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Castle Combe - 24th March 2008 Well here we are again, a new season and Castle Combe is still as cold as it normally is. In fact I was half expecting to see an inch of snow when I got up in the morning, luckily (I think it’s lucky) it was only raining. A quick recap on what I’ve done to the car over the past few months, well to be honest not a lot. I’ve given the engine refresh, thank to Neil at Corinium Motorsport for helping me with this and supplying the gearbox parts. I’ve also fitted a new set of front brake calipers, replacing the aging Wilwoods with Hi-Spec ones. The new callipers also allow me to up the disc diameter buy 20mm which will hopefully help with the modulation of the brakes. I took the car to Mech Motorsport in Cheltenham on the Thursday before the meeting to run the engine in and make sure everything was ok. I had also changed the exhaust cam timing slightly so wanted to know if that would make any difference. The engine went well but was about 8bhp down on power, but this might just be the difference between this rolling road and the one I used last year at Emerald. The torque was still the same at a very healthy 116ft/lbs but it was now almost a 1000rpm high up the rev range. Of course looking at the graph you can only take a guess on how the engine will drive, so I was looking forward to trying it and seeing if the change in curve would make any difference. Add a nice new set of Avons and I am ready for the start of the season. We arrive at a very cold and very busy Castle Combe, it takes a while to find somewhere to park. This season we are bunking up with Corinium Motorsport, Neil is running a very trick Radical SR3 fitted with a 2 litre Ford Duratec under the bonnet in the GT’s this year. It was going to be a long day as qualifying wasn’t until 11:40am and the race was at 4.20pm. This meant we had plenty of time to get things organised. As usual Justin and Barry were helping me out in the paddock. The car was ready to go so it was just a waiting game until we were called up for qualifying. This is the first time I’ve driven the car since last October so it was a bit of a shock to start with but I soon got into the grove. The first couple of laps I bedded in the new brakes and scrubbed the tyres in. Everything was feeling good so I started to wind the wick up to see if I could remember how to dive the car. The first thing I noticed was you can feel the rush of torque now it is higher up the rev range. It also allowed me to run a lower gear in corners and still punch out of them, with the old engine I had to be a gear higher to ensure I was near the peak torque this meant it was slightly slower accelerating because of the higher gearing. The car was starting to fly and it was feeling great, the harder I pushed the better the car felt. The new brakes were fantastic allowing me to brake later and harder than before gave me huge amounts of confidence. Last year my best time all season was a 1:07.1 so this was my target for this year. Imagine my surprise as I glance down at my lap timer and its showing 1:06.7! At this moment I glance at the dials and my oil temp gauge is flashing at me so I back off in an attempt to all the oil to cool down. As the day was so cold I had taped up the rads to keep the heat in, as it was the tape was being a bit too efficient so I shot into the pits and the boys removed it. I managed to get another lap in and was straight back down to the low 7’s. So I had broken my PB in the first 6 laps of the season and plonked me 5th on the grid. The places in front of me were occupied by 2 and 3 litre cars which have at least 70 horse power advantage over my car. Quick check over on the car before the race revealed a small oil leak but it wasn’t something I was to concerned about. The weather was still dry so slicks it was. The call came for us to move to the holding area, on driving the car I thought the brake pedal felt a bit hard but didn’t think any more about it. Soon we were on the formation lap and that hard pedal was in fact a problem. Whenever I breathed on the pedal the front brakes would lock, I spend the entire formation lap playing with the brake bias to try and improve the situation but nothing worked. As I passed the pit entrance I thought to myself should I go in? fortunately my brain doesn’t work that fast and by the time I had decided no I had already passed the entrance. I take my spot up on the grid and great ready for the lights. The lights came on then off and I dropped the clutch and instead of my usual catapult start the rear lit up, I assume this is down to the new position of the torque. Finally I was making some forward momentum and was along side the Norma (2.0L Honda powered prototype sport scar) but I was on the grass side and eventually had to bail out when we got to folly corner and this cost me some time and a couple of cars go past. Up over Avon Rise and I was mindful that my brakes weren’t working properly so I took it easy here, I didn’t want to be responsible for ruining someone else’s race. The next couple of laps were a learning experience, the fronts were locking all the time but I discovered if I barely touched them I could just about modulate the braking force. Now I had this sussed it was time to chase down Norman in his Radical Prosport, it took me a lap to catch him but his car is much faster than last year and he made me work for the place. Ironically I got him on the brakes going into Bobbies, just stopping the car when I on my own was a challenge but out braking another car was “entertaining”. The gentleman racer that Norm is he gave me a couple of feet to get past and I was off. Next on the hit list was Neil’s new car driven by Dave Williams. Well I had to beat my “team mate” didn’t I! After about 6 laps I started to make some progress on Dave. My brakes still weren’t working properly so I was braking a bit earlier than normal so at least I’d have a cushion should everything go completely pear shaped. I finally get onto the tail of Dave and get him going into Tower. The remainder of the race was a quite one for me, but the car was working well (apart from the brakes) so I just concentrated on putting the laps together. I had a few back markers to deal with, one in particular doesn’t seem to be able to use his mirrors so he got a bit of a rude awakening when I went around the outside of him at Quarry. I finally cross the line in 5th place, again the cars in front were the 2 and 3.5litre cars so I was happy with that. Biggest shock came when the timing sheets were published, my best lap was a 1:06.1, a whole second quicker than my PB from last year. So for the next race I am going to disconnect my brakes completely, reckon I’ll get a 1:05 no problem! The car survived quite well but the oil leak was a lot worse, however Barry spotted the culprit which was my new dip stick. So a modification of this is needed before the next meeting but I’ve got 5 weeks now to get that sorted. Oh and I guess I better get the brakes sorted out, most likely culprit is a duff master cylinder so I’ll replace that and see where we are then. Thanks to everyone that came to support me, I think I had the biggest entourage in the paddock by some margin!
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