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MIRA Sprint, May 29th 2004
Well, yet another superb days motorsport at the MIRA test track. During the week prior to the event, we'd replaced the two rod ends with stronger M14 items, again made by FLURO, which to be honest we should have fitted first time round. I rebuilt the suspension on the Friday afternoon, and was quite looking forwards to MIRA the next day. When we arrived at 07:30 it looked like rain, and sure enough the rain started as we unloaded the car, and throughout the morning we had more than our fair share of water dropped on the track. The first practice run was very slow, with wipers on and very poor visibility. 2nd practice run the track was wet with a dry line appearing, and I went 6 seconds faster. Then the clouds started clearing, and the sun broke through, and gradually the track started drying.
After lunch, on my first timed run, I pushed hard round the first corner in 3rd gear, then changed up in to 4th, then 5th, and just kept the throttle pedal flat to the floor. The track straightens, then bends to the left again in to another constant radius corner, and it really is just a case of keeping your foot in, and holding on. I recorded 101 MPH through the speed trap approaching the control tower. Crossing the line with a new PB of 57.84s (last years PB was 60.30s). I was very pleased. The B&M (part no #45096) gear selector is just amazing. I don't know how I'd coped with the old Ford shifter. Its such an improvement, and a modification I simply cannot praise highly enough. Anyway, on to the second timed run at around 4PM, and I lined up behind Bernard Armitage in his Mk2 Thundersaloon Escort, determined not to be totally outclassed by this awesome piece of machinery, I pushed much harder round the first corner, snatched 4th, then 5th and again, holding full throttle along the straight and all the way round sweeping long left hander, I recorded 105 MPH through the speed trap, and knocked another 0.73 seconds off my time, recording a new PB of 57.13s.
That's almost 3.2 seconds faster than last year, and again its all down to the modifications we've made to the car over the winter. There was an ex-Fiesta Challenge Mk2 XR2 at the event, with a 1900 CVH engine, that the owner said was producing around 160BHP, and he claimed it weighed 650KG, which is 100KG lighter than mine. Anyway, it was going to be interesting to see how our two Fiesta XR2's compared. His Mk2 was prepared using a dipped and blasted shell, and had additional roll cage tubing throughout the car, to increase rigidity, and was running 13" slicks. So you can imagine my delight when, on his 2nd and fasted timed run, he recorded 96MPH through the speed trap, with an ET of 58.01s. This little old Fiesta of mine is starting to disgrace supposedly quicker machinery, on road tyres. Thats an awesome achievement.
Times were as follows:
70s 1st practice (rain)
64s 2nd practice (wet track)
57.84s 1st timed
57.13s 2nd timed (New Personal Best)
Result: 3rd in class.
Weather: Wet and windy in the morning, turning warm, dry, sunny, with some cloud later in the afternoon, approx 20° C
Tyre pressures were 21.5psi all round.
Tyres: Yokohama A032R all round
Rear anti-roll bar was on the 2nd softest setting. (5x stiffer than standard ARB).
Front shock absorbers MAX-2
No cameras allowed at MIRA, so no event photo's I'm afraid
Here is a PDF file with the report that appeared in Nottingham Sports Car Clubs 'Spinoff' magazine, and Loughborough Car Clubs 'Backfire' magazine.
RaceTechnology DL90 datalogger from both competitive runs. (Files are in Race Technology's own .run format, for use with DL90 software)
Timed run 1 [175 KB]
Timed run 2 [trimmed] [90 KB]
If you have difficulty downloading the .run files, simply right click on each link, and choose Save As. Then open the file from within the DL90 software.
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