A personal blog transitioning into an exploration of the intersection of design, technology and ethics
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.
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.
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.
I’m afraid that due to issues with recoding some of my videos to this website’s flash player I’ve had to stick with the Google Video system for some videos, at least for the time being.
A lap of the Aintree club circuit. It’s a classic little circuit in the old school format – ie, fast, open, and good fun if like me you prefer your circuits to be a test of balls rather than a test of your ability to tiptoe around chicanes!
I’m afraid that due to issues with recoding some of my videos to this website’s flash player I’ve had to stick with the Google Video system for some videos.
In this one I set what, at the time, was up there amongst the fastest times at Aintree for a road going production car under two litres. Incredibly, within less than a year the record tumbled to the high 50s times – sadly not broken by me but by Gary Thomas while I trailed behind by a couple of tenths. I do, of course, intend to take that record back and make it my own once more!
One thing that’s noticeable in this video is the amount of work I had to do when hitting the bump at Becher’s. Since this was filmed I’ve changed my suspension geometry and ride heights and once I get a newer video onto the site you’ll be able to see that I have a much easier time of it.
Google Video was shut down, this video is no longer available.
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!
