The Racers Edge

Plans for 2012

2012-01-25T22:04:00.002Z

As you can see from the low post count for 2011, It was a bit of a wash out racing wise.

2012 will be a bit different :-)

Current Plans are:

Palmersport - May

F1 Karting Challenge - 12 Hour Race at Daytona - July -

Palmersport - Aug

Britcar - 24 hour race on the Silverstone GP circuit

Monaco Kart Cup - October

Daytona 24 - 24 hour kart race at Daytona - Oct

And there's a chance I'll be racing in the VLN series at the Nurburgring on at least one occasion with an outside chance of taking part in the Nurburgring 24 hour race in May.

But first, I need to pass my medical :-)

Daytona 24 Hour Kart Race

2011-10-17T12:46:00.003+01:00

Even if we'd won, the weekends efforts were put into sharp perspective by the tragic death of Dan Wheldon in the Las Vegas Indy Car race.

I feel sick.

YouTube Links for the VLN race

2011-10-10T11:17:00.009+01:00

The first one shows the upside down Clios and the second my quickest lap.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf728S7q2LU

http://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=IQPV3iMdqRY

VLN - Nurburgring

2011-07-31T17:02:00.002+01:00

On Friday I got to do my first ever dry laps of the 'ring. This was a practice session for Saturday's 4 hour VLN race which as well as the the Nordschleife included the short GP circuit making a lap just over 14.5 miles.

The GP circuit os wide and fairly simple, and then it's onto the 'ring which was pretty scary - his wasn't helped by having to take a passenger with me - So I left the traction control on (which on the M3, was working on *every* corner exit:-() - but the first lap went without any drama. I then did 2 laps with my teammate, who has raced at numerous VLN races and a 24 hour at the 'ring in the M3 - He thought I was fast but dangerous :-) But I never felt out of control.......

So Saturday came and it was a wet/cold start - we did 1 lap on wet tyres each, and still managed to qualify to start in the first group (of 3) - there were 184 cars entered!

Luckily, the rain stayed away and the circuit dried, but it was still pretty chilly @ 12 degrees.

Teo did the race start and reeled of his 7 planned laps with a best of 10:29 and a worst of 10:53.

I then took over , but after completing my out lap, the race was red flagged a quarter of the way through my first real lap - someone had crashed heavily at Atoniusbusche where even our road spec M3 was pushing 260kph. Luckily the guy was not too badly hurt, and the race restarted 40 minutes later. This means I had to do the full warm up lap followed by a rolling start - Which went pretty well and I ended up running 2nd of our group. But there were some really fast Porsches, Vipers etc and you had to watch your mirrors very carefully whilst maintaining as much speed as possible. I managed to run a good pace with only 10 seconds between my slowest and fastest to 10:08 and 9:58 respectively.

I was called to the pits but half way round my 'in' lap there were double waved yellow flags at Bergwerk - There was the remains of a white Aston (I think!) in the barriers but as I turned into the corner I came across 2 Clios on their roofs and another 2 cars which i didn't have time to identify - As I hit the brakes, it became apparent that there was oil down and I started sliding towards the crashed cars - somehow I managed to recover and squeeze through the gap - unlike the car 2 behind me which gracefully slid sideways to completely block the track - so I was expecting another red flag and it came a very quickly. And that was it!

The best the car has ever done on this configuration of the 'Ring is a 9:46, so there is a bit still to go, but as I've now done the grand total of 14 laps, I'm pretty happy with the pace.

Most folk reckon that you 'know the 'ring' after 500+ laps!

ManFlu :-(

2011-07-19T20:27:00.003+01:00

Last Friday I was due to head down to the Daytona circuit in Milton Keynes to take on some F1 drivers (among other) in the Annual F1 Karting Challenge - but I had spent the first few days of the week suffering from full on ManFlu, and despite lots of rest and fluids, my temp was still way up on Friday morning and I had to admit defeat. Luckily, we had a more than capable Junior Rotax racer just itching to take my place, so I spent most of Saturday checking my text messages to follow the race.

The team (Declan McDonnell, Dave Morgan, Scott Mitell and Joe Wiggin (my replacement)) had managed to qualify 9th of 31 in a dry session, but with a very wet Saturday forecast, I expected them to move up a few places - which they did, running in 2nd for most of the race until a clip failed and the battery fell off, which lost them loads of time.

But they still managed to work their way back to 4th place ( 2nd of the non F1 teams) by the end of the race - a great result!

Now I have to look forward to the VLN race at the 'ring in 2 weeks.

Just like Busses......

2011-06-12T10:31:00.002+01:00

Thursday night saw the F-Sport karting team (Neil & Fraser Purdie, Dave Morgan and me) competing in the inaugural Colin McRae Vision endurance kart race at Scotkart's Cambuslang circuit.

We turned up not really knowing what to expect, but a quick look through the entry list told us it would be a very competitive event - we had multiple proper karters and even an ex BTCC driver (who was also a top 10 UK Rotax racer) - At least 60% of the drivers had their own racing kit which again pointed to a good race.

Grid positions, rightly so, were to be decided by the amount of sponsorship monies raised by each team which meant we started the race in 7th place (of 14).

In the 30 minute practice session we were 3rd quickest so we reckoned that a podium was possible.

Neil started the event and was obviously on a mission, quickly working his way up to 3rd place - the front 2 were running a fast pace which Neil was matching, but we were surprised when the second placed kart and then the leader pitted after 20 minutes or so.

Our race plan was simple. 4 drivers/2 hour race/30 minutes each. But Cambuslang is a very physical wee circuit and it seems some folk were finding it tough.

So I took over the second stint in first place with a lead of just under a lap. Again with the different pit strategies the race just seemed to come to us and despite being stuck behind the team in second place for 20-30 laps, I handed over to Fraser with a lead of 2 laps 25 seconds (2L-25s).

Fraser was very nervous before getting into the kart (so I'm told) but you couldn't tell as he was very consistent and just kept out of trouble throughout his stint maintaining a lead of 2L-15s.

So we told Dave just to drive to win and that's exactly what he did bringing the kart home with lead of 2L-01s.

Overall just over £6000 was raised and we managed to maintain our unbeaten record at Scotkart endurance races, but I'm pretty sure that with some smart pit strategies it would have been much more difficult.

Our strength was that there was less that 0.5s between our quickest and slowest drivers - and that's what endurance racing is all about - there were quicker drivers out there - the lap record was broken - but to win by 2 laps in that company really was a big surprise :-)

On Friday after work I flew down to Stansted where I met up with Dave, Declan & and Joe McDonnell who we were racing with in Team McAttack in 4 hour Pro-Kart enduro at Rye House on Saturday

Dave and I were still a bit sore from Thursday nights race, but Saturday's race would be in a kart with a seat that fitted us :-)

Neither of us had even seen the circuit so we left Declan's house at 7:15 on Saturday morning for the short trip to Rye House. The plan was that Dave and I would use the morning's practice sessions to get to know the circuit for the race at 14:00.

The circuit was still partially wet from the over night rain, so we just did stints of around 10 laps each but even when the circuit almost completely dry, the best we could do as a high 44s - which was worrying as Declan best is a 41.7! So, Joe went out and to our relief, he was much the same - so we fitted new tyres and did some setup work and by the time we got to qualifying, we had found a second or so, but we were finding that the circuit, which looked quite simple, had a couple of very technical sections which were proving difficult.

Anyway, Dec and Joe were both concerned as our best qualifying lap of 43.06, was way off the pace and put us 19th on the grid and 6th in class. So we decided to make another change and start the race hoping it would work.

As Dave and I had to catch our flights home on Sat evening, we were to do the first 2 stints of the race with me taking the start - I have done loads of starts at Crail, and pre race, I'm never keen on starting, but once you are in the mix, it's the best chance of making up places - I got a good start and jumped a few folk - after that I just settled into a rhythm and was up to 4th with 5 mins left in my hour when I took too much kerb at a corner and went off :-( No damage and I was back on in 8-10 seconds, but entirely my fault.

Dave then took over and did a very similar session, without the off track excursion and a good consistent pace.

Most of the other teams have 3 drivers and thus have to do 1 less pit stop than us, but 4 hours is a long race and during Joe's 3rd stint, we moved from 6th to 3rd as teams had mechanical issues or dropped off the pace with slower drivers.

So Declan took over and drove a great stint to bring us home in 3rd place, and from the team's perspective, ahead of the two other title rivals.

Dave and I were both pleased thet we found some pace - we weren't as consistent as Dec/Joe as they have done way more laps at Rye, but the fastest laps/driver again show that an endurance team is really only as good as it's slowest driver.

Dec - 42.57, Joe 42.60, DJ 42.71, Dave 42.80 - that just over 2 tenths - Not bad at all……

A great couple of days.

ps 30 mins at Cambuslang is way more physical than an hour at Rye house!

Ouch......

2011-05-13T20:59:00.003+01:00

Tuesday May 10th 2011 - after 12 years of visits to Bedford Autodrome, I crashed:-(

It all started so well…….

A couple of months ago, Dave Morgan asked me to investigate the availability of a day in early May as he wouldn't be able to join us on Aug 3rd.

I couldn't let him go alone, so we settled on May 10th, booked our flights/hotel and off we went.

We were blessed with clear skies and pleasant temps as we arrived at the circuit and joined the Lauda team.

Our first event was the off road, which I've never been a fan of, but I was pleasantly surprised by the changes that made it much more challenging.

We then had the Caterham head-to-head (3-0 to DJ) on a half wet circuit (they have sprinklers to keep it that way)

We then headed off to the North circuit for the Porsche 911 and Clio cup racer.

I've always been reasonably quick in the Porker, and was again, posting the best time of the day with a 57.38.

The Clio was a revelation , which was entirely due to the instructor, Tony, who quickly spotted a very simple error which once eliminated, gained me nearly a second, giving me the fastest time of the day at 56.41.

Then it was the Caterhams - I love these cars and was immediately on the pace posting 4 laps in the 48 second bracket in the first 6 laps. I was catching another car and for some reason he slowed (lifted or braked ) on the way out of a corner when I was right behind him - broken nose cone and oil cooler for me and game over for that event, (nobody went below 49.36 all day - I had done a 48.33)

Then it was off the the South circuit for the M3 - a really fast car, but too heavy for a circuit (IMHO) - still great fun, but given the Caterham event, I didn't go flat out, still managing 6th fastest of the day.

Lunch was next and as usual, it would have put most restaurants to shame.

Then it was the Formula Jaguar :-) I always feel at home in this car as you are on your own in a custom built race car. There were some *really* slow folk in my group taking over double my lap time, and most laps were compromised in some way by a car 'parked' on an apex, but it was still awesome fun - I won the trophy for best lap (closest to the instructor lap) which was surprising as there were a number of current GT4 race drivers in another team.

Then it was the new JP1-LM which was great, if very physical - My instructor reckoned that a new set of tyres would have gained me 1.5-2.0 seconds, but even on knackered rubber, I was 4th quickest (0.6s down).

And we finished with karts , where I got good one, and another fastest lap of the day.

So it looked good for overall driver of the day, but they took me aside to say that for the Caterhams I'd be listed last, along with the guy I hit as any collision voids times for those involved :-( So that lost me 85 points (there were 86 in attendance - first gets 86 - last gets 1).

Even so I was first in 5 events, plus quickest in the Caterham, and despite the 85 point loss, I still managed 6th place:-)

I was nice to be attend Palmersport without having to worry about the 20 or so folk who are in your group, and also fun to be able to go flat out, most of the time - for anybody thinking about doing track day in your own car - why bother? You'll go through a set of tyres, front pads and discs, an oil and brake fluid change plus the wear and tear on your car and a lot of fuel - makes Palmersport looks cheap!

So next is the Colin McRae charity kart race at Scotkart, Cambuslang on June 9th which is quickly followed by a four hour ProKart endure at Rye House on June 11th. Then a VLN race at the 'Ring in July with the annual Palmersport visit on Aug 3rd.

The truth will out.......

2011-04-15T22:15:00.002+01:00

Not much racing to report, but lots to come with a 12 hour kart race against some F1 drivers in June, a 6 hour enduro at the 'Ring in July (in an M3)and hopefully another crack at the Britcar 24 hour in October. And of course, the Monaco Kart Cup.

Meanwhile......From http://www.financialpost.com/news/features/Climate+models+cold/4579652/story.html

David Evans, Financial Post · Apr. 8, 2011 | Last Updated: Apr. 8, 2011 9:25 AM ET

The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic. Watching this issue unfold has been amusing but, lately, worrying. This issue is tearing society apart, making fools out of our politicians.

Let's set a few things straight. The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome. So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now outrageously maintain the fiction that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant.

Let's be perfectly clear. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and other things being equal, the more carbon dioxide in the air, the warmer the planet. Every bit of carbon dioxide that we emit warms the planet. But the issue is not whether carbon dioxide warms the planet, but how much.

Most scientists, on both sides, also agree on how much a given increase in the level of carbon dioxide raises the planet's temperature, if just the extra carbon dioxide is considered. These calculations come from laboratory experiments; the basic physics have been well known for a century.

The disagreement comes about what happens next.

The planet reacts to that extra carbon dioxide, which changes everything. Most critically, the extra warmth causes more water to evaporate from the oceans. But does the water hang around and increase the height of moist air in the atmosphere, or does it simply create more clouds and rain? Back in 1980, when the carbon dioxide theory started, no one knew. The alarmists guessed that it would increase the height of moist air around the planet, which would warm the planet even further, because the moist air is also a greenhouse gas.

This is the core idea of every official climate model: For each bit of warming due to carbon dioxide, they claim it ends up causing three bits of warming due to the extra moist air. The climate models amplify the carbon dioxide warming by a factor of three -so two-thirds of their projected warming is due to extra moist air (and other factors); only one-third is due to extra carbon dioxide.

That's the core of the issue. All the disagreements and misunderstandings spring from this. The alarmist case is based on this guess about moisture in the atmosphere, and there is simply no evidence for the amplification that is at the core of their alarmism.

Weather balloons had been measuring the atmosphere since the 1960s, many thousands of them every year. The climate models all predict that as the planet warms, a hot spot of moist air will develop over the tropics about 10 kilometres up, as the layer of moist air expands upwards into the cool dry air above. During the warming of the late 1970s, '80s and '90s, the weather balloons found no hot spot. None at all. Not even a small one. This evidence proves that the climate models are fundamentally flawed, that they greatly overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide.

This evidence first became clear around the mid-1990s.

At this point, official "climate science" stopped being a science. In science, empirical evidence always trumps theory, no matter how much you are in love with the theory. If theory and evidence disagree, real scientists scrap the theory. But official climate science ignored the crucial weather balloon evidence, and other subsequent evidence that backs it up, and instead clung to their carbon dioxide theory -that just happens to keep them in well-paying jobs with lavish research grants, and gives great political power to their government masters.

There are now several independent pieces of evidence showing that the earth responds to the warming due to extra carbon dioxide by dampening the warming. Every long-lived natural system behaves this way, counteracting any disturbance. Otherwise the system would be unstable. The climate system is no exception, and now we can prove it.

But the alarmists say the exact opposite, that the climate system amplifies any warming due to extra carbon dioxide, and is potentially unstable. It is no surprise that their predictions of planetary temperature made in 1988 to the U.S. Congress, and again in 1990, 1995, and 2001, have all proved much higher than reality.

They keep lowering the temperature increases they expect, from 0.30C per decade in 1990, to 0.20C per decade in 2001, and now 0.15C per decade -yet they have the gall to tell us "it's worse than expected." These people are not scientists. They overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide, selectively deny evidence, and now they conceal the truth.

One way they conceal is in the way they measure temperature.

The official thermometers are often located in the warm exhaust of air conditioning outlets, over hot tarmac at airports where they get blasts of hot air from jet engines, at waste-water plants where they get warmth from decomposing sewage, or in hot cities choked with cars and buildings. Global warming is measured in 10ths of a degree, so any extra heating nudge is important. In the United States, nearly 90% of official thermometers surveyed by volunteers violate official siting requirements that they not be too close to an artificial heating source.

Global temperature is also measured by satellites, which measure nearly the whole planet 24/7 without bias. The satellites say the hottest recent year was 1998, and that since 2001 the global temperature has levelled off. Why does official science track only the surface thermometer results and not mention the satellite results?

The Earth has been in a warming trend since the depth of the Little Ice Age around 1680. Human emissions of carbon dioxide were negligible before 1850 and have nearly all come after the Second World War, so human carbon dioxide cannot possibly have caused the trend. Within the trend, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation causes alternating global warming and cooling for 25 to 30 years at a go in each direction. We have just finished a warming phase, so expect mild global cooling for the next two decades.

We are now at an extraordinary juncture. Official climate science, which is funded and directed entirely by government, promotes a theory that is based on a guess about moist air that is now a known falsehood. Governments gleefully accept their advice, because the only ways to curb emissions are to impose taxes and extend government control over all energy use. And to curb emissions on a world scale might even lead to world government -how exciting for the political class!

Even if we stopped emitting all carbon dioxide tomorrow, completely shut up shop and went back to the Stone Age, according to the official government climate models it would be cooler in 2050 by about 0.015 degrees. But their models exaggerate 10-fold -in fact our sacrifices would make the planet in 2050 a mere 0.0015 degrees cooler!

Finally, to those who still believe the planet is in danger from our carbon dioxide emissions: Sorry, but you've been had. Yes, carbon dioxide is a cause of global warming, but it's so minor it's not worth doing much about.

- David Evans consulted full-time for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, and part-time 2008 to 2010, modelling Australia's carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. He is a mathematician and engineer, with six university degrees, including a PhD from Stanford University in electrical engineering. The comments above were made to the Anti-Carbon-Tax Rally in Perth, Australia, on March 23.

The Madness of the 'Ring

2010-10-30T17:07:00.003+01:00

Us motorsports types speak with reverence and hushed tones about the Nurburgring.

Jackie Stewart christened it The Green Hell and for good reason it would seem. When I told friends (who race) that my first ever laps of the 'Ring would be in an RCN race event, they all said I was crazy. One even said he would never race there - too dangerous.

So as well as a very long and unknown circuit in an unknown car, I also had to deal with a track temperature of around 4 degrees and very changeable weather. And we also had the GP circuit as well!

The RCN events are for teams of 2 drivers - After an out lap the first driver sets a timing lap followed by 3 'fast as you can' laps. Then the driver pits for fuel and a driver change.

I was driver 2 and my teammate for the day set a lap time of 15:39 on a very wet circuit. As the circuit dried he improved his times by around 30 seconds a lap and by the time it came for the changeovers, many teams opted to switch to slicks as the re was a dry line just about everywhere. However, given that I'd never driven the track and the low temp, we decided to go with intermediate tyres for my stint.

The out lap was fine and there was a distinct dry line. I then started my first 'racing' lap of the ring and I arrived on the main straight nearly 4 minutes ahead of my target 15:39 - so it was into 5th and a slow drive back onto the GP circuit where I crossed the line at 15:36. A good start!

And then it started to rain again - not too much but enough to show me how unforgiving the 'Ring can be with numerous cars crashing as the conditions changed. It's such a long lap that some bits were still dry, whilst other were soaking - and it changed on every one of my 3 'sprint' laps as the rain clouds passed through. But I'm glad to say that I kept it on the circuit posting a best of 13:05 on my last lap - the biggest issue was the change in grip levels when the tarmac changed, which it frequently does. It doesn't sound quick, and it wasn't, but given the conditions and the added length of the GP circuit, I was happy.

When I started racing I had a number of circuits that I wanted to do: Monaco, Spa, Silverstone, Nurburgring and Suzuka - So I just need to get to Japan now!

Monaco - Quelle Domage!

2010-10-26T21:53:00.002+01:00

If there's one thing i've learned in my 10 years of racing, it's that you shouldn't make predictions.

This year's team for the 14th Monaco Kart Cup consisted of Darron Anley , Martin Farmer, Declan McDonnell and DJ - LCA Racing owner, Chris Hyman was unable to get out of a commitment to race in British GT. (where he didn't even get to race as his team mate was involved in a race ending incident :-()

This years karts were the same as last years, but with a change of tyres and brake pads. Overall, this increased the lap by just over 2 seconds from last years times. But Martin only lost 6/10th from his last years pace, whilst I lost a second - Which annoyed me, but I have to remember that i've done very little racing this year and see it as the improvement that it was. Plus Martin is a very talented driver!

Practice was fairly straight forward with Martin and I fairly quickly getting back into the Monaco grove, and Darron and Declan getting to grips with their first laps.

As expected Martin looked to be quickest and he posted our best qualifying time to put us 21st on the grid. The times were so close that another 0.5 would have put us 10th.

So Martin started the first race and didn't make it to the end of the first lap - he avoided a mid field crash, but the kart just cut out and he couldn't restart it - we managed to get it going again but had lost around 8 laps by that point. Still, we battled through and got back to 23rd by the end of the heat, 10 laps off of the leader. In avoiding the start of race shunt we had picked up a tiny bend to the rear axle, so we got that fixed before race 2.

Declan started race 2 and he was now on the pace and we were up to 15th when Darron took over. After about 10 minutes he got involved in a nasty accident that badly bent the rear axle and a front track rod. This cost us just over 30 minutes in the repair tent and another 32 laps. From then on it was a case of finish the heat and plan for Sunday's race. We were now 37th - 42 laps down on the leader.

Our goal for Sunday's race was to break into the top 30 but a mid race rain shower soon killed that plan. By the time they had fitted wet tyres to all of the karts, the circuit was almost dry - so in total we got 65 minutes racing in heat 3 and finished 32nd overall - a total of 43 laps down.

My pre race goal of a top ten finish was a distant memory and I was very disappointed. But as I said, predictions & plans in racing are not the smartest move…….

But plans are already underway for next years event - I will get top ten eventually!

Britcar 24 Hour - Oct 1/2/3

2010-10-25T22:44:00.000+01:00

The Britcar 24 hour race has been one of the highlights of my racing year for a while now - it wasn't run in 2009 due to lack of committed teams, but this year saw its' return to the Silverstone GP circuit with 60+ entries. In 2007 & 2008 we competed in class 5, but with the new class structure in place, this year we were in class 4, along with cars like the Seat SuperCopa (300+bhp), BMW 130i, Ginetta G40, Civic Tyoe R, Integra DC5 - we were the lowest powered petrol car on the grid, and in the dry qualifying sessions, we were over 10 seconds off the pace - but with the weather forecast to turn decidedly wet for the race, we were fairly sure we would be more competitive.

This years driver line up was our strongest yet. Darron Anley , the car's owner, has had a successful season in the Radical Club championship, taking his first overall pole at Donington the week before the 24 hour. Joining Darron and I were British GT pairing of Chris Hyman & Dan Brown who normally pedal a Ferrari 430 Scuderia.

As expected, the race started dry with Dan staying out of trouble and handing over to Darron just before the rain started. And from that point on Darron made really good progress and he was up to second in class when we ran out of fuel on the pit straight. This lost us 30 minutes of track time while the car was recovered and put us last in class. From that point on, we all had pretty good sessions and the car ran without issue, but the 12 laps we had lost were just too much. We ended up 4th in class (again!) just 2 laps down on the car in 3rd. The pluses were that during the wettest sessions, we were as much as 10 seconds a lap quicker than the fast class 4 cars and we even managed to dice with some of the Astons and Porsches.

The Britcar 24 hour has now been elevated to be part of the MSA British Endurance Championship, and with the new class structure, we cannot really compete in our underpowered car (unless it rains!), so next year, it's highly likely that we will be in something a bit quicker.

For those of you with time to spare, the race will be covered in a 2 hour programme that will be aired on 10th November ESPN 11.30am and MotorsTV 13th November 7pm.

Busy times Ahead...

2010-09-07T19:50:00.000+01:00

Well, after what feels like years (8 months actually) I have a few interesting events coming up.

On the 1/2/3 of October it's the Britcar 24 hour race at Silverstone, where Darren Anley and myself will be joined by Chris Hyman and Paul Warren (TBC) - as a group who first raced in FPA in 99/2000, we'll be calling ourselves XPA (i'm sure you can work it out!) and with the Integra undergoing a full rebuild last year, we'll be going for a class win.

2 weeks later, it's my 5th Monaco Kart Cup where Chris, Darren and I will be joined by Formula V hotshot Declan McDonnell.

And the following weekend, I head off to the Nurburgring for an RCN event in a BMW 325i. I haven't been to the 'ring before, but I've done loads of laps on the PS2 in GT 4:-)

I hope the car has a reset button............

Palmersport 2010

2010-08-18T10:14:00.003+01:00

As per usual, we had our annual visit to Bedford Autodrome to partake in a day of automotive hooning in a selection of fantastic cars on August 4th.

The format of the day is that folk are split into teams of around 20 and our group were to be the Piquet team. We couldn't help but notice that the Schumacher team contained a real F1 driver, in the guise of Martin Brundle and also his son Alex (current F3 racer). Quite a challenge! This was compounded by a forecast of showers, which made frequent visits throughout the day!

So, we headed off for our first event, which was to be the Caterham 7 on the twisty east circuit.

The first 7 headed out on a wet but drying track and a dryish line was becoming visible - I was in the second group and on my 2nd/3rd lap it started raining again so no fast time for me. Despite the rain, we all had some serious fun!

We then hit the South circuit which , new for 2010, hosts the BMW M3 GTP (4.2l V8) - In the wet it was a real challenge but was way better than the Jag XKR it replaced.

Then it was off to the North circuit for the Porches and Clio Cups. I was out in the first group in the 911's and by the end of the session there was the hint of a dry line - but my time was still 4 seconds away from a dry time - but as the rain stayed away each group were getting quicker and quicker - so much so that by the time I got into the Clio, it was almost dry, and I posted the fastest Clio lap of the day with a mid 58 second (I had only managed a 61 in the Porsche).

Just as we headed off for lunch the heavens opened and we were glad we were in a nice warm room eating some sublime food!

Post lunch, we headed for the off-road & Caterham pursuit area. The Caterham head to head is now a point scoring activity (which I lost to Craig Alsop who was on the dry side:-)) and the off road now includes some paint ball target shooting.

We then headed to the West circuit for the fast stuff - First it was the JP1 sports pototype - Thankfully the track was mostly dry and it was great to see the guys on their first Palmersport event getting out of the cars with "that" look on their faces……

We then had a quick blast in the karts before finishing the day in the Formula Jaguar - Big kudos to Dave Rooke who set the fastest time of the day in the FJ and beat the instructor's reference lap!

So then it was back for the prize giving. Despite Dave R setting the fastest time, the FJ prize went to Marin Brundle who was more consistent. His son Alex took the JP1 prize so it was looking bleak for us, but apart from the off-road and the Caterham Pursuit, we then took the rest with Andrew McDonad (Porsche), Me (Clio), Dave Rooke (Kart) and Craig Alsop (Caterham 7) taking the honours.

We also won the team prize and the biggest shock?

Driver of the Day standings:

1st David Rooke - Doctor and Crail Karter
2nd Dave Morgan - Company Director and Crail Karter
3rd Martin Brundle - Ex F1 Driver and BBC F1 pundit
4th David Joseph - IT Geek and Crail Karter
5th Andrew McDonald -IT Geek and occasional Crail Karter
6th Alex Brundle - Racing Driver (F3)

OK, the weather had an impact, but David R showed that he was the man to beat - Alex must be really pissed off! (He instructed at Palmersport for a year or 2!)

Of the guys new to Palmersport, Ryan Farley was the top dog managing a creditable 12th of the 60 attendees. But everyone had a great time and I know we'll be back next year!

Things look a bit more interesting over the coming weeks/months with the Britcar 24 hour in our trusty Integra (Oct 1-2-3) and the highlight of the year, the Monaco Kart Cup 2 weekends later :-)

2010 - The year of Endurance?

2010-04-02T20:57:00.002+01:00

Despite, my best efforts, I just couldn't find a Formula V race car to buy for this season. So, it looks like it'll be a year of 24 hour races. Dubai seems like a distant memory, but I'm really trying to get to the point where I can join the guys at this year's 24 hours race at the Nurburgring in May. Having never even been there, it's going to be tough to persuade the organisers that I should be allowed to race, but if they take into account the Britcar 24 in 2008 and this years Dubai 24, it might just be enough - more later.

The Britcar 24 is once again taking place on the Silverstone GP circuit in October and we have paid our deposit, so the Integra will be there - looks like we will have our strongest ever team so a class win is our goal.

And the year wouldn't be complete without the Monaco Kart Cup - Which clashes with the Donington round of the British GT championship - So Chris and Piers may have to miss it this year.

In between times I'm hoping to make it up to Crail a few times and I'm sure there'll be some other races that I'll scrounge a drive at......

Dubai 24 Hour

2010-01-17T20:45:00.003Z

The journey to Dubai was not much fun. BA cancelled Sunday's 09:05 flight from Glasgow to Heathrow but managed to re-book us on the 16:00 which they then cancelled on Sunday morning, so we ended up catching the 14:00 to London an then had the Dubai flight delayed untill 22:00. I could have coped with that but upon arrival in the hotel, I found that my bag had been opened and one race boot and the back piece of my rib protector had been taken. I managed to buy a new pair of boots, and I'm waiting on BA's response.

So we spent a couple of days aclimatising to a balmy 25 C and even manged to meet of with a friend of mine who moved out here a couple of years ago, Paul Healy. We did some karting with his kids of 7 and 4 who both have their own karts, as does the 2yo ( but he's too young for the circuit!).

On Thursday it was time to meet my team mates and see the car. The car is a standard BMW M3 which has been stiriped out and had a roll cage installed. They use it to race in the VLN series in Germany, so the only other changes that are allowed to make are racing brake pads, and racing springs/dampers. The rest of the car is bog standard - unlike our competitors :-( There were 2 BMW z4 coupe's in our class driven by the Japaneses GT champions for car one and the runners up in car 2. The cars have carbon fibre roofs and bonnets for weigt saving, full race brakes, 100 litre race fuel tank (our's is the std 55), racing suspension that is cockpit adjustable, fully mapped ingnition giving them 400+bhp (ours is 320) and areodynamic splitters and wings and a pit crew that can do a full tyre change and a driver change ion arround 45 seconds (that's with 5 bolts per wheel). In all they are over 150KG lighter than us and even in a straight line they leave us standing. They were joined by another Z4 coupe of similar construction, a fully race prepard M3 and a Porsche 911 (964) again with pro Japanese drivers. It's pretty much the same throughout the field with only 2 other 'road spec' cars in a field of 81 cars, so on raw pace we are slow. But we shouldn't have any reliability issues. We've already seen a Mitsu Evo blowing an engine and a few other having issues during practice and qualifying.

After 9 laps in the car I was a second away from the fastest lap time in our team in the day light and I was quickest in the night practice. So I was reasonably sure that I could get some more pace as I got used to the car.

The car is owned by Tefilio Massera and Lorenzo Rocco, with Didier Denat and me making up the team of drivers. The car is run by Jaco's Paddock Motorsport who are based at the 'ring. Both the other drivers and the team were really great to work with and deserved a better result, but while it's a good car, it was up against some serious race cars - it's really soft compared to a pukka race car, but it is what it is.

Race day was the usual Dubai January weather, a very pleasant 24 C and no wind to speak of. Didier Denat started the race for us from our starting position of 64th (we only did 8 laps in qualifying to preserve the car). We had also decided that allthough the rev limit on the car is 8.5k, we would limit ourselves to 7k as finishing was our main goal. we then rotated in Lorenzo, Tefilio and me, an order we kept untill the end of the race when Lorenzo took over from me to take the chequered flag. We had a few issues, with the worst being a front left hub failure for me near the end on my 19th lap of the daybreak session, which resuled in the wheel parting company with the car. We laso had a front right wheel bering fail around 3AM and we constaltly suffered from fuel surge on the long left hander - race tanks have a compartmented bag type construction so that in long corners, the fuel doesn't all go to one side - It's not an issue until the standard tank gets down to around 10 litres remaining, but it meant that we couldn't run more than 80 minutes without pitting, even though we had fuel left. The only other issue is that with the soft suspension, we were burning up the rear tyres really fast. and by the second stint, the car was very loose (lots of oversteer).

So we finished 5th in class and 38th overall, beating the 911 but way behind the 3 Z4's and the other M3, which despite being stuck in 4th gear for the last 8 hours, was still faster than ours :-( But plenty of more exotic cars failed to go the distance, and we really enjoyed the race. There is already talk of a modified tank and suspension for next year.

I did find some more pace posting our fastest night and day laps at 2:24.564 and 2:22.894, so given I'd never driven the car before, I'm happy I did the best I could.

I really hope I can somehow manage to give this event another go - On paper the circuit looks reasonably simple, but it's deceptively tough - a real challange that I need to try again!

Edited to add: There are some pics on FaceBook.....

Bedford, Crail and Dubai

2009-11-22T17:33:00.002Z

Now there's a title!

On Nov 14th, David Rooke and I had a day at Palmersport in mostly wet conditions. Between us we won all bar the Caterhams and finished first and second overall - I even managed a perfect 50 on the off-road course:-)

Then on Sunday 15th, I partnered Grant Murray in the ProKart endurance races at Crail. The track started wet and never got fully dry - Grant's kart is his father's own design and is very different to drive. Even so, I adapted reasonably well and we managed a 2nd, 4th and 3rd in the 3 races to finish 2nd overall.

And so to Dubai - I'm now confirmed (subject to getting my license upgraded to Inernational C class) to be driving for Jaco's Paddock Sport in a BMW M3 at the 24 hour race on the 14/15/16th of January. Should be fun :-)

LCA Racing at the 13th Monaco Kart Cup

2009-10-21T21:04:00.006+01:00

This year we managed to put together a strong team for the 6 hours of racing on the streets of Monte Carlo. Chris Hyman and I were joined by Formula V front runner Martin Farmer and 2005 British GT champion, Piers Masarati.

All looked good in practice with me, Martin, Piers and Chris all posting similar times.

In qually, Chris did a 52.7, Piers crashed on his 3rd lap so only managed a 55, I did a 52.5 and Martin a 52.4 - even our fastest time was way off the pace so we spent some time fixing the brake balance as we felt it wasn't right.

The grid for race one was based on the average of your 4 times, so we started 24th.
Martin started the race and re-fueled after 36 mins of good pace with only 1 incident where he was punted and took 40 seconds to get going. I had worked out that this would be the optimal strategy as from practice we knew that the kart would do around 50-55 mins on a tank.

Piers then went out but unexpectedly came in after about 8 laps as his ribs were too painful for him to drive (turns out he cracked a rib in the qualifying shunt!). So Chris went out for around 40mins and a fuel stop and I finished the race. With Piers coming in and Martin and I getting punted once each, we finished 26th in the heat. Not the best start!

This gave us roughly 10 laps of fuel for race 2 which Chris started and managed 12 laps before fueling :-) Martin then took over for a planned 45 min session but had to come in after 36 mins as a bolt had come out of the radiator and fuel was also leaking onto his leg. They refitted the bolt but we had to fuel 6 laps early as we'd lost that much petrol. Chris then did 15 mins and I closed out the race in a much better 10th place despite a short pit stop to get the radiator bolt refitted again.

For the start of race 3 we started 20th, but with 10 mins less fuel than planned, so Chris pitted after only 3 laps as the engine was coughing. Martin then did 40 mins before Chris did another 15 and a fill up. This left me with 58 mins to do on a tank. I tried to save fuel in the last 15 mins but the kart stopped 10 yards from the finish, but I pushed it across the line in 9th (had been 7th), but it made no difference to our final place of 13th overall.

Martin and I both gained over 2 seconds once we got the brake balance fixed and consistently ran in the mid/high 50 second bracket with a best of 50.470(Chris reckons that was my time, but Piers thought it was Martin - I should get the official times in a few days -UPDATE - It was martin who did the fastest lap, with me jsut behind with 50.486) Bottom line is we both pushed each other and there was nothing in it. We were the only team to do our best laps in the last race when the tyres were going off as we became more used to the kart and circuit. I did nearly 2.7 hours of racing in a 35hp kart with discs all round, and I'm sore:-)

In race 3 we were around 0.5sec of the pace of the fastest guys (who were all young and very small!) and a tenth off of Nelson Piquet. There were at least 12 various world/european karting champs, numerous F2/GP2/F3/FR racers and 6 pro teams.

So 13th overall was great result.

Sick

2009-10-04T14:21:00.004+01:00

On the Tuesday after the Silverstone race, I managed a 7:46 for a 2000m row at the gym. I felt pretty good, but that night I felt awful, and spent the next week suffering all the symptoms of flu. This was followed by 10 days with a chest infection and feeling like someone had given me a good kicking. So for the first time since I started racing, I had to miss a race (Oulton Park)

The last race of the season was at Snetterton, where I'd had my best results at the start of the season, so despite still feeling a bit knackered, I turned up at the circuit on Saturday morning and promptly had my worst qualifying - ever. I just had no strength and only managed 17th, 4 seconds off the pace I'd managed in March. I considered not racing as I felt as bad as I was when I called off the Oulton Park race 2 weeks earlier, but as it was the last race of the season, I decided to drink lots of water and get some sleep before the race.

I got a decent start and got myself up to 9th, where I then had a race long duel with Pete Belsey, Steve Ough and Steve Glasswell, with each of us slipstreaming the others down the back straight. I'd pretty much settled for 11th but as the fatigue overcame the adrenalin, I lost the car through riches corner at the start of the last lap and dropped to 12th. There was a bit of a scuffle just ahead of me going into the last corner and I ended up back in 11th. My race pace was over 3 seconds a lap quicker than in qualifying, which is where the race was decided for me. I was absolutely shattered at the end of the race, and with hindsight, I shouldn't have raced, but what's done is done.

My first season in Formula V was a real mixture - qualifying ranged from 6th (Brands & Silverstone) to 17th at Snetterton, with 1 DNF and 3 races where I wasn't there (Anglesey x 2 and Oulton Park). So I ended up 12th. Considering I was in a rental car, did no testing and 25% of the season was at a circuit I'd never been at before, it's not too bad, but I'm not happy with it!

So there are a number of decisions to be made for next year - One thing's for sure, I'll be racing, but in what? If it's FV, I'll be buying my own car and doing some testing. But Formula Ford at Knockhill is also in the picture - But theres' no rush :-)

As the season comes to it's end, I'm now preparing for the Monaco Kart cup in mid October, in which Martin Farmer (3rd in FV) will be joining Chris Hyman and myself along with a yet to be named 4th driver in our annual trip to race on the front half of the F1 circuit.

There also the slim chance of a drive in the Dubai 24 hour race in January in a BMW M3 - More later!

Formula V - Silverstone

2009-08-25T21:22:00.002+01:00

Saturday's Formula V race was on the Silverstone National circuit, which meant another new track to learn, although I have done loads of laps on the GP track. So that meant I knew the first and last corners:-)

After a horrendous 6.5 hour drive down on Friday afternoon, I got to the track just after 7 on Saturday morning, and met up with Alan. A quick catch up told me that guest driver Nick Tandy had managed to lap in the 64 second bracket during Friday's testing, which was way under the lap record.

So around 9:30 it was straight in to qualifying and I found a decent rhythm and managed 4 laps in the 66s. I wasn't best pleased but turns out I was only 9/10ths off of pole, set by Sam Olivera with Nick Tandy second and Martin Farmer 3rd. So 6th place was a decent result!

I missed the official entry date and was told that I was on the reserve list (2nd reserve) as they couldn't run a heat and a final at Silverstone. However, a couple of days later, I got a call saying I was in. I didn't really care why, but as there were 39 cars t the track, it's plain that they changed their mind for some reason:-)

So with the top 3 going straight to the final, I lined up 3rd for the heat. I lost a couple of places at the start but managed to stay with the guys in front. I made it back up to 4th when Danny Hands had a sideways moment at Beckets and that's how it finished.

I then had to hang around 'till 17:00 for the final where I lined up 7th. An even worse start saw me entering the first corner, Copse, with Peter Studer on the outside and Steve Ough on the inside. I'm sure Peter and Steve will have their own views but I ended up sandwiched between a sliding Steve and Peter and we all went off. I managed to get going again in last place and in a lap made up 10 places before Ian Foley spun in front of me and managed to hit me on the left rear as I passed him. This broke the rear wheel, deflated the tyre and dumped me in the gravel trap. On closer inspection, the LHS drive shaft was also slightly bent. So that was it for me, Really frustrating, but as they say, that's racing :-( Roll on Oulton Park!

Palmersport

2009-08-09T09:18:00.002+01:00

Wednesday saw 20 of us head to Bedford Autodrome for our annual event. First timers were John Harte, David Rooke, John Smythe, Mandy Cunningham, Graydon Malcolm and my 18yo nephew, Graham Joseph.

Given the crap weather we've been having, we were expecting wet tracks, but we were lucky and it stayed dry:-)

For the newcomers, it was a bit of a shock, as we were in at the deep end with the JP1 sports prototype. But the grins said it all:-)
We then had a brief respite in the karts before we were let loose in the Formula Jaguar - 250bhp and some downforce makes for a quick car. We had a few spinners but no real dramas and it was a happy bunch who then headed off to the North circuit to get to grips with the JP3 Porsche and the manic Clio cup car. The Clio constantly amazes folk- for some it's quicker than the Porsche!

It was then over to the off road area which dovetails with the Caterham pursuit - this is a best of 3 head to head autotest started by GP lights. Dave Morgan and I had a really good 2 races , but at 1 each, DM kicked the instructor out of the car and found half a second (wish I'd thought of doing it!), so I lost 2-1.

After a great lunch, it was of to the South circuit and the Jaguar XKR - a fantastic sounding V8 with a supercharger for added impact. A really impressive car, which for me is ruined by an intrusive traction control system. Still, it was better than working even though it was my worst event.

And finally, the Caterham Superlight on the twisty east circuit. 170bhp and 888 tyres makes for awesome fun.

When I'd been down at the Pistonheads event in March (which I won :-)) I'd managed a 47.48 and I thought I'd never beat that time, but in 10 laps I managed 9 under 48 with a best of 47.27 (1.56 seconds quicker than anybody else) - Every time I go to Palmersport, I come away thinking that I want to get a Caterham - They are just soooo good. The car just seems to suit me.

As the organiser, I try to make sure I don't win the Driver of the Day, but Dave Morgan, who won last year, had a couple of 'iffy times, so despite my usual poor off-road and Jag XKR times, I still won. But it worked out OK, as I gave the trophy to my nephew to take back to the USA - He'd won his own battle by beating his dad by a couple of points. I'd taken his dad (my brother) to Bedford in 2001 for his 40th and was asked by his then young sons if I'd take them when they were old enough - Iain joined us 2 years ago and this year was Graham's turn.

Kudos also goes to John Harte and David Rooke who, despite being first timers, took the Caterham and Kart trophies. And Paul Gillen drove the JP1 so hard he made himself sick! He sat out the single seater but then managed to recover and thrash everything else :-)

In all, the only event our team didn't win was the off road :-)

If you ever get the chance to go to the Palmersport event, don't miss it - It may seem expensive, but for the same cost as a day's club racing where you get around 30 mins on circuit, you get at least 3-4 times more seat time, plus the value of instruction from some top class drivers. Even compared to track day - When you factor in tyres, pads, and maybe discs plus the fuel and wear and tear, it's excellent value - and much faster :-)

A Dark Day

2009-07-20T19:51:00.002+01:00

The tragic death of Henry Surtees during Sunday's F2 race at Brands hatch reminds us that the sport we love, has it's risks.

I really don't know what to say.

Fomula V - Cadwell Park II

2009-07-17T12:18:00.002+01:00

I guess that with 25% of the Formula V championship being at Cadwell, I should have expected that the results here would have had a huge impact on the championship. It feels like I'm going backwards, when in reality I know what the issue at this visit to Cadwell was.

I arrived at the circuit on Saturday morning for an unusual 20 minute un-timed practice. The car's setup had been changed to try and get the handling more to my liking, and at the 95% I ran in the practice session, it looked good with a time only a tenth slower than I had managed at May's meeting.

Then it was into qualifying where, with 32 cars on circuit, getting a clear lap was very hard. Most of the field are covered by 6 seconds, but there were four cars that were between 10 and 18 seconds off the pace, which made things difficult (oh for the 107% rule from other formula). Even so, I managed to post 10th quickest with a 1:39.42, which was a disappointing 0.5 sec quicker than I managed last meeting. I had hoped for a second plus.

Because there were so many cars, the top 5 from qualifying went straight into the final with the remainder having a heat,in which I started 5th. I had a great start and was running in 4th place, but with a car that was suffering from being a bit tail happy (oversteering), which on lap 5, resulted in a spin on the exit of Barn corner. I managed to do a 360 and rejoin only losing around 7 seconds on the lap, and finished 5th.

This put me 10th on the grid for Saturday's final. We made a change to the car to try to fix the oversteer issue, but from the very start of the race, the car was worse, and I struggled to bring it home in 12th.

We spent ages going over the car and eventually found an issue with the front suspension, in that the left hand anti roll bar adjuster would move through it's full range with just hand pressure. So we fixed that and decided to try something a bit different for Sunday's heat, where I would start 9th. I made a great start, but the race was red flagged after half a lap due to a nasty collision between Ben Anderson and Jake Olivera. We were sent back to the grid and after 15 mins or so the race was cancelled as another 3 cars had dropped out so there was no need to run the heat. Both Ben and Jake are OK.

So for the final, I lined up in 12th and made another good start, until I couldn't find second gear - I lost 6 places by the time I got going in third gear - Over the next 3 laps I managed to get past them all, despite Paul Taylor putting me on the grass halfway up the hill to Park corner. It was going well and I got up to 7th. And then I threw it away by dropping a rear wheel on the grass at Chris Curve - for the first time of the weekend, I was fully flat in through through here and I got it wrong :-( So I lost all the places I'd made up, but I managed to get some of them back over the remaining 3 laps finishing where I started in 12th - I really need to get some testing before the
race weekend. I can't see this happening this year, but there's always 2010.

Spa!

2009-05-30T11:55:00.003+01:00

About a week ago I got a call from Dave Beecroft of Xero Competition asking me if i'd limke to race a VdeV car at Spa! I couldn't say no!

Thursday was a whirlwind of just making flights and wrong motorway exits, and but I still managed to get to Spa in time for the drivers briefing at 16:00. After that it we had an hour of testing on a wet, but drying circuit. My team mate for this event , Joe Tuckey went out first and found the car to be nicely balanced. Because of the sheer length of the lap (7.2km), 30 minutes goes by really quickly and I was surprised to see the checkered flag. I too had found the car well balanced, but felt that the wet tyres were going off , which was shown to be the case when I got back to the pits. The front left in particular was worn right down and the tread blocks were a mess. Still, no damage done and all looked good for Friday.

Friday's weather was fantastic with not a cloud to be seen. We had decided that Joe should do a minimum of laps in qualifying which would allow me to post some sort of time. We also decided to use old tyres and save the new ones for the race. Joe did his 3 laps and reported that the car was "a bit oversteery" - A phrase I found to be the understatement of the week - It was awful, with the tail just not willing to stay in line under any sort of power on corner exists. One of the guys in our sister car, Toby Newton, followed me near the end of the session and he said I was leaving huge black lines on the corner exits as I struggled to get the power down. On the last lap the car wouldn't down shift on the way into the bus stop chicane so I nursed it into the pit lane stuck in 6th gear. The car has a flat shift paddle change that uses quite a lot of electronics, so the guys changed a potentiometer that monitors the gear selector position and hence tells the ECU what gear you are in.

So we qualified 13th with 1 2:36.4 - not great, but Dave B assured me that on new tyres, we would be fine. He was right (about the tyres).

Joe started the race, and the car was clearly much more stable, and Joe quickly got up to 7th right behind the sister car posting a best of mid 2:32. But the it all went wrong. Joe appeared in the pit lane with the car again stuck in 6th gear. The guys got the car back into neutral and sent Joe back out, but he was straight back in next lap and then spent around 30 mins tying to get it fixed. He managed another 10 laps or so and came back in again with the same issue. The guys had got hold of one of the 'laptop guys' who then spent some time tweaking the ECU settings, and the it was my turn.

I managed 19 laps with a best of a 2:31.4 before the same issue reoccurred and it was over - A frustrating yet enjoyable experience, and in a world of ifs, buts and maybes we could have finished in the top 6 quite comfortably with the pace we were running, but it wasn't to be.

Cars like this are addictive and Im now trying to figure out how i get to race one again - more begging letters it seems :-)

Crail ProKart Endurance - Summer Series Round 2

2009-05-30T11:50:00.001+01:00

What a day (Sunday 17th May) - I was again driving with Fraser Adam in his MS kart in the Crail Summer Endurance Championship.

I managed to take pole and was leading race 1 - after about 15 mins I got a horrible vibration through the in-field, and as I entered pit bend, the kart swapped ends and I saw my left rear wheel bouncing over the pit wall. I looks like 2 of the 3 wheel bolts had worked loose hence the vibration, and then when I turned in, the studs sheared. Still, we got it fixed and and Fraser went back out to finish 17th.

I started race 2 from the back (reverse grid) and somehow found my self leading after 3 laps! Young Scott in the SA Racing kart got past me when I made a hash of the roundabout, but I then just sat on his bumper 'till it was time for Fraser to take over. He was running a close third when the front 2 tangled with 2 laps to go and we took the win and the fastest lap for me. This put us 7th for the final, and I spent the first 4 laps getting up to 3rd. Scott and Grant (MBM) were about 5 seconds up the road and I set about catching them, which I was doing, but then the left hand engine started mis-firing. A quick trip to the pits found the ignition lead was shorting against the casing, and once fixed, I continued to finish the race in 5th, with Chris Miller beating me to the quickest lap by 0.002 on the second last lap :-).

So we had the pace, but not the luck!

Up Hill and Down Dale

2009-05-11T20:39:00.003+01:00

My latest Formula V adventure took place at the fantastic Cadwell Park Circuit in Linconshire. I expected a tough weekend and I wasn't disappointed!

Cadwell is an old school circuit that is more suited to bikes than cars, as it's very narrow and has loads of big elevation changes - but it's a real challenge and I'm glad I've been there - reminds me of the kind of elevetion changes that Spa has. I have never been to Cadwell Park before, so my expectations were not high, but I really struggled to get on the pace. I'm my own worst critic, and post qualifying, I was extremely fed up with only managing 15th on the grid (1:43.92), and 3 seconds off of my own personal target. This target was set based upon what I'd need to be in the top 8, but it wasn't to be. It wasn't that I was making mistakes, but just that I was still learning the circuit. Alan, who runs the car, put things in perspective by reminding me that 50 laps is no where near enough to to know Cadwell's secrets, let alone the 9 I had just done.

The race 1 start was my worst yet - I was either in 3rd gear, or I just didn't get enough revs, but the car nearly stalled, and I lost 4 places before the first corner. I managed to get 2 of these back before the 2 cars in front of me tangled at the mountain on lap 1 which caused a red flag. This gave me the chance to make ammends for my poor start, but i did it again! Still, I managed to re-pass the cars that got past me at the start and worked my way up to 11th by the end, reducing my lap time by 2.6 seconds to 1:41.21. I still need to find another 1.5-2.0 second a lap to get me up to my 'usual' p(l)ace. Still I have another race tomorrow, so despite the forecast, I hopeed for a dry race (having never driven a V in the wet)

Sunday

So despite the forecast of rain, Sunday was a beautiful day with the cold wind of Saturday thankfully gone. With another 15th place start, I decided just to pass as many cars as I could and work on increasing my pace. Luckily, I managed to make an OK start (not losing any places!) and over the 9 lap race got past 4 cars to get me up to 11th again. I found some more time posting a best of 1:39.90 and 8 of the 9 laps were quicker than my best in race 1, so I was learning the circuit. There's no doubt that ther's at least another 1-2 seconds before I get to my limits, but that will have to wait 'till July's meeting.

If I can keep working (the contract market is tough at the moment) or find a sponsor (you never know!) my plan is to finish the season in the rental car I'm currently driving, and then buy my own new Formula V car and start doing some serious testing with a view to having a real go at it next season.

I'll miss the next FV meeting at Anlgesey (south Wales) but I'll be back for the second Cadwell meeting in July.

Brands Hatch - Race 2

2009-04-27T22:21:00.001+01:00

After Saturdays traumas, the car was thoroughly checked over before Sunday afternoons race (or so we thought!).

Mother nature again smiled on us and I took my 7th place on the grid in bright sunshine. My start was OK - nowhere near as good as yesterdays, but I held position. The dramas started near the end of lap one when I got a gentle tap on the entry to Clearways which lost me momentum as I gathered up the resulting slide, and I lost 2 places on the entry to Paddock Hill bend. It got worse a lap later when the front top panel came loose ( both clips on the bodywork right in front of me popped open). I took me another 2 laps to work out that it wasn't getting any worse, so I could now concentrate on catching the train of 4 cars that were a couple of seconds up the track.

Over the next 4-5 laps I managed to pass 3 of them and caught up with Declan McDonnell who was in 5th place. Try as I might he defended hard (but fair) and as I saw the last lap board the plan was made. I had almost got past him at the end of the cooper straight, as the preceding corner, Graham Hill bend, has always been my best at Brands. So, on the way up to Druids hairpin I fainted to the inside and sure enough, he covered it, which compromised his exit. This gave me the advantage on the way down to GHB, but I pushed a wee bit to hard and lost the back of the car as I got on the gas just before the apex. I managed to keep on full power but bounced over the kerb and with that loss of momentum, Jenny Anderson, who had qualified 4th, got back past me. So 7th at the finish, which was OK - I'd rather lose a place trying to gain one than to just sit there and not challenge.

I'm still not aggressive enough on the first couple of laps - too many years doing endurance racing! - Something I need to work on!

Gethin seems to be OK following his huge crash - He was in heat 1 which had been red flagged, but somehow, he didn't see the flags and smashed into a couple of stationary cars on the grid - When a red flag is shown drivers must stop racing and proceed at a slow pace to the starting grid. His car, and a couple of others sustained 'write off' levels of damage, but fortunately, no injuries.

So, the next 2 races are at Cadwell Park, a circuit I have never been to, so I'm not placing any expectations on myself. I'm sure a good few of my competitors will be testing on the Friday before the race weekend, so if I can make the top 10, it'll be a good result.

Championship wise, it looks like Martin Farmer is the current favourite - He's another ex-karter and is consistently fast. I'm leading the masters Class, but that's not why I'm there - I want to get closer to the front, but without a test day or two, that's going to be a tough challenge. But a fun one!

Speechless

2009-04-25T22:25:00.004+01:00

With the car having had some 'fixes' applied to deal with the understeer issue, I arrived at Brands Hatch in a buoyant mood. Because of there being 40 entries, our qualification session was to be split into 2 sessions of 20 drivers with session B being the one for me.

The car felt a fair bit different compared with the Castle Coombe races, and I really enjoyed the 15 min session. Once all the times were correlated, I had managed 6th on the grid.

I got a great start passing 2 cars into Paddock Hill putting me in 4th, but on the way up to Druids, my engine hit the rev limiter and 2 cars shot past. I stayed in 6th place along the pit straight, but on the way into Paddock, again my car hit the rev limiter, and while tying to figure out what was going on, I went off into the gravel:-( I thought that was the race over, but under a red flag, they got me out and I was allowed to start from pit lane. )

So I joined that race last, and the problems continued. The engine should red line between 7.2 and 7.5k, but the limiter was kicking in around 6.3k. So, not much I could do but try to pass as many as I could. I was pleasantly surprised to manage a 10th place finish, but that feeling didn't last long.

On getting back to the pits, I told Alan (the guy who runs GAC Motorsport) the issue which he thought sounded strange. So we took the rear body work off and the problem was plain to see. The rotary dial on the limiter module was set just below 6.4k. Now, at first I figured that whilst checking/fixing something, it had been accidentally altered, but on further inspection, it's not possible to do this as the dial is very stiff. So the only conclusion is that someone had deliberately tampered with my car. What a crap thing to do - I hope I never find out who did it. Compared to qualifying I was around 0.5 seconds slower. which given the lack of power (V's make most of their power at the top of the rev range) was good.

But on refection, I wonder why it was done and is it worth continuing when this kind of thing can happen.

On a more serious note, there was a huge accident during the heat race (for those who didn't qualify well enough to go straight to the final) and Gethin Jones was hospitalised - My thoughts are with him.

Fomula V - Castle Combe

2009-04-14T19:55:00.003+01:00

My second meeting in Formula V was at the very bumpy Castle Combe circuit in Wiltshire. I raced there once before in 2003 and didn't do very well :-(

Qualifying was a pain - I was having trouble selecting 3rd on the downchange which culminated in an off at the final bend (Camp Corner) but I managed to keep it out of the barriers and eventually qualified 9th, which was better than I expeceted. I say that because I was really having trouble at the 2 faster corners, Tower and Camp, coz the car just wouldn't turn in and I was losing time through both of these.

So with nothing to lose, we decided to take some rear tyre pressure away to see if that helped, but it didn't, it was worse!

I made an OK start but got boxed to the inside of the first corner, Quarry, and lost about 5 places. I manged to pick off a couple of folk fairly quickly and then had a dice with Paul Taylor and Ian Buxton - I managed to get past them both, but only just, crossing the line 0.4 seconds up on Paul with 8th my final placing.

One of the other cars run by GAC had a fix (for the understeer issue) put in place for the race and managed to improve his lap times by nearly 1.5 seconds and finish 6th, so hopefully, I'll have the same done by the time we get to Brands in 2 weeks.

Before the season, a top 10 would have been very acceptable, but after Snetterton, I know I can do better.....

Formula V - Second Race at Snetterton

2009-03-16T18:13:00.002Z

After Saturdays unexpectedly good result, I kind of reset my goals for race 2 with a top 10 finish the target. Sunday was much brighter, but still only 11 degrees, so we decided not to make any changes to the car. Given that in race one, I was still nearly 2 seconds off the quickest lap, it seemed the right thing to do.

I got another decent start getting me up to 9th by the first corner and from then on I had a great time as I got to grips with the car on a track with plenty of grip (i.e no oil down!). I had spoken to a number of drivers (they're a friendly lot in V) and all had said that Coram Curve should be flat out. I hadn't tried this during Saturdays race, due to the oil slick, but on lap 3 I gave it a go and nearly ended up in the wall.

The FV cars don't have any aerodynamic wings, and compared to an FPA car, or a kart, are prone to understeer. So when I turned into Coram flat chat it just didn't want to do it and I ended up 'dancing' round the outside of the corner, but thankfully, I managed to stay on the circuit (just). Speaking to the guy who was behind me, I was turning in too late (lesson learnt!) - It works fine from that turn in point in an FPA car, but I guess I'll need to adjust my driving style to suit – not too much though, coz I was still catching a trio of drivers, mostly under braking. Once on their tail, I used the slipstream to good effect and found myself up behind Ben Anderson, who I had had a decent tussle with race 1. This is where I learnt lesson 2. I managed to get past Ben in to the Esses and as I crossed the line, I got the last lap board. Ben was right behind me and did to me what I'd done to him, drafting past me into the Esses. I braked really late to try and maintain the place, but I could also see that we were fast catching a backmarker so I slowed a bit more into the second part of the Esses and managed to get back past Ben into the Bomb Hole. I put this down to good driving, but Ben suddenly disappeared from my mirrors and I later found out he'd blown his engine :-(

So after a 5th on Saturday, I got a 4th on Sunday and managed to do a 1:19.55, only 6/10ths of the fastsest lap of the day and 4th quickest.

Currently 3rd in the championship (after 2 races) DJ is a happy racer!

Formula V - In at the Deep End

2009-03-15T21:42:00.001Z

I set of for my inaugural Formula V race meeting with no idea what to expect – I did know that there was an entry of 32 cars. I have raced at Snetterton before, so at least I'd know the circuit!

As instructed, I turned up at 7am and spent an hour or so getting the seat belts adjusted and the seating position setup. Then after signing on it was straight in to qualifying at 9:00. FV has only 1 session where your fastest lap counts for race 1 and your second quickest for race 2. I managed to lose the back end at at Sear on my out lap, resulting in a trip across the green stuff, but no harm done. Then it was a matter of keeping out of the way of the quick guys and trying to set some reasonable times. The V (well mine) has no on board lap data, so I just kept going, learning the car and getting quicker each lap. ( at least I hoped so:-)) I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had managed to qualify 10th for each race with 1:22.23 and 1:22.65. Pole was 1:18.2, so still lots of time to come, but a good start. I say pleasantly because it was evident from the first lap that the pedals were too far away as all the braking effort was coming with straight legs. Still, OK.

We spent some time getting the pedals sorted and then it was off to the weighbridge to make sure I was not underweight. I got about 10 meters when the engine stalled – I started it again, but then the oil light came on. When I got out the car and there was oil everywhere:-( A brief check found a burst oil pipe, so the next 30 mins were fairly fraught, but Alan Woodward who is providing the car, got it fixed and then it was up the the weighbridge (OK) and then straight to the grid.

I got a great start and was 8th at then end of the first lap. On lap 2 I thought I had picked up a puncture as the car went very sideways on the exit of the BombHole and again through Coram, but then I saw the oil line and knew that someone had a problem (not me!). On lap 4 I picked of a another couple of folk on the way out of Russell where there was yet more oil, and then settled into a rhythm which saw me pull a decent gap on the chasing folk. As the race wore on, there were more and more cars stopped, and more and more oil at various places. I really thought I was off on lap 8 when I was on the lockstops through Coram (flat-ish in 4th gear), but somehow gathered it up and I must say I was happy to see the last lap board as I crossed the start/finish line. However, ¾ of the way round the last lap, the red flag was shown and it was over.
The leaders had lost around 2 seconds from their qualifying pace, so I was happy with a 0.5 second gain and 5th place. This exceeded my goals by some way, but luck is a fickle friend, and we'll see what tomorrow brings.

I'm Racing!

2009-02-07T21:22:00.001Z

Well, given that I don't have a partner or a kart for the Crail endurance series, I've signed up to do a season of Formula V. It's a budget level single seater car based on the mechanicals (engine, gearbox and suspension) of a VW bettle - That's about all I know, so I plan to get my medical done this week and then it's in at the deep end with 2 races at Snetterton on March 14th/15th.

I've never actually seen a FV in the flesh, so I'm not expecting to be competitive for a while, but with races at Snett, Brands, Cadwell, Donington, Silverston and Oulton it should be fun:-)

I just hope that I don't embarrass myself..........

2009 - Looking Forward

2009-01-31T11:50:00.002Z

Well, it's been a while - I should have been racing at Crail last weekend, but missed it for two reasons: I didn't know about the meeting, and my team mate has decided to sell his kart, leaving me without a drive. His reasons are fully understandable - I knew he wasn't as commited last year and now I know why, so not much to say on that front, but it does mean I need to try to figure out what to do now. It's unlikely that I'll find a regular drive at Crail, so I need to look elsewhere. It also looks like the Britcar 24 hour race at Silverstone will not happen this year, so maybe I can funnel some of the cash for that into another series. I've already set the ball rolling, so more news soon (I hope).

While I'm trying to figure out the racing plans, I'll be joining the folks from PistonHeads on their inaugural day at Palmersport's Bedford Autodrome on March 21st. There's also the possibility of a 24 hour kart race in Dubai the following weekend, and another 6 hour kart enduro in France in April.

So I should be racing something, somewhere, sometime (soon?).

Back to Earth - With a Bump :-(

2008-10-27T19:12:00.003Z

After one of my best weekends of karting in Monaco, I had the worst for a long time at Crail :-(

Despite mother natures best attempts, Crail was reasonably dry on sunday. I was driving for the Outsiders team (No 79) and given that the chassis was the same type that Ros and I use, I expected to be able to run competitvely. However, the kart felt very different to ours particularly the brakes, and the ammount of rear grip. On our kart, the brake pedal travel is fairly short, whereas this kart had the longest pedal I've ever used - I nearly went off circuit a number of times during practice, and the kart had way too much rear grip, causing it to understeer on entry and bog down on exit. I can cope with most things, but understeer defeats me :-(

I started qualifying on wets, but it was plain that slicks were the way to go so I came in after 4 laps. Slicks were fitted, and my teammate, Gegi, did the rest of the session, putting us 8th on the grid.

I had a good start and battled with Alan Kirkcaldy and Craig Alsop for most of the first 20 minutes. Alan then got a break through the backmarkers and Craig got taken out by one of them, so I handed over in 5th place. My teammate was running a similar pace to me and we ended up 6th.

For race 2 we tried adding some front grip, as we couldn't adjust the rear, but it was a similar story with the handover in 6th place, translating to a 7th placed finish. Again, similar lap times.

The Bump!

For race 3 we fitted some older tyres to try and reduce the rear grip, but we had a slight rain shower, and I managed to spin on the parade lap and then lose 6 or so places in the first lap as the kart had no grip on the greasy surface. I was getting really frustrated so as I started to get some heat into the tyres I overdid it and clipped the barrier at the entry to the first corner, causing me to spin and bend the rear axle - what a plonker!

We quickly switched to a spare kart which was quite nice to drive, but as we were 5 laps down, and I didn't want to interfere with anyones race, I kept an eye over my shoulder and let anyone through who was racing for position.

So, what did I learn? 1) All karts are different, and may require a differing style to make them work. 2) Don't overdrive if the kart doesn't work the way you want. 3) I still have lots to learn.

I'm now hoping that I can get a test in a Formula Blue (2 stroke) and that Ros and I can have a test day in our prokart. Next month can only be better :-)

Monaco Kart Cup - The Races

2008-10-20T22:38:00.005+01:00

Race day dawned in the usual Monte Carlo way - sunny and warm and after an impromptu breakfast meeting to discuss strategy, it was off to the circuit for race 1.

Because I'd been quickest in qualifying, I was voted as the staring driver, and despite the appalling grid marshalling, I somehow managed to get onto row seven for the start. As I expected, it was bit chaotic with loads of contact, but over the course of my stint I picked up the pace, with a best of 52.686, and handed over to Bradley in 12th place.

Bradley had a great stint with no dramas and handed over to Chris still in 12th place, about half a lap down on the leaders. Chris was going well, consistently running mid 54s when suddenly on the large TV screens we could see Chris sitting in the middle of track, with his kart some 5m away - He quickly got to his feet and over the barriers, just avoiding being hit by kart no. 11.

Chris had been quickly catching a back marker, who had then been given the blue flag (to warn him that he should let the faster driver pass), which is what he appeared to be doing as he went wide on the chicane entry. However, as Chris got along side he turned into Chris and sent him into the exit barriers. This chicane is the fastest on the circuit, and as Chris ran along the protective plastic barriers he could see what was coming. About 20m past the chicane exit, the stairs from the swimming pool join main area, and Chris hit the concrete balustrade flat out - hence the reason he came out of the kart. We ran round the circuit to find a very sore Chris, and a very bent kart, and our race was over. We got the kart back to the mending tent and they managed to sort off straighten it out. I say sort off, because the kart was never quite the same after that as it was grounding through Ras Casse corner on the left hand side.

Chris went off to hospital for a check up and Fiona, my wife, went with him just in case......

For the second race of the day, this meant that we would have to split the driving between just the 3 of us, and because we needed to do 4 driver changes per race, and had only managed 3 in race 1, we were going to have to stop more than we wanted too. As he hadn't driven in race 1, Alex started the race and tore through the field - A trend which Bradley and I continued in 2 15 minute stints each, before Alex did the last half hour. We all were pushing to the max. but didn't manage to match our times from race 1 (bent chassis). But we had to drive what we had and in race 2 we actually gained back 3 laps on the leaders and up to 12 laps on others. A great drive from all, with my own highlight being able to re-pass the race leader 5 laps into my second stint after having let him past under a blue flag on my out lap :-))))

Chris returned from hospital after having been told that he'd badly bruised his ribs, and he'd be OK, much too all our relief.

So on Sunday morning I was had to admire his courage when he decided that he'd do the 4th stint of race 3 and take the chequered flag.

Bradley started the race and was doing mid 53s - When he handed over to me it was immediately obvious that the kart was not as good as it was on Saturday as you just couldn't get it to stop as quickly - the front left in particular was very mobile under braking and I was constantly adjusting the brake bias to stabilise things. I managed a 53.1, but knew it wasn't that quick.

On handing over to Alex, Bradley said the same problem had impacted him, so at least we knew what was wrong. The front tie rods are made of hard plastic, but we reckoned that with all of the braking force that they had taken over the weekend, we were stating to see some kind of 'plastic fatigue' as they lost some torsional stability - but we weren't the only ones with lots of people suffering similar issues. Normally, you'd have steel tie rods, but with the unforgiving barriers, many people would have come to grief as at least there is some give in the plastic rods. After posting mid 53s, Alex then handed over to Chris - we were a bit worried how his ribs would cope, but he soldiered on and took the flag at the end of a very physical 6 hour race. I'm not sure where we finished overall, but it would be no higher than 38th or so as losing 45 laps is never going to make life easy.

Still, it was a fantastic event and really good for me. Make no mistake, if Alex and Bradley were at my weight, they would be quicker than me, but I managed to be fastest in the team, and more importantly, without Chris's incident, we think we'd have been on the fringes of the top 6. We gelled really well, with the 2 young guns complementing the 2 gentleman drivers very well.

Apparently the guy in the middle is some sort of movie star (the young guns recognised him) and looking at the size of him, it's no wonder it took Bradley (on the right) a few laps to pass him :-)

There are rumours that next year's event may be impacted by planned re-working of the harbour area, but I'd be surprised if the don't manage to relocate somewhare else in Monte Carlo for what's become for me, the highlight of the season.

Monaco Kart Cup 2008

2008-10-17T18:12:00.003+01:00

I arrived in Monte Carlo yesterday evening after a hectic journey where I was called to say that 2 of our drivers had called off! A number of names were put forward ( Chis Miller - no license, Alan Kirkcaldy - too busy, Mark Johnston - family illness and Ben Clucas - stuck somewhere in Germany) but eventually, we found that Alex Mortimar and Bradley Ellis, 2007 Brittish GT champions,current front runners in the FIA GT3 series and karting champions in thier youth, would be joining us - A good end to a up and down day. Chris Hyman also races in FIA GT3 so I would be the odd one out :-)

After 'stickering up' our kart (see above), we went into first practice where everything was going OK until Alex didn't appear - turned out that a guy in front of him had hit the barriers and bounced back into his path, resulting in a broken track rod. This was easily fixed and in second practice we all did good consistent times, ending up 25th of 44.

For qualifying, Bradley was first out and he consistently low 54 second laps. Then it was my turn and I was happy to hear that I'd managed a 53.5 while runing lots of consistent 53.7s. It was then Chris and he again was very consistent with a best of 54.7. Alex rounded things off with a best of 54.1. - This qualified us 17th, but another 2 tenths would have gained us 7 places! I've no doubt that Alex and Bradley will get much quicker as they learn the circuit, so we are looking in great shape for the race, the first of which is at 10:12 on Saturday morning. More later.....

Britcar 24 hour @ Silverstone GP

2008-09-27T19:34:00.003+01:00

For the second year, I was to take part in the Britcar 24 hour race at Silverstone. We had decided to strenghten the driver linup and had recruited FIA GT3 racer, Chris Hyman, to join us. Unfortuneatly, Chris was involved in a major shunt at Brno the weekend prior to the 24 hour race, and he was advised by his doctor not to race. All was not lost, as Paul Armitage managed to get hot shoe Portugeese youngster, Jorge Calado to join us.

I was looking forward to the race but on the Tuesdy night I started to get a sore throat, which by the time I got to the hotel next to the circuit on Thrsday night, had turned into full blown man flu :-(

The regulations for the race insist that each driver does at least 3 laps in both the day and night qualifying session, and as I was feeling rotten, that's all I did, 8 seconds off the pace set by Jorge (2:18.something).

I felt a bit better on Saturday morning, but had to go for kip in the early afternoon and I was woken by a helicopter overhead just after 16:30, which was the race start time. There had been a crash at the start which resulted in Andy Neate being hospitalised with pretty serious injuries. I'm glad to say that he seems to be on the mend, and our thoughts are with him and his family.

The safety car came in after about 45 mins and the race was underway. Darron Anley started the race for us and he was going really well posting a best of 2:15.65, which was 3 seconds quicker than he'd gone last year! We were about 30 seconds up on the other class 5 cars when he pitted to hand over to Paul after just over 2 hours.

Our hopes were dashed about 45 minutes into Paul's stint when he pitted with an oil leak. This took about an hour to resolve, with a repair to the sump, and he was back out, but only for one lap - That was to be the end of Paul's stint with a best of 2:22.743. The alternator appeared not to be charging and we spent the next 90 minutes stripping and cleaning loads of oil from the bushes and coils. Darron even
managed to get one of his friends to bring his own DC2 as a potential donor car! However, more diagnosois found a blown fuse, and it was now my turn. I'd taken a couple of neurofen about an hour before getting in the car so I felt a bit better.

My stint was shortened by the fact that the car wasn't refuled when I took over, but I had a decent run with a best of 2:16.161, which was 2.5 seconds quicker than I'd managed in the dark last year, and a full 1.1 seconds quicker than the fastest lap I managed in the day light.

Adrenalin is a funny thing and I got out the car feeling the best I'd been in days.....

Jorge then took over. I'd had a chat with him about how difficut it is drving at night with cars that have closing speeds of 60+ MPH but it's very hard to explain to anyone just how much concentration and discipline is needed. It's bad enough when you can see, but at night....Jorge's times refected that he was finding it tough, as we did last year, but then he appeared in the pits with a problem with the front right wheel. It looked like a bearing failure, but on sripping the hub down, we found that one of the suspension bushes had collapsed.

The donor car car now came into play, and we removed the front tie bar from it and got it on the race car - Another 50 minutes in the pits. Jorge then continued his stint with a best of 2:19.613

With the issues, we were now out of contention, but even without the previous problems , we would have struggled......

Paul did the next session, pretty much without incident with a best of 2:20.363 and then it was me to take over for the dawn stint. The first 10 laps or so were still dark but right away, the car was hittng a rev limit of around 7.5k. This sounds normal, but not for an Integra Type R, which should rev to 8.5k. Still, I had to drive what I had and still managed to get into the 16s again, which was disapointing as I had reckconed a low 2:15 or even a high 2:14 was possible.

Back in the car at midday it wouldn't rev above 6.6k. This meant that the car was hitting the limiter in top gear half way down the hanger straight, and where during the night I was hitting 235kph at the brake point for stowe corner, it was now 193kph! This really cost us in lap time and my best in this session was a 2:20.330 - 4.2 seconds off of the time I did at night!

This was all compounded by the car prducing huge ammounts of exhaust smoke, from about 6AM. The car had been using oil all race, but it really got bad, with the car having to stop every hour or so to top it up. We think that the reduction in revs was caused by whatever was causing the oil burning - probaly a broken piston ring. We used 29 litres in 24 hours! So we finished 32nd overall and 4th in class.

The car was quicker this year because we got some camber added to the rear wheels, which really helped to stabilise the car in the faster corners. However, under braking I usually find the point were the fronts lock, but with the rear camber, the rears locked first and this is really dificult to catch. I had 2 moments when trying to really push, and this is one of the issues we need to fix for next year.

Overall, given that the car hasn't run since last year, it went OK, but we've proved to ourselves that we have the pace to win so for next year we need to:

Fit poly suspension bushes all round.
Have the engine rebuilt and run in correctly.
Fix the wiring.
Fit a brake bias adjuster.

And try to get all of us to drive a race car more than once year!

Palmersport

2008-08-24T21:40:00.001+01:00

We had our annual trip to the Palmersport day a couple of weeks ago and yet again, we had a fantastic day. Every year you wonder how the day could be improved upon, and yet they manage it.....

Our team of 20 were to be the Senna team and out first activity was the Caterham 7 on the East circuit. With all the rain we've been having, we fully expected at least some bad weather, but it stayed dry all day - however, the circuit still had some damp patches from the previous day's downpour, which made the first couple of laps, on sicks, interesting. These cars have now got 170bhp and are awesome - I usually do well in these and I maintained my form with a 48.44, which would top the timesheets at the end of the day.

Then it was off to the west circuit to drive the really quick stuff. First, it was the Formula Jaguar, a 270bhp V6 in a modified FPA chassis with a paddle shift. What a car! I got lucky, and managed to get past the 2 in front of me really quickly, and then had 6 or 7 laps where I could really push. Even when I caught some other cars, the blue flags were quickly waved and off I went - I really got to grips with the new complex and doubted I could go much quicker. The new dash system doesn't show a lap time but I was pretty sure I'd gone a fair bit quicker than last month, when I got within 1.2sec of the instructor time. I later found out that they had not been able to get my lap time from the on-board computer - didn't happen to anyone else :-)

Anyway, next it was out in the 2 seater JP1 sports prototype - the same engine and gearbox as the Formula Jaguar, but with a 2 seater Le Mans type config. My instructor was with a guy I used to race against, Niki Faulkner, so he pretty much let me do what I wanted, but still pointed out where I could tidy things up - Again I managed the quickest time of the day with a 78.42.

Next up were the karts, and I did an unplanned bit of off roading at the first corner, as the brakes were almost no-existant, but that's the way it goes sometimes, and I still ended up 7th quickest with a 29.94 - my slowest ever time on the kart circuit.

Before lunch we headed off to the South circuit for a run in the Jaguar XKR - A 420bhp supercharged luxury saloon. I've never really got on with this car, as it has a really intrusive traction control and this time was just the same. It really is a case of less is more in the XKR, but despite being pretty slow, I still enjoyed it (28th).

Then it was lunch, and they put on a magnificent seafood buffet - lobster, salmon, prawns, followed by a tasty fruity thing. Great grub!

But no rest for the wicked, so it was straight over to the North circuit for the Clio Cup car and the Porsche JP3. Despite being totally different, the lap times these cars achieve are pretty close. For me it was the 205bhp, front wheel drive Clio first. I was out with Andrew Foster, a current FPA driver, who was really good at subtley pointing out the weak areas and helping me post a 59.86, fastest of the day.

It was then into the Porsche JP3, a 320bhp rear wheel drive car - pretty much the oposite of the Clio, and requiring a very different driving style. I like this car and managed a 57.95, 2nd quickest of the day and only a tenth off of the best time.

By now we were all pretty knackered as we headed off for my least favourite part of the day, the off road course. I was crap, finishing 51st (of 52!), but I managed a 3-0 victory over Chris Mcmahon in the Caterham head to head.

We managed to win the team prize, and me, Paul Healy, Dave Morgan and Chris McMahon all managed to win one of the trophies, with Dave Morgan also taking the overall Driver of the Day.

As an aside to the day, Paul Healy and I went to Raceland to take part in one of the open GP's that we started racing in back in '04. We had a lot of fun and i'm proud to say that I now hold the lap record at Raceland with a 59.72 - The first person to break a minute in the Sodi kart :-) (Which they've had for 3 years!)

Crail: Round 4

2008-07-30T15:57:00.003+01:00

I think it's now mathematically impossible for us to retain our championship for the third consecutive year:-( I don't think we've got slower, but a few teams have really stepped up the pace.

Todays winners were SA racing with 2 wins and a second. MBM were second with a win and 2 seconds and F-Sport picked up their first ever podium with 2 3rds and a 5th. We managed a 3rd, 4th and 5th giving us another 4th:-)

It had started pretty well with me again having a decent qualifying, managing to get second, only 8/100ths from Ryan Cannon in the SA kart, who took pole.

Race 1 was fairly straight forward with Grant in the MBM kart getting past me on the first lap, and that was about it. No matter what I did I couldn't stop the front 2 pulling away about 2/10ths a lap. Ros was coming under pressure from Chris Miller in the Milady kart, but the flag came out early at 50 minutes and 3rd was our best result this year! The early finish was due to the timing computers being very late in arriving, courtesy of Mr Kirkcaldy who partners Chris in the Milady kart.

Race 2 was the usual reverse grid - I got a poor start and was hit 4 times on the first 2 laps, but managed to make my way to 4th. Ros again brought us home in that position.
It's really strange, last month Ros was about 5/100ths quicker than me and we did nothing to the kart, even running the same tyres, yet I was 2 tenths quicker today?????

Anyway, for race 3 I lined up 3rd, but again got hit on lap one, dropping me to 7th - I quickly managed to get back to 5th and then past Alan K in the Milady kart to put me in 4th - After the change overs, Ros and Chris Miller had a great battle for the last 15 mins with Chris taking the position on the last lap, which bumped us off of the podium.

We need to test - That's the bottom line, but Ros is just too busy, so c'est la vie!

I asked a few folk about the idea of having a Crail based team at Le mans next year, and it seems it may happen. The only downside is that I might not be quick enough to make the team - I guess we'll see if interest turns into a real team. My picks would be - well that shall remain with me for the moment - any suggestions?

August sees the first Crail ProKart festival, with races happening over 2 days. Looking forward too it!

Le Mans 24 hour

2008-07-13T19:44:00.004+01:00

When I stated out in motorsport in 2000, I had a list of places I wanted to race. These include Spa, Monaco, Monza, Silverstone and Le Mans. I've managed to do most and on the weekend of 4-6th of July, I added Le Mans to the 'done' list, but not the car circuit:-(

A few months ago I saw a post on the UK karting site in which a team was looking for drivers for the annual 24 hour Prokart race at the Alain Prost circuit in Le mans - I replied right away and eventually, I was in!

Friday was an early start with the flight to CDG Paris due to leave at 06:10 - I should have figured that a delay here would be a portent of issues to come but the pilot assured us we'd only be 10 mins late into Paris, and he was right. However, some twonk had left a bag in the customs area and the they shut it completely for 45 minutes, while they blew the offending item into 1000 pieces. In the current climate, understandable, but it meant I missed my train:-( So I eventually got to the circuit at 16:20 and it was straight out for 10 laps or so to try and learn the circuit. Right away the kart felt very lose at he rear and when I returned to the pits, I asked for the rear to be narrowed. The kart's owner, Chris Bancroft siad that the kart had felt much better on the previous days, and a mid 57 second lap was what it could do. Even after having the rear of the kart narrowed, I could only manage a 58.4 - only 2 laps though, so I put it down to not knowing the circuit yet.

I had a good nights sleep and got back to the circuit for the drivers briefing at 08:30. The weather had turned nasty and the circuit was pretty wet, allthough the organisers didn't decalre it a wet practice, so everyone was on slicks! It was pretty slippy and Chris was
running around 1:18s. So then it was into qualifying and I managed to get us 15th with a 1:12 as the rain stopped.

The race order was to be Chris, followed by Chris Prior, me, Spiros Christoforo and Ashley Bablee.

The 2 Chris's did their stints which were mostly dry with a 40 minute wet spell for Chris B. The kart felt much the same as it had on friday, but with more laps I was able to get down to 58.00 (the on-board timer gave me this time on 3 seperate laps!) and it was comfortable running 58.3-5s. We were getting hammered on the straights where we just didn't have the pace of the front running guys.

Latter, while watching Spiros and Ashley, you could see that about half way down the back straight we seemed to stop accelerating and the front runners would take 4-5 kart lengths out of us at that point! I had also found that I couldn't brake as late as a I wanted without a nasty grinding/mechanical rattle coming from the rear, which I thought was a failing clutch. Still, I could drive round it and it was a fairly un-eventful session. I was a bit concerned that I couldn't get into the 57's as the kart had been doing that sort of time in Chris B's hands earlier in the week, but I put it down to 'the noise'. I told the team about 'the noise' but as we thought as the pace was reasonable, we'd continue, in 12th place.

Spiros took over, but his lap times varied from high 58's to low 61's, and at the change over, he said 'the noise' was getting worse, and it was affecting the pace. Ashley fared no better with low 59's to high 61's!

About 10 minutes before Chris B was due to take over from Ashley for his second stint, we decided to get the kart onto the stand during the changeover to see if we could figure out if it was a failing clutch. It quickly becam aparent what the problem was, the rear axle's centre bearing had come competely loose from it's mounting and it was free to move as it liked. That took us around 15 mins to fix and dropped us back to 21st.

We changed the order slightly with Chris B, Chris P, Spiros (with a new set of tyres), Me and Ashley making up the next rota.

Chris B ran consistent low 59's, which kinda pointed to the fact that fixing the bearing, hadn't got the pace of the kart back to where it had been earlier in the week. Chris P faired no better, but I hoped Spiros would perform better on new tyres, but it wasn't to be.

It's always difficult trying to figure out what's going on when you're not in the kart, but is was fairly plain that somethimg wasn't right as soon as I got in for my second stint at 02:00 on Sunday morning. Even with a tiny steering input, the engines just seemed to bog down really badly and I struggled to do high 58's. By 80 minutes into my stint it was getting way worse, and then the right hand engine started reving very high as if the chain had come off, and then it fixed itself??? This pattern continued for 3 or 4 laps and I was losing 3-4 seconds. I tried to signal to the pits but I got no response and eventually the engine just stopped and I had to come in, to find all of the team asleep! I was not best pleased.

Each engine has a front and back engine mount and the bolt on front one on the RHS engine was almost compeltely out, allowing the engine to pivot on the rear mount. This was what had caused the worsening performance and eventual failure as the other mount point gave up and broke. It took us 10-15 minutes to fit a spare engine and I went back out to complete a double stint. The kart handled a bit better, but I could do no better than a 58.5, but given that it was the dead of night, it was what I expected.

After my double stint, that was it for me and we had a fairly clean run from that point, apart from the same engine mount falling off the kart, right in front of us with 4 laps to go. I latter found out that they found a crack in the chassis at the left rear of the kart, which explains why the kart lost pace - Chris B had done a 57.5 on the Wednesday or Thursday, and his fastest race lap was a 58.7, so 1.2 seconds would seem about what the damaged chassis was costing us.

It alway nice to be the quickest driver in the team, but I'd rather be the slowest, and get a better result :-) We finished 23rd - without the problems we'd have made the top 10, but it wasn't to be.

For next year. I really want to try again, but wouldn't it be great if we could get a team from the drivers at Crail?

Crail: Round 3

2008-07-10T21:35:00.001+01:00

June 22nd: Round 3 certainly didn't feel much like summer! I endured constatnt heavy rain for 90% of my journey from Glasgow, with only the last few miles being rain free. Even so, the circuit was very wet and practice and qualifying were really about getting a clean lap at the right time. I'm usually pretty good in the wet so I was disapointed with only being 4th on the grid. The race was packed with incident, with a clean start followed by the track drying for the next 35 mins or so. I dropped back from the front 3 at the start, but as the track dried, I was begining to pull them back in, but the the rain returned and that was it. I did the full race and 4th was a reasonable start witch Millady winning by large margin.

Allthough the rain had now stopped, everybody started race 2 on wets - Ros had a good start but after about 20 minutes,running in 5th, he stopped on circuit. He made it slowly back to the pits, with a broken chain. We had to change the sprocket and decided to send Ros back out with slicks to see how he went. After about 10 minutes he came back in, having failed to beat the fastest time posted on wet tyres by 0.02 seconds:-(. It just felt wrong!

For race 3, we decided to make some major changes to the kart setup and use it as a test session, as we haven't tested since August 2007!.

Due to the failure to finish race 2, we started in 13th place, but Ros was flying, and in 20 mins made it up to 4th and when he pitted he was only 5 seconds behind Chris Miller in his new MS (which was balistic in the wet, winning race 1!). Unfortuneatly, Ros overshoot the weighbridge and we lost roughly 10 seconds during the change. The kart felt really good and I was slowly catching Chris, but ended up 7 seconds down at the flag, but we did manage to post the fastest race lap, which at least means we have a good starting point next month.

In 3 years of racing at Crail, this is without doubt our poorest run of results with 2 DNFs in the last 6 races. It would take a miricale for us to retain the championship, but you never know.........

Crail Summer Series - Round 2

2008-06-15T10:15:00.002+01:00

The second round was much like the first:-( On new tyres I managed to miss pole by a tenth, but the lack of 'big engines' is costing us in the races.

Race one was fairly predictable with the 3 big engine teams steadily pulling a gap of about 12 seconds on me over the first half of the race. Ros took over and broughtnus home in a comfortable 4th.

Race 2 looked to be going the same way until the SA kart went off at pit bend, moving us up to 3rd. Ros was comfortably holing third when the left had engine cut out with 7 minutes to go. He kept going but by the flag we had dropped to 11th. I dismantled the carb and found quite a bit of dirt - Easily cleaned, but a real pain:-( Frog Racing, who we share our van/tools/ etc with had the same issue in race 3, so it looks like contaminated fuel.

Race 3 saw me have a great battle with Dave Morgan on the F-Sport kart, with a couple of seconds being the most I could get ahead. Again Ros had a fairly lonely run to the flag for another 4th place.

It looks like, unless someone has a spare set of big engines, we won't manage to win the championship for a third consecutive year, but we sort of figured that this would happen.

I'm typing this while watching the Le Mans 24 hour race, and in 3 weeks, I'm heading out there for the 24 hour Kart Race - I haven't met any of my team mates yet, but I'm really looking forward to it.

First Race of 2008

2008-05-01T16:02:00.002+01:00

After a break of nearly 6 months, Ros and I returned to Crail for the first round of the 2008 endurance championship. No new kart this year, but lots of changes!

Crail has now got a new layout which has added 2 new corners and re-profiled a third. Previously, after exiting pit bend, it was a fairly straightforward run to the entry of the roundabout, but no more! Just at the point where the dummy grid joins the circuit there is now a flat out right hander that is quickly followed by a left hander of around 100 degrees. So although the new right hander can be taken flat, it means you need to be super accurate with your line or it makes the left hander a real issue to get right. Once you're through you then rejoin the old circuit at the entrance to the roundabout. You're going a wee bit slower than you would have been in the old configuration, so it's tempting to keep your foot nailed, but the exit now has a much tighter right hander and getting it wrong here means , at best, using the very bumpy exit kerb or the grass beyond if you miss your apex by more than a few inches.

Both Ros and I couldn't make Saturday practice, so it was in at the deep end for Sunday. We decided to go out and learn the new circuit on old tyres, from last September, and a combination of that and the learning process saw me 1.5 seconds off the pace over 10 laps or so. Ros found it to be much the same, so I did the last 10 mins of practice and I hooked up behind Michael in the Panther Racing kart and found over half a second. For qualifying, Ros did the first 12 mins and we were 9th:-( Every one else had found that last months tyres were quicker than new rubber, but as we didn't have that luxury, we bolted on a new set, and I went out for the last 10 minutes of qually. The kart felt better straight away and I improved every lap eventually posting a 47.97 on my last tour, which put us second - only 5/100ths off the pole pace.

I was a bit worried about the start with the 2 new corners, but everyone was sensible and I slotted in behind Ryan Cannon is the SA Racing kart. However, on lap 3 I made a slight error on the exit of the roundabout which allowed Chris Millar to get along side at the end of the straight and he took second, but in doing so ran a bit wide allowing me to get along side, but on the outside. I should have known better than dice on lap 3 but I stayed put - Chris thought I had backed off and he moved over and I was off:-( I rejoined in 12th and over the next 30 mins made it back to 4th where I handed over to Ros. He pushed hard but at the flag was 1.09 seconds behind MBM who were third, with with Milady (Miller/Kirkcaldy) first and SA second.

Race 2 is a reverse grid, and the start was abysmal - so bad that we got red flagged! The second attempt wasn't much better but I had worked my way up to 4th by lap 7 when again the red flag came out. This time it was a technology issue with the lap timing computer, so it was another restart from the back row, for the 40 mins that remained. The traffic wasn't so kind in this race, but I did get to 5th - Ros then had a titanic struggle with Chris in the Frog Racing kart (who's his boss!) with Chris taking the 5th spot by 2/100ths!

For race 3, we knew that we needed to change something, as the sun had come out and we'd lost pace relative to everybody else. We widened the rear to lose some grip and from the first lap it felt better. I started 4th and I could stay with the front 3, eventually handing over to Ros in the lead, as he let me stay out for just under the 40 min limit. So we finished 4th again, but much closer to the race pace.

Looking back, we need to get our gearing sorted as we're probably 2 or maybe 3 teeth to low now that we have these slower corners. Also, not having the correct rubber didn't help, and we were both a wee bit rusty so all in all, better than we expected.

It's going to be e really competitive season, and it'll be tough to retain the championship, but we're not beaten yet!

Plans for latter in the year are progressing with the Britcar 24 hour at Silverstone and the Monaco Kart cup confirmed. I also hope to get to the Le mans 24 hour kart race in Juy and maybe even a few outings in a Radical SR8 :-)

Let's wait and see.......

I'm getting sick of this.....

2008-03-26T21:22:00.003Z

I'm sure, like me, you saw this report (or something very similar).

A vast iceberg has broken away from the Antarctic coast, threatening the collapse of a larger ice shelf that is now “hanging by a thread”.
Satellite images have revealed that about 160 square miles of the Wilkins Shelf have been lost since the end of February, suggesting that climate change could be causing it to disintegrate much more quickly than scientists had predicted. “The ice shelf is hanging by a thread,” said David Vaughan, of the British Antarctic Survey(BAS). “We’ll know in the next few days or weeks what its fate will be.”
Professor Vaughan was a member of a BAS team that predicted in 1993 that the Wilkins Shelf could collapse within 30 years, if the pace of global warming continued.

“Wilkins is the largest ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula yet to be threatened,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see things happen this quickly. We predicted it would happen, but it’s happened twice as fast as we predicted.”

The retreat of the shelf was first spotted from satellite data by Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado, who alerted Professor Vaughan and his BAS colleagues to the risk.
BAS then sent a Twin Otter aircraft on a reconnaissance mission to assess the extent of the damage.

Jim Elliott, who flew on board the plane to capture video footage of the break-up, said: “I’ve never seen anything like this before — it was awesome. We flew along the main crack and observed the sheer scale of movement from the breakage. Big chunks of ice, the size of small houses, look as though they’ve been thrown around like rubble — it’s like an explosion.”
The Wilkins Shelf is now protected by only a thin thread of ice between two islands. It covers an area of 5,600 square miles (14,500 sq km).

The Antarctic Peninsula, which stretches north from the frozen continent towards South America, has experienced unprecedented warming over the past 50 years, leading to the retreat and collapse of several ice shelves. Six have been lost entirely — the Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen B, Wordie, Muller and Jones shelves.

The Wilkins Shelf is farther south than other ice that has retreated, and should thus be protected by colder temperatures. But Professor Vaughan said: “Climate warming in the Antarctic Peninsula has pushed the limit of viability for ice shelves further south, setting some of them that used to be stable on a course of retreat and eventual loss.
The importance of it is that it’s farther south than any ice shelf we’ve seen retreating before, it’s bigger than any ice shelf we’ve seen retreating before, and in the long term it could be a taste of other things to come. It is another indication of the impact that climate change is having on the region.”

As the shelf is already afloat, it will not affect sea level, but Antarctica’s ice shelves act as buffers for land ice that could lead to dramatic changes in sea level if it melts.

Sounds ominous?

Well let's see. Digging around I've found that........

This report is only part of the story and has been presented by the meida as proof that the Antartic ice cap or a significant portion of it is collapsing.

In reality Wilkins and all the former shelves that collapsed are small and are close to the Antarctic peninsula which sticks out from Antarctica into the currents and winds of the South Atlantic This area is also a tectonically active region with surface and subsurface active volcanic activity. Antartica has actually cooled since 1979.

The full Wilkins 6,000 square mile ice shelf is just 0.39% of the current ice sheet (just 0.1% of the extent last September). Only a small portion of Wilkins, between 5 and 10%, has separated so far. And this winter is coming on quickly. In fact the ice is returning so fast, it is running an amazing 60% ahead (4.0 vs 2.5 million square km extent) of last year when it set a new record. The ice extent is already approaching the second highest level for extent since the measurements began by satellite in 1979 and just a few days into the Southern Hemisphere winter and 6 months ahead of the peak. Wilkins like all the others that temporarily broke up will refreeze soon. We are very likely going to exceed last year's record. Yet the world is left with the false impression Antarctica's ice sheet is starting to disappear.

Just the facts.

MMGW - The New Religion?

2008-03-11T22:01:00.014Z

I found this on a discussion board I frequent, and thought it was worth sharing.

Global warming - a new religion By Brian Durrant

There was an article in Newsweek which reported that 'there are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically, and these changes may portend a dramatic decline in food production with serious implications for just about every nation on earth'. 'What's new about this?’ you might ask. After all, we are bombarded daily with scare stories about the future of the planet. But this article is significant because it came out in April 1975 - and the fear expressed in the text was not about global warming, but about global cooling!

For several years in the 1970s the fear of global cooling continued to inspire a spate of articles and books, including Climate Change and World Affairs, by British diplomat Crispin Tickell. But then quite suddenly, around 1978, global temperatures began to rise again. The panic over global cooling quickly evaporated.There is a simple explanation for this temporary hysteria. In imagining the future, human beings like to extrapolate an exaggerated version of a tendency they are experiencing at the time. What commentators were noticing in the 1970s was that the average temperature of the earth had been in decline for 30 years. But the one certain thing about the climate is that it is always changing.

Ten years on from the end of the global cooling panic, scientists were saying unless urgent and drastic action was taken to curb CO2 emissions, the temperature rise would soon be so great as to unleash catastrophic consequences. The ice caps would melt. Sea levels would rise. Deserts would expand. The world's climate systems would be thrown into chaos. The fear of global warming was born.

And it was truly remarkable how quickly this became the prevailing orthodoxy. So strong were the convictions of the adherents that their case was so self-evident that scientifically it was no longer open to question. The transcendent importance of the cause was buttressed by insisting repeatedly that their view was supported by the overwhelming 'consensus' of scientists.

But 'consensus' is a political concept, not a scientific one. Consensus finds a way through conflicting opinions and interests. Consensus is achieved when the outcome of discussion leaves everyone feeling they have been given enough of what they want. The accomplished politician is a negotiator and conciliator. The process of scientific enquiry could not be more different. The accomplished scientist is an original, an extremist and iconoclast. Good science requires perpetual open debate, in which every objection is aired and dissents are sharpened, not smoothed over.

The response to the threat of global warming has been a political one. In 1988 the United Nations assumed responsibility for the collective response of the human race to this threat. The UN set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Unbelievably, an active lobbyist for the planned IPCC had been Sir Crispin Tickell, previously of global cooling fame.In 1989 a group known as the 'Union of Concerned Scientists', which originally campaigned for nuclear disarmament, organised a petition urging the recognition of global warming as potentially the greatest danger to mankind. Of the eventual 700 signatories, amongst whom included Nobel Prize winners, only three or four were climatologists. The consensus of scientists was a purely political contrivance.

The cause quickly became fashionable with Hollywood, with the likes of Robert Redford, Barbara Streisand and Meryl Streep jumping on the bandwagon. Suddenly there was a great deal of money available for research into climate change, particularly for those who could make the case for man-made global warming. At the same time those who came up with inconvenient results were ostracised. The self-proclaimed high priest of global warming, Al Gore, compared 'true believers' such as himself to Galileo, bravely standing for the truth against the blind orthodoxy of the time.

In 1990 the IPCC produced its first assessment report. The summary was an exercise in spin that Alistair Campbell would have been proud of. It largely ignored grave reservations by some contributors and presented the expectation of substantial man-made warming as firmly based in science. The summary spawned the 1992 Rio Earth summit, which in turn paved the way for the Kyoto agreement in 1997, which called for carbon emissions to be scaled back.

The global warming lobby works on the following principles: Global warming is a fact. It is caused by man's activities. If mankind could be persuaded to alter his behaviour the planet would be saved. The goodies are those who are committed to saving the planet, the baddies are the deniers. The simplicity of the argument makes it a favourite topic in primary schools across the country.Alarmist activists operating in well-funded advocacy groups have a lead role in creating an unbalanced story. In many cases they manipulate public perceptions with emotive and fiercely judgmental 'scientific' pronouncements, adding a tone of danger and urgency to attract media coverage.

Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth, is a case in point. Our government and the educational establishment appeared to be quite relaxed about this being shown in our secondary schools. That is, until a school governor from Kent contested it in the High Court. Mr Justice Burton identified nine significant errors, and said that some of Mr Gore's claims had arisen in the context of alarmism and exaggeration. He went on to say that the apocalyptic vision was politically partisan and not an impartial analysis of the science of climate change. Specifically he took issue with the claim that sea levels could rise 20 feet 'in the near future', when such a rise would only take place after over 1,000 years.

Sexing up the global warming story is seen as a legitimate tactic to hog media attention. If you exaggerate a story enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. This leaves little space for alternative views to be aired.

However, there is an inconvenient truth for Mr Gore. Astronomers have noted in 1998 that Triton, Neptune's largest moon, seemed to have heated up significantly since it was visited by the Explorer space probe in 1989. Moreover, in 2002 it was reported that the temperature on Pluto had risen by two degrees Celsius in 14 years. Furthermore, in 2005 NASA confirmed that the CO2 'ice caps' near Mars' South Pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row. Warming, yes. Man-made? Certainly not.

Evidence that warming is taking place throughout the solar system, even though the mechanism is unclear, implies a common cause may be at work that it not limited to events on this planet. And it is the man-made element to the story that gives climate change activists their real motivation.

But one thing keeps puzzling me. The supporters of the global warming orthodoxy are only too happy to proclaim that unless drastic steps are taken to combat the threat, the earth is heading for catastrophe. However, surveying the measures that are actually being advocated, they are astonishingly trivial. Low energy light bulbs, switching your TV off at night, wind power and carbon emissions trading. Even if the aspirations of the Kyoto protocols are met in their entirety, this would only supposedly delay the global temperature rise predicted for 2100 by just six years.

To understand the emergence of the global warming activists, you have to look at the dynamics of politics, or indeed religion, rather than science. It may be no coincidence that the emergence of global warming as an issue came at the same time the Cold War ended. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 finally demonstrated the superiority of market-based economies over command economies in delivering prosperity. For those of a left wing disposition who thought Marxism would deliver a socialist utopia, this was tough to take. The solution was to jump on the global warming bandwagon. This helps explain the peculiar passion with which many enthusiasts for the man-made global warming thesis argued their case and advanced policy solutions. The ideological pattern is familiar. Just as blame for industrial squalor and deprivation was laid on capitalism, the blame for the ruin of our planet was laid on the greed and materialism of the developed world, particularly the US. And just as the Marxist solutions involved confiscation of the wealth of the rich, the new orthodoxy clamour for restrictions on rich lifestyles; their gas guzzling 4X4s , their polluting air travel and all other examples of self-indulgent consumption at the cost of the planet.

There is no doubt that environmentalism fulfils a political and indeed spiritual need among its adherents. The global warming narrative embraces a myth of the Fall; the loss of harmony between man and nature caused by our materialistic way of life. In reality this Eden never existed. It reminds me of one of my favourite cartoons of two cavemen talking "clean air, no pollution, unadulterated food... how come we don't live over 30?" The apocalypse myth is equally familiar. 'Our wickedness has damaged our inheritance and only immediate reform can save us'. For a long time environmentalists lacked the Apocalypse myth. The fear of acid rain came and went. But global warming fits the bill. This is why environmentalists attach so much importance to the assertion that the world is not just warming up, which is true at the moment, but that the warming is mainly our fault, which still should be a matter of debate. The connections between rising carbon dioxide concentrations and the growth of industrial society, provides a convenient link between the sins of our past and a catastrophic future. This narrative does not depend exclusively on factual accuracy.

Now as I have pointed out above, the solutions of wind power and cycling to work, etc. are insignificant, in practical terms, for heading off the predicted catastrophe. But this is why environmentalism is a religion. Every religion needs rituals of observance which demonstrate the commitment of the adherents. So the committed evangelicals, with time on their hands, sit on runways or on the roof of the Houses of Parliament or spend their Bank holidays outside power stations, while busy pop stars can buy carbon offsets. It's a broad church.

Moreover, it is interesting that governments in developed countries are treating environmentalism not as a threat posed by Marxism, but like another religion. Governments have not opposed the environmentalist creed, just as they do not question the tenets of other faiths. Indeed, like other religions, environmentalism has been a force for good, leading to cleaner air and rivers and the phasing out of fluorocarbons. And like other religions, governments are using it for their own purpose when it suits, and ignoring it when it doesn't. So the Government is using the threat of global warming as a cover for raising new taxes it could not otherwise get away with. A good example is the phoney government environmentalism that provided the pretext for the 'fuel escalator' that saw petrol prices surging above inflation year on year. But at the same time its green credentials are only skin deep, as it is not standing in the way of increased airline capacity at Heathrow.

Meanwhile, businesses are treating the environmental movement as it treats other trends in consumer behaviour. The companies themselves do not have to believe in the doctrines, but have found it commercially expedient to acknowledge the apparent rapid increase in awareness in this area.

However there are unsavoury areas where the global warming brigade mirrors the worst excesses of organised religion, namely hypocrisy and intolerance. Al Gore, the high priest of climate change, has a 20-room mansion in Nashville that uses 20 times more electricity than the average American house. Yet he has exhorted his fellow citizens to reduce their carbon footprint. Gore's defence is that he bought renewable energy credits to offset his carbon use. In the Middle Ages, the wealthy members of the church bought 'indulgencies' or relics to speed their passage through purgatory. Nothing new there then.

It is nearly 20 years since Al Gore cast himself in the role of Galileo. But now the boot is on the other foot. Global warming is the orthodoxy and with it comes intolerance. You are always going to get outrageous comments from the overzealous foot soldiers in any religion. The worry is when intolerance comes from senior figures that should know better.

Bjorn Lomborg is no climate change denier, nor does he quarrel with the view that man-made influences are a cause. However in his latest book, Cool It, he argues that the costs of imposing radical carbon abatement measures are very high and the benefits are limited. Scarce resources could be better spent combating malaria in Africa and so forth. Lomborg's analysis is calm, civil and even-handed. In response Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC, told a newspaper "If you should follow the thinking of Lomborg, then possibly what Hitler did is right." Meanwhile, the Guardian's environmental correspondent, George Monbiot in 2006 said: "Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and unacceptable as Holocaust denial."

In 30 years time, if we are found to be wrong to be sceptical about the IPCC's line on climate change... can we expect to be the accused in a show trial and then burned at the stake as heretics?Regards,Brian Durrantfor The Daily Reckoning

Changes

2008-02-28T20:16:00.002Z

It's been a busy time for me recently, but not with racing. I finish my current contract at NAG tomorrow and start a six month conract at BSkyB on Monday, so it's back to driving to work - I'm planning to pick up a cheap-ish diesel rather than put ~380 miles a week on my S3.

I spent the last 2 weeks in the alps giving my legs their annual hammering on the slopes. This was the first time we've been to Europe for many years, and the weather was more like March with sunny skies for most of the 2 weeks - It was great to Ski in Chammonix and Megeve, but I think we'll be heading back to Canada next year. One thing that struck me a strange: The main motorway from Geneva to Chammonix (and on through the Mont Blanc tunnel) has enough capacity for the volume of holiday makers that head for the alps each weekend, so what do they do? They put 2 toll booths on the road which cause major tailbacks! Crazy.........

On the MMGW front, these seems to be more and more people prepared to stand up and say that it's not cut and dried. See http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/525231/world-saved-again.thtml .........

Guest Driver

2008-01-29T21:54:00.000Z

I hadn't been expecting to race in the Round 3 of the Crail Winter series, as Ros is currently working down south somewhere, so when I got a text from Grant offering me a drive in his kart, I was pleasantly surprised. I couldn't go on Saturday (work), but Sunday was free, so off to Crail I went.

As I hadn't raced for a few months I expected to be a bit rusty and in race 1 I really struggled to keep up with the top 3, in a kart that's among the fastest in the country:-( However, when Grant took over for the second half of the race, he fared little better and just managed to take 3rd at the flag. A quick discussion ensued, and we decided to change to the 2nd string engines, as his 'big' engines have now done over 70 hours, and also to change to an older set of tyres as the kart was suffering from too much rear grip.

Race 2 was much better and I was able to pull away from most of the field, except Chris in the Milwalk kart. Chris has always been one of the top 2 drivers, but his partner, whilst being good, just didn't have that last little bit that marks a great driver from a simply good one. But this year, Chirs has teamed up with Alan Kirkcaldy which makes them, in my eyes, the strongest team on the grid. Chris was maybe 2-3 tenths quicker than me, and when Grant took over, he was roughly the same behind Alan. Race 3 followed the same pattern to give us a third and 2 second places, which put us second overall on the day.

Grant's kart is very different to drive when compared to the Wright R2 I normally race, but by the end of my stint in Race 3, I felt I was getting more "in tune" with it and the times agreed. In race 1, I'd been just over 2/10ths slower than Grant - Race 2 it was down to 1.5/10ths and in race 3 we were almost identical (I can't say for certain as Grant cleared the lap timer before I could check, but I trust him :-))

So Milwalk "clean sweeped" the races with us second and Michael in the Panther racing kart in third.

I'm now in the process of trying to get a test in a Formula Blue (2 stroke) kart sometime in the next month.

Plans for 2008

2008-01-03T09:17:00.000Z

I'm hoping for a incident free 2008 with current plans covering racing ProKarts at Crail, doing the Britcar 24 hour at Silverstone, another shot at the Monaco KartCup and our usual August trip to Bedford Autodrome. I'm also hoping to test a Formula Blue kart sometime in the next month, with a view to doing a few races at Larkhall. Plans are also underway for another trip to the Thailand 24 hour in Feb 2009 but moreof that latter.

On the Climate front, there are a number of sources now supporting the view that the science is not settled, and that the whole "carbon" thing is just another way of taxing us.

The latest can be found at http://www.uah.edu/News/pdf/climatemodel.pdf. Essentially, they say that the models predict tropospheric warming that in reality doesn't exist. Worth a read!

Very Inconvenient!

2007-10-23T16:52:00.000+01:00

Al Gore's politisised junkumentary "An Inconvenient Truth" is to be shown in all schools in the UK. So we are teaching a generation that politicians actually know what they are talking about, when all they care about is self promotion. Makes my blood boil!

To quote Billy Connolly "The desire to be a politician should forever ban them from being one"

Well, it's good to see a well thought out and researchred scientific response. I wonder how many schools will present the other side of the coin?

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/press_releases/monckton-response-to-gore-errors.pdf

Monaco Kart Cup

2007-10-18T11:58:00.000+01:00

Last weekend saw me return to Monaco for the 11th Monaco Kart Cup. I thought that the standard of driver from last year would be hard to beat, but that changed when I saw the team in the pit next to us - Stephan Sarrazin, Pedro Lamy and Nicholas Minassian who all drove for Peugot in the Le Mans 24 hour this year. Add to them, Sacha Viets (Easykart World Champion), Colin Brown (ex World Karting FA Champion), Martin Pierce (World Rotax Finalist), Maro Engel (F3), Clivio Piccone (F3/GP2), Vitaly Petrov (GP2 Race Winner), Simona De Silvestro (CHAMP Car Atlantics) and a host of country champions and works drivers. Undoubtedly the strongest lineup I have ever raced against, in anything!

Micheal and Mark were unable to join us this year, so our team consisted of myself, Myles Sharman, Chris Hyman and Lane Bednash. Somehow we all made it through practice and qualifying unscathed with me setting the fastest lap for our team, Ecurrie Eccosse, but that only put us 30th of 42. However, I later found out that I had beaten Nicholas Minassian's time, so it wasn't so bad :-). Compared to last year, there was only 2 seconds between me and the slowest time in our team (4.5s last year), so we looked in reasonable shape for the race, and we were looking for a top 20 finish.

Myles started race one on Saturday morning and got up to 18th at the end of his half hour recording a best of 55.6. Lane then took over but after a further 18 minutes he didn't come past the pits. Turns out he had gone round Le Rascasse to find a kart rolling backwards down the hill which he hit flat out - The resulting collision was so hard that the our chassis split at the left front wheel. Luckily both drivers were OK and Patrick (the other driver) was happy to go with
us to the stewards to state that there had been no yellow flags shown despite him crashing some 15 seconds earlier. So not Lane's fault, but we didn't get back out in race one. The TonyKart mechanics built us a new kart at a cost of 3000 Euros! We were now 80 laps down on the leaders and 57 laps behind the 41st team.

For race two, we decided that I should start and I got a good one, passing 6 karts on lap one. From then on it was just a matter of going as hard as I could, and by the end of my 30 minutes with a fastest of 54.004, we were up to 16th place (in this race) but still last overall. Chris then got his first taste of kart racing round Monaco and he loved it. Considering that he has only driven corporate karts before, he did very well, posting a quickest time of around 55.8. He
found the kart a bit different to the Ferrari 430 he races in the FIA European GT3 series! Myles then did a solid stint 3 with a quickest of 54.8 and Lane took the flag having managed a best of 55.9.

Race 3 started in almost the same way as race 2, although the first few laps were a bit 'hairy'. By the end of the half hour I was up to 17th with a best of 54.001. By now Chris was getting more comfortable in the kart, reducing his best lap time by half a second to 55.286. Lane seemed to attract trouble and had a televised incident where he and another kart got in a right old tangle which resulted in the HT lead coming off of the spark plug. However, he managed to get going again and finished his session without further incident with a best of 55.4. Myles also had a spin during his session, but continued without any damage and ran a best of 54.9.

So we finished last, but despite that, I still had fantastic fun. I did learn that my fitness is nowhere near last year's level, but we know why that happened. So I hit the gym hard on Monday - It hurts:-) I've also realised that I need to make a tough decision over the coming months. There's no doubt that I'll be back for the 12th Monaco Kart Cup next year, but do I keep racing ProKarts, or do I try a 2 stroke championship like Rotax or Formula Blue? I'm not going to make a hasty decision, but it's something I need to deal with. I'll try to get a race in one of these classes before the end of the year and decide at that point. Maybe I can do both Prokarts and a 2 stroke championship.....

I hadn't seen Chris for a couple of year's, but it was good to see that he still has his infectious enthusiasim and gregarious love of life. He is trying to get an entry for a team in next year's event, which would be fantastic if it happens. He also plans to get himself a Rotax (or similar) and I'm sure he'll be pushing hard for fastest lap next year.

Monaco is a great place even when things don't quite go your way. If anyone gets the chance to go to this race, don't miss it.

Crail Summer Endurance - Round 6

2007-10-01T17:43:00.000+01:00

Some would say Ros and I have had some good luck in this year's championship, so on Sunday we redressed the balance and had our worst race day ever.

It all started so well, with a practice time of 43.97 on the long circuit, the first time we've ever been sub 44 seconds and a full 2 tenths quicker than last months record.

Then in qualifying we managed a 37.44 on the short circuit to put us 3rd on the grid for race 1.

I did all of race 1 having a great battle with Scott in the Apollo kart for most of it. We finished 4th and things looked OK.

However, before race 2 we discovered that the rear axle had about 5mm of lateral play and this was causing the brake to bind. We fixed it as best as we could, but Ros was heavily punted on the 5th lap of the race by someone who hadn't raced in Prokarts this year and when he came in we could see that in addition to the damaged nose cone sustained in the shunt, the axle was still moving.

With the help of Eric (happy now?) from Apollo, we identified a worn woodruf key as the culprit and fashioned a new one from some spare key that Eric had. By this time race 2 was over so we decided Ros should again start race 3.

He made a great start, but I could see that he was struggling to run at our normal pace. He came in saying that the kart felt very strange, so I went out for 20 or so laps and I couldn't go quicker than 37.9 and that was only one lap, whereas in qualifying, I was doing consistent 37.5/6.

So in the 3 heats we finished 4th, last and did not finish the last race.

We don't know what's wrong, and Ros plans to strip it down to see if he can find the issue. We're wondering if the heavy shunt has bent something.......

RANT MODE ON

For the past 2 years we have enjoyed some incredibly close ProKart racing at Crail with many instances of heats being won by tenths after an hour of racing (5 different winners this year) However, this weekend there appeared on the grid, a pair of new "Missiles", which cost the owner big bucks. Needless to say, the team in question (who have one of the best ProKart drivers in the UK), won all three races by a country mile, but who really wins?

One of two things will happen: 1. Everybody else will go down the route of paying the big bucks for new engines, and we'll be right back where we started, or 2. People will decide they can't compete with cheque book racing and stop altogether. The builder wins in scenario 1 and nobody wins in 2.

RANT MODE OFF

I'm now looking forward to the Monaco Kart cup in 2 weeks time. It can't be any worse :-)

Britcar 24 hour - Silverstone GP Circuit

2007-09-12T20:55:00.000+01:00

About 2 months ago I got a 'phone call from a guy I raced against in FPA, called Darron Anley. His plan was to find a old Honda Integra R and enter it in the Britcar 24 hour. Seemed like a good idea and I was in:-) A number of emails/phone calls over the coming weeks and suddenly, the race was just round the corner.

I travelled to Silverstone with Alan Bonner arriving early on Thursday morning, and headed straight to our pit garage, 8C. I spotted Darron chatting to someone so I sat down to wait for him to finish, which he did and promptly disappeared. He was back a couple of minutes later with one of the other drivers, Paul Armitage, and it was only when I approached him that he realised it was me - seems the longer hair confused him:-).

Things moved pretty quickly after that with the car being collected from Mardi Gras after having a new engine fitted and shorter 4th &5th gear ratios installed. The other driver, Ian Kirkpatrick had been testing the week before when it blew up in a big way.

Given that the engine had to be run in, we took it in turns to do 5 or so laps each at a maximum of 6k revs. This was good for me coz I'd never driven at Silverstone, or sat in the car (or any FWD race car). Ian did the first few followed by me and Darron with Paul going last. My best time was very slow compared to Darron and Paul but as they both knew the car/circuit, it was no big deal.

Friday's qualifying was to be split over one hour in the morning and two hours in darkness with all drivers having to do 3 laps minimum in each session. We decided that we should keep the same driving order with Ian and I being limited to 7k revs and the Darron and Paul running at 8k. All seemed to be going OK with Paul, as expected, posting our fastest time of 2:17.832 but when Paul came in, he reported that 5th gear had gone bang on his last lap. Given that it had only done 30 or so laps since being changed, we were a bit concerned. So The car went straight back to MG where they found that 5th gear was completely stripped. They managed to clean out the box and fit a new gear but 5th again sounded very noisy when we started the night qualifying. We all did the mandatory 3 laps each and decided, that first thing on Saturday morning, we'd have the gear box out and checked. MG didn't have any staff available on Saturday morning, but they let us use their workshop, and what a shock we got - in 20 laps of running we had lost half of the teeth on 5th gear! So, our only choice was to fit the standard 4th & 5th gears and hope for the best. We knew this would cost us lap time, but it seemed that for some reason, we couldn't fit the shorter gears. In addition to this, we decided to change the final drive gear as it had been slightly damaged by all the broken teeth. However our pace would again be impacted as the only one available was again going to make all the gears a bit longer. But we had no choice and started work on the box. The race was due to start at 16:30 and at 16:00 we had only just got the gear box re-attached.

So we missed the start and the first 3 laps, but finally we were in the race with Paul doing the first session. All seemed to be going OK and as planned, Paul came in for his fuel stop and driver change after just under 2 hours. As expected our pace had been impacted by the gearing change with a fastest lap of 2:20.077. Two seconds a lap doesn't sound too much but over the 24 hours, it's a lot of time. It was during the driver change pit stop that we discovered that the left hand side of the car and windscreen were covered in oil, and the reason soon became apparent. In our haste to get the car finished, someone had forgotten to tighten the oil filler cap and it had come off. Luckily, we had a top up tank/pump in the car, so Paul was able to keep feeding the engine with fresh oil. We fitted a new cap, tightly, and sent Ian out for his stint.

Ian's drive was fairly uneventful until the car suddenly appeared in the pits with Ian saying he needed to pit for fuel and the signaling we'd agreed with the pit wall hadn't worked. So we sent him back out to pit for fuel and then the driver change. Ian's best was a 2:25.639.

I was only 5 laps into my night time stint, when at the end of the pit straight, whilst braking for copse corner, the brake pedal went to the floor, and I don't know how I managed to not hit the wall. I nursed the car back to the pits where we found that the front left bake pipe had fractured, which explained a lot :-0 After about 50 minutes I was back out and I had just about got the hang of the circuit in the dark with my best being a surprising 2:19.334.

Darron then took over and we had another couple of unscheduled stops, the first when the car felt very loose - we could find nothing amiss with the car and put it down to another car leaking fluids onto the circuit. And then a few laps latter when a missed braking point led to 2 badly flat spotted tyres. But he still managed to lower our fastest lap to 2:18.762

Then it was back to Paul who would see in the sunrise, or so we thought. As dawn approached the fog came down and the race was suspended for over 2 hours. But he got underway again and in the cold morning air, lots of fast laps were being set, with Paul joining them with a 2:18.723

Ian started his second stint just before 10AM and kept out of trouble posting a best of 2:20.941

My second race stint was great, coz I could now see the circuit, and I was used to the car. I managed to continue to be the only one of us not to spin and I found a good rhythm that saw me beat our fastest lap on no fewer than 16 occasions with a best of 2:17.275.

Remember I said that I traveled down with Alan Bonner? Well his car's engine had expired after 90 minutes, but he stayed around and as soon as I got out of the car at around 14:20, it was into the shower and then head back home.

Meanwhile, Darron took it steadily in the last 2 hour session to bring the car home in 29th place overall and 3rd in class.

And we beat the Top Gear guys :-)

A fantastic result for a real last minute operation. As far as I saw, we were the only team where the drivers did the refueling and got involved in the mechanics of the pit stops. We had help in the shape of Bill (Paul's next door neighbour), Adrian, who works for Darron, and Bill's mate Nick and without them we'd have been stuffed. Also a big thanks to young Neil who came to watch and ended up doing most of the pitwall duty. Thanks guys!

Plans are already being made for next years race, where we hope to improve on this years result.

Internations Karting @ Warden Law

2007-09-10T20:37:00.000+01:00

We arrived at Warden Law on Thursday (Aug 30th) morning and after a day of testing, we were in a confident mood. Most of the ProKart team had managed to get under 60 seconds for a lap with Grant and Alan just making sub 59. However, that was to be the highlight of the weekend, as we just couldn't get any of our karts to work with the new tyres that we picked from the tyre pool. Grant's new engines helped him, but we just weren't competitive enough and in the final England took the first 5 places :-( Once again the driving standards were simply awful, with England being docked over 100 points over Saturday's heats. Wales weren't far behind and Scotland lost a measly 5 points. On Sunday the races reverted to standard MSA rules for driving misdemeanours and things got a bit better, but I still got taken out in the final. I very much doubt if this meeting will take place again - There were just too many (expensive) incidents that were simply not necessary. Once again, Ros lent me his kart, and Chris Miller chipped in by transporting me and the kart to and from the meeting. Thanks guys.

Crail Summer Endurance - Round 5

2007-08-26T21:02:00.000+01:00

What a great day! Ros and I knew that with Grant away at the UK sprint championship, we would have chance to stretch our lead over MBM - However, Grant drafted in Chris (from Milwalk) to partner Alan Kirkcaldy and we knew it would be a tough day. However, during practice, I was 'on it' and I was 3 tenths clear of everybody else, except for the guys in the GX200. We all race in the GX160 class, but there is provision in the rules to allow us to race along side the lager engined GX200s, and one turned up today. It was pretty much the same in qualifying, with the GX200 beating my best by 0.03s and everybody else at least 3 tenths back.
The first race start was totally chaotic with karts everywhere, and they red flagged it. Someone had rear ended Michael who spun into me bending on of the front track rods. We managed an elegant fix - we hit it hard with a big hammer to straighten it and then went straight back to the grid. Once we got underway, I made a good break and sat behind the 200 eventually handing over to Ros with a 12 second lead. Ros had been seeing a chiropractor this week and although he said he was better, I wasn't so sure and he seemed to be struggling a bit for pace. However, he kept it together and won by just under a second from Fraser in the Panther Racing kart.

Race 2 was the usual reverse grid and again I got lucky, making my way to the lead in just over 2 laps. But, compared to practice, my times were about 3-5 tenths off, and I knew I was being caught - Michael, the other Panther driver, eventually caught and passed me just before the half hour, and I was bit surprised that he was gaining his time on me down the main straight. Ros took over and again struggled eventually finishing fourth.

We couldn't understand it, but with some help from Scott Brown (Apollo) we found that the spark plus on the left hand engine had a loose terminal (the little threaded thing at the top) and we got that fixed with a touch of Locktite.

So for race 3, I started second, to Michael, who I managed to pass into the roundabout on lap 1 and then I built a good lead of around 10 seconds. I was really pleased with this stint as I was pushing really hard and as a result I was putting in loads of fast, consistent laps. Ros took over, but again he was around 3 tenths of a second off of my pace, and slowly Fraser and Chris (driving for MBM!) pulled him in. They caught Ros with 5 laps to go and we were then treated to the best racing I've seen in a long time. They all had a spell in the lead and they were all on the limit, but Ros's fighting spirit saw us take our second win of the day, and the overall win by 1 point from Panther.

So a great day, and great preparation. Next weekend, Grant, Chris, Alan, Fraser and me travel down to Warden Law kart club near Sunderland to represent Scotland at the Internations challenge.

Palmersport 2007

2007-08-03T21:31:00.000+01:00

Wednesday saw me and a load of friends/friends of friends/workmates head of to the Palmersport driving day at Bedford Autodrome. Last year there were 20 of us, but somehow, this year there were 37 of us, which presented various problems for me, not least being getting the cash from everybody. The other big issue was figuring out how to split us into a team of 20 and one of 17. So I ended up going with the Glasgow v Edinburgh approach, just for some added spice even though the 21 Scots were joined by 11 English, 3 Irish, an Italian, and a very fiery Spanish lady. (pictured below)
A few years ago my nephew, then 12, asked me if I’d take him to Bedford when he was older, to which I said yes. Given that he’s spent the last 5 years living in North Carolina, I’d forgotten all about it, but he hadn’t, so I had one non paying guest – His father/my brother also decided to join us, but I wasn’t paying for him!

The day was fantastic, with even the weather smiling upon us. Team Glasgow (Piquet) were lucky enough to start with the karts and the JP1.This meant that at least everybody would have been out on the west circuit with an instructor prior to being let loose in the FPA single seater.

I only stopped taking my medication last week, so because I’m due to do my first car race for a few years in September, I had decided that I was not going to hold back and I pushed really hard all morning – so much so that I was quickest in all of the mornings circuit events – Kart, Jaguar JP1, FPA, Renault Clio Cup and Porsche JP3. Rightly so, Palmersport only allow one trophy per person to stop smart arses like me winning everything, but even so I was getting a bit of flak for keeping on beating everyone. However, as is usual, I was really poor in the off road event, so that put paid to any thoughts of winning the overall trophy.

After a tasty lunch it was off to the last 2 events where I didn’t push quite as hard, but still managed 2nd in the Caterhams and 7th in the Jaguar XKR. The XKR is new this year and it really is a great piece of kit – the whine of the supercharger announces it’s iminant arrival, quickly followed by the bark of it’s glorious V8 as it accelerates away – awesome! Back on the east circuit, I even managed to blag an extra 3 laps in the Caterham and took 8/10ths off of my recorded time, just for fun.

I’ve visited Palmersport 12 times in its’ various guises over the last 8 years and I’ve always really enjoyed it, but this was without doubt the best yet. Perhaps it was seeing my nephew beat his dad on points, although head to head the result was reversed, or just seeing the inane grins on everyone’s faces as the helmets were removed after each event – It just made for a great day. And it looks like next year will be even busier!

So at the end of the day, the team prize went to the Glaswegians with the Edinburgers a distant second. There was a third team there, but they were way out of the running and only won the Off Road event.

Paul Healy, (Team Glasgow/Piquet but really Irish) was the overall winner with Craig Alsop (E’Burger/Schumacher) a close second.
Prize Winners.

FPA – Me (G)
Jaguar JP1 – Chris McMahon (G)
Karts – Michael McGuigan (G)
Caterham 7 – Jason Lundy (G)
Jaguar XKR – Craig Alsop (E)
Porsche JP3 – Chris Viggars (E)
Renault Clio Cup – Paul Healy (G)
Landrover Off Road - Some other bloke from team Senna

Overall Driver of the Day - Paul Healy (G)
Team Prize – Piquet (The official name for the weegies)

Special mentions go to rookies Chris Viggars and Jeff Johnston who were both very quick, and to Stevie Marchetti who put in a great lap in the FPA single seater.

There's a chance that a few of us will be returning before the year end - the more the merrier :-)

Crail Summer Endurance - Round 4

2007-07-29T22:52:00.000+01:00

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

2007-07-09T23:16:00.000+01:00

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

2007-07-03T21:13:00.000+01:00

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.

Crail Summer Endurance - Round 2

2007-05-28T11:38:00.000+01:00

Yesterday marked my return to racing after my recent operation. I had made it up to Round 1 last month, but I was in no fit state to race. On that occasion I did the pit work for Ros who dominated to win all 3 races. So we expected to be somewhere near the sharp end at this weekend's meeting. Despite the heavy rain in the central belt of Scotland, by the time I got to Crail the weather looked promising, and with the strong wind drying the overnight rain from the track, we looked to be in for dry races. Just as I was due to go out for practice, we found that the front left tyre had a faulty valve so we had to change the front tyres onto different rims, which meant I only got 5 laps which was not really enough to scrub in the new tyres, but I still managed 5th quickest. Ros then went out for qualifying, but his times weren't registering on the timing system, so called him in. Later investigation revealed that the new transponder we bought, had failed after only 5 laps of use! So we had to borrow a transponder and Ros then went out to qualify. He was about 3/10ths off the pace which put us around 8th and he came back in saying that the kart felt very different to last month. Since the only thing we had done was change the tyres, we quickly put the old set back on, and back out he went. He was now only a tenth from pole and that got us 4th on the grid.

With hindsight, only competing 5 laps in practice was a mistake, but that's how I started race 1. I got pushed off at the exit of the roundabout putting me back to about 8th and then on lap 2 I ended up in the tyres at the end of the back straight, eventually rejoining in last. I mad a dive down the inside and the guy didn't see me - a racing incident......

So I spent the next 58 minutes going flat out - I could see the leaders and they weren't getting any further away, but I was only closing up very slightly. So by the end I got back up to 4th, setting the fastest lap (by 1/100th) in the process. We hadn't planned that I do the whole hour, but when I was called in Ros just said for me to go back out. By the end of the race the front tyres were at the bottom of the wear markers, so we had to change the tyres for race 2.

Race 2 saw Ros start from the second back row (reverse grid) and he got up to 5th by the change over but he was again 3-5 10ths off the front running pace of Apollo. I took over and found the kart to be very loose at the back and I struggled to get bellow 45 seconds. So a 5th place in race 2 was a bit disappointing. We took some time to look at the new tyres and discovered that the rears were 2cm more in circumference than is standard!

So we fitted the old worn out rears for race 3 and it was immediately apparent that we were back on the pace - we were still a tenth or 2 off of the pace of Apollo but quick enough for 2nd place. This gave us 3rd pace overall on the day, tied with Panther Racing. Not a bad result, but it didn't feel that way. Still, I managed to come through the day with no ill effect post operation. But I am pretty sore today - hopefully I can now start training again and be a bit more competitive next month.

Under the Knife

2007-04-06T19:32:00.000+01:00

Yesterday morning, Thursday 5th April, I set of nice and early and arrived at the Royal Infirmary about 07:45. I had been told not to eat anything after midnight, so hoped to get the op in the morning. As it turned out, I didn't get to the catheter lab 'till 14:45, so I was extremely hungry by this point.

The lab consisted of a large table with a gantry mounted x-ray camera which was used throughout the 2 hour operation. They injected me with heparin to thin my blood and some heavy duty pain killer - I had planned to watch them putting the catheters in (in the right groin) but the pain killer knocked me out right away. I woke up to see a nice picture of my heart with the 3 catheters moving around and then resting as they 'burnt' the offending tissue - I use the term burnt coz I don't know what else to call it. In reality, they use Radio Frequency signals to burn or ablate the tissue. Anyway, as the pain killer was wearing off, I could feel it each time they switched the signal on, with the longest burn lasting 200 seconds. It wasn't excruciating, but rather similar to being at the dentist when he doesn't get the Novocaine dose quite right.

They then took me back to the ward where I dozed on and off for a couple of hours. The had left the 3 sheaths used to facilitate easy catheter insertion and positioning in the groin, as they wanted to wait until the heparin had worn off before removing them. I was hooked up to a blood pressure/heart rate measuring machine which they switched on every so often to check things out. I have a fairly low pressure and heart rate, so all looked OK, but one time when I woke up, I felt a bit odd, and as I shifted my weight I became aware of being 'wet'. I was thinking how to explain this when I realised that is was blood, and I called the nurse. Because of the heparin and warfarin in my system, my blood wasn't clotting correctly, and I'd lost over 2 pints of blood. So the put me on a drip to get my sats back up, which worked pretty quickly - the also put a cold pack on my groin which was way worse than the op :-)

Fiona came into see me at 19:30, and I was feeling much better by this time - she also bought me in some cake which I quickly demolished. I finally got some tea and toast about 22:20 along with another litre of saline, after suffering the indignity of having a bed bath/bed change (they wouldn't let me get up) and then it was off to sleep.

I felt fine this morning, and apart from a nasty swelling from the groin bleed, all seems well. I'm pretty fatigued, but given that I've just had lengthy heart procedure, it's not too surprising.

I have to go back in on Sunday to get my blood clotting checked, and then to my GP on Tuesday AM to get the results.

The only bad news is that I'll be on warfarin for somewhere between a week (good) and 4 months (bad) - I'll find out over the next week.

I'm glad it's over.

Thanks for the mails/texts - much appreciated.

We're Back

2007-03-27T08:17:00.000+01:00

After a few months sitting on the sidelines, Ros and I returned to Crail. We met up with Jeff Johnston, who we bought our new Wright chassis from, at the circuit on Saturday morning. Jeff had driven up from down south and he spent all day with us helping us set up the kart and providing pointers based on his extensive knowledge of Wright karts. It was really nice to drive and both Ros and I were very happy with it. However, given that we hadn't raced for a while, and that Sunday was the final round of the winter championships, we didn't expect too much from race day.

Sunday was dry, but cold - Ros managed to grab pole position on the last lap of quallifying, but when he came into the pits one of the engines was spluttering badly. I managed to find and remove some grit in the main jet in the carb, and we were ready to go. We decided not to try new tyres and see what happened. The teams in 2nd,3rd and 4th on the grid were all fighting for the championship so after the rolling start I stayed wide at the first corner and MBM and Milwalk came past. I then followed them for the next 20 mins or so when MBM pulled off to the side and left Chris of Milwalk with me on his bumper - it was like we'd never been away:-). I felt as though I was quicker and if we'd been in the championship, I had a couple of chances to go for the lead, but I decided just to sit there. I handed over to Ros at 30 minutes and once Milwalk pitted, it was fairly plain sailing with Ros winning by 8 seconds. I got the fastest lap on lap 34.

For race 2 we had to fit a new set of tyres as the ones we used on Saturday and in the first race were down to the bottom of the wear markers. As we had been on pole for race 1, we started last for race 2. I got a good start and made it up to 2nd behind Milwalk with Scott from Apollo close behind. However, after about 25 laps, the rear of the kart started to lose grip (the sun came out) and I dropped to third. Ros found the same issue and he just managed to hold off Panther racing to keep 3rd at the flag. Again I got the fastest race lap on lap 21.

For race 3 we made some changes to deal with the increased temp. I started from pole and knew that Chris was right on my tail and that when I made a mistake, he'd have a go, which he did. It was back to race 1 with me sitting right on Chris's bumper for 25 minutes. He pulled a gap of a second or so through traffic and then he went into the pits????? He normally runs around 40 mins before handing over so I didn't get it - but all became clear when I handed over to Ros - Because the winter championship was on the line, Chris was doing the whole hour himself. Ros finished a comfortable second giving us the overall win on the day which was a real surprise for us, and bodes well for the summer championship. (3rd fastest lap this time :-))The results of the Winter Champs aren't finalised yet but it's going to come down to a point or 2.

So, the new kart is great, and it looks like there will be 6 or 7 teams who can win the summer championship - bring it on!

It's a date!

2007-03-23T23:16:00.000Z

The postie delivered the news - I go under the knife on April the 5th - seems a lot more real now :-( However, for my birthday next week, I've booked myself onto a Palmer day, so at least there's some good news.

On the GGWS front, check out http://www.djmotorsport.com/cc.pdf for some proper science.

Just in case anyone is unsure, I'm cynical enough to doubt everything that the govt tells us, and the current hysteria/evangelism that we are being bombarded with on a daily basis makes me wonder - Could they be wrong? I think so.......Apparently that places me firmly in the minority - But would that still be the case if the mainstream media showed Joe Public both sides of the debate?

Consensus in the scientific community used to state that the earth was flat...................

Post Diagnosis

2007-03-22T11:14:00.000Z

Since my last post, I've slowly been getting back into my usual routine. I got the all clear from the doc to resume exercise, but if I had any of my symptoms, that would be the end of it until the operation. So in the past few weeks I've started playing 5-a-side again, although instead of the usual heart rate of 170, the max I've seen is 141 - I guess the beta blockers really work....
I also took part in an indoor endurance kart race, which Al took part in - he even whacked me a couple of times just to let me know he was there, and I also decided that a race at the Raceland GP series would be the next 'test' - At my request, I started last for the first race and as it went OK, I continued, managing to go on and win the final by 8 seconds and set the fastest lap. Given that exercise seemed OK, I have just returned from my annual trip to Whistler where they've had a record snow fall this year. I had a great time, but the girl in the picture (Mrs DJ) managed to lacerate her knee with one of her own skis whilst attempting a triple salko in fairly deep powder :-) So we had a few days off, but still managed to have a good time overall.

So this weekend, I'll be returning to Crail, with Ros, to try our new kart, which I haven't seen, and I'm not even sure what make of chassis it is.

Meanwhile, I hope you all saw the Great Global Warming Swindle on Channel 4 a few weeks back - It was nice to hear the other viewpoints in the mainstream media - As expected, the true believers didn't like it - But still no one wants to take my 1,000 pounds.......

Bother......

2007-02-12T19:25:00.000Z

Last Tuesday, I went to see another cardiologist at Glasgow Royal Infirmary expecting to be told to slow down a bit - what he said was a bit of a shock.

From the printout from my 24 hour recording, he could see that during the football match last Thursday, my heart rate suddenly jumped up to 270 bpm and for the next 6 hours, was "all over the place". He explained to me all of the options, the upshot being that I'm on the waiting list for an operation in around 3 months time. As of now, I'm on beta blockers, which have made me feel crap:-( He reckoned I'd been very lucky not to have had a more serious outcome to any of the events I've had over the past 15 months. I've tried to work it out, and it must be close to 120 times I've had to deal with my irregular heartbeat.

So, no exercise for the past 10 days and it's driving me nuts - hopefully I'll get the all clear to resume some sort of training soon.

It's all been a bit of a shock, but it should all be sorted out soon.

On the MMGW front, there have been no takers - surprise, surprise............

The Emperor's New Clothes

2007-02-04T20:59:00.000Z

Once again, we are being told that global warming is man made, and this time they're 90% sure. Well forgive me if I'm a little sceptical, but last Friday's publication was only the summary for policymakers. It seems strange to me that they give us the politicised, dumbed down version, months before the main paper. That didn't stop the media from using to forecast, in some cases, that life as we know it is doomed. Well, if they're 90% sure that means its 9/1 that global warming is not man made - I'll take that bet, to the tune of £1,000.00. Yep, I'll put up a grand of my hard earned that around 10 years from now, we will be seeing the signs of us entering a cooling phase. So, any of you MMGW proponents willing to back your claims?

The whole idea that CO2 is a major forcing of climate warming just doesn't seem to fit the data (not the model:-)). Even with current computing power, modelling a chaotic massive system like the global climate is like using chainsaw to trim a bonsai tree.

Have a look at:

Graph showing CO2 increase lagging temerature increase over thousands of years

Graph showing Temperature change, CO2 change and sunspot cycle length

On a personal note, for the last year or so I've been getting an irregular hear beat during competitive exercise (football and racing). Well, it's been getting worse, so a few weeks ago I went to see my GP who referred me to a cardiologist at the local hospital. I got all the tests including Doppler ultrasound, blood tests and static/stress ECG using the Bruce protocol. All was fine, with me reaching a maximal heart rate of 168 on the stress ECG. My resting pulse was just under 50, which is pretty good for an old bloke like me.
Prior to the test I'd said that it usually took 30 mins+ of competitive exercise before the symptoms became apparent, so on Thursday morning I went back to have a 24 hour 'tape' fitted. The 'tape' is what they call a heart rate recording device which is around the size of a walkman/orig iPod with 6 electrodes which are placed around the chest area, and hurt like hell when they're removed. I went straight to my regular Thursday lunchtime football game and as expected, after about 40 minutes, the irregular beat kicked in. As usual it lasted for around 6 hours and the settled back to normal. I returned the 'tape' on Friday morning and thought no more of it.

I got a 'phone call from the cardiologist on Saturday to tell me that they had identified that I was suffering from an Atrial flutter, and that I should immediately cease any form of strenuous exercise until they see me again this week. Seems I should have gone to see the doctor a lot sooner:-( Still, I should be able to go to the gym as long as I keep my heart rate below 150.

Anyway, back to the serious stuff - If anyone has the courage of their convictions, I'm happy to put my stake,along with theirs, in a neutral bank account.....I wait with baited breath..........

Work 'n' Play

2006-12-08T20:05:00.000Z

It's been a few weeks since my rant against the Man Made Global Warming - I'm glad to say that I've had lots of supportive mails - Looks like the brainwashing isn't working!

In the meantime, life's been a bit hectic. In mid November, I was just about to head off to Rome for a few days R&R when I got a 'phone call offering me a job at the place I used to work (large blue area directly overhead). There was a significant rate increase, so I had to say yes, despite being happy in my current contract. So I put the wheels in motion and returned form my break to work out the remaing 3 weeks of my notice period. Last Friday, I got the news that the budget for my new role had been frozen and there was no longer a job to go to! Luckily, the bank where I'm currently working were still keen to retain me.
I get the feeling that there was more going on than I knew about, but it's taught me a valuable lesson - No paperwork, no commitment! Since then, work has been very busy and quite enjoyable - looks like I'll be staying put untill March at least.

On the driving side, the season is pretty much over. Ros has sold his (championship winning) kart to Dom and Brett so for next weekend's 2nd round of the Crail winter series, we don't have a kart to race :-) But Craig's usual partner, Dave Morgan, can't make it, so at least I'll get some seat time!

I've also been organising next year's trip to Bedford Autodrome. I'm stunned by the response so far with 35 confirmed as of this evening, with around 10 folk on the maybe list and only 5 more place available. Given that this year we had 20, it just shows how much impact this day has on folk who've been before.

I'm going to post some more Climtae Change viepoints soon - Seems that's what folk want to read about!

So, 2007 - Well I hope that Ros and I will manage to buy a new kart to defend our title, and I still hope to race something more substantial if I can find a sponsor or two - Hopefully FPA or one of the Radical championships. I'm definitely going back to Monaco in October and maybe even another Thailand trip. But who knows, I'll just have to wait and see. For now, it's down to the annual pain of christmas shopping - I really am turning in to a grumpy old git :-)

Climate Change - Coming to a planet near you...

2006-11-06T20:08:00.000Z

For the past few months the media has bombarded us with it's usual hyperbole. We're all doomed if we don't do something now. So what's to be done? Well, if you're looking for another eco fundamentalist approach of taxing carbon,you're in the wrong place - I can hear the gnashing of teeth and shouts of save the planet already - but I'd prefer to take a more balanced view.

To listen to the politicians, and the media, the science is done, not in question, it's man made climate change.

Really?

Question 1. Of the carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere right now, how much is man made? This includes emissions from all forms of transport, all industrial processes and burning of oil, gas and coal for domestic purposes. Any ideas?

Well from the IPCC, the number is 3.6% And of that the UK produces 2%! That's 0.072% of all CO2 in the atmosphere comes from man made UK sources. And of that maybe 20% (0.014%) comes from transportation. The governments solution, to tax transportation - Why?

Question 2. Of the time that the planet has been able to support life, what has the atmospheric concentration of CO2 been compared to today?

I'm sure that you'd be surprised to find that levels of CO2 have been up to 18 times what they are today. I'm sure you'd also be surprised to find that CO2 increases lag temprature increases by at least 400 years.

Question 3. According to the govt/media, this year has been the warmest on record. Is this true?

I don't know the answer, but I do know that during the medieval warm period, that wine production, on a commercial scale, took place in England, and the southern part of Greenland was farmed - today, it's permafrost. Sounds warmer to me:-)

I'm not saying that climate change is a myth - Just that it seems to me that the planet has gone through a number of phases of climate change in the past, and is likely to do so in the future. Looking at the percentage numbers above, I think we're being arrogant to think that we are a forcing of climate change.

Another example is the myth that all glaciers are receding - Maybe true in the temperate regions, but given that most of the glaciers (95% plus) exist in Antartica, and less than 1% of these have been visited by man, I don't buy it. Oh, and Antartica increased it's ice mass by over 28 gigatons last year.

Here are some links to articles that present this subject in a far more articulate manner than I could ever manage.

www.cps.org.uk/cpsfile.asp?id=641

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/05/nosplit/nwarm05.xml

greenspin.blogspot.com

I've even read an article that suggests that due to a reduction in solar eruptivity, we are heading into another mini ice age similar to that seen 1700-1900. We should see the first signs in 15-20 years. So enjoy the good weather while you can. In the 1800's most major British rivers froze solid enough to support people having 'fairs' upon them for the winter months.

So, i'm pretty convinced that once again the politicians are wrong. Climate change - no doubt it's real - Man made climate change - How arrogant can we be?

And in case you think I'm out on a limb here....

The president of the Royal Society, Lord Rees of Ludlow, asserts that the evidence for human-caused global warming is now compelling and concerning.

In a public letter, we have recently advised the Canadian Prime Minister of exactly the opposite - which is that "global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural 'noise'.

We also noted that "observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future".

(Dr) Ian D Clark, Professor, Isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa, Canada

(Dr) Bob Carter, Adjunct Professor of Geology, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

(Dr) R Timothy Patterson, Professor, Department of Earth Sciences (paleoclimatology), Carleton University, Ottawa

(Dr) Ian D Clark, Professor, Isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa, Canada

(Dr) Bob Carter, Adjunct Professor of Geology, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

(Dr) R Timothy Patterson, Professor, Department of Earth Sciences (paleoclimatology), Carleton University, Ottawa

(Dr) Ian D Clark, Professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa, Canada

(Dr) R M Carter, Adjunct Professor of Geology, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

(Dr) R. Timothy Patterson, Professor, Department of Earth Sciences (paleoclimatology), Carleton University, Ottawa

(Dr) Madhav Khandekar, former research scientist, Environment Canada. Member of editorial board of Climate Research and Natural Hazards

(Dr) Tim Ball, former Professor of Climatology, University of Winnipeg; environmental consultant

(Dr) L Graham Smith, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada

Mr David Nowell, M.Sc. (Meteorology), Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, Canadian member and past chairman of the NATO Meteorological Group, Ottawa

(Dr) Christopher Essex, Professor of Applied Mathematics and Associate Director of the Program in Theoretical Physics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario

(Dr) Tad Murty, former Senior Research Scientist, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, former Director of Australia's National Tidal Facility and Professor of Earth Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide; currently Adjunct Professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa

(Dr) David E. Wojick, P.Eng., energy consultant, Star Tannery, Va., and Sioux Lookout, Ontario

Mr Rob Scagel, M.Sc., forest microclimate specialist, Principal Consultant, Pacific Phytometric Consultants, Surrey, B.C.

(Dr) Douglas Leahey, meteorologist and air-quality consultant, Calgary, Canada Paavo Siitam, M.Sc., agronomist, chemist, Cobourg, Ontario

(Dr) Chris de Freitas, climate scientist, Associate Professor, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

(Dr) Freeman J. Dyson, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, N.J.

Mr William Kininmonth, Australasian Climate Research, former Head National Climate Centre, Australian Bureau of Meteorology; former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology, Scientific and Technical Review

Mr George Taylor, Department of Meteorology, Oregon State University; Oregon State Climatologist; past President, American Association of State Climatologists

(Dr) Hendrik Tennekes, former Director of Research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute

(Dr) Gerrit J. van der Lingen, geologist/paleoclimatologist, Climate Change Consultant, Geoscience Research and Investigations, New Zealand.

(Dr) Nils-Axel Mörner, Emeritus Professor of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

(Dr) Al Pekarek, Associate Professor of Geology, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minnesota

(Dr) Marcel Leroux, Professor Emeritus of Climatology, University of Lyon, France; former Director of Laboratory of Climatology, Risks and Environment, CNRS

(Dr) Paul Reiter, Professor, Institut Pasteur, Unit of Insects and Infectious Diseases, Paris, France. Expert reviewer, IPCC Working Group II, chapter 8 (human health)

(Dr) Zbigniew Jaworowski, physicist and Chairman, Scientific Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw, Poland

(Dr) Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, Reader, Department of Geography, University of Hull, U.K.; Editor, Energy & Environment

(Dr) Hans H.J. Labohm, former advisor to the executive board, Clingendael Institute (The Netherlands Institute of International Relations), and an economist who has focused on climate change

(Dr) Lee C. Gerhard, Senior Scientist Emeritus, University of Kansas, past Director and State Geologist, Kansas Geological Survey

(Dr) Asmunn Moene, past Head of the Forecasting Centre, Meteorological Institute, Norway

(Dr) August H. Auer, past Professor of Atmospheric Science, University of Wyoming; previously Chief Meteorologist, Meteorological Service (MetService) of New Zealand

(Dr) Vincent Gray, expert reviewer for the IPCC and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of 'Climate Change 2001,' Wellington, N.Z.

(Dr) Benny Peiser, Faculty of Science, Liverpool John Moores University, U.K.

(Dr) Jack Barrett, retired chemist and spectrocopist, Imperial College London, U.K.

(Dr) William J.R. Alexander, Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Member, United Nations Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, 1994-2000

(Dr) S. Fred Singer, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia; former Director, U.S. Weather Satellite Service

(Dr) Robert H. Essenhigh, E.G. Bailey Professor of Energy Conversion, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio State University

Mr Douglas Hoyt, Senior Scientist at Raytheon (retired) and co-author of the book The Role of the Sun in Climate Change; previously with NCAR, NOAA, and the World Radiation Center, Davos, Switzerland

(Dr) Boris Winterhalter, Senior Marine Researcher (retired), Geological Survey of Finland, former Professor in Marine Geology, University of Helsinki, Finland

(Dr) Wibjörn Karlén, Emeritus Professor, Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden

(Dr) Hugh W. Ellsaesser, physicist/meteorologist, previously with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California; atmospheric consultant

(Dr) Art Robinson, founder, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, Cave Junction, Oregon

(Dr) Alister McFarquhar, Downing College, Cambridge, UK; international economist

(Dr) Richard S. Courtney, climate and atmospheric science consultant, IPCC expert reviewer, UK

Winding Down....

2006-10-30T18:20:00.000Z

Compared to Monaco, Crail is pretty ordinary, but that didn't stop me from having a fun day at the first round of the ESKC winter series. Afer last months terrible weather, it was a relief to arrive at a dry circuit with a clear sunny sky above. After qualifing, we were in second place, over 0.5s off the pace set by Apollo.

For race 1, I got a good start but could do nothing about Scott in the Apollo kart, who just drove away. It was a pretty lonely half hour from there on, and once Ros took over, it was much the same for him. We were running in our new engines, so were surprised to be as competitive, and were happy with a 2nd place finish.

Race 2 was the usual reverse grid, and by the half hour I had got up to fourth. Ros took over, and by the flag 2nd, 3rd and 4th were within 4 seconds of each other with Apollo still dominating 10 seconds ahead of the rest. Fourth for us.

So for Race 3 we made some changes to the kart, and started 2nd on the grid. I managed to stay with Scott in the Apollo kart for foe first couple of laps but then got caught up in a battle for 2nd with Milwalk and MBM, After a couple of laps of exchanging 2nd & 3rd with Chris from Milwalk, I decided to just sit on his bumper, with Grant from MBM in a similar position behind me. This allowed us to start catching back up with Scott, and by the change over Chris had got past him with me close behind. After the change over, it was pretty close, but Apollo managed to win, from us, by 3 seconds. A great result for Apollo and not bad for us either.

After the race, Dom and Brett were testing our kart with a view to buying it. Ros decided that there's no challenge in racing a kart we know so well and that has won us the championship. They seemed to like it, which is not surprising :-)

So for the next round of the winter series, on Dec 3rd, we're probably going to have to borrow/rent a kart, which should make things interesting.

What a great year - Winning the endurance championship, being selected for the Scottish kart team, the Thailand 24 hour and racing at Monaco against some fantastic drivers. Roll on 2007!

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

2006-10-16T17:33:00.000+01:00

But not in that order

The Bad.

We all met up at Nice airport, with Me, Michael, Chris and Barbara flying in from Edinburgh with Mark coming from Paris and Myles from Manchester. Mark had driven to Paris on Wednesday as he was heading up to Spa today. However, Air France had managed to loose his luggage between Paris and Nice, and as it turned out, it wouldn't arrive until 01:30 on Saturday morning. We grabbed a taxi over to Monaco that took about and hour and found our respective hotels. Michael and I were staying in the Fairmont which has it's entry at Loews hairpin, and the rest of the team were in the Port Princess which is on the right between the chicane and Tabac. Michael and I were keen to walk the circuit so we dumped our stuff in the very impressive room and headed down to the track. For those that know the Monaco GP circuit, the Kart Cup track uses from the exit of Tabac, through the swimming pool and round Rascasse, It then cuts back into the F1 pits area and back down a ramp towards Tabac where there is a 180 hairpin.

We had 2 free practice sessions of 40 minutes on Friday which gave us a brief feel for the circuit, but it wasn't enough for me, or Michael as we'd never driven the circuit or these karts before. The karts were TonyKart Krypton chassis with a Rok 125cc water cooled 2 stroke engine. And for the first time, these karts had front brake discs with a bias adjuster to change the brake balance between front and rear. You had to drive the karts as they were, with no changes allowed, not even tyre pressures! Despite our lack of circuit/kart knowledge , Michael and I were reasonably quick with a fastest of 55.9 by me.

Qualifying started around 16:00 on Friday, and by the time it came to my turn, Michael had posted our quickest with a 55.5. I didn't even manage a lap, as on the approach to the hairpin on the 'out' lap, the guy in front of me braked a little early - So did I but the guy behind didn't and I got punted very hard, resulting an a badly bent rear axle - the kart wouldn't move and that was it. So we qualified 25th based on Michael's time. I was pretty pissed off, but I was glad it didn't happen during the race. The mechanics replaced the axle, but as we'd find out later, they didn't tighten things up fully!

Michael started race 1 and made up quite a few positions to get us into ~17th place. Myles took over and drove a steady session followed by Mark. I took over for the final half hour and now with a decent time in the kart, I was getting quicker. Around half way through my stint the chain came off half way round Rascasse, but luckily, I could go straight into the pits for the juniors and I managed to get it back on. Out of the junior pits and down towards the hairpin, as soon as I hit the brakes, it came off again. Once more I managed to re-fit it, and headed into the 'mendings' awning where the TonyKart mechanics were. It was plain that the sprocket on the axle had moved and they quickly put it back and, this time, tightened it correctly. I lost around 7 laps through this 'failure', but still managed a 53.693 lap. This put us in 34th place and our race was, effectively, over.

For race 2, we ran the same order, with Michael again making good progress through the field. Myles again put in a solid stint, but halfway through Mark's half hour, he didn't come past, so things looked bad - turns out that he'd gone into the pits as the brake pedal had become increasingly ineffective. The rear pads were completely worn away, so they fitted a new set and we were back in the race having lost another 6 laps. When I took over for the last 30 minutes I nearly crashed twice on my out lap - the brakes were very snatchy and seemed to be working like a switch. I turned the brake balance much more to the front and every couple of laps wound it back half a turn towards the rear. This seemed to work OK, and by the end of the stint, I was managing around 53.4 second laps.

The Ugly.

Because the race was being recorded by Eurosport, the race stewards were looking at an incident that had occurred between karts 5 and 8 in race 2. We all watched the big screens as they replayed the crash dozens of times. It looked like kart 5 got a slow exit from the chicane before the hairpin at Tabac, and as he came down the ramp, kart 8 was closing rapidly. The track is quite narrow here, but instead of waiting until the bottom of the ramp, where the track widens, kart 8 just drove straight into the back of number 5 and spun him off and into the wall. The kart was badly damaged, although the driver seemed to be OK. What happened on Sunday morning was a direct result of this incident being replayed so many times for all to see. The driver of kart 5 went into the pits of kart 8 and a punch up took place. I wasn't there, so don't know the exact details, but suffice to say that although team 8 finished 3rd at the end of the 6 hours of racing, they were stripped of their podium position. To see a driver (from team 5) with blood pouring from a busted lip, is not good.

The Good.

At the start of race 3 , our team, Ecurrie Ecosse, were classified in 36th place - without the chain and brake problems, we'd have been in, roughly, 21st. Michael again started the race and consistently put in mid 53 second laps and made up loads of positions. Myles managed to get down to mid 54s in his half hour with Mark having a similar run but struggling with traffic. At the beginning of the weekend, a lot of time had been spent applying foam padding to the seat. I didn't like this as I felt that I was sitting on top of the kart rather than in it, with all the subsequent issues with regard to centre of gravity etc. So when Mark came in we ripped the padding out of the seat and off I went. I joined the track just behind the second placed team and after 4 or so laps I got the blue flag. For the final race the top 3 teams were getting the blue flag waved to let them past slower traffic. So I eased off and kart 8 went past me. I was still in 36th place, but for the next 25 minutes or so I stuck to him like glue. This helped me get past traffic and put in some great times with a best around 52.4. I say around because our own stop watch system had put me on a 53.9, in race one, when the official time was 53.693. Anyway, I go to the end having gained 2 places to 34th. Not a great team result, but very satisfying for me to be within 0.5s of the fastest lap, posted by a current F3 driver. I had expected to come across some 'corporate' drivers, but the standard was exceptionaly high, with many well known drivers taking part. I would love to go back next year, finances allowing. We had a quick look over the kart post race, and were surprised to find that the rear pads were, once again, getting close to their wear limit. We just couldn't figure it out until I asked if anyone was "power braking" - this is a technique used in low powered karts to try to keep the engine revs up to help with the corner exits. Mark chipped in with "I do that on every corner"!! I guess if no one told him that it's not a good idea on a 30bhp kart, then it's not really his fault. Still, it explains his lack of pace and our brake problem. Personally, it's something I never do, but I know many folk swear by it in lower powered machines.

Driving a 2 stroke, and driving it well, has made me seriously consider the Easykart championship which will start in March next year. All the races are in England, but it should be similar to Monaco, from a kart perspective. More later..........

So now it's back to reality and we're off to Crail in a couple of weekends for the first round of the winter series.

Monaco is a fantastic, if surreal, city. Every second car seems to be some exotica like Ferarri, Porsche, Aston Martin and the likes. And the yachts! - the status symbol of the obscenely rich. It's back to earth now with the first round of the winter series at Crail in 2 weeks time.

Hopefully, I'll add some pictures to this entry later in the week.

And the Winners are.....

2006-09-25T13:51:00.000+01:00

Ros and I endured a horrible day at Crail for the final round of the Endurance Championship. The weather forecast had predicted warm sunny conditions for the week end, but they couldn't have been more wrong. How they expect us to listen to their 'computer modeled' prophecies of doom and gloom about global warming are beyond me - they can't even get it right for 3-4 days ahead! Anyway, it was pouring when we got to the circuit and it pretty much stayed that way for the whole day.

I did the first 20 mins practice and although there was very little grip, I managed to be 4th quickest. Ros then started the qualifying session but came in after 10 minutes as he thought he was way off the pace - In reality, he was about 6th, but we decided to fit our new wet tyres and send him back out. However, the session had been shortened to 20 minutes and by the time we got him back on circuit, the session was over and we qualified 9th, our worst of the season.

Race 1 was pretty wild at the start, but I managed to stay out of trouble and pick off a couple of folk. We had decided that if I was going well, we wouldn't change over drivers at the mandatory pit stop, and that's what happened. Eric in the Apollo kart was easily the quickest on the track, but I was up to 3rd and catching Mark of XLB in 2nd. But I pushed too hard and had a slight off at the roundabout, losing around 8 seconds. I kept pushing and by the flag was only a second behind him. 3rd was a good result, as Milwalk were 4th and the championship was ours. I also got the fastest lap of the race, which was a big surprise!

For race 2, Ros we decided Ros would do the whole hour. Race 2 is a reverse grid, so Ros again started 9th (18 karts yesterday), but with the slower drivers ahead quickly made his way to second. Eventually, the quick folk worked their way forward and the racing became pretty good, in worsening conditions. With only 2 laps left the 1st and 3rd placed karts fell victim to the weather giving us a lucky 2nd place, again behind Apollo.

I stated race 3 from 3rd place - The officials admitted post race that I should have been 2nd, but it didn't seem to matter on the grid - but just past the start, Jack in the XLB kart had a major slide and knocked me off - Jack should have been 3rd, but started 2nd :-). Even worse was to follow with kart 30 spinning on the entry to the roundabout on lap 2 and I had nowhere to go. The collision wasn't too bad and I managed to get back on track, albeit in last place. Over the next 30 mins, I worked my way back up to 5th, where I came up behind young Dom, who was having his first weekend at Crail. Twice I got along side him only for him to move over - the first time I went off in avoidance, and the second time we touched, but he still didn't see me! The kart wasn't handling properly and when I came in to hand over to Ros the reason was evident - In my second lap collision, the right hand track rod had been bent - Ros quickly straightened it as much as he could and went back out - We were in 5th place and that's how it ended, with Ros finding the kart a real handful - Within 10 minutes of the end of the race the left rear tyre was flat, so at least we knew why! Apollo again won race 3 - After Whilton, Eric and Scott bought some extended front hubs, which were used by the winning Dutch team in the UK 24 hour. They certainly seemed to work well yesterday! I think we'll have to get a set......

Overall, we finished 2nd on the day and won the championship by over 30 points from Apollo with Milwalk in 3rd. Not bad for our first season at Crail.

Too Good? Could Be....

2006-09-15T22:57:00.000+01:00

On Tuesday night 2 F'Sport teams took part in a indoor charity endurance race in aid of Childline at ScotKart in Cambuslang. I started karting there in 2003 and have always found it to be a fun place to race. Our 2 teams started from the back of the grid and finished first and second - Craig, Noel, Kenny, Kenny and Steve beat Me , Dom, Neil, Euan and Ian by just over a lap and deserved their win. After the race the podium announcement was interrupted by some guy saying that the whole event was a fix and that our teams had been cheating! Amazingly, he got a lot of vocal support, and when someone tried to point out that we were raising money for charity, he started shouting and swearing. I'd thought no more about it 'till I got a call from Ian, the following morning, saying that F'Sport were no longer welcome at Scotkart - The management had decided that due to complaints from most other teams, he had no choice, on commercial grounds, but to ask us not to return. The first time I've ever heard of a team being banned for being too good. We got no black flags, unlike many of the other teams, whose driving was simply appalling. We didn't set the fastest lap, that was done by the Vodaphone team, but we did all wear our F'Sport race suits and looked professional - obviously a crime:-( Neil Dom & I are due to join up with Neil's brother, Fraser to defend our champion of champions title in a couple of weeks at ScotKart as Team ITW - will we be allowed to race? What a bizarre decision.

On the plus side, I've got a busy few weeks coming up. Firstly I've got a bit of fun on Sunday with my first race in a while at Raceland in the endurance championship - I'm hoping for rain to make it interesting. Then it's down to the serious stuff the following weekend with the final round of the summer endurance series at Crail. We're leading the field by 15 points going into the final round, so we've still got work to do.

It gets better; I've been asked to race in the Monaco Kart GP over the weekend of Oct 21/22nd - This event usually attracts a few current and past F1 drivers! Don't know much more at the moment, but more details to follow.

And just to top things off, I've been offered a drive in a Radical SR4 at Spa in Belgium over the 6th-8th of October in the Radical World Cup - I'm currently trying to find the three thousand pounds plus that I'll need to compete - Again more details to follow.

The ABkC Internations Meeting

2006-09-04T22:12:00.000+01:00

Was held at the Llandow circuit just south of Cardiff. After a long journey from Glasgow, via Edinburgh to pick up Ros's kart, I arrived at the circuit early on Thursday morning. This was to allow me to lean the track and get used to driving on Dunlop SL1 tyres - Ros had 2 partly worn sets from 3 years ago, but as the alternative was spending £100 on a new set, I took the old ones. At Crail, we run Duro tyres, which are very hard in comparison to the Dunlops, so I expected the kart to feel different.

Grant, was also there on Thursday, and I couldn't get within 2.5 seconds of his time as the kart just understeered everywhere. More worrying was the fact that even on the tyres that he won the O plate on, at Rowrah last weekend, he was way off the pace of the front running Team England guys. It has to be said that the English team was made up of the guys from the Bayliss Boys endurance team, and as we saw at Whilton a few weeks ago, in a straight line their karts just pull away from you. It's like they've got extra horse power.

For the last practice session on Thursday, Grant gave me a set of year old tyres from his van, and immediately I found over 1.5 seconds and once we were issued with our race tyres on Friday morning, things improved some more, but I only had 2 test sessions left so didn't get to the root of the understeer problem and I still had to find around 4/10ths. Looking back, spending the extra £100 on another set of tyres would have been the right way to go, but hindsight is like that :-)

The weather forecast predicted a wet Saturday, and it looked like they were going to be right for a change, as we arrived at a sodden circuit. This was good for us, as a wet track negates any engine advantage. I managed 7th overall with Grant, Mark, Andy, Neil and Chris very close behind - Eamon and Lauren were just a little behind. With Wales taking 5 of the top 6 with one English interloper, things looked promising. However, by the end of qualifying, the track was drying quickly so I, along with Chris and Neil, took a gamble on slicks for our first heat - By the end of the race we were quicker than the guys on wets, but even so, 2 corners, that had been recently re-surfaced, were still pretty slippy, and we got swampped through them - As a taste of things to come, I had a kart hit me off the track bending the left track rod.

Heat 2 was competely dry and Grant managed a 6th with Andy 9th and me 10th. However after the race, I got called to the clerk of the course who told me I was being penalised for taking out one of the Welsh team. I had made a mistake at the second chicane and the guy had passed me down the back straight - I followed him through the hairpin and chicane 1 where he errored - I went to the inside approaching the tight left and when he saw me he moved over and pushed me onto the grass (wet) - I could do nothing and when we arrived at the corner, he turned in and spun off across my nose. I was pretty angry at being penalised for his stupidity, but it turns out that anyone who had any sort of contact with a local driver, was penalised.

In heat 3 I made sure I kept out of trouble and finished 12th. Then it rained some more, so I started from 3rd and was maintaing that position when on lap 2, through the quick right hander, an English guy hit my right hand side so hard, he knocked me off the circuit and popped the front tyre off of the wheel - this meant 0 psi of pressure and immediate retirement. Grant saw the whole thing from 6th and reckoned if the guy hadn't hit me, he'd have hit the tyre wall. This idiotic manouvre cost him time so Grant got a run on him out of the last chicane - he tried to push Grant onto the grass as he overtook, but Grant was ready for it and the English guy hit the tyres. Chris Miller, of Milwalk, had told me that it would get rough, but this was unbelieveable. Normally, I don't drink but I managed a couple of pints on Saturday night - man, was I fumming.

Sunday dawned wet, but with a strong wind and some sun, the track soon dried. The pre-final sets the grid positions for the final - I started 11th and was making progress when I got mullered, at the same corner by another of the English lot and again the front right deflated - I'm guessing that the sidewall had been damaged in Saturday's collision - There was nothing visible, but the hit was nowhere near as hard, so it's ether that or really bad luck. So for the final I started way back and just managed to avoid a major pile up at the tight left. This left me behind Neil, who seemed to be having kart problems - He let me pass and I set abpout chasing 3 Welsh guys. With about 5 laps to go, one of them slowed (turns out he lost an engine) but as I dived to the inside of the tight left, he moved over - mindfull of the previous penalty, I backed off and got him on the way to the fast right. This had allowed Mark to close right up, so I let him through to see if he could pull me up to the back of the other 2 Welsh guys. We got closer, but ran out of laps, finishing Grant in 11th, Mark 14th and me 15th. Andy had started 3rd and got passed by one of the Welsh - Andy is one of the best ProKart drivers in the whole of Britain, and he got down the inside at the hairpin, where the Welsh guy turned in on him - Andy got a black flag! Crazy!

I have to say it wasn't much fun for 2 reasons - the driving standards were shockingly bad and the marsahlling was pretty xenophobic. Secondly, I found out that I need to spend more money if I want to compete at this level. I figured out this morning that the reason the kart was understeering was that it had too much rear grip - *if* i'd have spent another £100 on a set of new slicks, I hope I'd have managed to figure this out through testing on Thursday/Friday. But if this is all I learned, it's still of value.

Would I do it again - absolutely!

The Team
Grant Murray
Neil Dodson
Andy Smith
Chris Lipscombe
Eamon Keiller
Lauren Keiller
Mark Lawrence
David Joseph

Crail - Summer Endurance 5

2006-08-28T08:10:00.000+01:00

Today's meeting at Crail was tough for me - I started to get a sore throat on Friday night, and I spent most of Saturday doing very little as I felt crap. But I didn't feel to bad on Sunday morning, so of I went on the 90 minute drive to Crail. Once again we were blessed with fine weather, although no where near as warm as last month. Ros qualified us in second place, but I had a bad start and dropped 3-4 seconds behind the lead 3 of Milwalk, XLB and Apollo. Still, I maintained the gap and we managed to leapfrog Apollo at the pit stop. Ros drove really well and diced with Mark of XLB for the lead, eventually crossing the line less than 0.5 seconds behind. Race 2 is a reverse grid and I got caught up with a guy in a GX200 kart (the rest of us race GX160s) at the start which lost me a few seconds - however, I made my way through to third by the changeover and Ros quickly caught and passed the 2 ahead to win by 8 seconds. I have to say I was feeling pretty rough by now, but I only had one more stint to do. I was on pole for race 3 and diced with Chris from Milwalk for most of the half hour - I then proceeded to hit the tyres coming into the pit lane losing us around 15 seconds, which cost us the race - Ros chased the leader down but was still 5 seconds down on Milwalk by the flag. We still won the day and gained a further point on second placed Milwalk, but it was a day of what might have been. We take a 15 point lead into the final meeting of the season at the end of September, which should make for a good race meeting. Andy and Jamie continued to improve and despite carrying a good few extra kilos, Jamie is starting to get onto the same pace as Andy.

Out of the Blue.......

2006-08-21T21:09:00.000+01:00

I got a 'phone call tonight - I've been asked to drive for Scotland in the Internations kart challenge at the Llandow circuit in Wales in a couple of weeks. My team mate Ros had mentioned this to me at the weekend, but I hadn't taken him seriously - He can't take part coz he doesn't have an MSA license, which is not really fair as the class we race in, ProKart, no longer has an MSA series - But he's letting me use his kart, which is the one we race at Crail - Now that's what I call a team mate!. To say I'm 'gobsmacked' is an under statement, but what an opportunity. More to follow.........

UK Endurance ProKart Championship 18th-20th Aug 2006

2006-08-21T17:22:00.000+01:00

The UK 24 hour kart race at Whilton Mill was a fantastic race. During testing on Friday, we managed to get our kart setup pretty well for the changeable conditions and we were happy that we'd do well in qualifying. Last year we managed 13th, so we were a bit shocked to only qualify 20th this year when we thought we had the kart setup much better and Robert, who normally races Rotax, posted our quickest lap and is quicker than the rest of us!

This year I had decided not to do too much pre-race (last year I did most of the Friday setup work and the qualifying) so I only did one session on Friday, on a wet track. As the forecast predicted a fair amount of rain over the weekend, this was OK, and as it turned out, I wouldn't drive a dry lap all weekend. Noel started the race in bright sunshine, and at this point it looked like the weather men had gotten it wrong. The kart didn't seem to cope with the increased temperature and by the end of Noel's session (100 min) we were in 26th place :-( Ros managed to gain a place during his session and then the conditions started to change. About 30 minutes into Robert's session the rain started and we took the gamble of immediately fitting wet tyres - A pit stop to change tyres takes about 90 seconds, or 2 laps, and he was only out for another couple of laps when the rain stopped and the sun came back out, rapidly drying the track. We had been one of 2 teams to change tyres, and we lost out. So back in he came for slicks and another 2 laps lost. Then 15 minutes later the rain returned and having nothing to lose, we changed again and the same happened:-( So when the rain came back for a third time around 15 minutes later, we had no hesitation in pitting for wet tyres again - then the heavens opened and everyone followed. Robert completed his session on a drying track and we were thinking about going back to slicks, but the rain came back and I took over. I had only done one session in the kart on Friday, but although it was wet then and now, the kart felt very different. In 140 minutes I had 6 spins (more than I've had all season) and found the kart to be very understeery followed quickly by massive oversteer. When I got out of the kart I was very grumpy, cold and wet - it turned out that the tyre pressures were 8 psi down on where they should have been and we couldn't figure out why this had happened, but at least I knew that I hadn't forgotten how to drive :-)

Scott took over on new wets, at the correct pressures, and ran a steady session with no spins! Eric then took over and as usual, was pretty quick. Noel's second session started on a wet track, but by the end of his session, the track was pretty dry and Ros went out on slicks. The race was stopped around 1AM due to an accident that waranted the use of the ambulance - I need to find out more details on this. Ros took the restart and finished his session without incident, then Robert took over - Poor guy, it started to rain again during his session and he was in and out of the pits to change tyres. My memory is a bit hazy of the all these events as staying up for a 24 hour race, when you've only managed around 8 hours sleep over the previous 2 nights, is not easy. Anyway, I was out next, on new wet tyres, and right away, the kart felt fantastic. In my 2 hour session, I was passed twice - I reckon I lapped everbody else, some twice or three times - the kart was on rails and it was a fun drive, with no spins! - Noel took over and contiued our move up the leader board. We were now 10th. Over the closing 6 hours we diced with 9th place a few times before finally getting a lap ahead of the chasing team with only 20 minutes to go, letting Noel take the flag in 9th place.

Last year we finished 10th overall and first in club class. This year, more than half of the pro teams had dropped into club class, and the best 'club' team finished 3rd overall. How you can call a team that has factory support, and is spending a reputed 12k a year on engines, a club team is beyond me. Anyway, we were a place ahead of last year's position so that's got to be a plus. I then drove home to Glasgow (around 4:45 journey time) and I have no recolection of the middle 2 hours - In hindsight, a crazy decision and one I'll remmember not to repeat next year.

This post marks a year of blogging at the Racers Edge:-)

Whilton here we come....

2006-08-12T21:47:00.000+01:00

After the excitement of last week's trip to Bedford, there wasn't much going on this week. Ros and I are joining forces with Eric and Scott (Apollo), Noel (MS kart) and Robert (races Rotax) to enter the UK 24 hour race at Whilton Mill next weekend. We managed to win the Club Class last year and, with Robert no doubt bringing some speed with him, we hope to defend the title this year. I'm still profoundly affected by the experience of Thailand, and today I managed to send them six thousand pounds to make up for the cash we didn't win in the race. I'd been saving this money over the last 2-3 years to fund some car racing. Of course, this means that I'll not be making my annual appearance in the FPA Autumn Trophy, but I'd like to think that the money will be better spent helping some of the fantastic children we met out there. Those that know me well, may think I've "lost it" by giving away my only chance of car racing this year (Fiona said much the same!), but if you'd been there, I think you'd understand.

Team MacRenault

2006-08-05T07:07:00.000+01:00

On Thursday, 22 of us headed for the Motorsport Sensation at Bedford Autodrome. Over the past few years we've had up to 8 going along, but this year we had enough for a team of 20 of our own. Dave Morgan had also bought 2 places from a charity auction on Radio Forth, so he booked in for the same day. Of the 22 attendees, around half race karts fairly regularly, and most drive good road cars, so we reckoned that we'd have a fairly competitive day. After the recent good weather, it was a bit strange to arrive at the circuit under a heavy sky and temperatures more like autumn, but it was dry, so all looked good. We were to be the Renault team, with Dave M and Neil M joining the Red Bull team (max 20 per team). We had a hectic morning starting with the Jaguar JP1, karts and the FPA race car. It was almost as much fun as driving to see peoples faces after having been round the west circuit in these cars. Then it was off to the north circuit for the Clio's and the Nissan 350Z. I always have my worst of the circuit events in the Clio, which i really like driving, and this year was no different - I guess I need to learn to drive a FWD car. The 350Z is just a fun car to drive - Opposite lock everywhere :-) Then it was over to the offroad area where, new for this year, they have a Caterham head to head (or really back to back) race. I was first up against Craig , and got well and truly thrashed 3-0. In my defense, I have to say that my half of the course was much wetter, and over the whole 10 races , only the last guy won on that side. Then it was the off road, and for once, I managed to hit every target and stay on the rails. Lunch was the usual quality affair, and then we were off to the east circuit for the Caterhams. After the FPA, this is my favourite event, and this year I managed to go sub 50 seconds for the first time. Then it was off to the south circuit for the Porsche JP3. I was really struggling with this car and it didn't make sense as I had managed a 70.85 in May? My instructor then told me that they'd had to use harder tyres as the orig ones were too sticky and they'd snapped a number of half shafts - So I pushed on and was way up on my previous best, but managed to spin on the exit of the chicane just before the timing beam, throwing away what would have been my quickest lap. It was worse than that coz he then told me that I was now on my last lap. I pushed really hard and despite the slow start to the lap (due to the spin) set my quickest time before diving into the pits. And that was it, all over for another year. So how did we do? The only event we didn't win was the Porsche, and the Clio, which was won by Neil M. In the overall standings we took places 1,3,4,5,6,7,8 & 10 and everybody had great fun. It's not a cheap day out, but the value for money is fantastic. Apparently, the guy who finished second, has won each of the 12 times he's been there - you should have seen his face :-)

Hotter than a Hot Thing!

2006-07-30T19:21:00.000+01:00

Today was round 4 of the Crail summer endurance series, and like that last 2-3 weeks, it was hot. We did our first test of the season yesterday, and struggled a bit to be competitive - When it's cold/wet or a combination of both, we have got our setup sorted. However,in the hotter weater we struggle and an air temp of 24 degrees today, caused us real problems. Over the course of the day, we reduced our tyre presures by nearly 10psi, and still couldn't keep pace with the front 3, who were XLB, Milwalk and MBM. (XLB won all 3 races) Finishes of 5th, 4th and 5th, gave us 4th place overall, but in each of the 3 races, we were at least 0.5 seconds off of the pace. But this is Scotland, and we're confident that we wont get too many weekends as hot as this one :-)

We're still leading the championship, having lost 7 points to Milwalk, so it's all to race for.

July

2006-07-23T15:07:00.000+01:00

Since I returned from Thailand, I've been thinking lots about the whole experience. The racing was a bit frustrating, but the rest of the week has had a profound effect on my cynical old head. If we'd managed to win, the Camillian Centre would have benefited to the tune of $12k - That's a lot of food/education/love & support for these kids. As most of you know, I'm constantly trying to get cash to race in Formula Palmer Audi and this year, I've managed to save quite a lot. So it's easy choice time, go racing or help the kids - no contest. More details to follow.

I'm currently really pissed off with Easyjet. There are 20 of us going to Bedford on August 3rd. On Saturday, I got a mail from them saying my flight from Glasgow to Bedford on Aug 2nd had been cancelled. So now I have to be at the Airport for 17:00 instead of 18:30. That's not too bad, and it seems the rest of the Glasgow travelers can cope with this inconvenience. Today (Sunday July 23rd), Jack gets a similar mail from Easyjet saying that the return flight from Bedford to Edinburgh has also been cancelled. The latest flight they can catch home is now at 18:40. Given that Bedford Autodrome is at least an hour and a bit away (much more at rush hour) from Luton Airport, this is a real problem. Fortunately, Jack and Mark have the flexibility to get to Glasgow and fly from there. I'm waiting to hear from the rest of the Edinburgh folk.

Michael and I had a run out at Raceland in the endurance championship last Sunday - We finished 3rd, but it wasn't much fun. However, I am looking forward to the next round of the Crail endurance series next Sunday. It seems that everyone else is testing, buying new karts and generally gunning for us :-). We were planning to test a week ago, but it didn't happen. Hopefully, we'll get out on Saturday to refine our setup.

Oh, and I managed to secure a 3 month contract working at a bank in Glasgow.

More than a Race

2006-07-05T19:46:00.000+01:00

When we arrived in Thailand late on Tuesday night the first thing we noticed was the heat. Even at 20:00, it was 32 degrees and over 96% humidity. We then had a 2 hour journey, by air conditioned mini bus, to our base at the Sandalay Resort in Pattaya.

On Wednesday morning we went to the Pattaya kart speedway where we got to play in some TKM 2 strokes, which was great fun. It was a bit of a shock to hit the brakes and get almost no retardation, but once you got used to it, it was OK. On returning to the pits I was amazed to see that the 'brake' system was just a steel drum with a metal (copper?) strip round the outside that the brake pedal tightend onto the drum! After another fun session, we headed for some lunch and then it was off to the KR track for some more 2 stroke fun. The TKM's at this track were pretty badly maintained, with my first kart snaping its chain after 5 laps and the second being run way to rich. But this was just a taster for the next session, which was in Rotax/Tony karts. Now this was fun. They only had 4 karts, so Neil, Jack, Ian and Ewan went out together and it was great to see them circulating nose to tail for over 15 laps. Then me, kenny and Craig went out and had a ball. So our first real day in Thailand, and we had spent most of the day thrashing various karts round some nice circuits.

On Thursday, we spent the day at The Bira race circuit, registering for the race and getting in 3 hours of practice. We had spent some of the flight studying and discussing the race regulations, but this was rendered useless when we were issued with a new set of regulations with some fairly major changes. Firstly, there would be no minimum weight, immediately putting our team of over 40s, at a distinct disadvantage. Secondly, the minimum age had been dropped to 15, which seemed to be for the benefit of Random Racing, who consisted of champion karters from Germany, Switzerland, Holland and Australia. This team were to set pole in qualifying by over 4/10ths of a second, but given that the driver who set this time was a 51kg 15 year old, we weren't surprised. The karts were supposed to be 17bhp, but I'd guess that 10bhp was more like it, as it wasn't as quick as a ProKart which has 11bhp. In practice, all of our drivers were within 2/10ths of each other with me setting the quickest time of 71.287 seconds, over 1.2 seconds off of the sessions quickest and only good enough for 18th place. However, given the fact that all teams were lighter than us, and most teams had at least one sub 60kg driver, we couldn't do much about it. We, in our race wear, are all around 80kg. All of the karts were then fitted with new tyres and we had 2 15 minute sessions to set a time. Neil and I were assigned qualifying duties, with Neil going out in the first session and setting a time of 70.487. In the second session I was out and improved our time to 70.128, which only gained us one place to 16th, which is exactly where we thought we'd be!

Friday was a day I'll never forget. We had a late (9am) beakfast and then went to meet some of the children from the Camillion centre for lunch. All of these kids are orphans with HIV, and we didn't know what to expect. We arrived to find them half way through their meal - what a wellcome they gave us and it wasn't long before we were all getting to know a wonderful group of young people between the ages of 6 and 15. Then it was back to the KR circuit, where we all took the kids round the circuit in some 2 seater karts - they had pedals on our side only but both steering wheels connected and I was amazed by the ability of these tiny kids to turn the kart exactly where you told them. One 8yo girl in particular was inch perfect and she whooped loudly every time we exited a corner :-) I then took a boy called Ratt out - He lost his sight earlier this year and his English was as bad as my Thai, but he grabbed onto my right arm and we worked out a signaling system to let him know which way the next corner was going to be. It was an unreal experience, which he thoroughly enjoyed. Then it was off to the Elephant safari, which for me, was way scarier than driving anything! It was Sharah O's birthday and they got all of the elephants in a circle where we could all sing Happy Birthday to her, in English and Thai - I doubt she'll ever have a birthday experience like it. Each elephant had one adult and one or two kids, and like I said, I wasn't too comfortable with it, but the kids loved it. Then it was onto what can only be desribed as a trap pulled by two cattle - Our kids decided we were in a race and asked our lady driver to get to the front, and she duely obliged - what a laugh, and we won:-)Then, it was into a real pony trap and again our driver was happy to push the pace as fast as he could - the kids were really having a ball. One of the group was a downs syndrome boy called Peter, who had taken a shine to me. He looked around 8, but I was told he was 15. We were reminded of just how unwell these kids when Peter sucumbed to the excitement of the day by being pretty sick. But he amazed me by just wipping his mouth and getting on with the days activities. Then it was time to say goodbye, which was extremely tough. Some of the stories behind these kids lives were truely shocking and I don't think we realised how much they had effected us all, until we sat in silence after they had gone. It really made us all realise why we were there, and gave us a common goal for the weekends race. After all, if we could some how win the $12k first prize, the kids would get all of it.

On Saturday we had an early start, ariving at the Bira circuit at 8:30. The race was scheduled to start at 12:00, but by now we were getting used to the "Thai way", and it was no surprise that the race was put back to 13:30. Jack started the race and immediately moved us up to 12th, which Neil and Ian consolidated and then I had my first time. I managed to get down to 69.576, but I found it really hard work, mostly because of the heat. We were up to 8th by this point and looking in good shape. Craig then did a great job in his session and like in practice, we were all within a few tenths. Jack and Neil maintained our momentum, but over the last few minutes of Neil's session, the temprature dropped by around 8 degrees, which improved everyone's lap times by 0.5 secons or so. This gave Neil the fastest lap (for our team) of 69.2. Within 10 minutes of Ian's second session starting, it started to rain. I quickly got suited up, and headed out in pretty wet conditions. By the end of my stint we were up to seventh and with Jack, Craig and me nominated to do the wet sessions, it looked like it was going to be a busy night for the three of us. The rain stayed pretty constant for the next couple of hours, but around midnight when I was out, the heaveans opened, and I don't mean UK type rain, I mean torrential - It was like driving in a small river and the lap times plumeted. At around 12:30 they red flagged the race coz about 4 of the corners had over 3 inches of standing water, which made driving dangerous. I'd have liked to have continued, as I seemed to be doing OK, and I couldn't believe it when the leader board showed us second - in the wet I was taking as much as 5 seconds a lap off some of the quick teams. I guess living in Scotland had it's advantages :-) We were then told that the race would restart at 5AM, so everyone, except me and Ian, headed back to the hotel for a couple of hours kip. This is where things started to go wrong. I had been the 4th kart stopped by the red flag, and I was in second place, but at the 05:00 restart, my kart was positioned in 19th place in queue in the pit lane. They then decided to let each kart out with a 5 second or so gap to the next kart, meaning that the first few karts out of the pits were allready coming past the pit exit before I even got back out. We still haven't found out how they decided on the restart line up, but we complained to the race director, who said he would deal with it later. Back on the track, it was still wet, but no standing water, so I finished my session and handed over to Craig who pushed really hard and handed over to Jack who again, drove a really strong and steady session. Somehow, we had ended down in 9th place after the restart and despite our consistent times, we didn't move up, crucially having lost laps to most of the cars ahead of us after the crazy restart. The track dried up a bit and Ian and Neil rejoined the fray, but it wasn't too long before the rain returned, and it was then back to me, Craig and Jack to finish the race. We still don't know where we finished as the result for positions 4-10 are still under review. After the race we spent some more time with "our'kids and again it was heart breaking to see them leave, this time, for good :-((

The idea beind this race is great, but for it to be an on-going sucess, they need to:

1. Set a minimum weight for the kart/driver combination. In my first session (in dry conditions) I was behind a very nice Japanese guy, who went through most corners sideways, but managed to keep ahead on the straights due to his 20kg advantage. It took me 15 laps to get past him. A level playing field for all would be much fairer.

2. Enforce their penalty system. I lost count of the number of people who reacted to being overtaken (cleanly) by hitting me at the next corner. There wasn't one penalty for contact despite the lengthy section on driving standards in the regs. And it wasn't the quick drivers!

3. Sort out the pit lane speed. In the race (when it was wet), more than half the field demolished the tyre wall in the pit lane, again with no penalty. The regulations said there would be severe penalties for infingements.

4.If there is a red flag, restart in the correct order, behind the pace kart.

5.Dispose of the 1 hour driving limit per driver. The fuel tank can run the kart for around 1.5 to 1.75 hours - let that be the guide - It's an endurance race!

6. Ensure that the whole track in illuminated during the hours of darkness. There were 2 corners that you couldn't see and another couple that were marginal.

So, a great week with so many highs and a few lows. I need to thank the folk at F'Sport for giving us all such a fantastic opportunity. We all went out for a kart race, but came back memories of much more. A unique experience.

Perfect preparation

2006-06-25T21:32:00.000+01:00

We headed to Crail for today's 3rd round of the summer endurance championship, not knowing what to expect as the kart hasn't moved for a month. Most of our rivals have been on the circuit on at least 2 occasions and it showed! XLB (Jack and Mark) and MS Kart (Noel) had both upped their pace. The start of race 1 was delayed as they couldn't get the timing system to work - Craig and I managed to get it sorted, and we than had a ten lap qualifying session, which we managed to lead by a tenth. Race one was on the short circuit and I managed to make a break at the beginning, handing over a 4 second lead (from XLB) to Ros after the half hour. However, somehow we came out 6 seconds behind MS Kart and it took Ros most of his half hour to catch and pass Noel, taking the flag 0.2 seconds in front. For race 2, on the long circuit, the grid is reversed so I stared last (of 24) but somehow managed to get up to second by lap 2 - it was all a bit surreal - the gaps just opened up in front of me :-) I then had to chase down Michael, who was partnering Craig, but I eventually got past him, and again handed over to Ros with 4-5 second lead. Ros always kept the gap to XLB around the 3 second mark, giving us another win. For race 3 it was back to the short circuit, and despite making a good start, got mugged by XLB and Apollo on lap 2. I managed to get up the inside of Scott in the Apollo kart and he turned in on me, but I managed to stay with XLB, whilst Apollo lost 5 or 6 places. So for the next 25 minutes Jack (XLB) and I were never more than a kart length apart - He got past me twice, but I was able to retake the place both times and I handed over to Ros with a lead, but only just. Again we lost out in the pit stop (walking up the pit lane slower than the others!) and it looked like XLB or MS would win as they were glued to each others bumpers. It had been sunny all day but with about 10 minutes to go, some clouds came over the sun, and immediately, Ros was able to start catching the 2 leaders. We don't know why, but our kart runs better in cloudy conditions. Anyway, Mark (XLB) and Noel were so busy racing each other that they forgot about Ros, and with 2 laps left, he got past them both. At the flag, the 3 karts were separated by half a second. Usually Ros doesn't have too much to do in the second half of the races, but today he was awesome!

The closest days racing we've had at Crail, which was only soured by the 57 kart of Milwalk crashing out in practice, coz of a fractured brake pipe, which couldn't be repaired.

Andrew and Jamie , who I worked with at Sky, had their first visit to Crail, and by all accounts, had a great day - both got quicker over the day and they got a feel for real racing.

For the F'sport kart team, a great day with Jack, myself and Craig all doing well - bodes well for Thailand!

A Black Day

2006-06-21T11:21:00.000+01:00

Things started out badly at the Scotkart Race of Champions on Monday night, and they only got worse. It was evident from the start of qualifying that our kart was a bit slow - the best we managed in practice was a 30.4 when last time we were there, a 29.1 was our best (by Dom). We asked them to change our kart, but they wouldn't. No matter, we had still sneaked into second place and looked OK for the race. Neil started and got into first place where he built a lead of around 25 seconds. Fraser took over and when we were called in for our fuel canister change at around 50 minutes(the karts are gas powered these days) he still had a lead of around a second. We lost over 10 seconds in the change but Dom quickly caught the leader and passed him, only to be sidewalled by a backmarker(more of this kart latter). Sidewalling is the practice of turning across the nose of someone who is overtaking you forcing them into the tyres/plastic pipes that define the indoor circuit. It's not allowed but there are parts of the circuit that the marshals can't see. Dom was too eager to get going again and he pushed himself out of the tyres, which got him a black flag only 10 minutes into his 30 minute stint. As part of the black flag process, you also have to be stationary in the past for 30 seconds, so it's really a 2 lap penalty. So out I went and I pushed really hard. I lost count of the number of times I was sidewalled by one kart in particular. I got past it but I kept catching it every 15 laps or so and always had the same issue. I was back up to second and only 4 seconds behind the leader when again I caught the same kart. I knew he was going to try to sidewall me so when he turned left into me , I turned right and kept my foot down. This meant that when we went into the next corner (to the left) I was on the inside and he went off. The marshals decided I was to blame and black flagged me - my first ever in 6 years of racing. I had been out for 45 minutes, so Dom did the last 5 minutes or so, and we finished 3rd. That should have been that, but as I walked into the changing room, the 'driver' from the kart I had robustly passed confronted me about my driving standards! He seemed to think that sidewalling me was perfectly acceptable and that that moving to the left of the track approaching a left hand corner was the racing line :-) We nearly came to blows - apparently I had steam coming out of my ears. Thinking about it now, I'm embarrassed that I lost my temper, but at the time, I was ready to rumble.

I know we shouldn't have got so involved as we were racing against 'non-racers', and our kart was down on power (I posted our quickest lap of 30.00 against a previous best for me of 29.4 - a big difference on that track) giving us the 4th quickest lap time out of 9 teams, but when the flag drops, the bullshit stops and you just want to win. I wasn't the only team member to be pissed off by the whole event. Neil was so fed up he has decided that he will not be going back to Scotkart!

Still, it doesn't matter much - Less than a week to go :-)

The Countdown Begins

2006-06-18T19:23:00.000+01:00

Only a week to go until we head off for the 24 hour race in Thailand. Today, I did the Raceland 90 minute endurance race, which was actually (for me) 120 minutes as I did all of the 30 min practice/qualifying and then the whole race. I managed to get pole position by a couple of 10ths from Brett/Lewis and by halfway through the race, I had a lead of about 30 seconds. Then it started raining, which made things pretty difficult, mostly due to not having a rain suit on - By the end of the race I was soaked to the skin, but I'd managed to lap the entire field so it wasn't so bad:-)
Tomorrow night (Monday), Neil, Fraser (Neils brother), Dom and myself are competing in some endurance race at Scotkart in Cambuslang - apparently is the final of the industry challenge - should be fun.
Then next weekend, it's the 3rd round of the ESKC endurance championship at Crail raceway. Each meeting consists of 3 one hour races, and in the first two meetings, we've had four first places, a second and a third, so we are hoping to stay in the top 3 in each of the races next weekend. This may be tough as a few of our rivals have been spending lots of time testing at Crail to improve their karts setup. Rumor has it that 2 teams have managed to do laps of 43.6 seconds! Our best ever at Crail is a 44.6, so next weekend could be hard work. And that will complete the preparation for Thailand.

Chris wins at Spa

2006-06-04T17:13:00.000+01:00

I was going to write my usual diatribe about today's Super GP race meeting at Raceland, but not any more!

I first met Chris Hyman in 2000 when I tried my hand at Formula Palmer Audi - In 2001 we shared a garage a few times and we got on pretty well. I knew that Chris was heading of to New York for a shareholders meeting, so you can imagine my shock when the atrocity of 9/11 took place - it turned out that Chris had been in a lift on his way down to the ground floor when the first plane hit, and once he got out of the building, he saw a 'minivan', a couple of yards from him, crushed by falling masonry. We exchanged txt messages, so I knew he was OK, but his account of what had gone on was truly scary. It's worth noting that in his next time in the car, he put the car on pole! Well this weekend, he was racing at the world famous Spa circuit in Belgium. For Race 1 he qualified 3rd and finished 2nd - For Race 2 he put it on pole, but stalled at the start, eventually recovering to 8th. Starting from 4th in race 3, he 'blitzed' the field and posted a fantastic win on the best circuit in the world (IMHO). Couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke.

I managed a 2nd in the Raceland Super GP with finishes of 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 1st.

Happy Days.......

Crail - Summer Endurance 2

2006-05-29T12:20:00.000+01:00

After last month's clean sweep, we expected a much tougher day at Crail - It was a nice sunny day and with 24 karts on the grid and we had an hour of practice, instead of the usual 30 minutes. We started on our old tyres from last month and the kart felt really good to both Ros and me, with us posting the 2nd fastest lap on the short circuit. The second 30 mins of practice was to be on the long circuit - we missed the first 5 minutes or so as we changed over to our new tyres, but immediately, I thought the kart felt 'wrong' - The left rear felt like it was folding over when turning right - I put this down to the pressures being wrong and continued my 15 minutes - When we changed over for Ros to do the last 15 mins, we adjusted the tyre pressures, but it didn't make any difference - we qualified 4th. We thought about going back to the old tyres but decided to persevere with the new set and adjusted the pressures some more. At the start I maintained 4th but was losing touch with the top 3 every lap and it wasn't long before Jack, in the new XLB Anderson kart, came past me. We swapped places a couple of times after that , but I handed over to Ros in 5th place. Ros drove a great stint, aided but some poor pitwork from MBM, to get us back up to 3rd by the flag, but way down on our championship rivals, Milwalk. So for race 2, we changed the rear tyres to last months, as we discovered that the new left rear tyre was on back to front (race tyres are directional - it was on the wrong way). I started 3rd from the back on the reverse grid from race 2, and got punted into the gravel of pit bend on lap 1. This seemed to wake me up, and I later found out I was consistently the fastest driver on the track as I made my way up to 3rd. We were about 4 seconds down on Milwalk/MBM at the change over - But again Ros was straight on the pace and we won the race by 15 seconds. At least we knew what the problem had been. For race 3 we started, along side Milwalk, on the front row with MBM and Apollo on row 2. The start was clean and I managed to get into the lead, albeit for only 2 corners , before making a mistake that allowed MBM and Milwalk through. I eventually got past Grant in the MBM kart but Chris from Milwalk was pulling away by 2-4 tenths a lap. I eventually managed to almost match his pace, but not consistently enough and at the half hour change over, Milwalk had a 13 second lead. Ros chased for all he was worth, but at the flag, we were still 7 seconds behind. The rear tyres were pretty shot by the end and the kart was getting quite oversteery, so second overall is not a bad result, but we've decided that we need to do some testing to find an extra 10th or two from our setup. If we manage that, we'll be in good shape for the rest of the year.

Craig continued his karting education with a 6th overall, partnered by Michael (who races at Raceland with us) - I think we may well have another "Crail Convert".

Bedford Part One

2006-05-26T23:51:00.000+01:00

Hugh and I spent today at Bedford Autodrome driving an exotic mix of fast cars. We traveled down last night to make sure we could be at the circuit for the 8am start, and arrived at the circuit in the pouring rain. Apparently, the south east has been getting it's wettest May for years, even though there is officially a drought.

After the obligatory safety briefing, delivered with some good humor by Martin Brundle, we headed out for the first event. So if it's pissing down, what would be the worst car to start in? Yep, the FPA single seater. It was OK for me, but for most other people it was a bit of a leap of faith - No babysitter/instructor to help, no grip, cold tyres/brakes, and for most, not knowing where the track went. Still, we gave it a go and all did pretty well. There were a couple of off-track excursions, but no damage and everyone enjoyed it. Then it was onto the off road course which I'm usually pretty bad at - no change today. Then back to the still damp West Circuit for the Jaguar JP1s. We were still on wet tyres, and after 3 or 4 laps you could feel the tyres squirming around as they overheated - Luckily, we were the last to use them before lunch and Nicky, my instructor, thanked me for killing his wet tyres - I raced against Nicky in my half season in FPA 2003, so it was nice to be out with someone who just sat back and let me get on with it. The kart circuit has been lengthened this year , but with all the rain, there were 2 big puddles on the track, so it wasn't a timed event, and most decided to give it a miss. However, whilst some of my team were out in the JP1s, I gave it a go and got totally drenched - Still good fun but you could see why they cut it from the day.

After lunch we headed off to the North Circuit for the Clios and the Nissan 350zs. I'm always amazed just how well the 350z, in standard road car trim, copes with the demands of circuit work. And the Clios, 900kg, 185bhp and a sequential gear box makes for a really quick little car - within half a second of the much more powerful 350z.

New for this year is the Porsche 996 Carrera 2 - Well that's what they started out as - Palmersport have done some major work on the suspension which has made it more akin to a GT3 (so I'm told). On the challenging South Circuit, I was expecting a car that wouldn't turn in, quickly followed by snap oversteer - I couldn;t have been more wrong - The car was really neutral and very quick - Yes, demanding to drive, but not out to throw you off at every opportunity. My favorite event of the day!

Then it was off to the twisty East Circuit for the Caterham Superlight. 10 Laps in one of these really gives you a work out as I doubt all four wheels were pointing in the same direction for more than a few seconds. Great!

Hugh and I both had a great day and we're both looking forward to our visit on Aug 3rd with 20 of us heading down for a day of automotive excess :-)

Team F'Sport

2006-05-21T17:32:00.000+01:00

Today the full F'Sport team met up for the first time at Raceland's 90 minute endurance race. Ian partnered Sarah 'O', Jack and I shared a kart, as did Neil and Craig. Kenny was also out with Ian's son, Ewan.

We arrived to find a wet track and it started raining heavily just before practice. I did the first 15 mins of driving with Jack finishing the session, with us lining up second behind David Rooke/Michael McGuigan. Craig and Neil were 3rd with the others further down the field. I quite like driving in the wet, and even the new slow karts were quite challenging in these type of conditions. I started the race and managed to squeeze past Michael on lap one - the kart didn't feel very quick in a straight line, but handled nicely and I managed to build up a nine second lead by half way. The track was just starting to dry up a bit and I could see that Michael had started to close up, so on the in lap I pushed (too hard!) and managed to spin - Even so I was right on Michael back bumper as I peeled off into the pits for Jack to take over. Within another 10 or so laps, there was a dry line, and after another 10-15, the track was as good as dry - This was bad news for us, as Jack was getting passed by folk while going down the main straight - He kept going and managed to finish 3rd behind the young Testosterone guys and David/Michael, but our quickest lap was over 2 seconds slower than the leaders - a bit discouraging.
I'll say it again, these are new karts and there should not be such a huge difference between them (as much as 5%!). See The Racing Drivers Excuse Book, point Number #27 :-)

The F'Sport team are planning to go down to Buckmore Park in Kent, as they have the same karts that we will be driving in Thailand, which uses the same chassis as the Raceland karts, but they have a 390cc engine (270cc at Raceland). Check out the team at www.fsportkarting.com.

Neil can't make it to Crail next weekend, so Michael is teaming up wuth Craig - Should be fun.

I'm also off to Bedford Autodrome on Friday for a day of fun:-))))))))

This week...

2006-05-11T02:24:00.000+01:00

I'm back in Whisler for some great late season ski-ing. This means I missed last Sunday's Super GP at Raceland, but as I don't get on with the new karts, I'm not too bothered. We've had some new snow and some sunny days as well - doesn't get much better:-)

Such a Perfect day

2006-04-23T20:14:00.000+01:00

Spring is here at last, and we had a day of sunshine, and great racing at Crail Raceway, for the first round of the Summer Endurance Championship. The last two MSA Sprint meetings at Crail have been cancelled due to lack if entries, but we had 27 karts out today - weird?

Any way, at the last round of the Winter Series, we (RD Racing) achieved out first win. We were a bit worried about the kart as Ros had to strip the whole kart down to weld a new brake bracket on. He then sent it away to get powder coated and , because of the easter weekend, didn't get it back 'till last Wednesday. So he spent many late hours rebuilding the kart, and fitting the new brake system. He only finished it late last night, so we didn't know what to expect.

There was some issue with the timing system, so the grid for race 1 and 2 were drawn from the hat - In practice I reckoned the kart was as good, if not better , than it had been last month. I started 13th in race 1 and 15th in race 2. Both follwed pretty much the same pattern, with me chasing, and getting past, Chris Miiler (Milwalk) and Grant Murray (MBM). The kart was handling fantasticly well, and I handed over to Ros in P1 - Ros and I drive totally differently, but post very similar lap times, so Ros took the chequered flag in both races. In both races I had set the fastest lap time of the day, (1 on short circuit and 1 on long) so for race 3 I startd on Pole. Chris got past me once on lap 4, but I got back past him at the next corner, and that was it. Again I handed over to Ros in the lead, and he extended that lead by the flag. He also beat my best lap for race 3 by 6/100ths to give us a clean sweep of fastest laps and race wins.

Craig and Neil, from the F'Sport team for Thailand, were also there and despite losing 14 laps min race 1 due to being punted by somebody (not me!) managed to finish in the top 10 with a 6th in race 3 being their best result to date.

Does it get any better?

And then home.......

Random Thoughts

2006-04-20T22:30:00.000+01:00

I've now got 2 weeks of my current contract left - Was supposed to be 'till the end of June, but such is life. I was also supposed to be racing in the Britsports series at Snetterton in a supercharged Radical on the12th/13th of May, but not if I'm out of contract. Time to hit the Jobserve site.

Like any big company, the place I've been at for the past 2 years or so is riddled with politics and process, but in general, the contractors and permies are up for a laugh, which helps get the job done. I've met some good folk, and learned lots, so all-in-all, a good contract.

I've also managed to get to the gym 2-3 times a week (at lunchtime) which has helped me get my dodgy knee back to a semblance of normality after being told, in 2001, that it was not going to get any better. At that point, walking more than half a mile made it swell up and become pretty painful. However, I played in my first 11-a-side football match on Sunday, after the endurance karting, and have been playing in a weekly 5-a-side game for the past 18 months. Knowing what I know now, I don't think I should have continued to play Volleyball for so long - don't get me wrong, it was the focus of my life for years, but I should have stopped after the first knee op, not the fifth!

Most folk seem to go out and get hammered when they leave, but not me (or Dom who's been terminated early as well). We're having an endurance kart race (predictable or what:-)) next Tuesday - Maybe they'll give us the old (for old read faster) karts! Then it's the Go-Live party next Thursday evening - Methinks that it could be an eventful evening, with at least 50 people due to leave over the subsequent week or so. DeMob happy me? Never..........

Slow, Slow, Not Quick, Slow

2006-04-16T18:25:00.000+01:00

Raceland finally got their newRX7 karts - They are made by Sodi and have a single 270cc engine - And they are really slow.

My best lap in one of the twin engine ProKarts was set when they were new and on decent, Dunlop, tyres. The fastest lap today, set by young Dom, was over 5 seconds slower. Even in recent times, with the harder tyres and old karts, anything over 60 seconds was really slow with high 57s/low 58s being on the pace. The problem is that appart from the 2 hairpins and the 100 degee left, all of the corners are easily flat out. In the ProKarts, there were a few corners that needed the driver to balance the throttle to keep momentum up - now anyone can just go flat everywhere. And because of this, if a lighter driver gets on the throttle, out of one of the corners that requires braking, at the same time as one of us ~75kg guys, he pulls 2-3 kart lengths from there to the next braking area.

Today I was sharing a kart with Jack, who is part of the F-Sport team for the Thailand trip at the end of June. After 15 mins of qualifying we were in 12th place, which seemed odd - I took over and as I'd never driven one of these before, I pushed to see what it would do. I could see Young Dom catching me so I let him past and tried to follow him, but on the straights he pulled away really quickly. At that point, with 5 mins of the 30 min qualifying session left, I came in and swapped karts. Allthough I only got 4 laps, on cold tyres, this kart was a second and a half quicker, and we ended up in eighth place. Not a good sign with brand new karts!

Jack stated the race and got us up to 6th place where we stayed for the rest of the, processional, race. My 45 mins passed really quickly, but was pretty boring as there was no real driver input.
When I started my stint I was half a lap down on Michael, and with another 2 laps, I'd have passed him - Thata was about it - A fastest lap of 61.8 against Dom's quickest of 61.1.

These are the same make of karts that we will be racing in Thailand, but thankfully, the engine is 30% bigger! Maybe I need to think about buying a kart again.

The Karts Last Stand

2006-04-02T15:34:00.000+01:00

At last - after today, no more of the old karts at Raceland (or so we're told). The new Sodi karts are being shipped later this week. Back to today, which started out pretty wet, and the format was adjusted to the same as last month, coz they didn't have enough serviceable karts. Race 1 saw me start 7th and finish 2nd. A pretty good start - The wet conditions allow slower karts to be competitive. In heat 2 I made a great startfrom last and was up to third, but the first time I had to use the brakes in anger the rears locked up and off I went. I recovered to fourth by the end but still felt at least second had been on the cards. For the first six heats, the kart on pole had won every race (kart 2) - I had it for heat 7 and true to form, it was way quicker than the other 2 karts I'd been in, and I took an easy win. In heat 9 I started from fourth, but with the track almost dry, I decided to go for it on the first few laps - It worked and I got to first which I maintained to the finish. This put me in the lead for the day, with one heat left to run - Young Shaun, who would equal my points total for the day if he won, was starting from the back and he made up a few places through the first hairpin only to be stuffed into the tyres by one of the neanderthals. But that just made him drive harder, and we watched in awe as he caught up with and passed the whole field to win by just over a second. Stunning. That put us equal, but Shawn beat my best lap time and so he took top spot. Still, second is a good result, and now we can look forward to some real racing next month.

Another Day Older

2006-03-28T22:29:00.000+01:00

How come when it's your birthday, you have to buy cakes for everyone else? I thought it was my turn to get hugely expensive gifts - Doesn't matter though, as the bakery had a load of old stuff from yesterday, which I got real cheap :-)

46 - How depressing

Almost Perfect

2006-03-26T18:41:00.000+01:00

Today was the last round of the Crail winter endurance series, which was made more interesting by Neil & Craig having their first outing at Crail. I did all of the practice on the short circuit and Ros did the qualifying on the long circuit. I say short and long - The short one is my favoutite of the two as it flows really well, whilst the long configuration has 2 hairpins which I'm not too keen on.

Practice & qualifying were on a wet circuit and we made 6th on the grid. Because I'm lighter than Ros, I now always do the first 30 minutes of the hour race (coz as fuel gets used up the kart gets lighter)and with an empty tank (or as empty as it gets by the end of a race) I'm just under the 180kg weight limit.

For Race 1 (long circuit) the track was still wet and it was pretty good with me making my way into the lead by the half hour - Ros then took over and we finished a close second, also setting the fastest lap of the race.

By now the track was dry, so it was on with the slicks. The grid for race 2 (short circuit) is a reverse of race 1 so I started 15th. I got lucky in avoiding an incident on the first lap and made it up to third behind Grant (MBM) and Chris (Milwalk) - we then swapped places loads of times over the next 20 laps - Good clean racing! - It just so happened that I was in the lead, by around a half a second, when Ros took over. I had set a lap 2/10ths quicker than anyone else during my stint, which Ros predictibly beat by 4/1000ths on the second last lap! A great win for us (RD Racing).

Race 3 (long) saw me on pole and I made a pretty good start ond had a good lead by the end of lap one. I knew Grant and Chris would be chasing me hard so I really pushed for the first 15-20 laps and got a 6-8 second lead over the pair of them. Then I nearly went off when the brake pedal started vibrating badly every time I hit the pedal - Because of this , I assumed, I was losing 3-5/10ths a lap and after another 15 laps the two of them got past me, but I managed to stay within a second of them till the change over. Ros got up to first just as it started to rain and he was powerless to stop Mur (MBM) from getting past him with 5 laps to go. So second in this race. After the race we found the problem was with one of the brake pads binding which is why it was costing us time.

Overall, we set 2 of 3 fastest laps, and had a first and two seconds - enough to win the day overall. We'll find out later where we finished in the overall championship.

Neil & Craig had a good first race finishing 10th overall and gaining some great experience of endurance racing.

Next weekend it's off to Raceland for the last Super GP in the 'broken' karts.

Post Holiday Blues

2006-03-24T10:52:00.000Z

I'bve been away sking in Canada for the part couple of weeks - It started out badly as we got delayed for 12 hours at Glasgow Airport, which meant we missed our connecting flight in London. So 52 hours after we left Glasgow, we finally made it to Whistler. After that it got way better, and we had a great time - loads of fresh snow and even 2 days of sunshine and blue skies. But now it's back to reality:-)

I've been fortunate enough to be selected to compete in the Thailand 24 hour endurance kart race, www.thailand24h.com , at the end of June. I'll be driving for F'Sport along with Neil, Craig, Jack and F'Sport MD, Ian - all of us over 40!

F'Sport are the racing team of Caledonia Park, who are completing the planning stages of the biggest kart circuit in the UK, which will be somewhere in the West of Scotland. (more details later. It's great to have to chance to race in this kind of event, but our primary goal is to raise cash for the orphans of Pattaya. You can help by going to www.justgiving.com/thailand24hr.

To get Neil and Craig up to race speed, they are racing together in the Crail endurance series this Sunday - They'll be in a proper race kart, which they are hiring from MBM, who are usually the team to beat, so lets hope the kart isn't 'too good'.

I'll post the race result late on Sunday - Last month Ros and I managed second despite an evil handling kart - Can we do better this month?

Some of our Karts are broken......

2006-03-08T11:56:00.000Z

So, you're running the first round of your championship and the first thing you have to do is change to format of the event coz you don't have enough karts to have 8 heats. So you change it to 10 heats but still hve at least 2 karts per race break down or, even worse, be 3-4 seconds off the pace. What a shambles. Raceland are due to get their new karts in time for the May meeting, so I expect that the April round will be just as chaotic. For the first time in months, none of the karts I had broke down, but with a variance of 3-4 seconds between the best & worst karts that I had, it was not fun. However, because you can drop two rounds from the season, then March and April are the bets for mine. I seriously considered giving the April meeting a miss, but maybe I'll get lucky:-) And to really make it a great day, I got offered a drive in the Britsports championship in a supercharged Radical - The race is when I'm on holiday:-(( The one good thing is the news about the race in Thailand in June. More about that later.

Understeer

2006-02-26T19:14:00.000Z

Underster - I hate it! For those in the know I appologise - Understeer is where you turn the steering wheel but the vehicle in question, in this case a kart, doesn't deviate from it's forward trajectory and goes straight ahead. In a kart, turning the wheel is a kind of braking, so eventualy and unpredictibaly, the kart suddenly turns.
Today at Crail raceway, we had an understeering kart - We tried increasing castor, reducing tyre pressures and all sorts of other things to no avail! - We were still reasonably quick and for once at Crail, we mostly stayed out of trouble giving us finishes of second, fourth and fith in the 3x1Hour races. This put us second overall on the day, easily our best finish at Crail, but it left us wondering how much quicker we would have been with a kart that handled well. Ros is going to do a day's test later in the month, which should help us figure out what went wrong. Next month should be better :-)

As luck would have it......

2006-02-05T18:25:00.000Z

Despite my better judgement, I once again headed through to Edinburgh for the last of the non-championship Super GP meetings at Raceland. The track was almost completely dry and the practice session went well. I started heat one 3 places from the back and had a found myself up to 3rd place after a couple of laps. Michael then dropped out from second place with an engine failure, so I was now chasing young Dom. Allthough it felt very quick, my kart was doing some strange things through the left handers - I thought it was a worn wheel bearing, but one lap later I found out it wasn't - I got past Dom on the right hander at the pit entry/exit, but as a drove trough the corner the kart jumped left - The right front track rod had detached from the steering column, so when I tried to turn right for the next corner, I went straight on and out of the race. I had a distinct feeling of deja vu :-) I was out in heat 2 (from 6th) so I had no time to worry. I made a good start and was well clear at the front after 2 laps - The kart was great through the rights, but struggled a bit in the lefts - Michael was a man on a mission and I had to drive pretty defensively on the last lap, eventually winning by less than half a kart length. In heat 4, I started eighth with Dave, Stuart ahead of me. I quickly made it up to third and then couldn't believe it as Dave and Stuart took each other out! From there on it was a simple drive to the flag for a second win. I got a start from the back in heat 6, to compensate for the mechanical failure in heat 1. My kart hadn't been out in the previous heat so the first 2 laps were a bit hairy, but I managed to get through the field to finish 2nd. So I started my last heat knowing that a top 6 finish should be enough with a grid slot of 6th. I noticed on the way to the grid that the left hand side engine didn't increase it's revs 'till the throttle was about half way through it's travel. So on the grid I played around with the cables, finding that if I pulled the cables from under the seat, I could make the engine rev earlier. So I spent the whole race steering with one hand and pulling cables with the other - I ended up 3rd to win the day overall with 61 points. Dom was second and Dave M was third. Dom and I had exactly the same fastest lap of the event with a 58.4! So, compared to last month, a much better result, but I didn't drive any differently - New karts please! Poor Craig had 1 decent kart and 3 absolute dogs and wasn't best pleased at the end.

David R, the guy I bought my S3 from is getting quicker every time he comes to Raceland - One to watch! I think this season is going to be the toughest yet, with around 8 people who could win the championship.

On Friday when I left work I found that some low life scum had scratched my front bumper and just driven off. So on Monday morining I'll be trying to get the security tapes reviewed, in the hope that I can see who did it.

Brass Monkeys

2006-01-27T09:31:00.000Z

Team ITW (That's Neil & Fraser Purdie, young Dom and myself) had another outing at Scotkart on Wednesday night, competing for the Construction Cup. I don't think I've ever felt so cold at an indoor event and the lack of heat showed in the lap times during quallifying. We were never headed at the top of the timesheets from lap 1, but the times were not good, with Neil setting our fastest time 3 laps from the end of the 25 minute session , with a 30.24. This was surprising for 2 reasons: Dom is usually 3-4 tenths quicker than the rest of us, coz he's 2 stone lighter, and in early December Neil's qually time was 29.74. Still, we were .25 seconds clear of the field.
Neil started the race and had a good stint (quickest of 29.60) and handed over to Dom with a lead of a couple of seconds, which Dom extended to 20+ seconds (quickest of 29.28). We had all planned to do 30 mins, but because the karts can't run for 2 hours without a re-fuel, there was a mandatory pit stop for fuel after 50 minutes. We changed driver at this point with Fraser putting in a consistent 30 mins (quickest 30.20) to hand over to me with a 12 second lead. I pushed hard and had increased the lead enough (quickest 29.48) that we could afford a fourth pit stop to put Dom out for the last 10 minutes, so he could try for the fastest race lap - he really went for it and with only a minute left posted the fastest lap of the night with a 29.21. Not an easy victory, but very satisfying - Especially as nothing broke :-)

A New Record

2006-01-22T15:22:00.000Z

But in all the wrong ways. Today's endurance was bit different as there were 12 folk, all doing the 90 minutes on their own. As is the norm for January in Scotland, it was pretty cold and the track while not fully wet, was still damp enough to keep lap times at least 10 seconds the wrong side of a minute. After quallifying Stuart Gray was on pole with me second and then Brett, Dominic and Michael all seperated by a few tenths. As part of the endurance race , we get to do a warm up lap before the start - the brakes just wouldn't work well - I put it down to them cooling down post quallifying and managed to make a decent start maintaining second. Given that the track was surely going to get quicker throughout the race, I decided to do my mandatory pit stop on lap 1. I nearly wiped out the tyres on the way into the pits, but convinced myself that I just needed to push the pedal harder. So back out and into the first hairpin - when I say into, I mean literally, as I ended up buried in the tyres. I then nursed the kart back to the pits and took out one of the spares. Kart 2 was pretty good, and I was running a good pace, untill the right engine seized solid after about 45 laps. Kart 3 was great through the right hand corners but was really slow through the left handers because, as I found out a few laps latter, the brakes were binding on during lefts - they eventually failed , again into the hairpin ( a big braking area!). So back to the pits for kart number 4 - I only got to the pit exit, coz the right hand engine was not stopping when you took your foot off the throtle - probaly a broken return spring. So finally kart number 5 - It stopped well, and went left and right, but was really slow - Everyone else in the race did their fastest lap sometime in the last few laps (75-84). I did mine on lap 44. Michael also had 4 karts, so it's not just me. Five karts in an hour and a half - beat that! Raceland are due to get the new 320cc single engined karts in April - Can't come soon enough. A crap day only made bearable by the drive I had on Saturday in Ferarri F430 F1!

Getting There!

2006-01-16T22:00:00.000Z

Sunday at Crail raceway was an eventful but ultimaltly frustrating meeting. The track was still damp from Saturday's rain, so we completed both practice sessions on wet tyres. And we were pretty quick, qualifying second for race 1.
Whilst on the grid, Ros noticed that the front bumper was missing it's 2 securing bolts, but we hadn't enough time to fix it. Ros ran well for his 30 minute stint and handed over to me in a comfotable second place. I got to about 2 seconds behind the leader when the front bumper came loose through the tight in-field section. With the new 'dustbin lid' front panel the only thing stopping the bumper from falling off, I expected to loose time to the leader, but I contuinued to catch him. On the entry to the roundabout (top corner), I got up the inside and was just getting back on the power when the whole front panel/bumper caught under the left front wheel and sent us both off the circuit. I got back on quickly and extened my lead only to get the black/orange flag as the panel was swinging around on evey corner. We lost nearly 10 laps fixing it and finished race 1 last, despite setting the fastet lap. I quickly found Eric, and apologised for taking him off - I think he understood that it was just one of those things. By this time the track had a dry-ish line and I was adamant that we should go with slick tyres for race 2. Around half the grid thought the same. I'd got up to around 5th but managed to go off at the roundabout on lap 5, losing about half a lap. The rest of my stint was spent catching back up with the leaders. Ros also had an off at the same place in his stint but we still finished 5th. Race 3 was our best yet with a solid run to 2nd , over a lap up on 3rd place. We reckon that there is still some more time to come from setup as we were running way too much castor in the dry, so we're hoping for a win next month.