Crail Summer Endurance - Round 4

Today was round 4 of the Crail Endurance Championship, and the weather forecast predicted a dry day……


I got the news last Wednesday that I could finally stop taking the medication that my heart operation had mandated. So I took my last Warfarin on Wednesday night and my last Beta Blocker on Friday morning. I couldn’t be sure, but despite having to work on Saturday, I wasn’t at all tired on Saturday night which contrasted sharply with the previous 4 months. I guess I had just got used to the side affects, so I hoped to be able to push hard on Sunday.

Leaving Glasgow on Sunday morning, it looked like the forecasters had got it right, as the sky was mostly clear and it looked like it would be a good day.

Practice, on the long circuit, went really well with my best of 44.20 being 3/10ths quicker than anyone else. Normally we get on better on the shorter circuit and at the start of qualifying, I put in a 37.49 which, when I handed over to Ros, was still the fastest time. However with 5 mins to go, Grant of MBM put in a 37.45 and we finished 2nd.

We had a full days testing on Friday 20th and we found lots of little things in the setup, which we put to good use – despite qualifying in second, we were quite happy.

I didn’t get a great start in race 1 but just managed to hold off Michael in the Panther Racing entry and from that point onwards, I sat just behind Grant of MBM – I got past once, but he was able to re-pass (I found out later he had changed his kart’s gearing after practice/qualy) down the front straight. Ros took over, and he managed to pass Mur, who had taken over from Grant, and pull away for a well deserved win.

Race 2 was on the long circuit, and panned out much the same, but by this time, Alan Kirkcaldy (brother of FIA GT racer Andrew) had turned up and he started in the MBM kart, along side me on the back row (reversed grid). I managed to get past Scott of Apollo to take the lead after 10 or so laps, but Alan was right behind me and again, the higher gearing that they were running allowed him to pass me on the entry to the roundabout. But again, I just sat right behind him and despite being given a hard time by one backmarker in particular, I handed over to Ros in a comfortable second. Ros chased Grant really hard and by the flag, was only 1.5 seconds behind after an hour of racing.

We decided that changing our gearing for race 3 was too risky as we were starting from pole. I made a good start and Alan sat behind me until I made a slight error and then past he went – We then traded places for the next few laps with over half a lap of side to side racing with no contact – It was brilliant! I finally made a small break and handed over to Ros in the lead (just). It looked like Ros and Grant were going to have a similar battle with the lead changing hands a few times, but then with around 20 minutes to go, it started raining and Grant just drove away to a comfortable win.

So second on the day, but for me it was great to be back racing and not feeling knackered – And the dice I had with Alan was really good – Normally I’m a bad loser, but today didn’t feel like we lost – It’s doing to be a really competitive season.
We still lead the championship, but only by 4 points from MBM.

Performance Cars

On Sunday July 1st, I had a chance to drive the new Audi R8 at the Oulton Park race circuit in Cheshire (Nr. Manchester). Having seen the pictures of the car (http://microsites.audi.com/audir8/html/index.php ), I wasn’t sure about the shape, but in the flesh it’s absolutely stunning.

The day started with a classroom introduction to the technological features of the car. The most interesting bits were the ESP (Electronic Stability Program) which is now switchable between normal, sport and off. In sport mode the slip angle of the rear tyres can go up to 35 degrees before it interferes. That’s great for the track and it works really well! Secondly, the magnetic ride system which uses a closed loop monitoring system to control the voltage applied to the magnetic fluid in the dampers. This allows the suspension to adapt to the steering and bump loads to adjust the stiffness of the suspension. Again on circuit, this works superbly and I hope this will become available on other cars.

We were then told to team up with someone and pick a car. I ended up with a guy who decided he’d drive first as he’d been round the circuit before and I hadn’t, which was fair enough. Once we’d done our 2 sighting laps each, we then proceeded to follow our instructor through various parts of the circuit. The weather was extremely variable throughout the day changing between dry and sodden wet, with all the varying conditions in-between - sometimes the variations depended on where on track you were – very challenging! I only got to drive in totally dry conditions during an exercise that used the exit of cascades round the hairpin and back to the chicane, and the car was very impressive – for a road car, the brakes were fantastic on track and despite getting a hammering, they only grumbled a bit, with no fade. Once we got back to the pits, my ‘passenger’ had to disappear to the toilet :-). The rain then returned and despite the difficult cambers of the circuit, the car was very sure footed in the treacherous conditions. Way better than any road car I’ve driven on a track.
Despite having the 4.2 V8 putting out 420bhp, the chassis felt like it could take much more power, so the expected RS8, with the V10 engine, should be quite a beast!

The more I think about it, it just seems kind of pointless to actually own any high performance car, because in the UK, if you try to use the performance, you’re going to get charged with speeding sooner or later. When even the entry level cars are capable of safely exceeding the maximum speed allowed on the public roads (70mph), it does seem a bit low. But having seen the standard of driving on the roads, you have to wonder why the government are so focused on speed as their primary road safety message. For years, the UK was on a downward trend of road casualties, which in the last few years has been reversed. At the same time as this reversal, we have built a network of speed cameras generating millions of pounds in fines every year. See a connection? Cameras can’t spot drunks, bad lane discipline, tailgating and take no account of the road conditions. As an example, there are drivers that seem to believe that as long as they don’t exceed the posted limit, then they are safe drivers, even if they are 10 feet from your rear bumper in the pouring rain. The present focus on speed enforcement by automated cameras has only succeeded in creating more quangos (the Camera Partnerships) and increasing the numbers killed on our roads. Bring back the traffic police!

Crail Summer Endurance - Round 3

On Sunday 22nd, I set off for Crail raceway expecting a very wet day – the forecast was for heavy rain all day, but once again they got it wrong! The circuit was wet when we got there but by the end of qualifying most were on slick tyres.

Today we were having a 30 minute practice and then a 30 minute qualifying so we decided to split the sessions between us. Practice went OK with both of us managing to be in the top 3 times, so I started the qualy session by chasing Grant from MBM. Unfortunately, Grant spun at the second hairpin and I had nowhere to go and the resulting contact bent one of the front track rods. By the time we got it changed and re-aligned, Ros only had time for 2 timed laps and we qualified 9th. Just before race 1 we had a brief shower and everyone started on wet tyres. Yet again on lap 1 I had to take to the grass to avoid a spinner, putting me back to roughly 18th, but the kart felt good and I managed to get back up to 4th by the change over. The track had been drying throughout the session and Ros continued, along with nearly everybody else, to get closer to ‘slick’ times, eventually finishing 5th. Not great, but starting from 9th it was OK.

For race 2, only 3 karts stayed on wets, and we weren’t one of them. With the reverse grid, I started 14th and made it to the front after 2 laps, and that’s where I stayed. When I handed over to Ros we had an 8 second lead and despite very light rain for most of the last 10 minutes, we took a comfortable win.

This put us 2nd on the grid for the final race of the day when the forecasted rain finally arrived in ernest, and I didn’t get a great start, ending up behind Apollo, MBM and Panther by the end of lap1. We had made a change to the kart for the final race and it became clear that it had worked as I picked off the guys in front and hit the front after 15 minutes. We changed over just before the 40 minute mark, and somehow lost our lead - Ros was fighting over second place with Eric of Apollo and it ended in tears for us with Eric pushing Ros off with 4 laps to go. This put us behind MBM and 4th it was. Eric and Ros had a good old ‘discussion’ after the race and Eric admitted deliberately hitting Ros, but hey, that’s racing :-)

We ended up second overall, and we managed to find a wet setup that works, so we were reasonably happy. The guys who challenged us for last year’s championship, Milwalk, yet again had really bad luck with a retirement from race 2 and it looks like they are now out of the championship hunt. We lead Apollo by 2 and MBM by 6, which considering that we feel we have not got the best out of the new kart yet, is very encouraging.