May 8 - Race Meeting

In motorsport, like in other sports, you need to be ready at all times. Ready to trot out a plausible, blame-free excuse for poor performance. If your excuse can make you look good while you screw it up, so much the better. Here’s mine: I was too fast. Sadly, I wasn’t too fast on race day, but at the track day a week previously. With my 6 year old son on board (who loved it) and my wife (who loathed it) I had been quicker than Porsches and Ferraris, so I was even more than usually full of myself, and even more than usually full of it.

Qualifying on Saturday was very slippery on an ice-cold track, which slowed a lot of people down. Although I was not happy with my lap times in qualifying, my grid position was acceptable as I managed to qualify ahead of one of the guys who always finishes ahead of me. One of the things that I was unhappy with was the fact that during qualifying I got caught behind cars that I know I can beat, but was not able to get past them. What I should have done was to slow right down for half a lap to get some clear space, but it’s easier to be clever after the fact, even if I was making a very basic error at the time.

The first race started with drama in turn 1, when Godfrey Lancellas (Lola T212) decided to spin around and take a look at the guys behind him. From where I was, there was an almighty cloud of blue smoke and the sight of race cars ducking for safety. Nobody anything suffered worse than heart palpitations though, and we were racing. I say “we were racing”, although looking at my video footage, what I was doing was driving Miss Daisy. Brake points were all over the place, and so was I. Almost. The one place that I was not all over was the apex. I had a pretty dull race watching Martin Coward (Birkin S3) get smaller in front of me while Stephen David (Marcos Mantara) got smaller in my mirrors.

There was a brief moment of excitement when Steve Humble (Mallock) chucked parts of his car skyward shortly after lapping me. Evidently a clip holding some of the bodywork in place quit. Two hundred metres away I saw pieces of orange race car leaping for the heavens.

For the second heat I was determined to make amends for my lacklustre performance. In turn 2 Jean Fourie hit an oil patch and spun, and I made it past him. Johan Engelbrecht (Porsche GT3) was being cautious around the spilled oil, and I went past him too just before the kink. Just after turn 3 I went past Andre Brink (Porsche Carrera RS) who was also being cautious. I’d gained three places in as many corners, now all I had to do was run like I’d stolen something. But, with all the oil on the track, the red flags were out. The air inside my crash helmet went blue with cursing.

Wally Dolinschek later claimed that he had only lost about 500ml of oil from his car's power steering. He managed to spread that 500ml very far, thin and wide then!

On the re-start, Stephen David ignored the instruction to stay in line for the first corner and put his car between mine and the car in front of me, and there were no opportunities to make places in turn 2. I found myself behind Arno Lambert (Mercedes SLK) and Jean Fourie (CAV GT40) and the three of us had a good dice for the remainder of the race, with Jean blocking Arno and Arno blocking me. More than once I snuck past Arno, only to have him re-take the position. And more than once Arno made his car about eleventy-seven feet wide in the approach to turn 5, preventing me from getting by him there. On the last lap Jean slowed and Arno and I passed him.

The cement dust laid down to pick up the spilled oil meant that my video footage was mostly grey after a few laps, and many people were experimenting with new lines in turns 2 and 5 (where the cement dust was worst). As a result, lap times for most people were slower in the second race than they had been in the first. I was gutted to lose my excellent start, disappointed to have a poor re-start, but pleased that I had spent almost the entire race dicing with Arno. Before the next race meeting I will experiment with some small changes to my car’s setup, and some large changes to my mental approach!

Videos:

Heat 1 start:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPYdpr8Gbjk

Heat 2 start:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iui0c4Na2uQ

Heat 2 re-start:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRuXIlYfHY4

May 1 - Track Day

My wife and I had a deal. I would spend a Saturday morning doing her stuff, and she would spend a Saturday morning doing mine. That meant that I would do a morning of yoga. Less OMG and more om. In return, She Who Must Be Obeyed would do a morning's track day with me. Most observers felt that I had the better end of the deal. The yoga session was mostly bearable - I cycle regularly, so I am fairly fit. I wasn't so fond of the home made physics and physiology ("Now, I want you all to close your eyes to conserve energy...energy leaves the body through the eyes!") but the rest of the morning was OK.

May 1 was payback time. I drove Blossom to Killarney and SWMBO and my 6 year old son followed in her car. WPMC track days are run to simple rules - drivers split themselves into fast, medium and slow groups. The different groups aren't really split by speed at all, but by rules of engagement. In the slow group, no overtaking from the moment the car in front's brake lights go on. In the medium group, outbraking is allowed, but cars must drive single file through corners. In the fast group race rules apply.

My son loves doing track time, despite the fact he is too small to see over the scuttle. He insisted on going out first. We joined the slow group. Behind us was my friend Alan in his near new Elise SC. I was to show Alan my lines around the track. All went well until a Ferrari came roaring past us. Naturally I had to hare off after it, and fairly quickly caught up, at which point the Ferrari let us past and off we went, my ego fairly out of control.

SWMBO did not much enjoy her track outing. I started out slowly and built up speed over two laps or so. We went past a number of cars, and towards the end of the session caught up with a Porsche GT3. As we were in the slow group, I was not allowed to outbrake the Porker, and the Porker would not pull over to let us past. At every corner exit Stuttgart's finest would power away from us, and at the end of every straight, we'd be right back with them.

"How was it?" somebody asked her.

"Dreadful. Ghastly. Just fucking awful!" was her reply.

"But why?"

"It's loud, windy, too close to the ground, there's no side protection, the seat's uncomfortable and James drives like a maniac. He goes too close to the edge of the track and too close to the car in front!"

So, a fun day out for me and my son, less so for SWMBO. But there was worse to come. A morning of monstering Porsches and Ferraris left me complacent and over-confident for the next race meeting...

Feb 27, 2010 Race Meeting

The first heat of the February 27 race meeting got off to a confused start. We had been told that we would head out on a sighting lap, form up on the grid and then do a formation lap behind a pace vehicle, following which we would be racing. Heading out on that first lap, Blossom was misfiring badly, and would not rev above 5,000 rpm. Ever the optimist, I hoped that it was just fouled plugs after idling for several minutes in the holding paddock. That was the first thing I got wrong.

The second thing that I got wrong was that instead of forming up on the start grid, while I was slowing, looking for my grid position, pow! we were racing. Between being taken by surprise and the misfire, it didn’t take long for those gridded behind me to overtake me and within a lap or so I found myself at the back of the field. The old motoring saw has it that in order to finish first, first you must finish. True enough, and with Blossom running very slowly, I had lots of time to consider this piece of wisdom and realise that it also applies to finishing last, and indeed anywhere else. Knowing that my car was not going to die, I did what I could and figured that by finishing the race I would at least gain an advantage over those who failed to finish. At least two cars failed to finish the heat and as a bonus, I went past Gavin Gorman when he got a bit overenthusiastic in turn 1.

After the race a quick investigation revealed the source of the problem when one of the plug leads fell apart in my hands. With the culprit identified, the next thing was to source a new set of plug leads. With logistical help from Craig Harper I managed to track down a new set of leads and installed them with time to spare ahead of the second heat. One of the oddities of motor racing, and I am not the first person to comment on this, is that the same people who will happily squeeze you off the line, if not the track are the very same people who will move heaven and earth to help a stricken competitor get back on track. Mostly so that they can squeeze you off the track again, I suspect.

While we were forming up in the pre-race paddock for the second heat, I spotted a marshal walking around carrying a chalk board which read “1 lap”. I approached him and asked: “Is that one lap and then we’re racing, or one lap and then form up on the grid for a pace lap?”

“It’s one lap and then form up on the grid.” He informed me.

“Great,” I said, “’cause there was some confusion in the first heat, please ensure that the pole sitter knows.”

And with that we went off on our sighting lap. Once again I slowed as we approached the grid area and once again Lucy whipped the football away as Charlie Brown was about to kick it, and I was slowing down while the front of the field tore off. After the race Gavin, who was gridded behind me in his Birkin 7 said that he’d seen me slowing and spotted the leaders leaving and was sitting behind me yelling “Go James, go James, go James, go!” into his crash helmet.

When I realised the race was under way I accelerated as best I could. The misfire was dramatically better, but Blossom was still not running 100%. At least I was able to reel Martin Coward (Birkin 7) in, inch by inch. When I could hear his car’s exhaust note on the exit of Malmesbury I knew that I was getting closer, and from then it was just a question of time. I tried a look up the inside into Cape Town corner but Martin was having none of that, so I tucked back in behind him at the exit of the corner. As we cleared the kink on the main straight I was aware of the front runners coming up to lap us, and a great deal of smoke and dust at the end of the straight (which I would later learn was Hennie Trollip dealing with a stuck throttle in his Lotus 7 replica and using the run off area to avoid disaster).

I stayed off the racing line to let the duelling Nick Adcock (Tiga) and Steve “Stumble” Humble (Mallock) past just before turn 1, which was still clouded in dust. In the excitement, Martin ran wide and lost grip on the marbles, allowing me to nip past him. Arnold Lambert, in his Mercedes SLK 200 was several seconds up the road and with nobody to dice with was soft pedalling for the last few laps, and although I was closing the gap, by the time the checkered flag fell, I was still a long, long way behind him, but reasonably pleased with the outcome.

Drive of the day must go to my mate Craig Harper, who pedalled his Harper Type 5 (see http://www.harpersportscars.com)to a lap time in the 1:25’s. For a road legal car, on semi-slick tyres that is a remarkable achievement although, on a purely personal level, slightly depressing as I don’t know what I am going to need to do to get close to that.

The video on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4O8x2_dIkQ ) shows me chasing Martin Coward for a lap, followed by his spin. Look out for the expanding dust cloud at the end of the main straight, caused by Hennie’s moment of unwanted excitement.

Feb 2010 8&9 - Historic Race Meeting

I had a weekend of mixed fortunes with the hysterics. On Saturday it was suggested to me that, because there were some fearsome fast cars entered in the pre-84 category where I was entered, that I should move to the pre-66. Timekeepers don’t care if you move your entry, so that was easy. I checked with the head honcho at Killarney and he was happy. “Do I need to speak to anybody else?” I asked.

“No.” Quoth he.

An hour before my race is due to start I go and check the grid, which has the word “Revised” across the top. And I had been revised out of it. By this time any other race that I could have run in has been and gone. It turns out that the head of the pre-66 crowd didn’t want any car which did not have a HTP competing. All of which is fine, but it would have been nice if I had been asked to check with him, and even nicer if somebody could have let me know. I was furious.

On Sunday I ran with the pre-84 where I was originally entered, and got lapped by a Porsche 956 as well as the crazy fast rotary powered 7’s that usually lap me in club events. In that race I was gridded at the back, because I didn’t have a result from Saturday’s race, which was fine. I snuck past a GT40 on the second corner and then had an almighty dice with a similar spec car to mine. It took me three attempts to put him away properly. On all three I got past him going into the last corner, and on two of the three he managed to get past me on the following straight. After that I was reeling in another road legal seven who subsequently had an oops and went off, and then Craig’s car had a lose and I left him too. So, job done! I got past everybody that I could possibly have expected to catch. My wife and son came to watch that race, and I had a big lump in my throat when I saw them in the stands on my warm up lap.

I also went out with the pre-74 cars, again gridded last. I went out with the pre-74’s mostly so that I could share the track with a Ferrari P312PB, which is basically an early 70’s Ferrari F1 car with a 2 seater body, owned and driven by Lord Irvine Laidlaw. On the first lap I got past an MGB GT, then got past a Lola (which was a bit poorly) and had another dice with the same 7 that had kept me so busy in the pre 84. The Ferrari was something else. I saw the blue flags and the headlights in my mirrors at about the same time and gave lots of space up the back straight. “Fucking hell!” was what I said when it came past. It was that loud that there was a sensation of pressure on my eardrum closest as it went by. Some laps later it came past again, this time on the start/finish straight, but this time I was ready for the noise. He came past me, shortly before turn 1 and then I realised that he didn’t make much ground on me through the corner. Cool, I thought, I’ll keep him in the video, but I couldn’t believe I was keeping up through the corner. When I found myself keeping up on the short straight to turn 2 I realised what had happened. The Ferrari had lapped me just after the start/finish line, so he had taken the checkered, but I was still racing. At his cool down speeds, he was not a lot slower than my racing speed. So I can say that while racing, I was given a point-by from a Ferrari. It also meant that although I did not finish last, I was the last person out there racing. Again, job done, I got past all the cars that I could have hoped to. In fact, this was an even better one, because somebody had dumped a whole slick of oil on the racing line going into turn 2, so I used a weird line through there all race, and managed to overtake the other road legal 7 by driving around the outside of him, which was very, very satisfying indeed.

Links to youtube vids...

Pre 84 Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EnfuMG7n9U starting from the back of the grid, with a big dice with a car similar to mine
Pre 84 Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbPgbcM6TEg overtaking 2 competitors who have spun out, and being monstered by a pair of 911’s

Pre 74 Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUu4-ES9QVE this clip ends with me being lapped by a fearsome F1-based Ferrari sports racer
Pre 74 Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk-bTJc5uZ8 me “racing” the Ferrari – his race has ended, mine still has a lap to go!