It was nice to see Bob back after his diff woes at Cadwell, and generally a nice evening was had by all. In the week before I went on holiday I had made a couple of changes to the car. Firstly I had new brake pads on all four corners, and also lowered the bit of aluminium plank on the back of the car that acts a spoiler to give me decent rear downforce and stick the back end down a bit. I was hoping to reduce the drag penalty and gain top speed, without forfeiting the aero effect.
For the record I was running a 16:54 sprocket combination which worked pretty well. as I was close to the limiter in 6th when approaching the end of the straights.
Practice was pretty eventful, after having just scraped past the noise meter test and only been allowed out on pain of death and repacking my silencer for the race I promptly left my race gloves on the back of another competitors car and had a long dash back to the Bus to get the spares when I couldn't find them in the car. I arrived back in the assembly area, sweaty and panting with about 90 seconds left before we went out on circuit only to be handed my original pair of gloves as I got in the car. I'm a great believer in routines to calm nerves and get "in the Zone" running a 800m sprint in 3 layer nomex did not help!
After 90 seconds of trying to slow my heart rate, we were off. It's two years since I was last here and I expected to be rusty. I also expected some odd brake effects as the new pads scrubbed down and bedded in. What I got was a long brake pedal, which gave me virtually no braking effort at all, unless I gave it a couple of preliminary pumps to compress the fluid. Not much fun going around copse at 80+ mph hitting the middle pedal several times before I got any retardation. Still it proved to me I could get around the corner faster than I had previously believed possible.... even if it wasn't doing my adrenaline levels any good. This is the way we learn.
This went on for a few laps and was also augmented by random corners of the car locking up at the fluid in each caliper boiled or cooled unevenly. It really was quite an "entertaining" few laps. I had to start braking even earlier to get the extra pumps in, and did consider coming in in case I was losing fluid. But while I could pump it up I elected to stay out. What I had done was boil the fluid in the calipers, because the new pads were scrubbing and generating too much continuous heat. The fluid boils releasing gas and gas is compressible ... therefor you get a soft and long pedal. Eventually with only about 5 mins left in the session the pads scrubbed down far enough to stop boiling the fluid and the brakes came back to me. Now with some confidence in the stopping power I started to get on it a bit more, but I only had time for three flying laps and I managed to post a 1:07:50.
This put me 22nd on a grid of 26 and last of the Class B cars. Arse! Class B pole was 1:04.29 a full three seconds separated us :-(. Still that was Paul Rogers who was fourth overall on the grid, this gives you some example of how competitive RGB is... 18 grid places separated by just 3 seconds, that's about the same as the F1 Grid. Being just .5 of a second quicker would have moved me 6 grid slots forward. and a whole second would have moved me about 10. Those scrubbing pads had really hurt me. Still my Class B rivals Stephen and Neil where only two rows ahead so if I got a good start I could probably catch them.
The race arrived and we had rechecked all the brakes and repacked the can so we were good to go. however I got a woeful start again! I either seem to be getting massive clutch slip and huge wheel spin (too much revs) or the engine bogs down ( to few revs) and it's really beginning the ANNOY ME! I must get some start line practice but on a non road legal car its not an easy thing to practice except at a circuit and we get bollocked for doing it in the paddock (rightly so)
Anyway I lost a couple of places to Tony Carpenter and Bob, but closed the gaps on the run up to Copse. Bob was being a bit circumspect on the run up to Maggots/Beckets complex and I snuck past on the inside. Next Stuart Tanton seemed to lock a brake and exited stage right as he went straight on at the Maggots kink, and existed my vision. Even so I wouldn't have been watching him as I had passed him and had to concentrate on Stephen Dean who was spinning at the Beckets Apex and I had to dive right to the inside to avoid him. Now Stuart made a surprise reappearance from the right about 15feet in front of me. He actually emerged on to the track from the inside and was heading towards the out outside of the bend so again I headed inside him. Alas he promptly span, did a 180 to face the inside of the corner and stopped dead. I had no where to go but into him at I guess 40Mph. I managed to avoid the seat area and T boned him just about on the bonnet line of his fury.
The impact shoved us both onto the grass and I stalled. I quickly restarted and drove on, by now suffering the ignominy of following the safety car around after the pack.
Up front there is only body work the water radiator and the front floor. I quickly decided that the steering and suspension was ok, I couldn't hear the floor rubbing and my feet weren't getting wet and the rad wasn't steaming so lets get back in the game. There was however a new big gap visible up front which My camera can see the road through so no doubt it wasn't going to be pretty. I was followed by both Stephen and Stuart some further 5 and 15 seconds further back so at least I wasn't last.
Over the next few laps I caught and passed Judy, Tony, Mike Allen,Bob and Tony Gaunt helped me along by spinning at Copse. Stephen and Stuart both retired behind me and some other attrition in the pack meant that I actually finished 17th and 4th in class B only one place behind Neil Constable Berry. Best lap time was 1:07:5 again and unsurprisingly I was lapped close to the end by Derek. My Best Theoretical lap on the logger is only 1:06.79 so I'm actually pretty consistent, consistently 2 seconds off the pace that is :-(. I think Neil CB has now pretty much sown up the 3rd spot in the Championship with that extra vital point... but he and I have been trading places and points all season which is great fun so let the battle continue at Oulton Park in two weeks.
So I learned scrubbing pads are bad, how to race with a long brake pedal, how not to avoid a crash and stay in the game if you can, oh and the Low drag configuration seemed to work well too.... some positives at least to take away.
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