Rounds 2 and 3 Videos from Brands Hatch

Race 1 in-car Video footage.

Race 2 in-car Video footage

2011 Rounds 2 and 3 - Brands Hatch

Rounds 2 and 3 for 2011 were held at Brands Hatch.

Between Mallory and Brands, we raised the rear spoiler and reclined it a little. The aim is to get a little more rear grip but without too much added drag.

A good qualify session, with a lap time of 50.68 giving us 3rd on the grid overall and first in class.

We qualified 0.6sec under the previous class lap record in 3rd place, 0.1 behind Paul and 0.7 behind John, both of which are in the Mid Engined class. My nearest competitor was Al in 5th with a lap time of 51.36.

I had a reasonable start but got blocked behind Tim Pell and Al went around the outside of me at the hairpin. It took me a few laps to get past Al, up the inside at Clearways when he had a little slide, and a few more to get on the back of Tim and Past.

His car has a ZX12 engine with more low down pulling power so it was a challenge to get close but I could brake later and run a faster corner entry.

Up front there was a race long battle between Paul and John.

I was able to pull away from Al and Tim but I had lost too much time on the leading pair so I had to settle for 3rd overall and a class win, 15 seconds behind 2nd, 6 seconds ahead of 4th and 7 seconds ahead of the next car in my class. Along with that we had an extra point for fastest lap, which also happened to be a new lap record of 50.89sec.

In the second race, we had a clear run to another class win. There was a single lap where I was able to keep in front of Paul but he passed on the main straight and I settled into keeping both John and Paul in my sights for most of the race. There was an almost race long battle between John and Paul again, only ended when John retired with bent suspension. Paul went onto win and I came in 2nd overall, 7 seconds behind and 12 seconds ahead of Al, my closest class F competitor. So we left Brands with 2x16points and another lap record :)

So we now lead the 2011 championship with 47 points, Paul is in second with 43 and John in third with 30. Austen, the second placed class F competitor has 28 points also.

2011- Round1 - Mallory

Our first round for 2011 was an unglamorous visit to Mallory Park.

The car was not substantially different to last year, with the exception of some tweaks to the rear setup and ride hight. The car felt good straight away, with sability through Gerrards and great traction out of the hairpin. In fact after a couple of laps, I was able to get full throttle in 1st out of the hairpin without any wheel spin.
Our qualify time was really good, a nice margin back to the next class F car of Duncan (0.52sec), not far behind the leading 3 mid engined cars and well under the previous lap record with an average speed of 100.89mph)

Our race came around at the end of the day when the rain had decided to make an appearance. I had thought it would dry out but it didnt which left us with a compromised setup which was not good enough for the wet conditions. We had too much roll stiffness which was a problem through the quick and long Gerrards corner which is where most the lap time comes from. From my bad start, I slotted into 6th place, just behind Paul. Matt had a problem with slowing into the Hairpin a few laps into the race leaving me following Paul and Gary.

I did manage to get past Paul for a short time but the car just did not have the grip level that he had and he was soon back past. Looking at his post race video, he had about half the effort that I required to keep the car on the track around Gerrards! (You can just about see the steering angle in the top photo!)

We had enough pace to keep with the two Contours in touch but my bad start meant I was out of touch with Duncan and without the pace to catch him up. In the latter stages of the race, Gary had a spin at the hairpin and Duncan hit the wall on the start finish straight. Thankfully I kept it in the track which meant I finished 3rd overall and first in class for some solid 15 points with which to start the season.

Pre-season testing

Our pre-season testing outing at Snetterton was to learn the new layout along with a shakedown and a test for some new suspension setups



The circuit is brilliant and as discussed with Jonathan Palmer afterwards, the new corum is a great corner to do brake bias setup. The shakedown test proved worthwhile as it highlighted a crack in a weld on the fuel tank that we had subsequently repaired. We went to test some suspension changes to work on improving traction so that we can start to compete with the mid engined class cars. We proved we could go quite far in that direction without intoducing too much understeer.

Following the test, we backed off the suspension setup a little to give more front bite and consistency as well as our first ever corner weight session with the Fury!

As we spent most of the winter repairing bodywork when we expected to be able to replace with new parts, the developments we had planned will now be released during the season,

From Dereks RGB Racing Blog

The default setup was ready for Mallory, followed by a slight tweak to the aero for Brands and Snetterton. We hope to have a second, more substantial, change to the aero and resulting suspension setup following that. Whether that can coincide with new rear bodywork and the weight reduction that will give us is yet unclear.

With suspension that can travel it's full range, anti-roll bars that do not foul anything, replaced rod end bearings and a decent setup that works in conjunction wih the aero setup, we now have a fury that has some good pace. If only we can get the excess weight out!

2011Update 1

A quick update before some full reports on our start to the 2011 RGB season.

Car for this year is a development of the fisher fury we started with last year. During 2010 we were able to develop the car from the rear of the grid to one capable of ending the year with 2 class wins and a new Oulton Park lap record.

This year, with a simplified class structure of those with the engine at the front (class F) and those that are mid or rear engined (class R), we will be racing the front engined cars, mostly with similar 1ltr engines. Our engine is a 2005 Honda cbr1000rr, well tried and tested with good torque but about 10 to 15hp down on the new bread of 1ltr engines that are being used by the majority of the field.

Our focus for the year is to continue to develop the pace of the car, specifically by focusing on weight reduction and improved aero and see how close we can get to the pace of the leading class R cars.

Mallory - Final round for 2009

Not very much to report for Mallory.

We had a good qualify session despite the wet conditions. The revised front splitter worked well, the car being more stable than the last time we came here and requiring much less effort to extract performance..

I had a good start and a good run into the first corner then disaster.

No drive and lots of smoke!

I pulled over and coasted to pit entrance to find the clutch basket had exploded. I spent the next 15mins watching the rest of the race from the pits with both John and Paul getting past a slowing Steve to go on and finish in that order. Steve came in at the end with his brakes binding and smoke pouring out but because he finished and I did not, he gets the 2009 Class A championship.

Congratulations to John for the race win and the Class B championship.

Silverstone and Snetterton Rounds

Silverstone

At Silverstone we had the addition of a small new front splitter and the bikesports race had been opened up to include RGB which gave us a good opportunity to do some setup testing. I used the Bikesports qualify session to get used to the track and check the balance of the car ready for the RGB qualify which netted us Pole. For the Bikesports race itself, we added some rake to the car to give better front end grip and I played around with the front ARB a little to get a good balance ready for the RGB race. I also had a little bit of fun running with the leading bikesports drivers and then backed off to save the car and so that I did not get in the way of their race.

For the RGB race itself, starting from pole, I managed an average get away from the line, keeping in front of Paul who was second on the grid but dropped behind the ever fast starting Steve as he came up the inside. Steve entered the first turn a little too hot and I was able to get a better exit and past him before turn 2.

I thought I was a little hot entering second turn myself, only to see Paul coming flying past the entry to the corner behind me. Further back in the pack there was a coming together of a number of cars which brought out the red flags. On the re-start it was obvious the this had included David in the BDN S2 which was a big disappointment as he had been showing good pace. The restart was better and I had a clean run for the first lap in the lead. As I came around for the end of the second lap, I could see that Paul had pulled off before he had past the start/finish line for the first time. After a handful of laps I could see a decent lap back to Steve in 2nd place, put in a quick spurt to try for a lap record and then settled into looking after the car, keeping it smooth and seeing if the new additions to the car were making much difference.

The rest of the race was uneventful, returning yet another race win with fastest lap and a new lap record.

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Snetterton

For Snetterton we had a newly designed front splitter.

The data logging showed that we were not getting an increase in front downforce from the splitter design at Silverstone. It would seem that the improved front end grip at Silverstone was resulting from the rake increase we dialed in. This makes sense as its only the first corner at Silverstone that is at any decent speed and I needed to pitch the car in whilst the weight was on the front and the increased rake enabled the weight to stay there long enough for me to get to the apex and hit the power. All of the other corners are either slow or entered under braking and therefore hiding any lift from the front body design.

Again we used the Bikesports race to do some setup with the new front splitter, mainly to test a reduction in rake. We had a good battle until the 3rd place Bikesports driver was taking a few too many risks for me to want to stay close. I then dropped back and pulled in early so we were ready for the RGB Race.

In the race itself, which was televised, I had a good start, lead into the first corner and concentrated on a good first lap to pull out a lead. By the end of the back straight, Paul had passed Steve for second place and from then on all I could see if Paul behind. The gap back to Paul gradually increased from around 2 seconds on lap 3 to nearly 5 by lap 10. We then came up to lap Phil who was dropping oil.

As I came down towards Russels behind a Neil Palmer, we both slid on the oil, with Neil missed the chicane and went over the grass.

I lifted to let Neil re-join the track ahead of me to reduce the risk of being hit, letting Paul reduce the gap down to less than 2 seconds. The last lap was uneventful and I crossed the line for another win, fastest lap and lap record.

The new BDN S3 has been very impressive since its Launch in June.

We go into the last race of the season with an unexpected chance to get the Class A championship. So far with this new car we have completed 7 races with 100% reliability, 6 race wins (1 spin caused by me!) and 4 new lap records! As long as we stay ahead of Steve at Mallory, we can get the Class A championship despite the non finish at Brands and not entering the 2nd Brands race or the two races at Cadwell.

Following Mallory next weekend the car will morph into a new configuration for 2010, more of that later.