Mallory Race **** RACE WIN ****

As the day came to a close we lined up in front of the 60's style pit garages in qualifying order. Unfortunately I did not have my video camera with me for this round so the only pictures I have are some long shots from John. They do however show the order and the gap I had back to the rest of the pack later in the race. The run out to form on the grid at Mallory is almost a complete lap so it was a good opportunity for lots of tyre and brake warming, which I fun quite enjoyable!
I had a tense moment waiting for the lights, frantically trying to remember what revs to use for the start! I got a good start when the light went out but John C had a flying start, passing James and I on the inside whilst we were barely moving. The first corner is always fun in a race but for that corner to be Gerrards and will just a small lift after the drag from the standing start it was always going to be a time for a short intake of breath. The front end was nice and responsive so I drove around the outside of James into Gerrards, got a good run through the middle and end of the corner to slipstream John down the back straight and take 1st place in class (3rd place in the race) into turn2. As we exited the hairpin and powered through the Devils Elbow, I took a look back to see where John was and as I brought my attention back to the straight in front I saw there was a red flag, worse still Gordon and Rob had responded very quickly and were doing half my speed. The next few seconds were, how should I put this........ interesting is a little bit of an understatement. The car was a little squirmy as I tried to slow the car down and miss the two cars in front, which madly scanning the track for the reason for the red flag.

So we went around again and lined up for the second time. This time I got a better start (remembered what revs to use, well it has been 5 months!) and kept my place. Rob and James had a little contact as they both went for 2nd place and because of the distraction, I was able to go around the outside of James as we entered Gerrards. James was later to drop out because of the contact. From lap one I just concentrated on keeping in touch with Rob in the class A BDN and get some space between me and John in 4th overall. For the first 5 laps I managed to keep the gap to Rob down to 4 seconds and had a 3 second gap back to John. Keeping up with Rob was harder as the laps ticked by as well started to pass back markers, all of which were very well behaved but its hard to make up the time you loose following somebody though the slower corners. I did find I had more pace potential than I qualifying had shown, when I had to run a tight line into Gerrards to pass a back marker. I found I could run that line at the same speed I had been entering when I was on the racing line. Towards the end of the race I had a 4 to 5 second gap back to 2nd in class (4th overall) and tried to ensure I kept the lap times coming down slightly each time but without over pushing the car or taking too many risks. Its hard to judge gaps at Mallory, every time you go around the hairpin the following cars look really close and when you fire out of Gerrards and down the back straight they seem miles back. As the fuel came down I managed a couple of laps in the 50's even though I was running a very tight line out of Gerrards to minimise the risk, most of the improved lap time coming from a better entry speed at Gerrards which takes a little bit of practice to build up to. By this time I had completed 24 laps of the circuit (one of the benefits of a short lap) and had a good feel of the grip levels. The last two laps seemed to take quite a while and I must admit I was looking at the lap counter and trying to work out how many more to do when I saw the chequered flag and crossed the line for 3rd overall and 1st in class C. How come I always miss the last lap board?
So first outing of 2007, Pole in class, Race Win and Lap record for Class as well. Good start to the season :)

So I was going to leave this post at that, but I can't finish without some congratulations. Obviously the first needs to go to Gordon for the Class A win but maybe more importantly to Tim H who managed a complete Qualify and Race without bending his car, excellent show Tim! A good round of applause for all of the other racers who have complete major changes of the winter including those who have moved to Class B with complete engine transplants. 2007 should turn into a very interesting battle in Class B with the new cars, a challenge for you there Paul!. Finally congratulations and warm welcome to our many new competitors for this year, its a great series to race in and even more interesting when you have lots of new faces. Excellent!

Mallory RGB Race - Part1

Last weekend saw us head over to Mallory for the first race of the 2007 RGB championship.

An easy and relaxed trip out on Saturday afternoon so that we were all set for Sunday. In fact the whole weekend was nice and relaxed as our scrutineering was not until mid morning, the practice session just before lunch and then race not until after 5pm. Even the weather stayed nice, with the small exception of a cold wind but what can you expect of mid March in England!

Mallory was yet another new track for Paul and I, although we had completed a handful of laps a the Focus RS during our ARDS test but not really comparable with the RGB cars!

The track in a development of a trotting track and resembles a slightly warped oval with a strangle loop ending in a very sharp hairpin. You obvious attention is taken immediately by the fast and very long Gerrards first corner which went on for ages in our Saturday evening track walk.

Before I get into the details of the practice and race I have to mention that this is an excellent track in my opinion. I know we have seen a number of incidents here in RGB over the years and some of my fellow racers have come home with broken cars but the racing is close and it has speed, tight corners, short and long braking areas and required neatness and guts! Good combination.

So practice got underway with a slow train heading out on the first lap. I was a little way back from the front but spent the first half of the lap getting some good heat into the tires and then blasted past some of the leading pack at the hairpin and then we were off. The advantage of a short track is that you get to do quite a number of laps and therefore opportunities to try different lines and hone the braking zones / turn in points.
I love Gerrards, a turn in or around 95mph and an exit of over 110 some 200odd degrees later. In my next post I will put up some telemetry info for a couple of laps.

We had one interesting lap, coming around the hairpin with waved yellow flags to find Buzz, a new member of the RGB racing fraternity had parked his Genesis half way up the inside Armco barrier! Way to go Buzz. :)

I knew I needed to be near the 50 second lap time to be right at the front but thought that as long as I could hit the low 51’s that would be ok for the first outing. Well as the fuel came down and the confidence grew so did the traffic to pass!
My two or three fastest laps were all slightly compromised by traffic but in the end the fastest was still fast enough.

So practice left me with a lap time of 50.59 to give me pole in class and 4th overall in the race, with just 3 class A cars ahead. John Cutmore in the Westfield (now one of three westies in our race series) was only just behind but would be starting on the 3rd row of the grip, all be it on the inside.

We had quite a wait between the practice session and the race and although I should have spent that time looking at the telemetry, actually I enjoyed a nice lunch, watched some close racing and refueled the car. Did I mention it was cold?

Preseason Testing for 2007

Well what an interesting start to the new season.

The build up to 2007 started really late for me, my focus being on a house move and rather too much on the work side. The house move has helped amazingly in that I now have enough space in the garage to work on the car and room to maneuver the trailer. In light of this I have upgraded to a covered trailer so that the car stays clean in transit and does not need to be packed away or loaded up immediately before or after an event, leading to a much more relaxed time around the race day. Due to the late start in prep for the new year there were a few items I had wanted to do which will need to wait until later in the year. Namely the upgrade to the dampers and a replacement set of body work. The dampers are the original steel bodied avo single adjustable which much be well past their best and the body work well how can I put it, is rather tired and has more patches of fiberglass and resin that the base mould!

So anyway to get ready for the first race we (ably assisted in part by John, Tony, Steve from concept designs and Andy from AB Performance) have completed the following.

• Swapped out the old ‘spare’ engine and back in with a refreshed late model blade with fully working gearbox.
• Installed a new AB Performance airbox with near NACA duct in the bonnet
• Modified the bonnet for the aforementioned airbox
• Rationalised the cooling system to make it a closed loop and therefore pressurized setup which has dropped the water temp quite a bit.
• Welded in some strengthening supports to the dash/steering column mounting to reduce flex during gear shifts on the paddles
• Repaired and created new mounts of the exhaust silencer that fell off on the cool down lap of the Birkett 6 hour endurance race!
• Made a ‘NASCAR’ sized throttle pedal and replaced the pivot point on the pedal arm to improve the smoothness of the throttle action and make heel and toe action on down changes easier in a bid to improve gearbox life.
• New grill to protect the radiator

So there has been quite a bit to do and Paul and I did a shake down test at Snetterton a couple of weeks ago to test our hard work.

The day started a little damp which meant we just slithered around but it was a good opportunity to bed the engines in a test for any silly mistakes. By lunch time as the track dried the cars were really flying and although we were not timing, my thought was that the no.4 Fury, as it will be in 2007, was straight back on pace.

A very good test and with some added fun of being able to drive Andy’s blade engined Pheonix (ex Steve Savage RGB car) as well as doing a swap with Paul (current R1 Pheonix RGB car) for a run out.

More on my analysis of these cars later.