Intro
The weather was perfect for this one. Again sharing the drive with Mike Jacobs. He would drive first in both quali and race due to back-to-back races in his own Ma7da Locost. The Roadsports race is the only ‘endurance’ race of the day so are allocated garages. Parking in the garages makes you feel like a proper racing driver, albeit with imposter syndrome!
Pre race adjustments
The car adjustments were minor. Passenger seat and 10Kg ballast added to make the minimum weight (1315Kg @ 236.7 bhp for Class C is 180 bhp/tonne) and not require any remaining fuel to do so. Still finished with half a tank so all good there. May drop the 10Kg ballast next outing. Rear anti roll bar softened to it’s minimum setting. The front remained on it’s hardest setting. One click up all round on the dampers. Front now 17 of 21, rear 14 of 21. Will go up one at the front for the next race. And a car to pit radio fitted, with integrated helmet mic also spliced off for voice recording.
The race
We qualified 32nd of 38 cars overall, 12th of 15 cars in Class C. It’s obvious how much more seasoned the drivers are here (750mc) in comparison to the MSV Track Day Trophy (Race 1). Matt Creed (Clio 200) qualified in Class C pole with a time of 55.53, we managed 58.87 (Mike) and 59.07 (Ed). Rory Baptiste in a similar car to us managed a 55.62 to put him 3rd for the Class C start. this put us way back on row 14 out of 17.
On the grid 5 cars qualified within 1 second of us, and 14 within 2 seconds. We’d have a lot of work to do. It’s clear that with the rolling start that grid position really matters more than the standing start as we’re more spread out with much more track to make up for any position challenges.
The ‘Indy’ circuit is short at about 1.2 miles and is sub 1 minute laps, so being lapped, and lapping the slower cars, will be a major influence here. The fastest class A cars are lapping at 53 odd seconds, 6 seconds faster than us, so it will only be about 10 laps until they catch us. Then it will be continuous.
The results
“To finish first, first you have to finish” was ringing true here. In the end there were 6 DNF of the 32 cars that started (18%). We would ultimately end up finishing 21st overall (of 28 finishers) and 8th out of 12 Class C Finishers. I was delighted.
The damage
The car faired well with the same issues of the power steering reservoir ‘venting’ into the intake. This is possibly due to the maximum use of kerbs and the fact that the intake creating negative pressure adjacent to the reservoir. I’ll plug it with half an ear bud! The front nearside lower wishbone has taken a pounding giving some play in the inner ball joint. This will be replaced by a Meyle HD version for the next race.
Improvements
The nearside lower wishbone will be replaced. I saw the uprated Meyle HD versions on Amazon for £112 (pair) and couldn’t believe the price! I thought it couldn’t be true so ordered them anyway. No scam, just an amazing price, so I ordered another pair as spares. 🙂
The radio range is limited, as it’s a license free PMR446 setup and only 0.5 watts to comply. We experienced the signal ‘breaking up’ even in the close proximity at Brands so I’m fitting a Midland GB1 radio for the next time which has the same power due to the regulations but has a roof mounted antenna so should be free of the ‘faraday cage’ effect of the interior antenna. Next race is Snetterton which is a much larger circuit. Hopefully this will avoid any of the broken transmission issues we had at Brands.
I noticed that the AIM Solo 2 that we use for data logging was giving some erratic ‘G’ signals whilst mounted on the steering wheel and a quick phone call to them confirmed my suspicions that it’s not the ideal place to be mounted. The movement of the wheel affects the sensors so this will be relocated to the dash to provide a more accurate reading. I can now add a power cord rather than rely on the battery, and one less thing to forget to do!
Here’s the post race review video:
Qualification laps: RdSp_02quallaps_3