Left Friday afternoon after work, 5.5 hour drive in the pouring rain to Rockingham, got nice spot on Paddock, close enough to get ground power.... and serve as sub-station for rest of LMA crowd...
put up the mega-tent... would prove useful later.
Passed scrutineering no problems, one thing out of the way...
Qualifying:
Everything seemed to be running OK, usual Rockingham steering wheel wobble - have to fix that one day, brakes very different... no servo and pedals very close together.... need to adjust brake bias / balance. About 6 laps in to the session, exiting main start / finish straight, flat out in 5th, turned into turn 1 - the roof came off.... got very loud and lots of daylight, spotted it next time round lying in the track right on the apex of turn one, hoped no-one ran over it, roof for VX is very expensive...
Qualified pretty close to the back.... usual i suppose, first race, car not 100% set-up, retrieved roof from safety guys at lunch time... very little damage, managed to modify fittings (used cable ties and gaffer tape) to make a better fit... and gained almost an inch in extra headroom.
Race 1:
Front tow ring fell off in assembly area.... not a good omen....
Roof stayed on..... started at the back and immediately got left behind, need to get back to rolling road to sort out boost with new inter-cooler.... nearly got bashed on first lap turning into left hander after oval, slightly over cooked it, was wide onto the grass on right hand side, when Simon Taylor appeared across the bows.. damn that was close...
At one point, lap 7 I think, completely over cooked the left turn off the oval again, and had to do the "go round the oval and rejoin" routine.... got a new fastest lap !!!! unfortunately re-joined in about 4th or 5th place, had to hold back and wave everyone through... 3 laps from the end , exhaust noise increased and had more speed, great decided to go as fast as I could... made some nice pop, pop, crackle noises on the overrun... thought the exhaust wadding had finally blown out.... no such luck, got back to parc ferme and promptly burst into flames.... whoops, pressed the extinguisher and exited stage right...to watch the whole boot / inter-cooler area catch fire and a (new collective noun required) crew of fire Marshalls running around pointing extinguishers every where... including each others faces.... very funny at the time..
Turns out the increase in power / exhaust noise was the back box falling apart and flames lighting up the whole back end of the car.... smoking !!!!
got car towed back to paddock kinda hard with missing tow eye.... inspection revealed that the main damage was restricted to the floor of the boot and the rear left corner of the body work.... time to get it fixed.... racing on Sunday to do...
Rebuild:
Many thanks to my guest mechanic - Dom Murphy (son of mini racing Barry Murphy and previous owner of race trailer), and Dave Taylor for helping , firstly to wash all the fire extinguisher gloop off the body work, engine and me... and then to help putting it all back together again... no minor feet and the whole rear clam had to come off, including the under trays... washed the inside, dried it with hot air gun, Dom rebuilt the inside of boot area using the largest quantity of "bog" i have ever seen... he used to fix large trucks so knows his way around large quantities of bog... out with the spray can to make it pretty again... Managed to blag a replacement fire extinguisher from a very nice chap who runs the Avon Racing team running in the Alpha series... a mate of Tony Soper's I believe... While Dom was sorting out air box, body work etc, i set to fitting new extinguisher and making a new wiring loom... old one was cooked, really annoyed... finally got a respectable looking wiring loom in rear of car - took ages to make, and then burnt it.... Had to go the chief scrutineer on Sunday morning to get ticket to ride.... all OK.
Still having starting problems, suggesting the battery hadn't survived the winter rebuild process, gonna get a new one in time for Anglesey.
Went for a bit of a run around the paddock to show everyone that we were good to go.... took car for long run outside on large expanse of empty car park in attempt to fix brake bias problems...think i got it sorted now... lots on front, little on back...
Race 2:
Started rather nervously at rear of grid, had two faster cars behind, they didn't finish race one, got monstered of the start again, getting used to it now.... good thing I suppose is that I have fixed the misfire which was evident at the end of last season... just gotta get the engine running at Max Power now... handling pretty good, brakes working as intended.
Went round trying out some different lines, later and later braking points, over cooked it a couple of time and ended up running wide on the hairpin... used most of the exit road at one point followed by loads of wheel spin and tyre smoke.... got the chicane before entry to oval wrong at one point and ended up going over the very high kerb on right hand side, onto two wheels... noticed the marshals on side cheering... I aim to please.... got it sideways a few times... decided when the other Class A boys came through to lap me that I should calm it down a bit and keep an eye out rather than chucking it about all over the track.... managed to follow the Ginetta around for half a lap to check his line. through the corners, pretty similar to mine so happy on that front....
Managed to finish without major incident... and no combustion....
Packed up kit, and got home in 3 hours, couple of beers in local, then off to bed, have to be up at 4AM for early flight to Ireland....
just done a quck check of last year's lap time round same circuit, 6 seconds faster this year....