Overall reflections
Air box, carbs and air intake have definitely improved the top end pull and especially the pull through 5th and 6th gears. The new throttle pedal, modified linkage and its revised position had definitely made a difference at Mallory but as I was not running the video it was quite hard to remember the details. At Donington when I had the video, you can actually hear nice well defined throttle blips throughout the braking zones. The handling had been nice and consistent throughout the race as well. I was running with the slightly softer setup I had tried in the one winter test session I completed in the run up to the race. It had worked well over the bumps at Mallory and helped me a little with the undulations and curbs of Donington.
Last year my fastest in race lap was a 1:20.55 and I know I was in a pack quite a bit of the time but it surprising what some track time can do, this year with the car improvements adding up to some part but not all of the improvement to a new fastest lap for me at the circuit of 1:19.40. I wonder if I can transition this into a similar improvement at the other tracks I have raced at before?
A very impressive run from Rob and Gordon out in front, some fantastic lap times there, just a pity there are not a few more racing together at the front of class A.
Class B showed some really promise as well. Paul running almost identical times as me in the all comers race, Tim showing his usual brilliance at Donington by getting Ian Gray's Phasar to very impressive 1:18.28 before it lunched itself.(1:19.76 in the Class C Phoenix last year)I think this might be a good indication that a class B version of the Phoenix or Fury class C cars should be capable of running around 2 to 3% quicker. Although Colin Duce had a rather eventful race and finished back in 13th overall despite winning class B, he did manage to get fastest lap for class B of 1:19.41 on lap 12 which again shows great promise. (1:22.77 best from last year)
Two very noticeable improvements for Donington this year were Tim and Paul. Firstly Tim for an excellent 3rd place in class for the start and an equally impressive improvement in lap times, from a 1:25.00 last year reduced down to a 1:21.47 this year. I am sure his new AB Performance airbox and pimp my ride alloys have made a different but most of that must come from driving.
Paul's lap time improvements have definitely come from seat time and improved confidence. Last year Paul managed a fastest lap of 1:23.19 during the race and this year he brought that down to a 1:20.33 before being taken out by John Cutmore. Even better still, he managed to get into the low 1:19s in the all comers race when we were running within sight of each other. We have been able to sit down and compare that last lap of the allcomers race through the DD2 and the results are quite interesting. I definitely carry some more speed into and through the corners, that faster corners especially but Paul is much smoother out of the corners and makes up all if not more of the time through that and the better pulling power of his R1 engine. So Donington is like Snetterton, where we are both improving and now running at almost identical lap times. Bring it on !.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
RGB Round 2 - Donington Park ***RACE WIN***
A few weeks ago we went to Donington Park for the second round of the 2007 RGB championship. I elected to do the Allcomers race as well as the RGB race to get some practice in for what I think is probably one of the most technical circuits we go to. The Allcomers qualify was just to learn the track again. In the RGB qualify I managed to get Pole, 0.7 of a second ahead of John Cutmore in 2nd and about 2 seconds ahead of Tim Hoverd who managed a very impressive 3rd in class C.
As we lined up on the grid, there was Rob and Gordon (both Class A) in front of me, unfortunately no Tim Gray in the lead Class B car beside me due to his engine expiry and James (Class A) just behind on my right.
As the lights went off I got a good start but the engine bogged down just a little, I have been trying to remember the exact revs I used successfully last year and I think I now knows it’s a little higher than I had thought! Mind you my start looked really stunning compared to Gordons!
As we ran up to Redgate, Gordon had caught a second wind and was pulling away, whilst James had made up some good speed and was on the inside and in front of me. I received a little tap from behind by Mr Cutmore as I turned into Redgate but got a good run out of the corner, through the craner curves and down to the old hairpin. As we came up the hill and through to Coppice we were all quite close still but the next part of the lap started a pattern that would repeat many times. I would get a good run through Coppice but James would use the power of the Busa to pull away quite convincingly down the straight, I would make up some in the braking zone for the chicane and then he would get another extension to his lead down the start finish straight.
Redgate for each lap would show the biggest gap between us, followed by a closing up of the gap as I carried slightly more speed through the craner curves and the old hairpin, until we were quite close again through McLeans and up to Coppice.
Lap 2 saw Aaron continuing straight on and making intimate contact with the barrier which meant we had yellow flags being waved all over the entry to Redgate and Paul Haynes was sat up at Coppice watching the race following another engine failure. Over the next few laps, as we went down the hill through the craners, I could see that Rob had pulled quite a margin over Gordon and then about the same back to James in front of me.
By lap 3, I had already dipped into the 19’s with a 1:19.4 with a nice clear run, no need to defend and a fair bit of concentration on keeping smooth and some good mid corners speed. This would in fact turn out to be my fastest lap of the race, not through design but due to a little problem I had at the end, more of which later. Mind you by this time Gordon and Rob were both in the 17’s and even more impressively they both managed 15s over the next couple of laps!
As we started Lap 6, Aaron’s car was being pulled out by a massive tractor, which takes on a completely different image when you are in a small and low lightweight race car traveling straight towards it at 120mph! By this point, Paul and John had passed Steve Robinson behind me and were the next cars down the track from me, all be it 9 and a bit seconds behind.
On Lap 7 we came up to lap Julius Bates in the Aeon Blaze, where I got a nice view of a flame out under braking into the chicane.
Lap 8 coming into Coppice, James chooses not to dive up the inside of Dick Adams in the class A Westfield as we lapped him which means I reduced the gap considerably. The next couple of laps would show around a half second gap. Entering the chicane on Lap 8 and we had yellow flags out and what looked like Paul’s Phoenix sitting against the barrier. Lap 9 is almost replication of the former, where we are both held up heading into 
coppice by lapping Garry for the second time.
As we lined up on the grid, there was Rob and Gordon (both Class A) in front of me, unfortunately no Tim Gray in the lead Class B car beside me due to his engine expiry and James (Class A) just behind on my right.
As the lights went off I got a good start but the engine bogged down just a little, I have been trying to remember the exact revs I used successfully last year and I think I now knows it’s a little higher than I had thought! Mind you my start looked really stunning compared to Gordons!
As we ran up to Redgate, Gordon had caught a second wind and was pulling away, whilst James had made up some good speed and was on the inside and in front of me. I received a little tap from behind by Mr Cutmore as I turned into Redgate but got a good run out of the corner, through the craner curves and down to the old hairpin. As we came up the hill and through to Coppice we were all quite close still but the next part of the lap started a pattern that would repeat many times. I would get a good run through Coppice but James would use the power of the Busa to pull away quite convincingly down the straight, I would make up some in the braking zone for the chicane and then he would get another extension to his lead down the start finish straight.
Redgate for each lap would show the biggest gap between us, followed by a closing up of the gap as I carried slightly more speed through the craner curves and the old hairpin, until we were quite close again through McLeans and up to Coppice.Lap 2 saw Aaron continuing straight on and making intimate contact with the barrier which meant we had yellow flags being waved all over the entry to Redgate and Paul Haynes was sat up at Coppice watching the race following another engine failure. Over the next few laps, as we went down the hill through the craners, I could see that Rob had pulled quite a margin over Gordon and then about the same back to James in front of me.
By lap 3, I had already dipped into the 19’s with a 1:19.4 with a nice clear run, no need to defend and a fair bit of concentration on keeping smooth and some good mid corners speed. This would in fact turn out to be my fastest lap of the race, not through design but due to a little problem I had at the end, more of which later. Mind you by this time Gordon and Rob were both in the 17’s and even more impressively they both managed 15s over the next couple of laps!
As we started Lap 6, Aaron’s car was being pulled out by a massive tractor, which takes on a completely different image when you are in a small and low lightweight race car traveling straight towards it at 120mph! By this point, Paul and John had passed Steve Robinson behind me and were the next cars down the track from me, all be it 9 and a bit seconds behind.
On Lap 7 we came up to lap Julius Bates in the Aeon Blaze, where I got a nice view of a flame out under braking into the chicane.
Lap 8 coming into Coppice, James chooses not to dive up the inside of Dick Adams in the class A Westfield as we lapped him which means I reduced the gap considerably. The next couple of laps would show around a half second gap. Entering the chicane on Lap 8 and we had yellow flags out and what looked like Paul’s Phoenix sitting against the barrier. Lap 9 is almost replication of the former, where we are both held up heading into 
coppice by lapping Garry for the second time.This time through the chicane and I could see Paul watching from behind the barriers, it would seem that John Cutmore had dived for a gap that was not present and had taken them both out of the race. Some quite major damage to Paul’s driver side, thankfully the side impact bar doing its job, but a real shame as Paul’s had been putting in some really good lap times and he was on for a good win in class. Even more of a shame when you realise that neither were actually racing each other for position, John even doing himself out of a solid 2nd place and some good championship points bearing in mind he came second in the previous race as well. 
Once of the real joys of our race series is the close, wheel to wheel racing, sometimes this is improved upon even more by running mixed classes (sometimes it’s the other way around of course!) but a major issue comes when one driver effects the race of a different class. I had been very conscious of this in the former, all comers race where I had to make sure along side having a good race and learning the track, that I did not get in the way of any of the drivers in the 7’s race as it was theirs we were taking part in.
Lap 11 was over a second slower than the others as James and I caught Judy up going down into the old hairpin, her hazard lights on and her car puzzlingly placed slap bang in the middle of the track, around the half the speed we were expecting. It wasn’t not until the entry to McLeans that we managed to pass Judy.
Lap 13, we lapped Rob Grant in the Striker, again one of our new racers in the series and doing very well in what is a rather steep learning curve.
Lap 14 was quite busy, lapping Mike Allen in the Tiger on the outside around the first right-hand sweep of the craner curves and then Garry just after a rather hasty gab on the brakes at the left hand apex on the craners!
I was just about to lap Simon Maybe in the Fury and Pete Rope in his multi coloured Pheonix on back straight when the first of the engine stutters appeared, which meant it was the end of the following start finish straight before I passed them. This let James get more of a lead and would be the end of my very enjoyable run in close proximity.
Of course by this point, with John going out on lap 7, my closest Class C competitor Mike Atkinson was some 25 seconds behind and I did not really need to push.
Over the span of the race I had been able to keep the times in the low 20’s to mid 19s but concentrating on carrying corner speeds rather than pushing hard to sliding a lot. A bit of a surprise to some, me not sliding around much! As the fuel level had come down, I had kept an eye on the times to make sure I was not slipping back but equally not over stressing the car or tyres.
Back at Laps 12 and 13 we were into the low 19’s and as the last 3 or so laps came, I was planning to put in a bit of a spurt to attack the lap record. Unfortunate by this point the car was running a little low on fuel and I started to notice a touch of spluttering on the start of the straight.
After the event I found I still had more than the required 3ltrs left, its just that the bottom of the tank is so mangled now after all of the repairs (prior to my ownership I hasten to add.) that the pump was having difficulty in getting fuel out.
So the penultimate lap showed fuel starvation on the latter half of the straight and the final lap it appeared as early as the entry to Coppice and lasted through a little swerving until I was half way down the back straight!
On analysis it would seem the fuel pickup issues is actually from starkeys bridge and up the hill into McLeans but because I now have a swirl-pot post pump, there was sufficient pressure to run until came to Coppice. A short while after that the pump had managed to catch up and all was well again. A good job I had a nice lead!
The final excitement happened as we entered the chicane for the last time to find Doug had parked his Genesis slap bang in the middle of the track at the centre of the chicane and required us to thread our cars between his and the corner markers! I was following Julius at this point and it seemed he had little room to get past behind Doug from where I was so I elected to brake for longer in a straight line and go in front of Doug. Trouble was there was even less room but I managed to borrow some space on the dirt!
All that was left after that was to cross the line for a win in Class C, fastest lap in class and 4th overall in the race.
Once of the real joys of our race series is the close, wheel to wheel racing, sometimes this is improved upon even more by running mixed classes (sometimes it’s the other way around of course!) but a major issue comes when one driver effects the race of a different class. I had been very conscious of this in the former, all comers race where I had to make sure along side having a good race and learning the track, that I did not get in the way of any of the drivers in the 7’s race as it was theirs we were taking part in.
Lap 11 was over a second slower than the others as James and I caught Judy up going down into the old hairpin, her hazard lights on and her car puzzlingly placed slap bang in the middle of the track, around the half the speed we were expecting. It wasn’t not until the entry to McLeans that we managed to pass Judy.
Lap 13, we lapped Rob Grant in the Striker, again one of our new racers in the series and doing very well in what is a rather steep learning curve.Lap 14 was quite busy, lapping Mike Allen in the Tiger on the outside around the first right-hand sweep of the craner curves and then Garry just after a rather hasty gab on the brakes at the left hand apex on the craners!
I was just about to lap Simon Maybe in the Fury and Pete Rope in his multi coloured Pheonix on back straight when the first of the engine stutters appeared, which meant it was the end of the following start finish straight before I passed them. This let James get more of a lead and would be the end of my very enjoyable run in close proximity.Of course by this point, with John going out on lap 7, my closest Class C competitor Mike Atkinson was some 25 seconds behind and I did not really need to push.
Over the span of the race I had been able to keep the times in the low 20’s to mid 19s but concentrating on carrying corner speeds rather than pushing hard to sliding a lot. A bit of a surprise to some, me not sliding around much! As the fuel level had come down, I had kept an eye on the times to make sure I was not slipping back but equally not over stressing the car or tyres.
Back at Laps 12 and 13 we were into the low 19’s and as the last 3 or so laps came, I was planning to put in a bit of a spurt to attack the lap record. Unfortunate by this point the car was running a little low on fuel and I started to notice a touch of spluttering on the start of the straight.
After the event I found I still had more than the required 3ltrs left, its just that the bottom of the tank is so mangled now after all of the repairs (prior to my ownership I hasten to add.) that the pump was having difficulty in getting fuel out.
So the penultimate lap showed fuel starvation on the latter half of the straight and the final lap it appeared as early as the entry to Coppice and lasted through a little swerving until I was half way down the back straight!
On analysis it would seem the fuel pickup issues is actually from starkeys bridge and up the hill into McLeans but because I now have a swirl-pot post pump, there was sufficient pressure to run until came to Coppice. A short while after that the pump had managed to catch up and all was well again. A good job I had a nice lead!
The final excitement happened as we entered the chicane for the last time to find Doug had parked his Genesis slap bang in the middle of the track at the centre of the chicane and required us to thread our cars between his and the corner markers! I was following Julius at this point and it seemed he had little room to get past behind Doug from where I was so I elected to brake for longer in a straight line and go in front of Doug. Trouble was there was even less room but I managed to borrow some space on the dirt!
All that was left after that was to cross the line for a win in Class C, fastest lap in class and 4th overall in the race.
Donington Allcomers Race Reflections
During the Donington RGB weekend, a number of our racers signed up for the allcomers race. Paul and I used this as a chance to get some mileage in the cars and get some laps under our belt at the circuit. Donington is quite hard and expensive to get good testing at due to the stupid local council who restrict the noise at a circuit that’s been around for generations, supports social activities for hundreds of thousands a year and even more bizarrely is situated under the immediate flight path of East Midlands Airport. I once remember being told of for exceeding the noise limit (due to an exhaust failure) but being unable to hear the marshals comments as an airliner was landing!
I went into the Allcomers race with the aim of testing my start, learning the circuit, trying a few different lines and not over pushing the car and in fact did most of it well away from the rev limiter. Towards the end of the 18mins race, Paul was running quite close to me and we up’d the pace a little. Interestingly we both ran telemetry so we are able to do a little side by side comparison of both our cars and our driving styles. What makes it even better is that on the final lap we both did almost identical times, Paul in fact beating my fastest lap of 1:19.48 with a 1:19.36.
Firstly its interesting to compare the temperatures of our two cars. My mods over the winter included a simplifying of the cooling system, making it pressurized and the running temps have dropped quite substantially. So here’s a graph of the water temps of mine and Paul’s – 90degrees average for mine on the last lap of the race and an average of 72 for Paul. Now we were both out in clear air and it was quite cool at the time although each time I have run mine so far this years its been the same. If we look at the oil temps as a similar comparison we see an interesting difference. Paul’s averaging around 101degs and mine at around 113 (10deg down on mine from last year).
Paul is running a bike radiator, I am running a polo dual core car rad and we are both running separate oil coolers. I wonder what mine would look like if I removed the oil cooler and allowed the oil/water heat exchanger as standard on the blade?
Comparing speeds into, through and out of corners is also quite enlightening,
The first obvious difference is the run down the craner curves seen in this graph from our telemetry. Paul’s speeds are in green and mine are in red. The highlighted blue cross marker is placed on the apex of the left hand part of the craner curves just as it is dipping at its steepest and the part of the circuit that I find the exhilarating. Some say scary and a few times it can be, its probably the one place of all of the circuits we race at that my car is out of shape at the highest speed! I must admit that in both of the races we did at Donington this weekend that it took me a few laps to be confident to run flat out through these corners. Anyway you can see that Paul is running through this corner at 108mph with a further spurt to 112mph before braking for the old hairpin. Comparatively I am doing 116mph with little improvement until having to brake earlier for the next corner. Interestingly by the time we both get to Paul’s braking point we are doing the same speed! There is a 3mph difference in the mid corner speed through the old hairpin, I get a bit of wheel spin due to the slide through the corner where Paul gets a better and smoother run out of the corner and this advantage runs all the way up the hill where he makes good use of the increased power of the R1 engine meaning he is 2mph up at the top of the hill.
Again I enter and run through McLeans a little faster than Paul – 76mph as apposed to 69mph but Paul gets a great run out and reaches the same peak as me at 100mph before we enter Coppice, run almost the same speed through and down the straight. Again his power helping a little to reach a back straight maximum speed of 130mph compared to my 125mph.
All of the other items in the telemetry are unsurprisingly quite similar.
I went into the Allcomers race with the aim of testing my start, learning the circuit, trying a few different lines and not over pushing the car and in fact did most of it well away from the rev limiter. Towards the end of the 18mins race, Paul was running quite close to me and we up’d the pace a little. Interestingly we both ran telemetry so we are able to do a little side by side comparison of both our cars and our driving styles. What makes it even better is that on the final lap we both did almost identical times, Paul in fact beating my fastest lap of 1:19.48 with a 1:19.36.
Firstly its interesting to compare the temperatures of our two cars. My mods over the winter included a simplifying of the cooling system, making it pressurized and the running temps have dropped quite substantially. So here’s a graph of the water temps of mine and Paul’s – 90degrees average for mine on the last lap of the race and an average of 72 for Paul. Now we were both out in clear air and it was quite cool at the time although each time I have run mine so far this years its been the same. If we look at the oil temps as a similar comparison we see an interesting difference. Paul’s averaging around 101degs and mine at around 113 (10deg down on mine from last year).
Paul is running a bike radiator, I am running a polo dual core car rad and we are both running separate oil coolers. I wonder what mine would look like if I removed the oil cooler and allowed the oil/water heat exchanger as standard on the blade?
Comparing speeds into, through and out of corners is also quite enlightening,
The first obvious difference is the run down the craner curves seen in this graph from our telemetry. Paul’s speeds are in green and mine are in red. The highlighted blue cross marker is placed on the apex of the left hand part of the craner curves just as it is dipping at its steepest and the part of the circuit that I find the exhilarating. Some say scary and a few times it can be, its probably the one place of all of the circuits we race at that my car is out of shape at the highest speed! I must admit that in both of the races we did at Donington this weekend that it took me a few laps to be confident to run flat out through these corners. Anyway you can see that Paul is running through this corner at 108mph with a further spurt to 112mph before braking for the old hairpin. Comparatively I am doing 116mph with little improvement until having to brake earlier for the next corner. Interestingly by the time we both get to Paul’s braking point we are doing the same speed! There is a 3mph difference in the mid corner speed through the old hairpin, I get a bit of wheel spin due to the slide through the corner where Paul gets a better and smoother run out of the corner and this advantage runs all the way up the hill where he makes good use of the increased power of the R1 engine meaning he is 2mph up at the top of the hill.
Again I enter and run through McLeans a little faster than Paul – 76mph as apposed to 69mph but Paul gets a great run out and reaches the same peak as me at 100mph before we enter Coppice, run almost the same speed through and down the straight. Again his power helping a little to reach a back straight maximum speed of 130mph compared to my 125mph.All of the other items in the telemetry are unsurprisingly quite similar.
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