Standings

1Tristan CLIFFE175 (186)
2Malcolm SCOTT118
3Anthony BISHOP65
4Antonio IMPIERI64
5Richard PURCELL52
6Graham READ40

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Posts Tagged ‘championship’


The penultimate meeting of the year was at Anglesey, on the International configuration rather than the usual Coastal circuit we have used in the past. The weather was very windy all weekend, which made predicting the tyres required very difficult, and had an impact on the driving of the car.

The week leading up to this race was quite stressful and difficult – first of all our Race Truck developed a fault on the way to a test session at Silverstone that wasn’t fixed in time, and Tony Bishop, our other driver, had to pull out of the meeting due to personal reasons at the very last minute. We had already loaded up the van and trailer to take both of Tony’s cars to the circuit, but we needed it to take my own car, so there was some hasty unloading and reloading to do on the Thursday.

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Last Updated on Saturday, 24 September 2011 11:24

I haven’t written much recently, have I. Well, hopefully this will change all that… Since Oulton Park, where I crashed and the cheating Formula Renault was disqualified, we’ve been busy repairing the cars and getting the F304 out to Brands Indy for an MSV F3 Cup round there in the middle of July. There were various problems with the car, ranging from the configuration of the dashboard and datalogger, to suspension settings that weren’t ideal for Tony’s driving style. Whilst Tony was learning the car, we weren’t too worried when he qualified at the back of the grid, and both races were wet which meant he took the safe option of keeping it on the track rather than trying to go as fast as he could. Sadly, there was a technical problem with the car that caused Tony to retire from the race.

Since then, we’ve been through the car, fixed the various issues and softened the suspension. We won’t really know how it goes until Tony drives the car at Silverstone (on the Grand Prix Arena circuit in preparation for the non-championship race there at the end of September) and races at Anglesey on the 10th September.

Meanwhile, my car needed some serious repair work after I hit the wall at over 60mph and decelerated at over 12g. Some new wishbones were made for us by MyRaceSpares.com and we raided our small selection of spares too to get remaining wishbones, pushrods, trackrods and driveshafts. A new front wing was ordered, and new rear wing endplates were made to my specification locally. There was also some bodywork damage that was dealt with by our local carbon expert, and some repainting required which was done in-house. But would the car be any good? Would I have lost my nerve? Would Malcolm Scott be able to capitalise on my misfortune and his resultant victory? Who could tell…

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Last Updated on Friday, 16 September 2011 02:07

The second half of the season starts with round 8 at Oulton Park this weekend. Omicron Motorsports will be there in full force as usual.

Oulton is a track that I’ve never gelled with, despite winning here in 2010 – although I was lucky to escape a high speed spin and stall in one piece after intense pressure from a faster Jeremy Timms all race – and so we return with a few ideas to help us. Plus, I have decided to do half a test day to help find a better car setup to assist me on my way.

Tony Bishop’s car has been rebuilt with a fresh engine (we have various dry sumps, camshafts, pistons etc that aren’t legal in Monoposto left over if you want them) and we hope he’ll be back up to speed after several disappointing outings recently. We know he and the car have the speed, but so far we have lacked consistency and reliability. We are obviously working hard to turn that around as quickly as possible!

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Last Updated on Tuesday, 28 June 2011 11:44

I have decided to keep out of the various discussions going on in the world of Monoposto – whether or not Yunous Amiere is the next Michael Schumacher; whether BARC Formula Renault is a championship for career drivers that aren’t good enough to get to Formula 3; whether not liking Lewis Hamilton (because he’s overrated) and Samier makes me a racist; or whether a Formula Renault without a restrictor would be competitive or unbeatable (clearly the latter, all other things being equal).

Instead I want to set the record straight regarding the so called Gentlemen’s Agreement that was discussed in 2009, as it seems to be the source of several misunderstandings by people that were nothing to do with it and by people that claim to have discussed the matter with those involved directly.

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Last Updated on Monday, 16 May 2011 03:53

I’ll expand on this brief report shortly.

Saturday

Leading the pack

Qualified on pole by a clear second on a very warm day. Track temperatures were so high that conventional tyre pressures were too much, altering the handling later in the session. Richard Purcell was 2nd, Tony Bishop was 3rd in the other Omicron car.

In the race I had a clear run into the first corner, and was able to control the pace of the race and win comfortably by 8 seconds. Kourosh Khani in the Samier Formula Renault proved that a reasonable driver can make the Renault go quickly, surely putting to rest any arguments about car parity, by finishing 2nd. Malcolm Scott improved his Dallara to be 3rd, whilst Richard Purcell failed to finish after a misfire left him down on power.

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Last Updated on Monday, 9 May 2011 01:21

Apologies to those that actually visit this site in the vain hope that I’ll write something. I’ve been meaning to for months, but never actually finished writing a post. I have several drafts, but by the time I get anywhere near finishing it it’s out of date. So the quietness has continued. Hopefully until now (if I finish this!).

Tony's tub in primerThe last time I wrote about the cars we were just reassembling the new car for Tony Bishop. Well, that car is now complete, and has been raced at the last two meetings of the 2011 championship.

Once the car was finished, and seats were made, and engines were dyno’d and mapped etcetera, Tony had a test day at Snetterton on the 2nd March. Most things seemed to work quite well, despite old tyres and being new to H-pattern gear changes, and Tony's car nearing completionTony was getting more and more comfortable in the car. A few things that weren’t good enough we’re noted to be fixed, one of which was the gear change that Tony was finding very awkward. Alas, during the penultimate session of the day, Tony accidentally shifted from 4th to 3rd rather than 5th; the revs jumped to 8500rpm, the valves touch the pistons, and an overhaul was needed.

In the two weeks between that test and the first race the engine was fixed, and more stuff was done to the car, partly to improve stuff that was discovered in the test, and partly to implement stuff that we didn’t have time to do properly during the proper rebuild. But we finished the car, and arrived at Snetterton for the first meeting of the year.

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Last Updated on Thursday, 16 June 2011 05:33