Both the Monoposto Racing Club and MSV F3 Cup have announced their (provision) 2012 racing calenders now. I’ve combined the two below, and we’re pleased to see that no rounds clash with each other (i.e. same date, different circuits).
It’s a long old season though – 18 rounds for F3 Cup, and at the time of writing it’s not clear whether all or only ~16 rounds will count towards the final tally.
Here I’ll try and put photos now and again of the various jobs we do over the winter, from checking clutches to re-vinyling the new F3 Cup car… Essentially this is just a gallery, but I’ll try and explain in a few words what’s going on via each images title… Will add more as I go, so check back periodically.
Images after Continue Reading link…
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As part of our end of season, championship winning celebrations, we were asked to take the Dallara F398 to the local WEX Photographic store where they were holding an open day. Our car, along with some owls and birds of prey were on display outside the store, giving the WEX customers something to photograph to test out their new equipment, and also to give the less enthusiastic customers (mostly children!) something more exciting to do that talk about stutter speeds.
Despite the chilly weather, there was a steady flow of people, most of which wanted to know something about the car (or the owls), and wanting to have a go in it for a few minutes. Hopefully everyone got what they wanted, and we did our best to encourage everyone to sit in the car and have their photo taken – Epson were offering free A3 prints of any photo taken on the day to show off their amazing photo printers, and I think several people left with a photo of them in a racing car.
Laura, Andrew and I were on hand to keep the queues of people interested, and I think we put on a good show, although I think we’ve identified (in typically racing team style) how to do better next time!!
A highlight of the day was getting Stewart Fielder, Marketing and Sales Director of WEX Photographic, to sit in the car and pose for his photo. Hopefully he got that printed out nice and large to hang up in his home (or, more likely, his toilet!). Hopefully WEX will ask us back again for their next open day, and maybe we can make it more of a motorsport event somehow – multiple cars, paddock awning, more ‘interactive’ stuff, and perhaps photogenic stuff laid out. The possibilities are nearly endless!
For more photos of the car, click “continue reading” below.
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It was a relatively easy build up to this event, the second non-championship meeting of the year, as Tony was the only Omicron driver in his Dallara F397. Along with a few tweaks to the setup of the car we also changed brake pad material to help him get more confidence on the brakes.
Qualifying, however, was a bit of a disaster. After spending a few laps bedding in the brakes, he started the lean on the car more and more, but a red flag meant that his rhythm was broken. At the restart of the session he was trying immediately, and set a lap time that was good enough for 9th on the grid. The next lap was even better, and it was looking like he’d improve considerably, but a loose wire on the fuel tank stopped the fuel pump and he coasted to a halt. That left him 42nd for the second race!! Had the wire not come loose (actually, it was receeding pins in the connector – what are the chances!!), I think he’d have been 7th on the grid for race 1 and probably around 9th in race 2… such is motorsport!
More Comments OffThe 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.
More No CommentsI 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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