Brands Hatch preparation-1

My lovely god daughter holds the cup for Swinging Sixties G2 over all winner for the second year running.

Well a great weekend racing at long last but it was not without its issues as usual. The data collection went great every sensor was being logged by the ECU and fed via CAN buss to the V-Box. We arrived Saturday afternoon and I had booked 2 motor homes to stay in to save the COVID-19 risk at hotels. They arrived on time and were a great idea, we moved into the garage late afternoon and got everything ready for our Sunday qualification. Come Sunday morning the qualification went well as this was my first race of the season, I qualified 12 th on the grid with a 1:23:68 , and I felt there was a second at least in my time for the afternoon race. We lined up and followed the pace car round for a rolling start and after the first lap I was eighth. I started to look how I could pass some of the faster cars and it appeared my best chance was at the chicane. So I decided to break 50 yards later something I know is possible but this time the brakes faded and I ended up being too fast to turn in so I pointed the car through the gravel trap straight onto the start and finish straight. I only lost 2 places but this made me conscious of the brakes and when I tried it again I barley made it through the chicane broad siding left then right to slow down. I decided to come in when the pit lane opened so as I could report the brake issue and we had 2 minutes to check the car out. During this pit stop I dropped 19 places. I came out passing cars as quick as I could, but the Mustangs were wide and difficult to pass when I eventually did the safety car came out. The clever teams out there already decided to wait for a safety car, and it worked most of them lost only 6 places as the safety car was very slow. It was then difficult to pass with my suspect brakes, but I managed to claw back to 13 th place. I stopped outside the garage and when I re started to enter the garage it needed a lot of revs to move the car, and when we put the car away the brakes were seized on and we had to winch it on. When you look at the pictures below, I do not know how I managed to stay on the black stiff but I am glad I did, it was the automatic cadence breaking my brain must of decided upon as it would have done for most drivers “on and off braking” for those who don’t understand, that kept me out of the barriers and in one piece. 

We started the Truxton Friday testing with very promising lap times that would have put us on pole position for the race on Sunday. Scott my race coach took the car out for 3 laps to set a fast lap for me to use as a V-Box reference to improve my race driving. He was just due to finish a 1:29:00 second lap when we had what has now been diagnosed as oil serge, this meant that no 3 big end bearing shell spun and seized, consequently the conrod broke and came out of both sides of the block, so there was no Sunday race for us.

This is a report of the goings on during the winter and our work during lockdown in preperation for what remains for 2020.

A Brief overview of the work required after Brands Hatch prior to thurxton.

7.5 ton with 12 ton payload when towing a great race support truck. Mitsubishi Canter ex Snap-On Veichcle with only 32000k miles on the clock.

Brands Hatch CSCC 2019 Swinging Sixties preperation qualifying and the race.

Anglesey CSCC Swinging Sixties July 2019. Historic motor racing at its best.

Design changes to stop the failure we had a SPA