The Start of 2009

So the 2009 racing season is nearly upon us.......

This is a strange time for club racers. The new season is matching towards us but with a few months still to go, some are frantic in the garage with new builds whilst others are trying to piece together their cars from the winter rebuilds and any major maintenance (Like Adrian, see image!). Its also cold and the short days meaning its often time in the garage wrapped up and with fan heaters on!

For us its a little different this year. We have a new car being build and an existing car in the garage. Its seems unlikely we will have the new S3 in time for the first race of the season at Snetterton, or if we do it will be before we are able to do any meaningful testing.

Because of that, we have decided to keep the existing S2 which we ran last year quite successfully. We will run that for the first few races whist we get the new car through some shakedowns and some basic setup work.

That means that we need to get the new car ready, whilst Brian works on the new car. Mostly this means we are looking at general start of season preparation.

For 2009, we have a couple of regulation changes that we need to make modifications to the current car to meet.

The new regs include the need for a front low level toe eye so that the marshals don't have to use the roll cage to pull a car out of the gravel trap. Honestly I think this is a sensible choice, especially with a mid engined car with a low front as it will help to stop the car from burying itself into the gravel trap. John has busy making up an attachment after making up a template the completely changing the design after viewing the way in which its been implemented on the S3.
The second change to the regs is all together less sensible. In fact its absolutely stupid and just adds cost without any benefits. From 2009 onwards we now have to run a Cat converter on the race cars. Even engines back to the 90's with carbs, running in class C, have to have them attached! So we are working out how to fit one on. Of course the cat contents could well disintegrate very quickly with the overfuelled exhaust gasses and have no advantage to the environment at all. On that point, the fuel and emissions of racing are so insignificant compared with that of the traveling to and from the race meetings as to be laughable. Lets just tell people they are not allowed to use their cars, motorhomes to travel on recreation. That means you cant drive to the park, to the sea side, car boot sale, golf club, gym, football etc etc.

The other items on the list are just the normal maintenance activities for the start of the season. At the weekend we progressed the following:

• Brake pads - fronts replaced and waiting for brake fluid replacement
• Wishbones inspected and front near side swapped with spare
• We found a few suspension spherical bearings that are a bit stiff so they have been replaced.
• I removed the rear bulkhead panels so I that we can get to and replace the fuel filters. With the panel off we can also clean up the engine bay a bit more and check all of the exhaust bolts etc.
• Oil drained so I can do the filter and fresh oil. Cracked testing all completed and all results were clear.

We had a minor set back last week when I did a precautionary check of the spark plugs and one did not come out cleanly. Thankfully Andy Bates came to the rescue once again and was able to clean up the thread so once we collect it from his tomorrow we can finish off any remaining items. When the order from DT comes back we can refit the fuel filters and plug it all back together again.