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The goal is to get the car ready for the Silverstone trackday on the 10th of February and I still have a number of items on my now famous list that need doing. On the plus side the car is starting to look like a race car but it is still missing some vital parts. One of which being the shocks, luckily Nitron call just before the end of January to let me know that my shocks are ready for collection. A quick trip to Whitney and I’m the proud owner of nice set of very posh looking shocks, it’s almost a shame to fit them to the car. Alas that is what I bought them for so I set about putting them on the car which went reasonably smoothly for a change. With the shocks on we put the body work on and roll it out of the garage for the first time in almost 3 months. It was a bit of a special occasion to see it in the daylight again after all our hard work. With all the fluids back in the car I am keen to make sure all the new dials work on the new dashboard. I start the car and the rev counter refuses to move, darn! however all the others are working perfectly so I guess 2 out of 3 isn’t bad. I give Elliot Design a call and explain the problem, they are pretty sure they know what the problem is and ask me to send it back. Fair play to Elliot as I had had the new tacho back within 2 days and back on the car. I push the starter button and the rev counter….well at this point I want to say it bursts into life…however although it does move it only goes upto 3000rpm then it stops. Back on the phone to Elliot who are very apologetic, more discussion we discover that the coils on my engine might be the problem as they are a high power version. Elliot despatch a brand new tacho to me that will hopefully work with my coils. It arrives on Saturday morning and I am crossing everything in anticipation that this one will work. I get it fitted into the car and this time run a dedicated wire from the coil to it instead of using the ECU triggers just to be sure. I punch the starter …. what happens? the engine refuses to start! Argh!!! I must have upset someone in a past life. I take the plugs out which are soaked, I gamble that it could be plugs and pop down to my local bike shop to find they have just sold the last of the plugs I need….I am sure you’ve had one of these days as well. I order a new set plugs so I can get the engine started and test this tacho before Silverstone, which is now less that 5 days away. One of the last things to do is to setup the car’s suspension. As luck would have it there is a small motorsport company based less than 2 miles from my door step. With a quick phone call to Neil Cox at Corinium Motorsport I was booked in. Justin and I get the car loaded up on the trailer and I cart it to the other side of town to Neil’s. Neil runs a couple of Radical SR3’s so is no stranger to Radicals and their quirks. The car is booked in for the day and I hang around to help out and learn what I can from Neil. Neil starts by doing a complete check of the car, while doing this he discovers a ¼" hair line crack in one of the rear shock mounts, probably the result of a off in the cars previous life. A good catch by Neil, I hate to think what would have happened if that had let go on track! Neil sets about repairing the mount and also reinforcing the other side "just in case" this of course delays the setup of the car. We run into a second day working on the car but things are starting to come together, by lunchtime the car is done! I am able to notice a difference just by pushing the car around, I can’t wait to try it on track.
The new plugs arrive on the Tuesday and I get them fitted. Crossing my fingers as I press the starter button. The engine exploded into life, in my excitement I fail to notice the tacho also bursting into life. I get some heat into the engine and give it a couple of blips to make sure the tacho goes over 3k rpm and it does…result! Thanks to Elliot for some great customer service!! Ok, we are ready for Silverstone….I can’t wait.
Friday the 10th and we are at Silverstone, the weather is very cold but dry which is perfect. We get the car unloaded and set ourselves up in the garage with BMC members Simon & Martin Clemow driving their Lotus Seven and Dave Edwards in his Elise. Justin and Barry also came up to help in the pit and generally give me abuse. Soon after we are unpacked we are informed that we are in McLaren’s garage…it was very nice with its marble floor...wonder if it’ll help my laptimes though. The first session of the day is run at max speed of 50mph to allow everyone to see where the track goes and this is my first trip to the Silverstone GP track. We are a bit slow getting the car ready so I just manage to get out in the last couple of minutes of the sighting laps. As soon as I leave the pits the car feels completely different to how it did at Brands back in November. There were no vibrations, knocks or bangs from the wheels and suspension…in fact it was spookily quiet. After two laps the chequered flag comes out to signify the end of sighting laps. I did notice that both the oil and water temps were very low so I set about taping up both radiators in an attempt to the engine up to working temp. The rest of the day is run "open pit lane" so we can come and go as we please, perfect for testing. I take the car out of the pits for the first proper run, I take it nice and easy on the first lap just finding my feet and working out the track. First thing that struck me is how good these Avons work even when cold. They were direct and positive and inspired confidence. Second lap and I start to wind the old girl up a bit, both water and oil temps are coming up and oil pressure is spot on. The car is handling really well, going through Maggots and Becketts is like roller-coaster ride, I just have to think of changing direction and it’s done it. Unlike at Brands I feel a lot happier with the car and what it was doing. I pulled into the pits to adjust the suspension, I went a bit softer all round to see what that did. The car was still handling well but you could feel is was a bit soft now, which is a good sign the suspension is doing it’s job I guess. 4 laps in and I am really enjoying myself now, I come out of Becketts and accelerate down hangar straight, just as I am thinking on braking for Stowe corner the oil pressure light comes on! Oh no!! I scrub off as much speed as possible, dip the clutch and kill the engine at the same time trying to warn the people behind me and getting off the track! That was a fun 10 seconds. I pull onto the slip road and sit and wait for the break down crew. When the breakdown chap arrived we removed the rear body section noticed that the sensor plug had jumped off…phew! Plugged it back on fired it up and trundled back to the pits to a very unconcerned pit crew who asked if I had stopped for a burger half way around. The rest of the day I played with suspension settings and having some fun with the other cars out on track. We packed up around 4pm and I was very happy with the day, the car had stayed together, it was handling really well and I was getting to grips with it. I continued to be impressed with the Avons and their grip in even really cold conditions. I am looking forward to seeing what they are like in the summer. One last major obstacle I needed to get over before lining up on the grid in March, I need to pass my ARDS test. February 23rd is the date, the day starts well with the sun in the sky, but no sooner as I finished my coffee in the Tavern Café at Combe than the sky turned grey and it started to sleet. Oh goody, if Combe wasn’t bad enough in the rain! The driving part of the test was about 20mins on track with a instructor, the snow was falling harder now and conditions weren’t great. The idea of the test is to show that you are capable of driving safely on a racing circuit. You are marked on use of line, cornering, braking, gear changes, observation etc. To my amazement I passed this! The second part was a written exam, the exam paper was split into three parts. The first part was flags and their meanings, you had to score 100% in this otherwise it was a instant fail. The second part was on safety, again 100% was needed. The last section was to test you on how you’d react to a given situation on track i.e. what would you do if the throttle jammed open. This part of the test was multiple choice which made it slightly easier. You were allowed to get two questions wrong on this part but somehow I got them all right…it must have been that extra wheatabix I had for breakfast. So that’s it, I now have a Nation Race B license and zero excuses for not turning up for the first race.
I’ve got a bit of a wait until March 23rd for the official test day at Castle Combe, Neil is also going to be there to help me set the car up for Combe "undulations". Then on the 25th it’s the real thing……*gulp*
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