I can’t believe that we are in March already, the first race of the season is only 3 weeks away. After the successful run at Silverstone last month I am very happy with the car but before the first race I decide to do a complete spanner check on it and also get the engine serviced. A friend, Joe, from Peter Hammond Motorcycles in Cirencester is doing the engine prep for me this season. At the moment the engine is running well so it’s just a tappet and carb balancing session needed. Joe sets about checking all the timing and discovers that 3 out of the 4 exhaust valves are very tight. Its times like these you are happy you "just checked". It took a few days for the new shims to arrive so the engine didn’t go back together until the weekend before the race. That Sunday the engine was finished off, the carbs balanced and everything else on the car was checked through. On the Thursday before the race I had a afternoon test session booked at the track. To help me get the car setup I’ve asked Neil from Corinium Motorsport to come along and give a hand.
Thursday before race day and Justin and I set off to Combe with the Radical. Neil meets us there and we set about setting up for the afternoons testing. This will be the first time I’ve been at Combe with the Radical so I am feeling a little apprehensive about it. The first session out we leave the car as it was from Silverstone, however just pulling out of the pits I realise that the car is a very nervous on the famous bumps of Castle Combe. I always knew that Combe was a bumpy circuit but in the Elise it wasn’t never a problem, with the lightweight Radical they were very much a problem. After about 10 laps I come in, lap times started around 1.22 and slowly came down to 1.18’s. However I was working really hard just to keep the car on the track. Tyre temps and pressures were all checked and they were working well so we turning to the adjustable Nitron shock absorbers to gain some control of the car. For the next couple of session we softened the car up…a lot! Soon the car was riding the bumps properly and I wasn’t having to hang on as much. However one thing did become apparent, Combe is a very physical track, the amount of energy I needed to get the car around the track seemed to a lot more than either Brands or Silverstone. This was starting to take it out of me a little bit now and I was having to do less laps. I am sure the strong winds that day weren’t helping as I my head was having to fight that and the g-force at the same time. The only last thing to do was stop the car getting nervous on the brakes, this turned out to be a brake bias problem and a few clicks to the front had that sorted a treat. The last session I went out and the times came down to 1.14 dead which I was happy with. There is still a lot of time to be made up but I was exhausted now and continuing today probably wouldn’t do me any favours.
So that’s it, the car is ready to run on Saturday and I’m really looking forward to it. The car is running very well and its handling like I want it to so I am confident that we can get a good result.
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