A result, and its results

Like most people who decide to go racing I rather fancied my steering and pedalling abilities. Let's face it, nobody takes up anything, especially not anything that places large demands on one's time and wallet, unless they think that they can do a reasonable job of it. So it came as quite a shock to discover that I was absolutely rubbish. Car control was OK, and ability to drive a consistent line was not a problem, but pace was seriously lacking.

In part that was because I was trying with a wrong car. Driving a car with 70kW of power on street tyres while my competitors had in excess of 100kW and semi-slick tyres was part of the problem. But even after I had made the change to semi-slick tyres and a 100kW Toyota engine, I was still well off the pace. When it rained I was competitive, and in July of 2008 I picked up a 3rd in class, which was fantastically satisfying, as it confirmed what I had though (and had hoped all along), that I could after all pedal and steer a race car.

In the dry I suffered though . Part of the suffering was mechanical. It took a few race meetings to get the cooling system sorted out so that it cooled the engine, rather than burping coolant all over my legs. There were some electrical niggles that took a while to get sorted out too. The car would pull strongly until 6,000 rpm and then cough and splutter just when it should have been taking a deep breath and hurling me towards the horizon.

With the basics sorted out I had the cams re-ground to give more torque at higher revs. At the same time I had the cylinder head gas-flowed and the valves re-seated. The new cams also meant that I had to finally ditch my pushrod-engine mentality and rev the nuts off the car. The rev limiter is set at 8,200 rpm and I resolved to change up when I bounced off the rev limiter. My home (and so far only) circuit is a 4th and 3rd gear track with Blossom's current setup.

For the first race of my first club race meeting with the new enhanced cylinder head, for once, I was not the last road legal car on the grid at the start. There were three cars behnind me. The guy who was ahead of me was a lot faster, and tore off away from me at the start, never to be seen again. The car behind me was, similarly, a good few seconds a lap slower than me, so after the first few corners he was out of my mirrors.

Then, after five laps, a Lotus 23 in the class ahead of me got touched by a CAV Ford GT40 and ended up parked on the exit of turn 2, which meant that the flag was red-flagged for a re-start. One lap into the re-start, once again, lying a very comfortable second in my class, Blossom stopped dead. No lights, no sparks, no engine cranking no nothing. It was heart breaking. From a comfortable second place to a DNF. I got a tow back to the pits were the cause of the problem was found.

A live wire that runs through the starter solenoid had come into contact with the exhaust pipe, the insulation had burnt through and the core had come into contact with the exhaust pipe where it had contacted and earthed and developed a mahoosive spark leak which had allowed all the sparks to leak out. I connected it all back together again and cable-tied it out of harms way and we were ready for heat 2.

Then came the good news (for me): there had been so much confusion with the re-started race that the positions as at the re-start would stand. I had my second place back. All I had to do was repeat the procedure for the afternoon heat and I would have a second place for the day.

On the sighting lap the car was misfiring and not revving beyond 6,000 rpm. Suddenly instead of being sure of a second in class for the heat I was doing mental arithmetic based on my 12 second advantage over the third placed guy from heat 1, who overtook me into turn 2 on the first lap. I figured that as long as I kept him in sight, all would be well.

Better than that though, I was able to stay right with him and even reclaim second in class after a few laps. But things were still not going all my way, because another road legal Lotus 7 got past me at the end of the back straight until I managed to reclaim second under braking. It was hard work, and not the easy race I had been expecting, but it really was fun.

Then, going into turn one, the car felt as vague and woolly as a politician under question. I was convinced that control arm was broken and was getting ready to park the car when everything came back and I realised there was something slippy on the track surface. Something very slippy indeed. A Chevron race car, running at the pointy end of the field had suffered a problem with its scavenger pump, and was depositing oil all over the racing line.

I tippy-toed around the circuit, watching out for lairy slides whenever I had to cross the River Multigrade and managed to keep the pointy end forwards. Exiting turn 5 I saw the car behind me pirouetting gracefully out of contention, just before the red flags came out. Again.

Second in class! In the dry.

After the race I pitted, loaded up my gear and headed home. After a quick shower I bundled my wife and son into a more sensible car and returned for prizegiving. The exact composition of the trophy that I received is dubious at best. My wife described at as "plastic tat", but my five year old son was more charitable. "No Mom it's gold-ish!".

He's right you know.

That was three weeks ago, at the time of writing. The cause of the misfire was simplicity itself - a loose plug lead which took minutes to fix (and prevent a recurrence).

I have also had to improve the anchoring of the driver's seat following a scrutineer's note, and replace the jubilee clamped oil cooler hoses with crimped fittings. At the same time I elected to upgrade to stainless steel braided hoses.

As a result of that job I had hours of fun tracking down an alternator warning light that wouldn't go out, even though the battery was being charged by the alternator. That turned out to be the oil warning light, because when the engine swap from Kent to 4AGE took place, the feeds to the unmarked red lights on the dash got swapped around. Once I learnt that the problem was really the oil light, a quick check revealed that the cable to the sensor had been knocked off. I've written "OIL" and "ALT" on the dash lights with a felt tip pen, so at least now I know what I am looking at.

Feeling all electrically capable, I also tracked down why one of the indicator lights had not been working, and discovered some wiring that had rubbed against a rear wheel. That's been tidied up and the wires have been tucked away from the wheel to prevent a recurrence.

The rear exhaust hanger had broken, so I have replaced it.

As I write, the car is still on jack stands, awaiting a final clean of its underneath. Partly to remove the oil that got spilt during the oil hose replacement exercise and partly to remove the remains of the oil that got picked up during the last race.

The next race meeting is set for April 4 (6 days away) and I have put in an order for light but persistent showers.