Silverstone 09-10 April 2011
The start of a new season, and once again a familiar tale - our race car, the Lancia kappa is still not ready. We are in a better position than in recent years having negotiated the use of Rich Ellingham's Class E Fiat Tipo, at least for the first round of the season. So, for the first time since 2008, we were present at round 1, and hoping for a better result than that event. Since the Fiat's last outing at Anglesey 2010, NJS had rebuilt the gearbox and replaced the diff, at the same time changing the diff ratio for a lower one as requested by Rich.
The weekend got off to an ominous start from which it seemed it might never recover. We had booked the trailer with local company Helpful Hirings weeks in advance, but a communications screw-up meant that instead of the car transporter trailer we were expecting, we got a flatbed trailer. The issues with this were that the load bed was much higher off the road, necessitating a steep ramp angle, hardly the ideal for a low race car. We resolved this by jacking up the trailer under the tow bar while attached to the Nyssa Racing tow vehicle using a 3 ton trolley jack and just managed to gain sufficient clearance to drive straight on. The next issue was with tying the car to the trailer - we usually place the straps through the wheels and then "stretch" the car out, attaching the ends of the straps (hooks) to eyes at the far ends of the trailer - this trailer had nothing at the ends to strap to, and only simple open hooks anywhere along its length. This meant taking the front strap backwards from the front wheels to the hooks, and vice versa for the rear - didn't look or feel very secure.
Silverstone is our local circuit, so we didn't set out until Saturday morning. Even so, the journey took longer than usual because it was apparent that although the Fiat couldn't move from front to back, it wasn't really being held laterally - the rear of the car was moving to the left. Just a couple of inches over the whole journey, but enough to ensure this driver slowed down and watched very carefully that it didn't move any further.
We arrived at the circuit to a brilliant blue sky and shorts weather - and shortly afterwards, Rich's brother Tim arrived as our support for the day (intentionally or otherwise). A quick exercise to clean some light oil spill from the bottom of the engine ensured no more smoke coming from the manifold as it burned off and we were ready for scrutineering which was breezed through, always a worry for the first race of the year. A myriad small tasks seemed to take up the time until our noon qualifying slot, and all of a sudden it was time to venture out on track.
Qualifying:
And there started the problems - out of the assembly area and onto the track at Brooklands, and accelerate in 3rd gear and....revs rising rather fast. In the kappa this would just be normal wheelspin on cold tyres, but the Fiat runs a few hundred less bhp, it was almost certainly clutch slip. A run down the pit straight and the same thing happened, by the time we reached Copse there was a new plan. Trickle round for 3 laps to qualify, then come in and see if the issue could be fixed. There were 35 cars out in qualifying, but only 3 in Class E and expectations were such that we would be in the last 2 or 3 cars at best anyway. Slowly the clutch seemed to start biting and we started building up speed, just to find the next issue. The gearing was now too low, on two of the three straights we were hitting the rev limiter in 5th some way short of the braking point. We got in a few laps before the onboard lap timer packed up - the track was very crowded and we were forever moving over. Suddenly it was all over - the clutch pedal went to the floor and wouldn't come back. We were in 4th gear so elected to drive round the circuit - we had just passed the pit entrance - and retired to the pit lane, knocking the gear level into neutral as we came to a halt.
After a push back to the pits, it was found that the clutch slave cylinder had come adrift from the top of the gearbox, a mounting bolt had sheared. Tim managed to save the day, extracting the remains of the old bolt and reattaching the cylinder and bleeding the system. This actually gave a much better clutch pedal than we had before where the biting point was mms from the top of the pedal travel - and it meant that unlike a couple of other competitors, we would be able to race. A big thank you to Tim, without whom race weekend would have been much shorter.
Race 1 (Saturday):
The worst rolling lap start we have ever known - it was never going to be a case of seeing the lights go out or anything, we had already decided that the point to go was when we heard Andy Robinson's Ford Falcon accelerate! But as we rounded Becketts near the back of a 33 car grid everyone in front accelerated away at what was flat out for us. We slowed coming into Brooklands expecting the pack to be bunched up, but they weren't, the race was already on. And we got an appalling start - so much for us getting the jump on one or two cars in front of us.
Ian Jordan alongside us in a Renault Clio simply disappeared, we managed to get a bit of a break on Gordon Mason in the Peugeot 205, but he took a tight line on the run down to Becketts and just out-accelerated us on the way out! With hindsight we can see that 2nd gear may have been more appropriate than 3rd at Becketts. Charlie Jackson in the Escort Cosworth had a woeful qualifying so started at the back - he caught up going into Brooklands, and passed by on the inside at Luffield. Now only Mike Wilkinson was behind in his BMW 325. For the first three laps we held station with Gordon, about a second behind. We would close right up on him into Becketts, but not enough to slip down the inside, and the Fiat was locking a rear wheel every time going in. At the same time we were taking 2 seconds a lap out of Mike behind us.
On lap 5 it all went wrong. We just caught sight of the Mosler at the start of the straight while we turned into Copse. As we arrived at the braking area for Becketts, the Mosler was closing fast and we got it all wrong under braking. The rear wheel locked, the car flicked one way, then back the other into a clockwise spin and backwards off the circuit into the gravel. That was the end of us chasing down Gordon - and we had to sit by the side of the track waiting for Mike in the 325 to go by before we could rejoin.
Next up in the lapping stakes were Nick Williamson and Dave Cockell in their Ford Escort Cosworths going into Brooklands. And then from then on, it was a steady stream of cars coming up behind, and us making way whenever appropriate. We were still gaining on Mike - didn't know at this point that it was a 325 and not an M3, so thought we were doing alright up against it! We caught up with Mike on lap 7 and passed him going into Brooklands - we then pulled away at a steady rate and didn't realise that he pulled out later in the race with overheating issues.
The rest of the race was very uneventful - a lot of moving over to be lapped and very little else. To cap it all, the onboard front video camera had not worked - the protection tab was just fractionally open, enough to prevent erasure and we had not spotted this when setting the camera to record.
Race 2 (Sunday):
We arrived at the circuit before noon with a good three hours to spare only to find the Fiat would not start - all the lights came on but pressing the starter button, nothing happened. First we hooked up the battery booster but that made no difference, then we phoned Rich who thought a wire may have fallen off the solenoid. We didn't have Tim in attendance today so went in search of assistance - Mike Gregory was the lucky volunteer today as his Escort Mk II dropped a valve during qualifying. He soon found that rather than a cable having come off, in fact the solenoid had come away from the starter motor! He took the starter motor out, replaced the solenoid and put it all back together - the Fiat fired up first time, but much preparation time had been lost.
A quick run up the paddock suggested the brakes would be OK for another race - the Fiat has a tendency to warp its discs due to uneven cooling and we had come armed with a box full of discs just in case. After running a little low on fuel in the first race, we overdid the fuel thing for today, so that was a bit more weight on board we could have done without. In no time at all, it was time to queue up in the assembly area again, and then we were off.
A better pace lap this time, but there were still 31 cars on the grid of which we were 25th - with Andy Robinson's Falcon and Pete Challis' Primera making up the back row! They would be charging through in no time at all, we took the decision to keep out of their way into Copse and then get on with our own race with Gordon, trying to stay with him this time.
Even with us being more bunched up, we still made a mess of the start! Going into Brooklands we were about 5 lengths shy of Gordon in front, and when he nailed it as Luffield straightened, we were unable to respond. For all that, it could have been worse - Andy Robinson passed us going into Copse, but we reached Becketts without losing any further places. Coming out of Becketts was a different matter, first Pete Challis went past, closely followed by Del Shelton (supercharged Honda Civic) and Ian Roberts (Mitsubishi). Jim Pocklington (BMW) came down the inside going into Brooklands and already only Mike Wilkinson (BMW 325) was behind us. Already we were 1.6 seconds behind Gordon, and although we pulled back 3/10ths on lap 2, after that he was consistently 1/2 second faster and started to pull away. And that was our race! As for yesterday, once the lapping started, it seemed incessant.
Later in the race, we were lapped by Dean Irving's BMW Z3 but the small block Chevy was very smoky, and sure enough, he was leaving a nice trail of oil along the circuit, as the wiggle into Brooklands testified. During the later laps of the race, the tyres were going off and the brakes were getting spongier, we backed off to ensure we finished, with just Mike Wilkinson behind us.
Not the weekend we had hoped for - a pair of 3rd places look OK on the points board as do a couple of pots in the trophy cabinet, but we were badly off the pace this weekend and need to raise our game if we're going to get nearer the pace next round.
Read the official race report here.
Check out the current points
standing.
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