Testing – 27th April 2012
As ever, I’d booked a day’s testing before the race weekend. As ever, I’d ended up staying up until the wee small hours packing the car with all the stuff needed for a race weekend and loading the car on the trailer. So, when I got up at 6am to go down to Brands, looked out of the window and saw leaden skies and horizontal rain, it really was quite an easy decision to go back to bed again. So, once again, I missed the first session of the day.
I did make it in time for the second session, however. Just in time for the massive cloudburst which drenched the circuit, the FuryRacer and me just before the session started. I got back from signing on, having left the car outside, to find a good 2 inches of rainwater sitting in the bottom of the seat, into which I then had to lower myself. I was at this point seriously wondering why I was doing this, as it obviously wasn’t fun.
Things got rather better once I was on track. OK, so as usual AO48Rs in the wet, on a light RGB car, aren’t a recipe for an excess of grip. Particularly as I was on my dry tyres, which are virtually bald. But it was good fun slithering around. The bottom of Paddock Hill was a small lagoon, there were rivers running across the track at the exit of Graham Hill, Surtees and Clearways, and the whole track was gleaming wet. Slow but good fun. The second test session (as ever when it’s wet) had quite a few red flags, so the session got divided up into segments. The only event of any note during the wet session was one of the times I overtook Bob. Having got past him on the way into Surtees, I then promptly binned it and slid sideways along the track. Happily Bob missed me, but then he does have a reasonable amount of practice in avoiding spinning Brommers…
In the two afternoon sessions the track was dry – in fact, it was positively warm and sunny and all rather pleasant. I fitted my old wet tyres in an effort to give them a good heat cycle to try and restore them to life – if the weather on Saturday was as bad as anticipated then the extra water-shedding capacity of the wets might prove useful, even if they are rather old. I certainly didn’t fancy using my almost-bald dry tyres in the wet again. In the afternoon sessions the car felt really good, apart from the brakes, which are still rubbish. Spectators at the side of the track, such as Tim and Progers, said it look as though I was giving the Furyracer a good run for its money, drifting the car through Paddock Hill. Unfortunately, while this was no doubt true, the lap times weren’t actually that fast – mid 53s, which was the same as last year. The fact I was running 2-year old wet tyres in the dry probably contributed, but to go faster I really need to sort the brakes out.
Anyway, the car ran perfectly, the Panhard rod didn’t fall off, and I certainly felt I was driving the car reasonably well.
Qualifying – 28th April 2012
Not much to report here really – it was the usual Brands qualifying with lots of cars and not much track. Oh, and it was wet. Not soaking wet like it had been on Friday morning, but there was still plenty of standing water even if, towards the end of the session, a dry line did start to appear. I suspect I didn’t really make the most of the drying track, but I ended up qualifying 20th for both races and pretty much where I’d expect to be on the grid at the moment.
Race 1 – 28th April 2012
If my races at Silverstone were enjoyable but a bit dull, Brands was a total contrast. Dull it most certainly was not. I got a reasonable start, but still got passed by a couple of people. Then I started working my way back to where I’d started from, with cars off the track to the left and right in various places. I got overtaken on three occasions by cars which then promptly span in front of me, including Tim (who’d spun at the beginning of the race) who span on the last corner of the last lap and went into the pitwall. Happily no real damage was done as a result. Another of the pass-then-spin brigade was one of the Spire GTRs which span in front of me coming out of Clearways, and as it went round the bonnet popped up and fell off. It definitely hadn’t hit anything (you can see that from the video) which is a bit odd.
Anyway, I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and decided, given the vast lakes of standing water and the constant rain, that I’d play it safe and dry within myself and the car. Given the number of cars going off left right and centre I still think that was a pretty fine plan. Net result was that I finished up in my usual position, 6th in class, which this time equated to 15th overall. My best lap was a 1:12, which to put it in context is about walking pace…
Here’s the video – edited highlights as ever, but with everyone falling off all the time there wasn’t that much I could leave out.
Race 2 – 29th April 2012
My plan to do a 70 mile bike ride on Sunday morning was hampered slightly by the severe weather warnings, or at least by the weather which justified those warnings. Once again, the view from a quick look out of the window (40 foot tall tree at 45 degrees, the rain falling at the same angle, and the trees being smashed around in the gusty wind) made going straight back to bed the only sensible option. I did manage to get a 35 mile ride in, getting absolutely soaked in the process, so felt quite virtuous by the time I arrived in the paddock clad head to toe in Nomex.
Unlike the first race, the weather was glorious for the second race. Sunny, warm, and by the time we went out the track was pretty much dry everywhere except for a strip of water on the exit of Clearways. After the usual action at the beginning of the race, I ended up in a Colin sandwich – Colin Chapman behind me in his BDN, and Colin Spicer ahead of me in his Fury. I was keeping pace nicely with ColinS, and although ColinC was closing up rapidly under braking I wasn’t finding it too hard to stay ahead of him. However, ColinC got up very close under braking into Druids and I didn’t really fight for the position. In hindsight that was a mistake, as ColinC definitely didn’t pull away from me with any great speed. Eventually we both got past ColinS, when he went wide at Graham Hill and missed a gear shift coming out of Clearways. And that’s the way I suspect it would have stayed, but for the fact that my car started to run out of fuel (Doh!) and wouldn’t pull cleanly out of the corners. As a result, and not wanting to run out completely, I ended up having to coast for the last 2 laps, which allowed ColinS to get back past me.
Good racing though, and good fun – pity about the fuel shortage. Here’s some more video:
At Brands I picked up some new suspension components from Fury Sportscars, part of my plan to rebuild the front suspension and rear braking systems over the summer break. Things are already not going to plan, but I’ll deal with that in a separate post.