Roger Ford Racing

Oulton

2009-05-26T15:28:00.002+01:00

Oulton Park. What a fabulous circuit.

In the name of cost-saving, I'd only booked the 50 minute "Grads Special" testing at lunchtime on Friday. Unfortunately with a couple of incidents that seemed to take forever to clear up, we only ended up getting about 15 laps - in damp weather at that.

I thought this might seriously compromise my qualifying, as others had a lot more practice in better conditions, but I needed have worried. I qualified in seventh place (again), which I was more than happy with. Mind you, the qualifying was incredibly tight, with less than a second covering fourth to seventeenth place. My second-best lap would have left me a lot further down the list.

At the race start, I sat with my clutch close to biting point as usual. Must have been a bit too close, as the car crept forward a foot or two. Then when the lights went off I got a blinding start.

I was in fifth place for much of the race, until Jos threw it off at the Knickebrook chicane, promoting me to fourth. In sight of the podium! I had a few goes at passing Mick Whitehead in front, but he seems to have the widest car in the country and in the end I decided it was safer to stay behind.

The pack spread out mid race, but by the end we'd compressed up again and I finished the race in fourth place, less than four seconds behind the leader, Trev Newman.

I was ecstatic with this placing, but then I discovered I'd been given a ten second penalty for a jump start, which dropped me back to seventh place.

The jump start penalty was fair - it had been a slightly rolling start - but nine times out of ten that would have been forgiven - it's not like I actually went for it before the lights had changed.

Still, seventh place is still pretty respectable, and leaves me in seventh place in the championship.

Oulton video

Next stop Pembrey. Can't wait!

Mallory

2009-05-26T15:12:00.003+01:00

With my previous disappointment at Cadwell, I was hoping to do rather better at Mallory. I've always liked Mallory (on four wheels, I hated it on two, mainly because of the stupid "bus-stop" chicane) and always done pretty well there.

Practice day was actually a track day, so rather full of road BMWs (and, it has to be said, Academy 09 drivers) doing 5mph round the hairpin and blocking many of the potential "legal" overtaking spots. In the end we took to overtaking round Gerrards, but nobody objected.

Ah, Gerrards. What a fantastic corner. Mallory may be short, but frankly if Gerrards was the only corner I'd be happy. Light touch of brakes, sling it in and get on the power. The corner goes on forever, and if you start understeering, then a quick lift brings the back round in classic "lift-off oversteer" style.

Qualifying went pretty well and I finished in a very respectable seventh place.

The race didn't go quite so well. I got bulked a bit at the start, but then managed to take several places back at the hairpin each lap. I love the way people try to protect the inside line into the hairpin, and end up up queueing behind each other as you go sailing down the outside to take the proper line. So this was going pretty well until I came hurtling round Gerrards to find Alan Harber with his brakes on hard. I swerved to miss him, which put me in a spin before I'd even reached the grass. After that I was a passenger, and went into the armco a little further up.

Alan had braked because they'd just put out the red flags after an incident which saw an unconscious Dylan Stanley parked on the racing line just a few yard ahead. Although I couldn't see the red flag from where I was, I had to my shame missed the waved yellow at the post before.

Fortunately my damage was limited to a busted radiator and nosecone. Dylan was fine after waking up, though somehow or other Steve "Shuntie" Humphreys managed to break his arm in the same race.

Video of the start until my crash here.

Cadwell

2009-05-26T15:06:00.002+01:00

Cadwell didn't go that well. My cunning plan didn't work for a variety of reasons - like me forgetting to put the memory card back in the datalogger. Cadwell's full of slow corners, which I don't really like, and in qualifying I was over-driving through most of them and sliding way too much on the exits. Qualified a disappointing 16th, and given that it was Cadwell and overtaking is near impossible, finished very little better in 14th.

Silverstone

2009-04-23T22:17:00.002+01:00

Quick report from Silverstone (since Cadwell is nearly on us).

Rather disappointed with my qualifying - 12th for the first race and 13th for the second. Couldn't get a tow early on then spent a while swapping places with Andy Molsom, which probably didn't do either of us any favours.

Last year I got a bit carried away early on, and overtook a huge bunch of people up the inside into the complex, then lost it and took several people out (I'm sorry to say). This year I was determined not to do this, which meant I always tried to take the outside line into the complex. Probably not a great idea - I don't think I ever managed to pass anyone that way, but certainly got passed myself.

Got punted off the track early on in the first race - I think the culprit just lost control a bit on the brakes rather than deliberately shoving me off - but lost me a couple of places. Gradually worked my way back up and finished in a pretty creditable 7th place. Exactly where I was hoping to be, as it happens. Maybe next time I'll hope for a bit more...

The first race was really clean, but I'm afraid I can't say that about the second race. Another driver seemed to be driving very aggressively, and I had to take evasive action on more than one occasion, costing me multiple places each time. I finished the race in 11th place, and I have to say I was not a happy bunny. When most of the drivers are behaving like real gentlemen, and making sure there's plenty of room for the cars around them, it's sad when one person doesn't. Fortunately there was no serious contact (at least none I was involved in!) and at least I finished one place higher than my qualifying position.

Current championship position: 8th.

Cadwell single-header coming up this weekend. I have a cunning plan for Saturday testing. The grads organised a one-hour "grads exclusive" session at 5pm, but I've also booked the morning sessions. If all goes well, the datalogger works and the weather holds, I will get some logger info in the morning, ponder over it in the afternoon and figure out what I should be doing different (driving faster, probably) then put that into practice in the evening session.

Cadwell's tricky because it's so hard to overtake - it's a really narrow track. So a good qualifying position is vital. Traditionally that's not my strong point, I'm generally better at racing than qualifying. But I shall do my best.

Oh, and the wheels point in a straight line now, which it seems they didn't at Silverstone. Thanks to DPR Motorsport for sorting that issue out.

Brands Hatch - Pre Season Test Day

2009-03-14T18:53:00.007Z

We're doing Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit in August. Not much chance to test there as there are so few GP days available. So the Grads arranged their pre-season "shakedown" track day there. Nice circuit, shame about the price - an eye-popping £315 at full price. Fortunately I was able to take advantage of BookaTrack's "Double Glazing Sales Technique" (nice one, Charlie!) and got if for £290.

£290 for six 20 minute sessions - so the two I missed cost me £96. Missed because I was too enthusiastic prepping the car, and pressure-washed the engine with Gunk. Failed to clean it out properly so ended up with gunky-water down the plug holes. For some reason it was fine in the first session, but wouldn't rev over 5K in the second. Cleaning that out improved things but it still wasn't fixed properly so I missed the next session too. Chris had just discovered his battery was stone dead (first time the car had come off the trailer since Spa!) so off he went to the Caterham factory, down the road at Dartford. He picked up a set of plugs (£40 - ouch) and fortunately that sorted it.

Got to play a bit with the new datalogger. I can see it could be a useful tool, but it's going to require quite a bit of time to (a) learn how to use the analysis software and (b) to actually study the results. I think it really needs a two-day test session, so you can analyse the results after day one, and test out any resulting theories on day two. No chance of that happening, though!

I also have another secret weapon - a tame shrink! An old friend is doing a masters degree in psychology, focusing on improving race performance. He was looking for a ~~victim~~ subject to work with, and I volunteered. Not sure whether it'll do any good, but the price was right...

That's a bit tidier!

2009-02-27T22:56:00.001Z

Let's hope it all holds together on the track.

OMG what I have I done LOL ROFL

2009-02-17T23:10:00.003Z

(Just trying to attract a younger audience with the title. Don't suppose it'll work. I probably need to learn to completely mis-spell stuff for that).

If it's working...

Shortly after the Brands day, ex-Supergrad Ian Northern put his DL1 / Dash2 datalogger and dash combination up for sale. It was a bargain - slightly less than the full price of the datalogger for the pair of them. I can never resist a bargain, even though they usually turn out to be much less of a bargain than I'd (ahem) bargained for.

I bought it, then looked at the four million wires coming out of the dash. And contemplated my wiring skills. And put the dash up for sale with the hope of ending up with a very cheap datalogger. But having done that, and spent a lot of time on the net finding out about the dash, I decided I really did want to keep the thing after all.

So I've spent hours and hours (including half a day with my brother, who's somewhat more competent at this sort of thing than me, being an electrical engineer by training), cutting splicing and wiring under the dash. The old dash panel had to be attacked with drill and tinsnips to cut enough space to mount the new device, and a special mounting plate had to be made up.

At the moment, it looks like an absolute nightmare:

But hopefully I can tidy that up and get it moderately reliable.

I *know* that some of those connections are going to fail. But at least I wired it up, so I should be able to fix it myself. And as far as I can figure out, whatever fails should lose me instrumentation only. I might have to do qualifying without lap times, or race without a shift light, but it shouldn't prevent anything from working.

I hope...

2009 Season Approaches...

2009-01-26T15:36:00.003Z

Went to Brands on Friday. A chap from Blatchat had bought a day with Lotus on Track. It was cheap anyway at £99 (well, it is February), but he was selling for just £75. Couldn't resist that ... until I got to the track and it was chucking it down.

Morning wasn't a lot of fun - I spent much of my time sitting in the tow car doing some work (thank heavens for Mobile Internet). But by lunchtime the rain had pretty much stopped. The track was still wet, which made for some fun slidey-slidey action, but without the "I can't see a thing - where does the track go?" that you get when it's actually raining.

The only nasty bit was the bottom of Paddock Hill, which had enough water down to cause aquaplaning. The far left of the track was unusuable - the middle was OK as long as you went straight across it and didn't try to steer.

Talking of Paddock Hill, they've made some changes. There used to be a huge concrete apron over the kerb, which many people used to consider as normal part of the track. Now they've dug that up, and there's only a couple of feet of concrete before the gravel trap. Go "four wheels off" and you'll be in the gravel. Seems like a good idea to stop the cheats, but I do wonder if it'll lead to loads more stoppages to drag people out of the gravel. Seems directly contrary to what they've been doing at Spa - where most of the gravel traps have been replaced with concrete or tarmac aprons.

Speaking of Spa ... did I mention I won? My first race win on four wheels (indeed, my first podium) . It was all a bit odd, though, and somehow I didn't feel like I properly deserved it. Picture this ...

Qualifying was on a decidedly damp track. I used to hate this, but recently I've come to enjoy it. You can get the car nice and loose, and constantly drive it on the limit. However, I was quite astonished to come back and find that I'd qualified second, just behind Trev (Trev, if you haven't met him, wears a spandex suit with his underpants over the top and a big T on his chest). That was my real achievement.

After that, the race was something of an anticlimax. Trev got involved in an incident at the first corner (the second major incident - the first having happened on the starting grid!) and that left me playing with the Megas and desperately hoping that Paul Turley who qualified third wouldn't catch me up. A 10 minute pace-car session due to the first-lap incidents helped with that, as did a red flag with two laps to go. I could see headlights in my mirrors, so knew he was catching up. Hey ho, I was leading the Supers at the end of the race, and that's what counts. I got a luverly pot, a big bunch of flowers, and a bottle of fizzy "boisson au flavour de vin".

Catching up...

2008-07-19T14:56:00.005+01:00

Oh dear, the blog's getting behind again.

I've missed two reports - Brands, and Silverstone.

Brands was a good round. I spent a lot of the time sparring with Charles Elliott - and you can read a lot about the race on his blog. I finished in sixth place, about six inches behind Hugh Smith.

Silverstone was more mixed - the first race (in the wet) was great, and I finished in fifth place - possibly my best result so far on four wheels. Unfortunately I got a bit carried away for the second race and lost it at Brooklands on the first lap trying to squeeze my way through on the inside. This had the inevitable result of several other cars going off with me - though the worst casualty was Tim GO who rejoined the circuit just as Bill Hombersley stopped in front of him - causing Tim to retire with a bust radiator.

Here's the video of the first lap and the incident, and a still below:

I'd bent a steering arm and a disk. Although I was able to rejoin the race, I was well down the field and seriously impeded by front wheels pointing in different directions and brakes that didn't really brake. I tried my best - perhaps too hard because I ended up spinning again at Brooklands later in the race. I finished just behind Yo (who did a great job of out-dragging me to the line) for a few points.

So one good, one carp. However, that still leaves me in seventh place in the championship before dropped rounds are taken into account, or sixth-equal if we drop the worst three rounds.

Championship 3rd-place podium position is just 9 points ahead of me on the "drop 3" scoring. I know it's unlikely, but I can dream, can't I?

Unfortunately I've not been able to test for the Mallory round - Mallory testing is on Wednesdays, and I couldn't do it for work reasons. To some extent this shouldn't matter - Mallory isn't exactly hard to remember. But on the other hand, last year I qualified in second place, and might have finished in the same position if I hadn't binned it a couple of laps from the end. So it would have been nice to give myself the maximum possible chance for this year. Ah well, we'll see what occurs.

Snetterton report in 60 seconds

2008-06-11T20:24:00.004+01:00

Here goes ...

Snetterton was evilly cold, windy, and mostly wet. What Jan calls "Snetterton Weather".

Nearly totalled it in qualifying when the red flag came out and the guy I was lining up for an overtake saw it before I did and braked when I was six inches from his rear.

Qualified 4th to my amazement. A wet race. Dropped a couple of places in the first lap but was holding 6th until I threw it into the carrot field on lap four.

Recovered, rejoined and worked my way back up to 16th.

Sunday's race - dry, started 6th, finished 8th.

Castle Combe

2008-05-06T21:35:00.006+01:00

Testing (at a Bookatrack track day) was wet. Race day was supposed to be dry, and maybe it would have been if our qualifying session wasn't scheduled for 9am. Ugh.

I knew my qualifying time wasn't great, so I was moderately happy with 13th place. The race wasn't until 1:15, so plenty of time for the track to dry - and it did. The sun came out, and the crowds arrived in droves - I've not raced in front of so many people since the old Brands Hatch "MCN Pound Days". Well done to Castle Combe for, err, whatever it is they do to get so many people through the gate.

You could tell Trev was on pole from the pace of the warmup lap. Hang on, we're supposed to be checking out the green flags as well as warming our tyres!

I got a good start, only to find myself completely blocked by Mike Rowland, who had somehow managed to mislay second gear. I was tempted by the grass, but bottled out - and had to watch a big group of cars sail past on the other side. Eventually I found a gap and moved past Mike - and then managed to get past a couple of cars who were queing up for the inside line round Quary Bend.

First lap video here.

It took me a couple of laps to get into the swing of things, and realise just how fast you can go into Camp on a dry track. I was down in 15th place by then, but gradually climbed back up to 10th, and fought Oliver Benjamin for 10th and 11th place. Then things started to go downhill. With Oliver in the lead, Mike Rowland reappeared (presumably having found his second hear) and stuck himself between us. Then Richard Curry did the same. Although I had no problems keeping up with them, I just couldn't get a pass to stick. I'd go for it, bottle out, and lose time which I'd then have to catch up again.

I dropped to 13th and only climbed back a couple of places when Ben Rockey and Chris Rome got a little too intimate on lap 12.

In the final lap Tim GO appeared, having spun on the first lap and rejoined dead last. He'd made his way up through the field, setting and then breaking lap records as he went. I hoped to hold him off, but he got past at Tower and I had little chance of fighting back.

That left me in 12th place, just one up from my qualifying position. A little disappointing, but at least I finished the race in one piece once again.

And the good news is that consistency counts - I'm currently in fourth place in the Supergrads championship! I have few illusions that it will last - once the table starts showing dropped rounds I'm sure I'll be well down, but it's nice while it's there.

Pre-Combe

2008-05-02T09:50:00.002+01:00

Castle Combe this weekend - Bank Holiday Monday. We were there on Wednesday for a Bookatrack track day, but it was wet pretty much all day. It looked like it was going to be dry for the first session after lunch, but lunch got extended by half an hour, and just before we were due out, it started bucketing down.

I'm not over-confident for Monday. Combe is a fast circuit, and I'm never quick without a decent amount of practice. There were several other test days, most of which were dry, so drivers who picked a different day for testing are bound to be more dialled-in (assuming that qualifying is dry, of course).

Just got this months credit-card bill for the racing account. £897, to be paid out of the regular £750 that goes into the fund each month. Hmm. That settles the question of whether I'm camping or staying in a hotel Sunday night then!

Early start Monday - qualifying is at 9 o'clock. So I'd better be careful on the booze Sunday evening.

Rockingham - 2008 Round 2

2008-04-24T19:39:00.004+01:00

So it's the second meeting of 2008, and this time it's Rockingham. Hardly my favourite circuit, impressive though the track and facilities are. But there was no way I was going to miss a round after Oulton, so I paid up some vast sum for a day of practice and a day of racing at the sadly-underused Midlands circuit.

Practice went pretty well. I was clearly slower than the top guys - especially Tim Go - but consistently maintained a slight edge over friend and rival Charles Elliot.

Come qualifying, I was a bit off my practice time until Ed Benson came past. I got a tow off him, and that knocked half a second off my time. I qualified 10th, which I was very happy with. Charles wasn't quite so happy with 14th.

So race time. The usual interminable delays, but eventually we're out on track, warmup laps completed. Something went wrong at the start - I think I was waiting for the red to go to green rather than just go off. Stupid, as that hasn't been the case for years. Either way, there was that crucial fraction of a second which ruined my usual good start. In the end it didn't seem to matter to much. I'd been worried about the first corner, but managed to get a clear line round the outside and ended up in ninth - with Charles in front, he having got a blinding start.

The racing was really close. The nine of us were all bunched up close and I'm sure it was the same behind. There were a few accidental nudges, but in general everyone seemed to be driving very fairly, with nobody trying to squeeze anyone and leaving space where necessary. I made contact with Gareth Thomas after I went round the inside at the hairpin, and was looking in my mirror for him and completely failed to realise he was right alongside as I tried to move across. Fortunately no damage to either party.

I followed Charles for much of the race. I screwed up badly on one lap in the crucial chicane before the long banked straight. Forced by traffic to drop to second, I bounced off the rev limiter and then stupidly tried to go straight into fourth. The engine bogged and I lost one place and a big gap appeared between me and Charles. I gradually caught back up, and was eventually able to get past with a lunge into the centre hairpin. Not sure I'd have tried it with many drivers, but I trusted Charles not to turn into me. You're just too nice for your own good, Charlie :) :)

By this time the group had spread out somewhat, and I had my work cut out to get any further.
On the final lap, I managed to get a get a great tow around the banking, and managed to get up behind Trev and another car at the entrance to the hairpin. I knew from watching Trev's qualifying race (it's a long story!) that he favoured the outside line at the hairpin, and figured he'd miscalculated and had that line blocked. I went for the inside, and made it through. The next corner was under yellows, and I then managed to hold Trev off to the end of the race.

I'd finished sixth! I was ecstatic about that, and particularly pleased to have beaten Trev.

Unfortunately, that elation was brought down with a thump when it turned out the hairpin had been under a yellow flag as well. I confess that with several cars around me and a tricky overtake to contemplate, I hadn't seen the flag at all.

Trev was not pleased, as I and someone else had gone past him, losing him two points, which as a championship contender he could ill-afford to lose. There was much to-ing and fro-ing with the Clerk of the Course. In the end, myself and the other driver received written repremands and two points on our licences - based on our own "confessions" rather than any actual evidence. The Clerk refused to alter the finishing positions, even though we did ask that Trev be given his places back.

But now the case for the defence.

The "Blue Book" says that you may not overtake between the post where the yellow flag is first displayed, and the following post where a green flag is displayed. Therefore, if you haven't yet come alongside the flag, it must still be legal to overtake. By the time we passed the post where the flag was displayed, my nosecone would have been in front of Trevs. Thererfore, one might argue I was leading at that point, and no illegal overtake took place.

It's not much of a defence - I hadn't even seen the flag, and Trev was clearly (in retrospect) waving his hand to warn us there was a yellow flag and we shouldn't overtake.

Meanwhile, the other driver now thinks that the flag wasn't actually being "shown" in any case - that it just being held ready to put out if necessary - but I'm not convinced.

Anyhow, I'd rather have taken seventh or eighth place completely fairly, but the results say I was sixth and that's what we have to go with. I just hope it doesn't make a difference to either my or Trev's championship positions at the end of the year.

It doesn't make any difference to the current championship rankings - and I'm rather surprised and very pleased to see that I'm in fifth place. Let's hope this short run of good luck turns into a long one.

Meanwhile the race was won by Tim GO, his first podium and his first win. I have a feeling we'll be seeing a few more of those this year. Jos Sibbert was second, and David Shaw third. The full results are here.

2008 First Race - Oulton Park

2008-04-20T22:35:00.002+01:00

The rain in Spain may well fall mainly on the plain. In the North of England it seems to concentrate on Oulton Park.

Actually it did tease us a bit with some dry periods, but come our race it was bucketing down.

Off we went, at a cracking pace. I could barely see the car in front and had to really steel my nerves just to drive fast enough to keep it in view. There was standing water everywhere and I just didn't feel I could go any faster. And that was just the warm-up laps.

The visibility was appalling. I'd taken all the precautions I could - Rain-X'd windscreen, contact lenses rather than glasses, and a chamois-sponge to wipe the inside of the screen. But nevertheless we had to brake by faith and circuit knowledge rather than being able to see the corner ahead.

I think most of us considered pulling out after the warmup laps (two, in wet conditions). Some did so. Others were sure the race would be scrapped, but lined up on the startline in case that had some effect on the points. But no - the race was on.

I did my best. The usual policy of "stay on the track and wait for enough people to fall off in front" was working quite well. Chris Rome was driving better than me, and overtook me into Knickerbrook. I was almost holding onto him until he decided not to bother with the Knickerbrook chicane a couple of laps later, which gave him a couple of seconds and put him well out of reach.

I concentrated on staying on, and keeping ahead of Andy Skinner, who I could see approaching - but still some way back.

The conditions were actually improving by now, and some dryer lines appearing. I was beginning to enjoy myself, but I couldn't help feeling rather relieved when Martin Kay parked his car in the deep gravel at Druids, causing a red flag. It does seem daft that one car in the gravel at the slipperiest corner of the track can stop the race, but that's the way it is. As we were over half-distance, the race was declared, and the "count back" mechanism meant the official race was a mere three laps long.

I'd qualified ninth, and made up one place to finish eighth. I was happy just to have finished in one piece, and extremely happy to get eighth.

Oulton had been pretty miserable up until that point. We'd been huddled under awnings in the pouring rain and howling wind, and I'd been thinking "it's cost me about three grand to be here - why?". But after the race it somehow all seemed worth it. I'd raced, the car had survived, and I was in the top ten. I couldn't wait for Rockingham.

So much for that...

2008-04-20T22:19:00.002+01:00

Well, it wasn't quite "that's it for the season" but it was close. After all that prep, loads of things went wrong, culminating with me trying a desperate overtake, and getting squeezed off the track and into a tyrewall at high speed. Not a lot else went right with the season either - although I survived all the carnage at Donington I only did so by driving like a wuss. Then at Angelsey, some valve components made a bid for freedom. My brother was heroic, driving half way across the country and back to get me a head, but the car was well down on power which screwed up the next couple of meetings. My high point was Mallory, where I qualified third and made it up to second place in the race - only to bin it at Gerrards with a couple of laps to go. Then at Spa I had severe braking problems (eventually traced to a seized bias adjuster - basically I had no rear brakes at all).

Maybe you can see why I haven't been over-keen to keep the blog up-to-date.

2008 wasn't looking too good either when my front suspension collapsed on the Oulton pre-season track day, launching myself and a rather surprised passenger into the tyres at Druids (fortunately he's an Isle of Man TT Racer, so rather hard to scare). That made two-grand dent in the finances before I'd even started. Fortunately, it starts to get better after that.

2007 Prep - anticipation builds

2007-04-11T15:28:00.000+01:00

It's Wednesday 11th April. Tomorrow I'll be heading of for South Wales and the first meeting of the year at Pembrey Circuit. I can't wait.

The car's looking resplendent in it's new decals, and I've even polished the bonnet - the ali was getting very scummy. I think I've done everything that I can possibly think of that needs doing on it - though no doubt something will occur to me at the last moment, just as I'm about to head for scrutineering or qualifying.

I've never been to Pembrey in the car, though I did it several times on the bikes. I remember it as the "best ex-airfield" circuit - lacking in the third dimension, it's not as good as Brands, Cadwell or Oulton, but beats the socks off the likes of Silverstone and Snetterton. Let's hope it'll be as much fun in the car.

I desperately hope I'll be posting here on Sunday or Monday to say what a great time I had, and how I didn't crash into anything. Let's hope it won't be "well that's it for the season" just yet!

Oops

2006-10-11T21:46:00.000+01:00

I could see Taffy coming at me, but didn't move my hands off the wheel. Stupid. My hand hurt afterwards, but I figured it was just a bit sprained. I've broken my wrist before, so I know what that feels like. Definitely just a sprain...

Only it got worse rather than better. So today I figured I'd better get it looked at. One X-ray later and it seems I have a fracture of the first proximal phalanx. Or thumb, as it's sometimes known. It's only a tiny fracture, where the ligament joins the bone, but it definitely is fractured. They've given me a wrist/thumb brace, but don't seem inclined to do much more about it. "It'll hurt, take some pain killers if you need them and it'll heal up eventually". Umm, OK.

Spa Quick report

2006-10-08T23:48:00.000+01:00

Great weekend at Spa. I qualified fifth in class, much better than expected after such a long time off. In race one I span at the final corner on the last lap, and collected Glyn Davies in a nasty frontal impact - captured on video here.

Race two I was rather further back due to a crap second qualifying time, but got a belter of a start. All was going well until Keith Pennington biffed me off the track at the first proper corner (Les Combes), leaving me to rejoin dead last. Had a fun race overtaking loads of people, and made it up to seventh place before red flags put an end to play. Unfortunately the countback to the previous lap deprived me of the last three overtakes, so I was only credited with tenth.

The Aftermath ... and finances

2006-09-05T19:28:00.000+01:00

When I was racing bikes, I had no children and the Internet Boom was happening. As my bike racing costs rose, so did the shares given to me by my employer. I was never really short of money, in spite of spending upwards of 30 grand on the sport in the year I won the Bemsee 250 Championship.

These days, with two kids and my partner no longer working - and no more share schemes as computer companies retrench and cut costs - things are a bit tighter. Unfortunately things came to a head, and I had to take out my first loan for nearly 20 years, shortly before I crashed at Cadwell.

There was no chance of paying McMillan to the work, as I had last year after my expensive Snett crash. But my friends were great, and Trev, Charles and Chris all rallied round to help out. I did most of the basic strip-down myself, until we got to the "engine-out" stage. Then the guys, and my brother, all came round for an "engine out and barbecue" party. A great time was had by all, and the engine was removed, together with everything else that still needed to come off.

The chassis went to Arch, who were (and I guess still are) struggling somewhat as Caterham had told them they wouldn't be making any more chassis after April, but they still were due to the apparent inability of Caged to start production of the new metric robot-welded chassis. Hence it took them a couple of weeks or so. Then we had the boys around again for a rebuild barbecue - and then I went off to the US with work, then on holiday, etc.

Knockhill or Thruxton might have been possibilities for my return to the track, but I really couldn't be arsed to drive all the way to Knockhill for one race in the pouring rain at nine o'clock in the morning (as it turned out). And I wasn't over keen on Thruxton with no test day to get back into things.

So my return will be for the final, glorious (we hope) meeting at Spa in October.

So what happened at Cadwell then?

2006-09-05T18:49:00.000+01:00

For the simple answer, check this video.

Now for some reflections...

It's often said that "a race is not won or lost in the first corner". That's undoubtedly true. However, it's also true that when there's a line of people queuing-up for the first corner, should you take a creative line through, you can sometimes overtake four or five people. Overtaking that number of people later in the race is likely to take as many laps to achieve. It can be the difference between making it to the rear of the front pack in the first lap, and seeing the front pack disappear as you make your way through the midfield in the first few laps.

For people who qualify well, this probably doesn't matter. But I rarely do, so I'm always keen to take maximum advantage of opportunities early in the race.

Hence it was that when I saw a spinner at Coppice, my thoughts were along the lines of "great, that will have slowed down the people on his side of the track, we can get through on the left and get a clean getaway".

Sadly, it wasn't to be. The guy in front of me (and it was so long ago I've forgotten who he was) obviously had a better sense of self-preservation than me, and braked much harder than I expected as he approached the incident. Not being prepared for this, I had to swerve to avoid hitting him in the rear.

At this point I got screwed by my bike racing past. I could easily have swerved left onto the grass to miss him. But on a bike, you touch the grass and you're down - or worse you keep going totally out of control until you hit the tyre wall. So all my instincts told me the grass was out of bounds - and I swerved right - hitting Charlie and Jamie and eventually causing the carnage you can see on the video.

There were lots of recriminations and accusations of "Supers being crazy" after this. I kept my head down. Was it all my fault? No. Was I a factor in the crash? Certainly.

Charlie's car was a real mess. He got hit front and rear, and it did a huge amount of damage. Jamie's wasn't that much better. In the circumstances, I got away quite lightly. My chassis was badly bent at the front, but it hadn't trashed too much else.

Lazy zod

2006-09-05T18:40:00.000+01:00

I've rightly been getting some grief from the the Grads forum for not updating my blog ever since I crashed my car big time at Cadwell.

There's actually a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, I wasn't feeling too good about my part in the incident, and wasn't sure I wanted to share those feelings. Secondly, I've ... umm ... been playing Battlefield 2 in all the spare time that I might have been writing blog entries. What a sad git.

So it's about time I created a few entries I reckon.

Snetterton 28/29th April 2006

2006-05-16T19:41:00.000+01:00

Testing

Just one week on from Silverstone and we're out again at Snetterton. I thought Silverstone was bleak and windswept, but when we got to Snett on the test day there was a howling gale. I'd missed the first half of the testday, due to a problem with a hospital appointment and someone from MSV who was confused about their refund policy ... but let's not go there. So only two 50 minute sessions - oh, wait a minute, they've reduced them to 45 without telling us. Allow for the inevitable stoppages, and the fact that my front right wing kept making a bid for freedom, and I doubt I got more than 40 laps in the whole day. Should be enough - after all I'm no stranger to the track - but I'm a slow learner and like to get a full day's practice in to get my confidence up to full boost.

Qualifying (full details from MST)

Snett's a long-ish circuit, but with 41 cars on track it wasn't exactly easy to get a clear track ahead. It was pot-luck, really. Some people got balked the whole time, others got enough space for maybe one or two good laps. My only decent one was the very last. And it wasn't that decent - 1:23.25 was only good enough for 13th place on the grid - 0.89 seconds off Andrew Ennis's pole.

Charles and Chris were well down the grid - Charles still getting his head together after his roll at Silverstone, and Chris with his engine rather poorly. Fellow 2004 Academy Bods and Northern Gits Jamie Bashall and James Sykes were in impressive 4th and 5th positions respectively.

Race One

Race Video (48MB Streaming Windows Video)

Bit of a race of attrition, this one. The video only shows about half the race, because the cameras came loose half way through and started bouncing around in the boot (oops). Memorable moments were Toby locking up his brakes on the first lap and nearly broadsiding me, and John Parker being so determined to outbrake me into Riches that he forgot to take the corner. Had some great scraps with JP earlier on, and James Sykes and pole-man Andrew Ennis later on. I made some decent progress through conventional overtakes, but to be honest most ground was made up by simply staying on the track while most of the people in front of me didn't.

I'd made it up to 6th place by the penultimate lap. Then David Shaw spun off, and I was able to get past James to make it to 4th place by the end. Yee-hah (as I understand they say in the colonies) what a result. My best result yet.

The race was won by Andrew Vickers, with Charlie Hunt and Andrew Fletcher close behind.

Race Two

In bike races, grid position for race two is generally taken from the finishing position in race one. Sadly that's not the case for us, and having only got one decent lap in qualifying, I was back down to 17th place on the grid for race two.

A good start was essential. Unfortunately I had Toby in front of me. Toby's a pretty quick driver, but seems incapable of getting a decent start. True to form, he stuttered away and I just avoided driving into the back of him. Somehow, though, he must have got past me, because I was treated to a grandstand view of him and John Parker tangling wheels and spinning off together at Corams. Finding a gap to dive through was tricky, but I managed not to get involved.

It was never going to be easy to make up the places needed to get a result like Saturdays, but I made sure it wasn't going to happen by spinning off at Riches. The race was fairly spread out by then so I only lost a couple of places, but I'd lost a lot of time and any hope of catching up the front runners. My excuse is that my tyres were going off, and had I fitted some new tyres I'm sure I could have won the race (yeah, right...)

Trevor Newman won the race, from Charlie Hunt and Andrew Ennis. But Trev had managed to avoid Russels chicane completely on one of the laps, gaining two seconds, a demotion of two positions, and three points on his licence. Probably not worth it, I guess! I came in 12th.

But here's the good bit - I'm in third place in the championship! OK, it's not really real - the only reason I'm up there is because I've scored points in all the rounds, and they're not yet counting "dropped rounds" in the table. But still, the fact that I've finished all four races is quite an improvement over my previous years' form.

Cadwell is next, 28th May. I've got new tyres fitted and raring to go, and this time I'm going to do a full day's practice. Cadwell is really tough for overtaking because it's so narrow. That means qualifying is critical, so I need to really get my proper "race head" on for qualifying - something I've been lacking a bit in the past. But I really can't wait to try!

Silverstone 22nd April 2006

2006-04-25T21:01:00.000+01:00

Race Video (130MB Streaming Windows Video)

Dodge(m) City

Ah, Silverstone. Britain's premiere race track, home of the British Grand Prix. But when we go there, a desolate wind-swept wasteland: surrounded by massive grandstands, all of them closed.

I couldn't make the Friday test day, so had to go up for a three-hour open pitlane session on Thursday instead. Unfortunately it was wet (and VERY slippery) all afternoon. Most other people got to test Friday when the weather was great.

Qualifying

So no dry practice before qualifying, but never mind. Get out there and drive hard from the word go - hopefully by the end of the session you'll get some speed. Sadly not to be. When I first went out, the engine wouldn't rev past 5,000 rpm. It gradually improved, but it wasn't until the last two or three laps that it would pull cleanly all the way through the rev range. Afterwards Andy Mac diagnosed water down the spark-plug recesses - and sure enough he was right. Note to self - when leaving car parked in race paddock for two days in rain storms then check those resesses! My best lap left me in a lowly 21st position on the grid. To add insult to injury, my best mates Chris and Charles qualified in impressive third and sixth positions respectively. Ah well, get a good start and see how it goes...

Race

Well, that didn't work either. With the red lights on I found myself pulling forward, so I dipped the clutch to re-find the bite point - just as the lights went off. Damn! No chance of gaining a bunch of places from the start then.

I shan't go through a blow-by-blow account of the race, but it was really intense. 39 cars on the grid (even though we were told Silverstone could only take 38 - what are you up to, BARC?) - and they're mostly very closely matched, in terms of driver ability as well as car performance. We were three or four abreast much of the time, and overtaking was really tough. I was gratified to find myself catching up with third-place qualifier Chris Rome, but then less pleased when I realised he seemed to be having power problems.

At one point there was a big incident and I could see a car right up in the air. I concentrated on avoiding the wreckage and didn't think much more about it for the moment.

Wings were coming off everywhere. I had a big thump at one point which knocked the car sideways, but fortunately it didn't seem to do any damage.

Later in the race I managed to get past Trevor Newman. He's a novice from last year's Academy, but he qualified and finished second at Combe. I reckoned I was on to beat him until he made a brilliant lunge up the inside at the final corner when I was being held up by a sliding Mark Gregory.

Finished in 14th place. Not as good as I'd hoped, but a reasonable five places up from qualifying.

It wasn't until some time after the end that I realised Charles wasn't with us. The reasons for this will be clear from his blog.

Now only a week before the double-header at Snetterton. Amazingly, it looks like Charles's car will be ready in time for it. Chris, myself and Trev are heading for the dyno on Wednesday night to see whether their cars are really down on power as they claim, or whether they were just driving like wusses.

Castle Combe 25 March 2006

2006-03-27T21:28:00.000+01:00

Rain fails to stop play

Well, what a start to the season. It bucketed down. The day had started with blue skies and sunshine, but gradually deteriorated. Being the last race of the day, we got the worst of it in the Supers. Could barely see a thing when anyone was close in front.

I got a fantastic start, sailing down the outside of the extra wide grid as everyone else scrabbled for grip. Headed up into Avon Rise to see a car sideways in front of me (I think it was pole position man Simon Powell). I slowed to try to decide where he was going and then managed to get across in front of him. As I passed there was a sickening crunch as Ben Rockey failed to avoid him. You can (almost) see it in my rear view video here.

I was up from 16th to 7th place by the time, and overtook Chris Rome (probably under red flags, as it happened, but I couldn't see them for Chris's spray) to get into 6th - only to see the red flags out at the next marshals' post.

At the restart I got another good start and then ran a steady race. A couple of pretty serious slides, but fortunately both ended with me pointing in pretty much the right direction. A few dropped out in front and I made it to seventh place, before Eddie Benson reeled me in and dropped me to 8th by the end.

I was really suffering with visibility - I had to run the whole race with my visor up - otherwise I couldn't see a thing. I'm going to spend some serious time with screen cleaner and Rain-X before the next round.

No humans were harmed during the course of our race, but some of the cars were looking pretty secondhand. I hope the drivers are able to sort them out in time for the next round at Silverstone on 22nd April.

A blog?

2005-12-27T22:44:00.000Z

Yes, my website's been getting out of date. I like writing race reports, but the effort of putting together all the HTML and publishing the pages and videos got too much. So I was starting to fall behind. Haven't even written a report for Spa, which was a truly epic event.

My website was started back in 1995, before Bill Gates had even figured out the Internet existed. I guess it's time it had an overhaul and an injection of modern technology. So here we are with a Blogger.com powered blog.

Now, I wonder how I put in video links...