitive time wherever I came – you get 100 points for second, 100+your lead for first, and 100-your difference to second for third.

First practice didn’t go too well when I stopped at the corner called Fiveways. I learned why it’s called this and couldn’t work out which of the five ways to take. No, of course I hadn’t walked the course before practice – that would have involved getting out of bed even earlier…. Thankfully one of the marshalls charmingly gave me some directions and I set off in the right direction.

Second practice… slightly quicker, but I was still miles off the pace set by Gary Thomas and Fred Simcox Jr. I didn’t expect to win here, but I wanted a competitive, brisk time. Which is a shame really looking at my next two competitive times – both two seconds off the pace around the 56s mark while the others were running around 54s times. I looked set for around 98 points, but Andrew cheerfully got around the awkward slow corners (they can be problematic for single-seater race cars) and I knew then that I’d come second in the championship, whatever happened. Sadly I couldn’t find Andrew before leaving so I couldn’t congratulate him. I’ll say it now instead – well done Andrew!

In the meantime I had one last run to complete. I wanted to set a respectable time – more for my own pride than anything else. And I gunned it. I was delighted to set a 54.62 – only 0.6s off the fastest pace. But it was a close class and it left me in third place behind Gary and Fred. But for a first visit I was reasonably content with my efforts… just such a shame that I then got awarded a 1s penalty for knocking one of those tennis balls off, resulting in my time becoming a 55.62. Well done to Gary for his first place and Fred in second, and Martyn who’s new to Elises did great with a neat 57.17 to take fourth place.

So not the best placing ever for me, but a jolly good day out in beautiful surroundings. Next time I’ll take the camcorder and record the track for posterity.

Aintree Sprint, 2nd September 2006 – Boat racing!

Whenever we get rain at Aintree it seems to be of the biblical sort. I’d hoped for a chance at recovering my record and also scoring lots of useful points for my championship challenge. But as I set off I felt doomed – strong rain is never going to be good in the Elise and as my rear tyres are pretty close to the end of their life the problem is exacerbated.

Which I discovered in second practice, at about 80mph as I straightened up on Valentines Way and hit standing water. As the car slewed I couldn’t get enough lock and control to avoid doing a pretty and spectacular pirouette for the benefit of the marshalls. As I realised I was out of control I did the old trick of locking up all four wheels of the car in order to keep it going in the original direction rather than spinning off onto the circuit. It was great getting a whole new perspective of the circuit though when I flicked the car around to point the right way again I was pleased that I’d kept away from Aintree’s fearsome fences.

At this point, with the awful weather, it was decided to take a long and early lunch in the hope of salvaging the meeting.

And so the first runs started and Russell Thorpe threw in a brilliant run at 57.56s in Doris the Renault 5 Turbo, thoroughly trouncing my own slightly nervous run of 59.40… and just a second behind in third was Mark Teale in the beautifully prepared black Lotus Elise Sport belonging to Bobby Fryers.

So with the second run coming, Russell was doing a rain dance to try and keep me from catching his time, while Mark was geeing himself up for another improvement. I knew I had to pull something good out. And sadly I failed… I was still nervous from the spin and with standing water still on the circuit I ended up with a safe but uninspiring 58.13 while Russell knocked another tenth off his time. Mark managed to improve his time, coming in third with a 58.30.

I have to say now, that my own performance wasn’t great but it’ll serve as adequate. At Thoresby Park, should I get a second place or a close runner-up spot I’ll stand a good chance at either winning the Liverpool & Chester Speed Championship. At worst a second place looks likely. A lot depends on who enters and how confident I feel on an unknown track.

Scammonden Dam Hillclimb – 20th August 2006

They built a reservoir at Scammonden for one very simple reason.

Because it rains a lot there.

And Sunday wasn’t a disappointment in that respect. Still, it’s one of those venues that needs supporting – Pendle & District always put on a good event with plenty of runs and although it’s a short hill it’s always a good day out. Part of the appeal is that it is a small event – about thirty cars, so you can chat with everyone and it’s more of a clubby atmosphere.

For me there was some confusion – I’d entered very late after hearing numbers were low and they needed more. As a consequence I’d entered first into mod-prods, a class for racing cars rather than road cars, then they moved me to standard production cars. I explained carefully that my car’s anything but standard and eventually I went into road going modified cars. Funnily enough the result would have been the same for me whichever of those classes I’d have been in, but you have to think of the fairness for others as well.

Once that was sorted everything was straightforward – I was second quickest in the very wet conditions, lagging behind a quick and well driven Citroen Saxo VTS belonging to Steve Mitchell. The extremely slippery conditions favouring the balance of the front drive cars.

However, once the timed runs came on I found my groove and set down a marker nearly a second ahead, pulling out more time as the day went on. Five timed runs later and I had a very strong lead, winning my class with an ok 29.4s run and coming 8th overall.

Scammonden Dam Hillclimb is an interesting one – it’s a short course up the service road for the dam. Incredibly steep, you can do most of it in just first and second gear – especially in the wet, and you find yourself doing a lot of wheelspinning as you fight for traction.

There are just a few corners – first is sharp left hander just a couple of seconds from the steep start line. You then blat quickly along a straight to a slightly intimidating corner with nothing but armco if you outbrake yourself. From there you start the real climb with a left hander that’s always a little later than you expect heading up to a couple of right handers. It’s not an especially tricky hill to learn, but it does demand commitment if you want to be quick.

Next Event: Aintree, 2nd of September 2006 – time to get that record back

Loton Park, 29th July 2006

Woke up this morning, looked outside, saw the sun… and just wanted to go back to sleep! Yep – I was shattered! I’d failed to get to sleep early, and then woke up with a start a few times. I don’t know why, but when I have an event on the next morning I wake really easily.

Still, I loaded up the Elise with the usual kit – a soft-bag toolkit, race suit, helmet, paperwork, gloves and booties. And left about 7am.

Each event has its own rythm. In a way I’m no huge fan of hillclimbs – they tend to run relatively slowly, with large gaps between runs. But on the upside they do often tend to be in beautiful settings – and Loton Park is no exception.

Downside to beautiful settings is that the trees, armco and other items are really close! On my second practice run I came to the first corner waaaaay too fast and, not knowing the place that well I had no idea if there was much escape road. I could see cones… but not what lay beyond – it was over a crest and the Elise is low. But it was either that, or armco.

One damaged numberplate later and I’d twirled the car back onto the track and got the ok from the marshalls to continue. So I did! And went faster on the second part of the track than before. And you know, it wasn’t bad fun at all – as I went around the next to last corner the inside (left) rear wheel started spinning but there was no oversteer… so I kept the foot down. And I’ll admit something – I glanced in the left wing mirror to see smoke streaming from the tyre… and enjoyed it!

First run was delayed somewhat to allow noisier cars to run before a wedding at a nearby church (us motorsport lot are a considerate bunch) and unfortunately the rain came just before we ran.

Surprisingly the track was relatively dry and grippy, but after the previous off I wasn’t confident. I was slow and running in third, behind Fred in the Golf and Gary in the Elise.

Ok… one last go.

And there it was… Second place. Again. I kept the run neat, but in the first sector was too timid.Â Even then, the second sector was still a little off that set by Gary. So another well done to Gary… and a promise from me to work out how to find that extra turn of speed!

Loton Park Preparation

Every year I look forward to Loton Park, down in Shropshire. And every year I worry about it! It’s a lovely hillclimb – scenic and great for spectators but there’s no denying that it’s not without dangers. Lots of people end up with damaged cars here.

I’ve decided not to trailer the car up as I’m incredibly busy at the moment and collecting the trailer and dropping it off, along with the loading up, will cost me an extra couple of hours that I can live without. Maybe I should park the trailer closer to home – it’s eight miles away right now :-(

So, it’s a calculated gamble. If I break the car I’ll end up having to make some panicky calls to friends in the hope they can bring the trailer down for me. Alternatively… I might just take the trailer after all. Could be peace of mind.

My biggest challenge will be to compete with Gary Thomas. So far he’s beaten me on both meetings this year, but at Aintree where, although I know the place well and have held the record, his power advantage really shines through. Loton’s a different proposition, with lots of technical corners and some difficult balls out sections.

While I’m at this I’m going to make a teensy weensy political statement. After reading the story of Atefah Sahaaleh, a 16 year old girl executed in Iran by a shariah court, I’ve decided to join Amnesty International. That I haven’t done so for so long is a guilt I have to deal with because the issues they fight against are ones close to my heart. Stories like this, where people with more interest in personal power and wealth than being humane are cheerfully sending people to their deaths. It does a disservice to Islam that it’s done in the name of their religion, and it does a disservice to the country which continues to refuse to separate the state and the religion.

Anyway, I shan’t carry on – this isn’t the place, so thank you for the indulgence.

I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to post a report on my outing at Loton Park immediately after but I’m hoping to be able to manage something. Actual results will be available at the Liverpool Motor Club website.

Aintree, 24th June 2006 – Pushing harder and harder… yet…

When you compete in motorsport one of the peculiar things is the change in your perception of what’s possible. You do an amazing run and you just think to yourself “there’s no way I could go any quicker there.” And then next time out, you go that bit quicker again. And you wonder where on earth the extra time comes from. I have some theories – but more on that further down the article.

If you’ve followed previous posts you’ll know that having the car in a fit state for this event was a problem. The toelink had failed and gave the car handling that could most charitibly be described as ‘novel’. With the field at Aintree being full of quality drivers such as Bobby Friars and Gary Thomas there was no way to compete without a well setup car. At 4:30pm the day before, I collected the car from Christopher Neil in Northwich – Paul there had done a sterling job in getting the Eliseparts kit fitted in time for me. You have to give credit to any franchise dealership willing to fit a third party item to a car. Unfortunately, apart from a quick run on local roads there was no way to be sure that the kit was going to work properly or the geometry hadn’t been messed up.

After first practice at Aintree it was quite obvious that everything was just fine. The car still handled beautifully and I was able to post a first time of 52.40 – only a third of a second slower than the record which stood until this year. I felt good, though I noticed Gary Thomas had gone fractionally faster. We’d set out our markers and it was obvious where the battle was going to be.

For second practice it rained. I was able to go much quicker than Gary, but quite possibly that’s just because I’m much more stupid. If it continued to rain I might have a straightforward win, but frankly I wasn’t interest in just winning – I wanted my old class record back. It stood at 52.07, before Gary took it with a 51.84.

First competitive run… and… 51.44! I cheered the car as I passed the finish line – it was .63s faster than my best ever and a long way inside Gary’s best. I felt like I had the record! Which is a shame because when I came I was told Gary’s time… 51.07! How on earth….? I was wondering where this extra time was going to come from. I’d beaten my own target of breaking 51.5s but finding another half a second was going to be some challenge.

Second run. I’ll mention now that Gary went a little slower. But me… I had to nail it. The first corner was slightly wild, but still quick. The rest were great, everything coming together. As you come towards the finish line at aintree you can see the clock ticking up for what seems an age. 49… 50… and as I crossed the line it flicked over to 51… point 14. Damn!

Third and last competitive run. I had to really be perfect this time. And I was – the start was great, the first corner utterly perfect, the second just right… and then I decided to go asleep for a second. Really – I was so angry with myself. As I approached Bechers I braked just a tad too early. It’s not a huge problem, but perhaps worth 1/10th of a second. But what really messed me up was that as I turned in I realised I’d not shifted down for the corner. Now, in a race, if you’re followed by someone slower they still won’t pass you if you make a mistake like this. And if you’re chasing someone slower… well, you’ll make up the lost time on the next lap. But in a sprint at a simple (ish) and fast circuit like Aintree you have no chance of recovery. So what did I do? Well of course I made things even worse by changing down to third, mid-corner…. corrected the resultant slide, and headed for the finish line.

Stupid stupid stupid. Now, let’s go back to my first paragraph – when I set the 51.44 time it felt rapid. Really good and it was hard to see how I could go faster. And now, in spite of rampaging stupidity and careless driving I’d managed a 51.40. Huh?!

But it was game over. Gary drove a stonker on the next lap and is now the first to take a road-going production car around the sprint circuit in less than 51s, with a 50.97s time. Damn – he was the first to crack 52s as well! We’d pushed each other so hard that we’d smashed up all the old records. Gary has a distinct power advantage over me, but it’s possible for me to drive better still. I believe I’ve managed to develop the car to a point where its handling is pretty much perfectly balanced and benign. I could add more power – the underbonnet engineering is done now to handle over 200bhp and I guess that would bring me in line with Bobby and Gary’s cars.

Theories on speed

At some point I’ll write up an article on what I think it takes to get quick on the race circuit. But for the time being I’ll expound one little theory I’ve been building up.

I reckon there are three phases that you go through in becoming a decent driver, maybe more. I can only really speak from my own experiences.

But it’s kinda hard to explain. You get through these three step changes – from first fumblings in a kart you realise that winning isn’t always feasible – so you learn to maximise what you have. Then you discover that a ‘moment’ won’t necessarily turn nasty if you keep cool. So then you go a bit quicker again because you’re not scared of the car. Then suddenly something else happens – a smoothness develops, along with courage over recovering the car, and so on. And suddenly you’re getting there. I guess there’s more still to come, but I’ve no idea where it comes from. If it happens to me… I’ll let you know!

Of broken toelinks (Anglesey May and June 2006)

A bit of a long time since the last update, but here we go…..

At the end of May I did the MGOC Anglesey weekend sprint and, on the day before I did a trackday at the same place. All seemed great at the start of the trackday – the Elise going beautifully and showing itself well even amongst sticky tyred race cars. I was confident about the sprint.

But then, about half way through the day, the handling seemed to go somewhat awry. I put it down to the tyres going off, but the handling never seemed to return to where it should have been. Oh well – I continued on. The next two days I competed in the sprint but as there was only one Elise (me!) I accepted a class amalgamation into the mod-prods. All slick shod race cars and there’s me with standard road tyres. But I do like a challenge :o) Day one I did ok and came second, and day two I won it by a modest margin. Happy enough I went home, parked the car up, and didn’t think about it. My times hadn’t been amazing, but I didn’t worry.

Two weeks pass and the car is unused. I have enough to deal with on my house refurbishment without stressing about the car. I hopped in and drove off to Anglesey for another sprint – this time with Chester Motor Club and just for the Sunday. I was a little late and going at an, erm, modest pace along the A55 when I hit a bump and…. weave. Weave?! That was a new feeling. I wasn’t sure if it was me being tired or the car but it certainly did feel a little out of sorts.

Once I arrived I started checking over the car and then found the source of all my problems – the rear nearside toelink was rattling around like it was about to drop off! Not good for handling, and potentially dangerous too! I managed to tighten it a little, and others were a great help offering parts and assistance. In the end it was tight enough to nervously compete for a single run before I decided to cut my losses and head for home. As the Elises were once more under-represented I ran alone this time and got my win and, more importantly my championship points – though if you run alone you can only get the equivalent of second place.

This coming weekend I’ll be at Aintree and there’s a great field, including four Elises. That’s more like it! It should be a fun event, so long as my toelink can be sorted by then. I’ve ordered the Eliseparts kit as Lotus are all out of replacements. It means spending Â£280 instead of Â£30, but this is the problem with competition cars. Sometimes you need to spend in order to keep alive in the championships and compete effectively. The upside is that the new kit is substantially stronger than the old and should put up with years of track abuse.