The Cotswolds track when we arrived on Saturday
As all three of us travelled down in my car, we were a little tight on room so our dear racing companion Mr Bosomworth offered us space under his gazebo for the weekend. He arrived a hour or so after us though, so we were super-efficient; pitting and burning simultaneously for the first hour of Saturday...
Until our saviour arrived, cheeky grin available separately...
Nice and tidy (and shaded too!) pit space
Practice on Saturday went ok, I went round well the first time I went out as it was still slightly cooler. But as ambient and track temps came up I struggled with the back end of the car breaking loose and wanting to overtake the front end. I continued hustling the car round best I could simply reminding myself of the track layout and lines the rest of Saturday though.
He wants to be here, honest!
Stef came over at the end of Saturday with the broken circuit board out of his SpeedPassion speedo. He had had a rather impressive crash into marshal point 5 after launching it skyward coming down the hill. The result meant that the soft solder (from the racing stresses) inside the speedo had allowed some of the components to shift across; showing what a huge transfer of force travels through the car under crash conditions! Scary! These photos also end the HobbyWing vs. SpeedPassion debate once and for all... note the HobbyWing part number on the circuit board...
Part number visible top-left, and some tiny caps all shook up on the bottom edge
Rather important looking big-black component has shifted across completely, one of the legs isn't even soldered to the board anymore!
I thought maybe a not-perfect diff was to blame for my troubles in practice, so first thing Sunday morning I rebuilt it. The car seemed much better as a result for round one of qualifying and I put in a clean run with a time far better than I had managed all day Saturday.
Unlike the national the other weekend, everyone was on old tires for the BTCC meeting, many simply running the cars as they had picked them off the track at Mendip. Also, there's very little between new and old boots at Cotswolds. The club were clever and made a heavy investment in high quality asphalt when they constructed the track, so tyres tend to come off looking better than they went on! I'm pretty sure their club members must still all be running the first set of tyres they ever bought!
My fast first run was the best I managed for the rest of qualifying though. We thought the first run could potentially be the quickest as once again the track and ambient temps came up to haunt us, although apparently it was just me who had this issue as looking over the results seems everyone else continued improving throughout the rest of the day! Nevertheless, tyre squeal and warm electronics were the order of the day it seemed. My loose rear end came back to haunt me after round one too, and it stayed with me for the rest of the weekend.
Andy tries some intense cooling solutions
I qualified 6th in the C final and finished 5th overall after the two rounds of finals. Not a bad result and one I would be happy with if it repeated itself at the national in a couple of weeks time. The weekend was great fun though and I came away with a decent tan as a bonus!
I'll play you out with some random shots of racing on the track...
No comments:
Post a Comment