Snetterton Test - February

Last weekend was the second pre-season outing in the new car and the summary is that it went very well. My overall impression from the day however is that his car is just a complete laugh to drive. Its quick, responsive and gives great fun. To be honest I did not want to come in and a couple of times I only enter the pitlane because the fuel level was so low! You can just about see from these pictures that the front of the car is no longer higher than the rear. Paul and I ran a few laps line astern to get an impression of relative speeds again. Its quite hard to do this on a trackday with other cars of course because of the different performance and driving experience levels so it was good to be on the track together again.

The first outing was just to bed the new Ferrodo DS2500’s in and to see what the 13” rear wheels were going to be like. They both felt fine and the setup modifications combines with the braking modifications all came together nicely.

Leading up to this test, we made a couple of setup changes and the results were very promising. The front weight transfer is now nicely controlled on entry and as you transition into a balanced throttle at the apex and increasing throttle application from there on the front end really grips. The only adverse effect of this change was in the two very high speed corners, Turn1 and Corum where the rear was a little too lively.

One thing I was very pleased at was the progress we have made on the braking. Well when I say we, what I actually mean is getting the car to a point where I feel confident when hard on the brakes and with a feel that enables me to modulate pre-lockup.I can get a bias balance which works for all of snett although if I was really pushing in a qualify lap, I might still need to make a couple of in lap adjustments for T1/T2 and the Essess.

Towards the middle of the day, we made a couple of anti-roll bar changes to see the effect with the aim of calming the rear down a little through the high speed corners. Going forward there might be some time to gain through some small damper changes and a change in the location of the ballast.

The modification we made to the seat are spot on, I am now held in enough by the side of the seat to be able to attempt left foot braking into the bomb hole rather than needing to lift just before entry and it stops one more transition as the car gets towards the apex as I am already on the throttle pedal.

Outstanding items leading up to the first race are video and palm installation as we ran out of time before the test and to get the new graphics / colour scheme on to the car. Just 3 weeks left until the first race!

Towards the end of the day I had the chance to drive Rob grants car again. The last time I drove the car was as part of the Birkett relay race. This time Rob had made some setup changes and it felt really good. In the picture here you can see me driving around Russels in Robs car with Neil just behind.

750mc 2007 Awards Dinner

Here are a collection of photos from the 750 motor clubs awards dinner for the 2007 season held on the 2nd Feb. Quite a number of the drivers and partners from the RGB series attended for a good fun night of racing chat, wine, dinner and dancing!

Yellow cage, sunshine and new seat

The lovely weather this weekend meant I could get the car out of the garage for a change and a good opportunity to take a few photos for a change.

First item to notice is that we have changed over to using the 13" rear wheels, party cost, partly aesthetics and this is the main part of my next test in a weeks time.
From the front here you can see the newly painted yellow roll cage. This a throw back to the Fury which could be stopped from a distance because of the yellow cage, so John suggested we do the same for the new car. So, we did. Well John did!
The next job on the list was to make the final wave of modification to the foam seat so as to provide leg support. In this photo you can see the final shape, giving much better side support for my left leg to help support in the high speed corners when the g-force builds up. Because we are on road legal tyres and are not allowed to run wings, the g-force values are not excessive, during the first test in the new car I realised the without side leg support, my left leg was being pushed to the side quite a bit. Its not an issue to hold it in place but it does increase the time it takes to bring my left back for a quick gearchange or even more importantly some left foot braking. It seems strange to read that back but its surprising how subtle you need to be with these light weight cars and when your cornering at over 100mph, be quick and accurate on the pedals makes quite a difference to the times. After the photo was taken, I finished applying the blue tape covering.

Down at the front left corner of the seat, you can also see on the photo the new Neuros solid state video recorder which is sat (if not fixed) on top of the DL1 data logger. Hopefully I will have the bullet cam before the next outing at the weekend so we can test the plan for improved footage for the 2008 racing season. You can also see the note on the steering wheel to remind me that I have new brake pads installed and that I need to bed these in next weekend. The Ferrodo pads have quite a essay to describe the bedding in process!

One final photograph of the car as it stands as we head to the second pre season test. I hope to have the new air intake design and colour scheme in place following this test and then we should be ready for the first race of the season. When is that again, oh yes just 5 weeks time (or 24 days)!