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Last  on
Curborough, April 27th 2003
A return to a track that I last competed on over 8 years earlier, I'd forgotten most of the layout, so it was a re-learning curve for most of the day. The first left hander was a lot longer than I remembered, and this corner is key in carrying speed in to the rest of the circuit.
Times were as follows:
41.4s 1st practice
40.87s 2nd practice
46.56s 1st timed [torrential rain]
39.39s 2nd timed
The quickest run put me in to 2nd in class (2 starters), finishing behind Les Proctor
Still had gear selection problems. On the first run, as I finished the course, I went for 4th gear, and ended up with 2nd, overrevving the engine. Didn't do any harm though, despite the rev counter reading 8000 +RPM. Glad I fitted ARP rod bolts when I built the engine. I made another adjustment to the gear linkage, and the 2nd run was quicker, but this time I managed 2nd to 5th again (the original problem). For the 1st timed run, it decided to pour with rain just as I was pulling off from the line, and I could get no grip at all in 1st or 2nd gear, so I tiptoed round. Better to finish than risk going off and getting a red flag. Cars setting off behind me went off, so I was justified in my decision.
The 2nd timed run, and again everything came together, I made some good gear changes, and broke the 40second barrier, with a 39.39s, crossing the line at 81MPH. The track had totally dried out from the earlier rain, though as it was cold, there were still some tricky sections to get round. The back of the car felt very loose on the first left hander, and the datalogger shows I was carrying 62MPH round here, pulling over 0.9G of lateral acceleration. It looks like I need to be a lot more committed going round at 70MPH+ to make any impact on the overall time.
For this event I had adjusted the front and rear shock absorbers to make the car more stable under braking, and this appears to have worked, as the car pitches less under hard braking. I'd wound the front shockers 2 turns from zero, and the rears 3 turns from zero. Tyre pressures are still 28psi all round. For the next event I will reduce the pressures to 26psi, and I'm also going to see about reducing the noise from the fuel pump, as when I'm sat in the car it's all I can hear, making it difficult to concentrate before a run.
Here is a track map generated from the DL90 datalogger, which uses GPS technology to track the position, speed etc of the car during each run.
Here is a PDF file with the report that appeared in Nottingham Sports Car Clubs 'Spinoff' magazine, and Loughborough Car Clubs 'Backfire' magazine.
Photographs below were taken from the camcorder footage.
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