Cadwell Park - 20th July - PBMW rounds 7 & 8

Cadwell was another first for me having never visited the circuit before, I had concerns about the width of the track in a few places but after a few laps this was all forgotten as the circuit is great.

Prior to the weekend the rear shocks had been sent back to GAZ and shortened to eliminate the bottoming out, this seams to have done the trick, Nice to see some forward progress after several annoying outings.

We did the test day on Friday and although we had a little under steer the car generally felt good, Come the qualifying we ended up on the back of the grid, I think mostly down to using worn tyres, still had plenty of tread but past their best.

A quick trip to the kwik fit van for a pair of fronts both cured the understeer and improved the pace slightly for race 1. Unfortunately they only had 2 tyres left.

Between Races 1 and 2 Ben Woodcock took the class win in Project 8 Racing saloons (sure he won't tell the grand children it was first of 1!)

By the time race 2 came round we'd located a second pair of new tyres for the rear. I got a reasonable start getting passed a car or 2 but on the second lap whilst trying to make up some time to the cars in front there was a sudden loss of power and a very poorly sounding engine.

We're not sure what cause the failure, either over revving the engine and the valve head eventually coming off or if the bearing failed, either way it's pretty safe today number 6 is past it's best so the hunt for a new engine starts. 

But we did at least get a picture of the car in the programe

Some Progress on the E36 M3

Whilst trying to sort out the E30 Handling the E36 M3 build has been a little neglected.

Since the Last Production BMW round at oulton the rear shocks have gone back to gaz and with great efficiency were rebuilt and shortened, New Performance friction front pads fitted and pagid rears. Only thing that might be an issue is that I'm starting to suspect  the chap who built the car may have left the master cylinder from the drum braked shell in place which might send to much pressure to the rear brakes but that can be looked at another day.

With the E30 ready for Cadwell Park attention turned to the E36 over the last couple of days the remaining parts of the wiring loom were removed and the fuel tank taken out which involved removing the exhaust and dropping the prop shaft down.

This now means that bar removing the front and rear screens, adding some bonnet pins and possibly doing something with the sunroof the car is ready to be sent to Custom cages for a multi point cage

North Weald Autosolo - 30th June 2013

Ever since marshalling at an autosolo in 2010 I'd been keen to have a go but for some reason until this year I'd never quite found the time.

Seeing the tyres on my 996 GT3 looking well past their best I thought the north weald event run by sevenoaks motor club was the perfect excuse to enter my first autosolo before replacing the tyres.

The format is similar to a sprint but slower and much tighter. I knew the GT3 wasn't really the ideal tool for the job but with just under 400bhp and no traction control 2 things were certain. Firstly over steer and secondly fun.

In total 4 different courses were set up the best two times from each course were added together to give the total time at the end. I managed to take a wrong route on the first run of each course just to back things more difficult. I think I managed to come 10th in class out of 22 with the top runners being in more nimble MX5's.

Great fun event and very good value for anyone looking to try some affordable Motorsport as no license or safety gear is required just £20 to join the club and £35 entry fee for the day.

Oulton Park - 15th June - PBMW rounds 5 & 6

Having had a complete disaster last year at Oulton by heading out for qualifying without ever having been to the track, and then subsequently throwing the car in the gravel on lap 2, which unluckily snapped the cam belt, we thought it wise to do the Friday test day.

As I share the car we each did 2 30 minute test sessions unfortunately both of mine were wet and very early in the second someone managed to crack a sump on one of the curbs and cover the next part of the track in oil.

Qualifying took place on a drying track, but unfortunately on my last lap I encountered 2 cars that had spun which slowed me slightly, not sure it would have made any difference to me starting towards the back.

Race one was an eventful start with a number of cars in front being involved in an  accident, went on to finish down in 22nd place after being held up a little towards the end.

Started Race 2 in 22nd place, had a good start and made it past a few cars, Also had a few of the faster cars which had retired due to the first race accident come past. Another fun battle chasing Rob Cooper until he spun and then trying to stay in front after he recovered.

Still suffering with the rear shock bottoming out but hoping this will be solved for Cadwell Park in a few weeks.

Brands Hatch Indy - 5th June - Trackday

After the disappointing day on the Grand Prix circuit in May we went home and after much head scratching traced the issue the rear suspension, Initially changed the rear springs from 300lb to 250lb in an attempt to soften the rear. However whilst doing this the real issue became apparent. The bump stops which had been provided were thick enough to restrict the rear suspension movement.

we cut down the rear bump stops, raised the rear ride height by 10mm and adjusted the shocks in order to get sufficient suspension movement before heading off to Brands hatch for a trackday.

by the end of the first lap it was quite apparent that we'd made significant improvements to the car and the only corner we felt the suspension was still causing an issue was at surtees , later in the day raising the rear a further 5mm seamed to improve this.

Now can look forward to the next rounds at Oulton Park.

Brands Hatch GP - 12th April 2013 - PBMW Rounds 3 &4

Reflecting on the weekend a couple of days after and I think the only positive thing I say take away is that a few worthwhile lessons were learned.

Firstly even though Friday testing was restricted to indy circuit we should have done it just to check all was well with the car. Unfortunately jury service had meant that I couldn't do the test day on the GP circuit the week before so qualifying was always going to be compromised.

Secondly don't change / upgrade major suspension components or settings and just assume it will be better, I cannot believe how differently the car drove.

Unfortunately the car sustained a little damage to the rear quarter on the Saturday when being driven by Ben Woodcock in the P8RS race, a some what unnecessary and desperate dive up the inside by another driver has left us with a reasonable bill for fixing the car, annoyingly no attempt to wander over and apologize was made which in my opinion was more annoying than the move itself.

Come Sunday that was all put behind me as I was looking forward to my first chance to drive the Grand Prix circuit at Brands Hatch, The first few laps of qualifying was just about learning the circuit by about the 5th lap I was just about starting to get to grips with the GP loop and was looking like getting a more reasonable time when coming across Steve Murphy stranded upside down in a gravel trap on the GP loop, quite rightly the red flags were out seconds later but this meant what I'm sure would have been a better lap wasn't finished.

Speaking to people about suspension settings before the first race we set the shocks to 12 rear and 9 front which seams to be a reasonable place to be, however come the race it was quickly apparent that the shocks, in particular the rears were far to hard, we struggled with a little understeer followed by pretty bad oversteer, ending in a spin at Paddock Hill.

Ended up finishing 2nd to last which was my worse result to date.

Before race 2 we softened the suspension taking it down to 5 on the rear and 6 on the front, results were slightly better and had a couple of fun battles at the back of the field. Still went away slightly disappointed but I guess that's just the way it goes some days.

A little research is needed in order to look into the suspension settings and at least 1 trackday and testday prior to the next round at Oulton Park, fingers crossed that we can start to improve.

A few ungrades for Brands Hatch

Following a reasonable run at Snetterton I felt it was time to look at suspension options, The set up I've always run up until now was a spax RSX kit with inboard rear springs. I've always felt there was better options out there but stuck with them for the first year.

One option was to rebuild the spax as they'd done 2 years racing, however after chatting to a few people in the paddock I was offered a set of Gaz Gold full coilovers.

Also added a new set of Pagid discs (kept the Pagid RS29 pads) as the old one's had terrible vibration at Snetterton, and new front wheel bearings.

The first test will be on the Brands Hatch GP circuit this weekend so fingers crossed there's some improvement over the old set up, otherwise I'll have to find another excuse for not moving up the field.