Race Report 8th May 2011

This is my home track; I know it well from the past and lived very close to it when I was a boy. Derby was my home town and I used to visit it often and have seen many changes over the years. It’s great to see the track up and running again after the mess it was left in after the proposed extension and development. It’s a shame about some of the land marks that have been lost, the Dunlop Bridge and the Spitfire etc. I’m sure the track will continue to grow and develop over time. The third round of the Britcar Championship from our point of view was unfortunately one to forget.

General testing was going well until a spike on the telemetry suggested crank case pressure was too high and the engine health was in danger. We decided to investigate this problem further and this resulted in us losing our testing for the rest of the day as prudence suggested discretion being the better part of valour.

Saturday qualifying was wet at the start of the session so an ideal opportunity to scrub some wet tyres in in case we were to use them on Sunday, as the weather was forecasted to be wet. Rod and Jan just drove the minimum amount of laps as required to save the car as we were still not entirely sure if the crank case pressure issue had been resolved so it was left to me to set a position for the start on the minimum amount of laps. The car felt easy to drive but a little soft, which made the car work the tyres a little more than I would have liked. I would have liked more time to develop and test the car in order to reach a better set up but as with all these things the costs
and time was against us.

Race day, 4 hours of driving ahead, I say driving because you’re never really get that close to anyone to actually race in endurance. I was to drive first which is unusual as I tend to want Rod and Jan to drive first as they finance my seat so I think it only right that they get their time in the car. Running top five positions in the first hour was no problem but then the fuel problems started.

This has been happening since we first had the car at the start of the season, and the problem was getting progressively worse as each round came and went, hence in this third round, we were carrying around 50 litres of extra fuel than was necessary; the fuel pumps have been working over time trying to keep the cars undersized fuel collector supplied which ultimately caused their eventual and not entirely unexpected demise. We have had a new collector on order but as this has to be fabricated to our design, the time scales for delivery have been pushed further and further back, hopefully we will have this part fitted ready for round 4 at Thruxton.

The car was losing power and was in danger of an automatic ECU switch to lean running which would have only added to the issues we already had so we pitted earlier than expected. Jan and Rod drove really well again but to no avail as the problem was terminal as the last of our fuel pumps finally gave up the ghost and our race was effectively over. The other issue we were able to identify was cockpit temperature for after 3 race weekends the normal remedies were not making much difference, as we were all suffering with plus 50 degree conditions and at certain times in excess of 58 degrees, that’s 122/138 F, and even hotter when you add Nomex undergarments, suits and helmets etc .

We are therefore looking at cooling solutions as this level of heat stress can have a huge detrimental effect on the driver’s ability to maintain lap times, avoid mistakes and remain concentrated on the task at hand.