Tag: sprint | David Coveney

Why learning to lose is the path to winning

Last night was the count for the local by-election, in which I stood as a Liberal Democrat candidate. I lost. I came third. And I’m OK with that. But this isn’t a political blog, at all, even though I’m involved in it. So if you want the results, they’re here.

Once upon a time, I loved motorsport. I dreamed of being a racing driver, with adoring fans. I wanted to be like Damon Hill, who’d achieved a lot without losing his essential good character as a person. The only problem was that I had no money. At all. I was pretty much skint right up to my mid twenties when things started to sort themselves out. I had my extravagances, of course – this is the UK. Being skint doesn’t necessarily mean no car, no healthcare, and destitution. But I was skint enough that from the age of 18 to 25 my only motorsport release was the odd bit of indoor karting.

And during this, I realised that although I felt fast, I never won. I could get to the front, sometimes, but I’d always lose it.

Then one day, a friend and I were chatting, and we realised we had the same problem. We tried to hard. We so desperately wanted to win, that if we found ourselves in the first three positions we’d try so hard to maintain the position or pass the person in front that we’d make mistakes.

So in our chat, something profound was said, and I don’t know by whom, and it went “You know, it’s OK not to be first. If you have a strong second, sit on it.”

So we attended race night, and he came away with first place, and I came away with third. We’d both done better than ever before. Because we accepted that it was OK to come second.

And it’s OK, even, to come last. After I acknowledged that, I actually got better, and won my class several times in a real life car, albeit at a regional level. But at no point did I worry about losing. I just wanted to do my best.

Watch this race:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1q6JZtLrdc

I chose women’s athletics for a reason. Why? Because these are probably people most of you have never heard of. And you see the lady who came last? You’ve no idea who she is, right? You can’t even work it out by quickly looking at the video.

Yet she is, far far and away, a much faster sprinter than almost anybody you know in real life. She’s a ‘loser’ to many. But she isn’t to me. I bet she’s put in as many hours of effort as the champion. Maybe even more. I bet she’s worked and sweated, and strained and trained, and been shouted at and told off, and when she goes to the supermarket, few people will recognise her.

She’s the brave one. She’ll know for sure that she’s not going to be the fastest. She’ll even know that she stands a good chance of coming last. But my oh my, did she put the hours on, just to get to where she is.

Trying matters. In trying, you can make a difference. To yourself, to others. But you can’t and mustn’t beat yourself up about it.

It’s OK not to win. It’s not OK to not try, if you think you can do it.

If you’ve ever taken a look out of the window and thought “That’s not good enough” but then gone back to doing nothing, then that’s no good unless you have a really good reason. And there are plenty – again, don’t beat yourself up.

A winner in life is someone who tries. People notice. Losers are the people who say they won’t pick up litter, because it’s beneath them. Losers are the people who spit on your pavement because they can’t be bothered to use a tissue. Losers are the people who mock others because they’re different and, in the minds of the loser, somehow inferior.

Losers don’t come last. Losers don’t even try. And they lose the hardest in the end.

So I suspect I’ll stand for the council again. And I’ll almost certainly lose again. And that’s OK.

And if you fancy joining me as a loser in local politics, well, leave a comment with your email address below. Your email address won’t be published online, and I’ll ping you. At some point. Don’t expect an immediate response, but I’ll try!

Featured image Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

Saab 9-5 Aero (HOT) Estate For Sale – SOLD!

Given that I’m selling my motorbike at the moment as well, you may well wonder if I’ve had some kind of financial crisis of my own.

But thankfully, no. I just don’t need such a large and fast car any more. When I was doing a lot of sprinting I needed something capable of towing a car trailer comfortably and reliably. But I also wanted something I could enjoy driving as my daily transport.

City Commuting Doesn’t Suit Big Cars

And that’s what happened, basically – for the past 18mths or so I’ve driven 12 miles to Liverpool city centre, and 12 miles back – congested roads, with a lot of stop-start action. In the end I bought a Golf TDI which makes much more sense for that kind of driving. Although I’m tempted to keep the Saab, which I will if I can’t get the right price, I know that in reality it’ll get far too little use in the coming year or two. The sensible decision, then, is to sell it.

So, here goes…

Specification

This is a 2004 (04 plate) 9-5 Aero HOT Estate with 250bhp. The full specification items worth listing are as follows:

Bi-Xenon headlights, headlight washers, factory alloy wheels, factory CD/Radio, Nokia Bluetooth Hands-Free (works with most phones), electric windows all round, electric mirrors, heated mirrors, split climate control, dual-colour leather seats, leather steering wheel, lots of airbags (5* NCAP Rating), ABS, Electronic Stability Program, new Vredestein Giugiaro front tyres and lots of life on the identical rears, detachable tow bar, FSH (main dealer or specialist only), two owners (first owner the dealership as it’s an ex-demo car), 58,000 miles, 10 months MOT, Tax until 10/09.

The car is in a gorgeous Capuccino Black. In other words, most of the time the car looks black or very dark grey, but when the sun shines on it you realise that there’s a pearlescent bronze finish. The photos below really capture this, which took some effort as it’s not easy to show in pictures – normally it just looks black.

Damage Worth Noting

I’m nothing if not thorough and feel it’s worth noting everything even if it’s minor so that you’re not disappointed if you travel – the car has a couple of tiny dings from the careless door opening of others. It has a small ding that’s almost but not quite invisible under the nearside rearmost window with a matching scrape on the bumper – that was a van in Paris that did it, and no, he didn’t leave details. But I’d say very few people can spot these marks – I’ve taken close-ups, however, to try and show marks. Also, one of the alloys has a barely visible kerb scrape on it. Picture shown. There’s a few minor and normal stone chips that could do with being dealt with by chipsaway or similar, but one left a tiny ding on the bonnet. Another tiny ding was caused by the biggest hailstorm I’ve ever seen, over in Italy. I expected worse….

Get in Touch – Price to be around £6200

If you’re interested, you can contact me through the contact form on this site, or simply call me, during office hours or in the evening on 0151 709 7977.

If you’re wondering whether someone with the word ‘mental’ in his website address and a history of motorsport will have taken care of his car… well, in racing if you don’t take care of your car you often end up with an accident at some point. Or losing. I apply the same philosophy to my road cars – look after them and they look after you.

Enjoy the gallery – simply click on a thumbnail to get the big version, and you can then move between images by clicking on the arrows that come up.

And a Deep Zoom Seadragon view of the under-bonnet area

And now, PhotoSynth

Yes, I may have been playing – I’d be interested to know what you think of this use of technology…

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.

What Happens at Your First Sprint or Hillclimb

The first event you ever do is a great experience. Don’t make yourself sick with worry, and ignore the people making fun of you and suggesting you’ll go out in a big ball of flames or similar! Accidents, in particular serious ones, are rare in sprints and hillclimbs, and if you take it easy while you learn they shouldn’t become a problem for you. At the end of the day, you’re doing this for fun!

You may have already read my article on competing in your first hillclimb or sprint. This gives you the lowdown on how to prepare yourself and your car.

Entry and final instructions

To enter an event you’ll probably have been sent an entry form by your club or championship – however, not all clubs send out entry forms and you may need to download them from their website.

Once you’ve entered an event you’ll generally receive what are called the ‘final instructions’ for the event. These will show the entry list, information about times things happen at the event, and depending on the club there’ll be other information such as where you can park, places to stay, what facilities will be on site, and so on.

Most events have their driver’s briefing at about 9am. Personally I like to arrive by 8am so that I’ve had plenty of time to find my bits and pieces, fix my numbers on, sign on and maybe enjoy a cup of tea. I don’t think it’s good to be stressed or in a rush at a motorsport, especially your first one.

Sign-on and scrutineering

Once you’ve unloaded your car (if it’s on a trailer) you’ll generally need to sign-on before your car is scrutineered. For signing on you’ll need your race license, club and championship membership cards and a warm smile. Don’t forget that if you want to upgrade your license for higher level events you’ll need to leave your license with the stewards for the day, and collect it at the end.

Now, the scrutineers are busy at this time of day so it’s a good idea to be as nice to them as possible – most cars will have something minor which may generally be unimportant but if you annoy the scrutineer he can usually make your morning difficult! These guys are volunteers and have to be up very early to do their job…. They check your car for safety, looking for anything that could hinder rescue if the worst happens, that could hurt you, or that could fail and cause an accident. They’re also looking to see if you’ve followed the rules. One of my tips for making scrutineering painless is to make the engine bay of your car as clean as possible – if it’s badly presented they’re more likely to go looking for problems.

Once the scrutineer is happy (and usually they are!) he will give you a sticker for your car which shows it’s been checked. Place this somewhere easily visible like the top of your dashboard, door sill or roll bar. You won’t be allowed to compete without this sticker.

Depending on the event and club, there will usually be a drivers briefing, and there will always be one for new competitors. This will usually cover any peculiar aspects to the way the event is run, as well as advice on tricky parts of the course. There may be an additional briefing if you’re new to the venue.

And now you’re ready to compete!

The competition

This is, of course, what you’ve come for. First of there’ll usually be two practice runs during which you can assess the layout of the course. You may as well take it easy during these runs as the most important thing is learning where you can go quickly and not actually going quickly! Setting a record time isn’t important.

When your class is called out it will usually be announced over the tannoy. A steward may also arrive to usher you out. At most events it helps if the cars are in numerical order when lining up ahead of the start. Again, stewards tend to assist, but do what you can. Drive slowly in the paddock, get in order, and watch for instructions. Normally you’ll have the ability to follow a car in front, which can help.

At this point nerves may start to kick in. But do your best to relax. At the same time, try to visualise the circuit as best you can. As cars leave you’ll move forward in your queue. This time is also good for warming up your engine.

As you reach the front you’ll find yourself approaching the tyre warming/cleaning area just ahead of the start line. Here you can spin your tyres and brake hard in order to warm up those tyres and clean off any muck acquired in the paddock. Given that some paddocks can be pretty dusty or muddy this is surprisingly important. Give the tyres a good spin if you can, and then break hard. If you have enough space you can do it again. Be careful to stop before the end of the warming area.

Now, as the tension builds, you’ll move forward to the start line. The start line marshalls will gesture you forward and, once approximately in place, you will depress the clutch so the marshalls can line you up with your strut just breaking a timing beam. A second beam, just an inch or so ahead, will trigger the start of the clock.

In front of you now there’s usually a red light or board. Once the course is ready you will then always get a signal to Go! It’s often a green light, but may just be an electronically controlled green board. You can then leave in your own time. The clock won’t start until you break the second light beam. If you have a dragging clutch it may be beneficial to leave right away anyhow as your car might have moved forward slightly and started the clock.

And start! Do those first practice runs, check out the course, and then come back to the paddock. At most hillclimbs and some sprints you’ll be held in a holding area as you need to use part of the course to return. It’s important to complete one practice run or you won’t be allowed to compete. If your car can be run in different layouts (eg, a removable hardtop) then you should compete in both if you want to have a choice – unless you have agreement from your class rivals you can only compete in the state you practiced in.

Following practice there may be a break, quite possibly for lunch. It depends on the time and how the club runs its events.

Competitive timed runs

This is where it gets exciting and the tension reaches its climax. You’ll have at least two or three competitive runs. At some events it’s not unknown for there to be as many as eight – but that’s rare. It’s also normal that only the first two or three timed runs actually count for awards.

So… the competitive runs are managed in exactly the same way as the practice runs. But this time it’s for real. I find that while waiting it’s useful to close my eyes and visualise my run along the course. This way I feel like I get more practice time. It’s hard to do, but I think it’s incredibly important and lets me become quicker, sooner.

Between each run I think it’s important to check over the car, even if only visually. It’s especially important if you were rough over any kerbs, or left the circuit. Look for anything that might have come loose in the engine bay (at my first event the battery went flying into radiator!) and give the tyres a visual check. I don’t believe in too much fussing, but do what works for you. It’s also a good time to chat with your rivals – most are friendly at these events but there’s a ribaldry and joshing in there too… don’t take all advice and joking too seriously. Especially if it’s from Gary Thomas!* If someone says a certain corner is flat out then it may well be for them, in their car – but it might not be for you. Find your own limits.

The awards

Don’t get too excited – there’s no money in this part! Some awards are nice and well worth showing, some are a bit tacky. But no matter what, that first time you receive a cup, plaque or strangely shaped piece of stone will be in your memory for ever. Most events give prizes down to third place in each class, but it does often depend on the turnout. Usually this is described in the regulations.

And now, completely tired, you can go home. Or if it’s a weekend event, go and party with fellow competitors, get drunk, and try to compete the next day with a hangover!

Checklist

To help you along, I’ve created a checklist of items that you must have with you at each event. You can find it in the Motorsport/How to section of this site, or simply by clicking on this line.

* Sorry Gary – couldn’t resist ;-)

Aintree Sprint Video, September 2005

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.

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.