Anglesey, 14/15 July 2007
We finally got round to looking at the kappa, it was the worst possible news. A conrod had snapped and of course smashed a hole through the side of the block. So that explains the oil slick we left at Brands Hatch all those weeks ago. It was time to make a decision - one that was really forced on us anyway. The engine is trashed, that's four now, and you don't get much change from £5k building up a half decent engine such is the cost of the components. We also have the cooling issues, the fact that we haven't touched the brakes since day one, let alone done any suspension testing because we keep breaking things. Enough most definitely is enough!
We're not walking away completely, but we can't fund a new engine this season and see no point in throwing in a spare engine we have laying around (and breaking that a couple of races down the line). Its time to start again, to plan a long term strategy. The kappa is not coming out again this season - and not until we have it how it should be. No more rushing to get ready for races, no schedule, it will be ready when it is ready, tested, proven and ALL the issues have been resolved. Then we will be back, faster and stronger than ever.
But we're not giving up racing - we did what any self respecting racer would do - we went out and bought another car! Funds are tight so its something to challenge for places at the back of the grid. Introducing the new dog on the grid - Rover! A Rover 216GTi from the old one make series and more latterly the Super Coupe series. All 1600cc and 160bhp of it. As we're running in Class D now we have a new number - 70.
Photo courtesy of James Roberts
We only picked the car up the weekend before Anglesey, a trip to Wales saw us bring home the car and a whole truck and car full of spare wheels and other stuff. Time and budget constraints ensured that preparation was fairly minimal - thank goodness the Rover had been out on track recently - in fact by some strange coincidence, it was racing at Brands the same day the kappa died. We moved the seat, lucky for me its a Sparco Rev, the same seat as in the kappa, so now I can reach the pedals. I mounted a set of wet tyres that came with the car, although these had seen much better days - needs must as the forecast was not good. We borrowed the transponder from the kappa, moved the camera mount and got really extravagant buying a spare set of brake pads!
So we're going to Anglesey - the new Anglesey. We will be the first to use the full International layout exactly a year after we were the last to use the old circuit. New car, new circuit, only one thing for it - testing. A slot was booked and first thing Friday morning we were off to Anglesey in the new Nyssa Racing tow truck. And when we arrived at 11:15am we knew we were there by the weather, full-on monsoon conditions just like last year.
There was an hour to go before the second test session of the day was on, we had already missed the first one. The truly smart (Simon Jackson and John Hammersley) had been at the circuit since Thursday and got in some dry testing. No such luck for us. We still needed to change the wheels, fuel up and get dressed for action. With an hour to go and storm conditions, we decided not to rush - for once the correct answer as the 12:20 session was cancelled without warning - the track was closed due to standing water. So we changed the wheels during a mere rainy spell and fuelled up - and found the car already had a lot of fuel on board. A couple of hours passed and finally the guinea pigs (Formula Fords) were allowed on track, starting out behind the circuit car to see if the track was safe. Time to tog up and get ready.
No matter how much time you spend studying a flat picture, or even watching the Fords on Motors TV using the Coastal circuit a few weeks ago (most of the International circuit), it doesn't prepare you for 3D version. The track starts out level from the pit lane, you bypass the first corner and go straight into The Banking, a 180 degree hairpin with 10 degrees of banking. From there a short straight to Church which looks like it will be flat in the dry, but not today. Church leads into a very long radius right hand bend - as much of a straight as you get at Thruxton, that leads up hill to the sharp left/right Rocket. A level run to Peel before going back downhill, then a wicked turn left up the Tom Pryce straight to The Hairpin. This leads back to the old start-finish straight although its all been resurfaced and would be unrecognisable save for the old pit entrance and start gantry still being in place.
But in the wet, I can barely see the track and its soon apparent that the "wets" are not living up to their billing. There is no grip at all, Rover is not enjoying the conditions, and nor is the driver. Then to compound things, the screen misted up and I was driving blind. Not good - I came back in mindful of it being Friday 13th! These were no conditions to tempt fate. Not everyone was struggling so for grip - Jim Mepham was simply flying in his Megane, Tim Morgan-Barrett was testing the scenery in the VX220 and Mal Davison's Noble looked like it was out in the dry.
Things were little better in the last session, still raining hard, still standing water everywhere. At 80 mph Rover felt positively unsafe, the brakes felt wooden and ineffective and the driver wanted to go back to his bed, or anywhere warm and dry! During the evening it finally stopped raining, my hope was that it would remain that way. Anglesey is that windy that the track would surely dry out.
We awoke in the morning to dark skies and menacing looking clouds - but far out west, right on the horizon, there was a chink of blue sky. Surely that's the way the weather is coming in? Correct - the track had dried, we changed the wheels and donned our second set of race boots (the first were still wet) and out on track we went.
Qualifying:
Simon suggested I follow Pongo round for a couple of laps to familiarise myself with the track in the dry, thanks pal. A couple of laps in and he gave me the thumbs up and then disappeared - hmm! With such a long track (2.1 miles) and 31 starters - sadly we had lost Jim Mepham to a broken clutch the day before - it was always going to be difficult for the slower cars to get in a clear lap. Much time was spent moving aside for faster cars, all 30 of them so it seemed. And it almost was - we qualified 30 from 31 with just Jason Newman's Peugeot 306 behind us, Jason was struggling with brake problems or no doubt he would have been in front of us. Pongo was 2 seconds clear of us, we were going to have our work cut out to find that. Not to mention finding 20 seconds, the gap to pole setter Steven Taylor in the Lotus Exige. A quick calculation said to expect to be lapped on lap 5 and again on lap 10 or 11.
I was a bit concerned by some serious brake judder - probably warped discs, but more worrying was a loud clonking noise that became very apparent late in the session. Strangely enough, three ex-owners of Rover were present in the race so I asked Matt Speakman to take a run round the paddock for me. He confirmed that the clonking was the same one as when he owned the car a good three years ago - nothing to worry about there then!
Race 1:
Anglesey was not built for rolling starts, a 30+ car grid barely fits behind the start-finish line when stationary so this was bound to be another example of not having rounded the last corner by the time the front guys were off. Two rolling laps too - a full lap to come back round to the grid, then off again on the rolling lap proper. Coming down the old straight it was plain the cars at the front had not bunched up too well - by the time we rounded the last corner, the leaders would have been exiting The Banking! Simon was alongside me on the grid, although we were the other way round to the published grid - and Jason was right behind Simon. Pongo got the jump on Rover and got to the outside of the track before the first corner so I went inside keeping Jason behind. Pongo was climbing all over Tim's VX220 but power told once out of Church and first Tim started to pull away from Simon, and slowly but surely Pongo was leaving Rover. Behind me the gap to Jason was opening and closing - he was faster from Church to Rocket, we were faster through Peel, the Hairpin and the Banking. By lap 5 Pongo was clear and I thought we had the better of Jason - but I was wrong.
Coming out of Church - yup, it really is flat in the dry - the leaders caught up. Steven Taylor's Exige was first past, but Derek Hale must have been less than a second down in the Honda Accord. Coming up towards Rocket, the Blue Flags were still waving and I lost Jason in my mirrors. Damn - he dived up the inside and then stood on everything to get the Peugeot round the corner - looks like he fixed the brakes then! As I turned into Rocket, now behind Jason, Mal Davison came storming through in the Noble taking Jason before the second part of the complex. Time to give chase.
The pattern was the same as before, but reversed. We were faster in places, Jason was faster in places. 2 litres to Rover's 1.6 meant that the Peugeot just started to edge away once Rover went up into 5th gear and near on 110mph. We got alongside a couple of times, once going into Rocket, another time into Peel, but couldn't make the move stick. But look ahead, we were going for it so hard we were gaining on Pongo, maybe we could catch him. All the while we were being lapped which sometimes would help us, sometimes it helped Jason, it looked like Pongo was losing ground most while being lapped. Suddenly we're right up on Pongo along Tom Pryce. Pongo stayed in front until Church, someone came through lapping us and Jason followed through inside Pongo - we followed but had lost momentum. Jason was away, the biggest gap of the race between us. And it was the last lap. Try as we might, we could not catch Jason who led us over the line by almost a second with Pongo coming in behind. We then found Pongo's gearbox had failed on that last lap and was stuck in 4th gear - we may well not have got by otherwise.
With much of the afternoon and a long evening ahead, some of us were able to take things easy. And some of us had things to do, like Simon's trip back to Manchester to pick up a spare gearbox. Late in the evening, after walking round the track in the dark, we went looking for the rest of the guys only to find a party going on! Pongo's gearbox changing party - by the time we found it, the new gearbox was in and it was "just" a case of reassembling the bits that got in the way. It would have been rude not to support such sterling efforts, so most of us just sat around in the marquee watching on. Tony Soper and I endured what must have been the world's longest game of Top (Totty) Trumps which finally went my way - I've found something I can beat him at! By the time we pushed Pongo back to its proper parking space it was around 12:45am and time for bed - for Team Pongo it was nearer 2am.
Race 2:
With severe weather warnings being issued on Saturday evening, many drivers had changed over to wets figuring it better to change back to slicks in the dry than put the wets on in a downpour. We did nothing but wait and see. And we got lucky, despite some threatening looking clouds and the feel of moisture in the air, we had a second dry race.
After yesterday's start, words had been said to the front runners who bunched up so much better. I was at the rear but one row with Richard Hawken's Nissan Primera and Derek Kelly-Cooper's Vectra behind me - a pair of DNFs from race 1 who were able to make race 2. I planned to keep out of Richard's way but a fluffed gear change at the start combined with giving him too much room meant my main hopes for a race, Pongo and the Peugeot both good a good lead on me. Pongo was giving Tim a hard time as Jason got by in the Pug, Tim gave the cones a hard time (collecting three) on the exit of Church throwing up much muck and a fist size rock across the track at me. Rocket was crowded but I arrived on the scene still in contention, lost more ground through Rocket by missing gears again and then completely screwed up with a 180 degree spin at the downhill left after Peel. Right in front of most of the spectators! To make things worse, Anglesey haven't installed the kerbs yet so there is a big drop if you leave the tarmac. That ruled out using the grass to turn round, a 3 point turn took forever and everyone was long gone. Nothing else to do but go for lap times - but as I came down towards the last corner on lap 2, the marshall was hanging out a yellow flag. I couldn't see anything wide but as I rounded the corner, Yaser's Renault Clio was buried in the wall. Then the red flags came out and I cruised round another lap to join everyone waiting on the old grid.
Five minutes went by before we were flagged off to join the grid in finishing order - presumably from the end of lap 1 - but no-one gave us a clue what was going on. Unlike every other circuit Anglesey had insisted us doing a complete lap to get to the grid, then a rolling lap, and they did it again. We went off on what we thought was a rolling lap only to find a course car waiting for us as we rounded the last corner. That caused some sharp braking for some! So off we went round yet again.
The grid bunched up well again, too well in the middle of the pack as I was forced to brake just as I should have been accelerating. Combined with yet another fluffed gear change (I really must learn to change gear with my left hand) and I was well dropped. Again. Jason was off, Pongo stayed with Tim round to Church before VX power told leaving Simon to chase Jason for the rest of the race. Me, I just fell slowly further and further back. The lap times showed I was running at the same pace, but in the last two or three laps Simon and Jason suddenly upped their game and dropped lap times by a couple of seconds. No wonder I got dropped.
Two races, two finishes - 6th and 5th in Class D so a few points on the table and a car that seems healthy enough to race again. Bit of a result by our standards. Now while the whole point of buying Rover was to save money, we need to source some new brake discs by next round and desperately need some decent tyres, both slicks and wets. And finally I need to change the gear knob from some barrel shaped painful to use Sparco item to a proper round ball. My left hand is still sore from the sharp edge on that knob.
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