After the big change to the engine (carburettors to fuel injection), and the usual annual rebuild and checkover, I’d hyped this race meeting up quite a lot, with talk of how quick we might be, how quick the opposition might be, and so on. All of that came to nought in a dismal weekend; albeit a dismal weekend with some positives.
The usual process occurred – we loaded the car up, drove down to the track the night before and unloaded, and then went to sleep. Only instead of tents, we chose to use the services of a local Travelodge, as tents in March weren’t appealing. Even with our sudden increase in comfort (much like going from steerage to first class on the Titanic), we still lagged behind Richard Purcell’s palace-like motorhome!! The drive down was notable for the very, very heavy rain and hail storm that opened up on as we approached the circuit, and got us all very damp as we arrived in the paddock.
Whilst it wasn’t dry in the morning, it wasn’t as wet, which is a good thing. Indeed, the track was mostly dry apart from the odd puddle here and there. Noise testing was passed (104dB(a)), and we headed out onto the circuit. Pootling around to warm everything up was livened up as I forgot how to set the start/finish line position dashboard for lap timing, and when I did finally manage it I was greeting with the dash telling me I was about 5 seconds off the pace. I pt my foot down (as it were), and started to go faster and faster. Traffic spoilt most laps, and the second half of the lap – which had recently been resurfaced – was still very damp and slippery, which made committing to the fast left-right difficult. The final result was pole position, with a 47.535 second lap. Jeremy Timms was 2nd just 0.311 seconds slower. Harrison came in 4th, in the 49s, split from Jeremy and I by a Van Dieman Formula 4 car on 48.4.
For this meeting we had bought a [cheap] Speed Gun, so Laurence was dispatched to the exit of Paddock Hill Bend to record everyone’s exit speeds. I’m sure you’ll understand that for the time being these results are a bit confidential!!!
The expected Dallara assault from others didn’t happen. Kevin Mason and Graham Read languished down the order with their lack of power from the restricted F3 engines, Tony Cotton stayed at home whilst he was still learning his F300, Richard Purcell didn’t bother to bring his car, as the quietest it’s been is 112dB(a), some 3dB over the limit, which is twice as loud as is permitted. Indeed, Richard’s car was 118dB when he first tried to go testing a week beforehand, so I don’t think Richard is particularly pleased. Chris Woodhouse hasn’t finished his F304, and Kat Impey is, of course, playing in ClubF3 this year (until she decides she wants to race against me!).
For all the happiness that pole position brings, there are no points awarded until the end of the race, yet from pole I felt reasonably confident of a good haul of points if not the win. We didn’t make any changes to the car, as it was quite nice to drive in practice, and also because the conditions had changed and the track had dried out a bit more, so there was no point fine tuning the car based on practice.
The tannoy rang out, calling all the Mono2000 drivers to the assembly area, so I hopped in the car, and got ready to drive through the tunnel under the track to the centre paddock and…
…it wouldn’t start. It would barely crank over – indeed, cranking at all was a result. A rummage around under the bodywork didn’t make any difference. Wires were checked in the engine area and through the cockpit, fuses were checked. I connected to the ECU to make sure that was fine (it was). It was several minutes later, after several urgent, last minute calls to the assembly area, that we decided to push start it and, although it did indeed start, it wouldn’t run nicely and kept stalling – a very different car to the one I was in in the morning.
Sadly, we couldn’t get it going again at all, and had to watch the race from the spectator banks – Jeremy Timms shot off into the lead, with Neil Harrison and the F4 car battling over 2nd place. From the back of the grid a Formula Renault (that presumably qualified out of session) drove through to a fine third, helped by the retirement of the F4 car when Peter Bragg turned in on him whilst being lapped at Druids hairpin.
A poor idle, and poor starting – we suspected a dodgy starter motor shorting out internally, starving itself and everything else of the requisite voltage/current.
And so ended our Brands meeting… Later investigation showed up several flaws and faults. The starter motor was indeed sick; one of the armature brushes had come away from its wire, so it would only have been able to run at half speed/load (if that). The throttle butterflies weren’t sufficiently balanced, which was probably caused by the last minute change of throttle lever (on the Thursday) to suit the new throttle cable design. And last of all, the ECU wasn’t pumping in enough fuel at cranking (like an artificial starting choke), and was doing with quite a lot of spark advance (reducing this to near zero massively increased the cranking speed. Curing the latter two via the laptop and a throttle synchroniser made the car start every time (although it sometimes took a few seconds of cranking), so the starter motor is already off and being rebuilt.
On Wednesday the 14th April I am going to assist Lenny Coleman acclimatise himself with our old Reynard 883, and we are considering the idea of using the engine mileage we’d have used racing at Brands to check everything over – indeed, Gerrards corner at Mallory, where we had carburation problems in 2009, will be a great place to check the fuel injection system. First I need to check my bank balance, but I’m very tempted, even if it’ll just be on Silverstone Tyres so I wouldn’t be anywhere near competitive laptimes.
Thruxton in just over a month, which is quite an exciting proposition.
No video footage as the onboard camera broke – will be reverting to the reliable old Chasecam system, rather than the flashy ContourHD system. Pictures to be added, but waiting for my brother to send me some. That means, alas, a multimedia free meeting.
