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Inspection

On Friday I removed the seat belts for replacement, and the fuel cell cover, to inspect the fuel tanks behind the drivers seat, and I cant find anything damaged in the impact. The front wing 2nd elements have been posted off to DJ for them to shorten and build up the replacement wing.

I have checked wether it is possible for the left foot to press the throttle pedal when braking, and no it isnt. But there is a 90 degree side step on the right edge of the throttle pedal, meant to prevent your foot from sliding off, that I may have pressed. I guess we'll never know.

I'm still in considerable discomfort, especially my stomach, I dont think I've any broken ribs, but out of 10 the pain is a solid 9 if I inhale/exhale, so I dont plan on getting back in to the car again soon. I must have done far more damage to myself than I initially thought. My season is over, and I'll aim to repair and test ready for 2025.

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Cleaning the car

Hoovering all the grass and grit from the car, and inspecting the seat belts, suspension mounts etc.

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Setting the brake and throttle fuel cuts

Low and behold, the ECU can prevent you from accelerating if you press the throttle and brake at the same time, by cutting fuel. This video explains all.

Note: The values in the table are just an illustration.

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Data deep dive

Here is an honest assessment of what happened on the lead up to the crash at Mallory. There were a combination of things working against me, one of which was the throttle pedal being pressed at the same time I was braking! Watch the 15 minute video below to allow me to explain.

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Inspection begins

I spent a good hour outside in the garage today, to establish if there was any serious damage to the chassis from the 13G impact, and it all appears to be ok. No cracks that I can see, just a few broken cable ties that located a couple of items. I hoovered all the grass and mud and stones from the side pods and the cockpit, and then had a look for any damage to the belts. They do appear to have stretched, most noticably on the shoulder strap buckles behind the drivers seat; there are loops of belt which have appeared around the buckles, but the belts are meant to stretch in a big impact, and therefore they are going to be replaced. The crutch and lap belts look to be ok, but they'll also be replaced.

The belts I am using are Sabelt Steel Formula Mid 6 points, in black.

The primary reason for all the bruising and damage to my thighs has to be the location of the metal buckles on both lap belts. They're there to ensure the belts are easily adjusted. My lap belts were always difficult to push in to the buckle (a bit of timber gained over christmas cant be helped); I couldn't have pulled the lap belts any tighter; however, with hindsight, using a lap belt with adjusters probably wasn't such a great idea. The metal adjuster mechanisms sit against my thighs/hips, so in the impact they were bound to cause injuries.

The only alternative is to use the type of lap belt that requires the bolts that hold the belts to the chassis rails, to be loosened, to allow the belts to be adjusted, which is a PITA to do sat in the car, and once adjusted, the bolts have to be done up again to stop the belts from moving. That means you cant make rapid adjustments for say when, a driver swap takes place.

The replacement belts wont have quick adjusters on them. Lesson learnt.



The brake pedal looks to have survived the impact and the 100bar of brake pressure generated didnt burst any of the pipes or fittings, despite them being badly damaged on the front near side wishbone. I will replace both front lines.

The brake pedal looks ok, as does the throttle and clutch pedals, however the steering wheel took a large impact and needs pulling straight again on the left hand side.

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Spectator video of the crash

If you havent already seen the impact, there's several videos of it on youtube, from different vantage points. I am now in the process of creating a video explaining what happened and the results, which will be available on youtube in the coming week. I do have onboard video, which I have supplied to Motorsport UK. The video taken by Pescara Productions was also taken as evidence by the Stewards and is also now with MSUK. I am hoping something positive will come from this accident, improving track safety and reducing risks is a very high priority for the organising body.

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Slow recovery

I've never had such bad bruises before; both my hips are black and blue, my back is still causing me grief, but I am able to get around the house, and sit at my desk and work, for short periods. The bruising on my hips, is caused by the six point belts, as are the bruises inside my thighs. I have other bruises on my legs, caused by making contact with the tubular steel chassis. My left forearm is also very badly injured; on the trip home from the circuit, a golf ball sized bump suddenly appeared on my forearm, which I treated by placing a bottle of iced water against it. But only since about Wednesday the bruising on my arm really started to appear, and its very painful to rest on that arm when I'm typing.

I am getting prices for parts, which were destroyed in the impact with the armco. The SM153 front wing is no longer made by DJ, they have a new wing which is even more powerful, and deeper, and needs mounting 100mm off the ground; but I cant use it as the aero balance will be upset and I'd be spending half the year sorting that out. They have very kindly offered to make me an SM153, but I will need to supply the lengths of the second elements, which once I'm able to work on the car, I will do. The bad news is that the wing assembly will cost around £3500 !! And I've not had prices back yet from Mygale for the nosecone and bonnet, which I know wont be cheap.

Meanwhile I've cancelled the entries and received refunds from most of the events I'll be missing, just two remain, BARC-Midlands, and Longton, for the Snetterton Sprint and the Anglesey Sprint, and I've sent further reminders today.

I've had many messages from people who also feel the cones were responsible for the crash; at the event in March there were just two cones, and for the event in June there was a wall of them, which from my onboard footage from P1, T1 and T2, were not being replaced in the original positions as vehicles hit them. Surely if cones are being hit, that's a big clue that they perhaps, are increasing the risk of harm to participants? The cone thats on its side should also have brought out the red flag so it could be stood up again. That was knocked down just a few minutes before I arrived.

For a British Sprint Championship Run Off run, the cones should have been removed altogether. It would have taken 60 seconds to stop and remove them before our runs commenced.

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Mallory Crash

I'm sorry to report that I had a substantial accident at Mallory Park on Sunday, whilst trying to win the only run off of the day. I slid off the track with a cone wedged beneath the nose of the car, and hit the armco behind some tyres, head on, at around 30mph. The ECU recorded a 3G peak, however the GPS module only generates a G force value 10 times a second, and from where I was sat it was a much more substantial impact. I am told that it was around 13G if I indeed stopped from 30mph in 100 miliseconds.

I am very fortunate to be surrounded by family and friends, and was driven home by Ant Brown, with trailer and car behind, to be dropped off on my driveway. I am very indebted to Ant to offer that service to me. Thank you.

Thanks also to the medics and recovery team for getting me looked after. I spent around 45 minutes in the medical centre before I was allowed to leave.

I am very battered, and covered in bruises, from the harnesses and of course the metal chassis that provided me with protection. My hips and groin have huge blue/black bruises, and my back is killing me. I jumped out of the car as soon as it stopped, and rolled onto the floor, breathless, and in agony. First on the scene was Steve Miles, who ran across from his car, and shouted for medical assistance. Thank you Steve.

The front wing is totally destroyed, as is the bonnet, nose cone, the wing mounts, and both brake lines. The FIA crash box is also badly damaged where it hit the solid surface behind the tyre walls. There was very little energy absorbed by the tyres.

So while I am recovering, I have cancelled all future events, and wont be doing any more British Sprint rounds this year. This takes the pressure off me, and lets me reflect on what I want to do in the future.

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Printed parts arrived

The K&N filter supports turned out really good, I'm very pleased with the results. The channel for the cable tie to pass through, was left full of nylon powder, which took some effort to remove. My fault, next time I'll add slots to allow the material to be removed more easily. They're now fitted to the car, and the filter is cable tied to it. I think they look great.



The 36 and 37 tooth trigger wheels have also arrived. The dowel pins are far easier to fit from the inside ff the ring, and the chamfer on the outside end of the hole, removes the risk of them from falling out :D

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Graham Hill Sprint onboard in 4k

Here is my fastest run from Sunday.

I am still waiting for the 36 and 37 tooth wheel speed trigger rings to appear from 3D.People. Sadly they had a printer failure this week, so the printed parts are still awaiting despatch. I am hoping to run the 30 dowell-pin and a 36 at Mallory Park.

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Owen Motoring Club - Graham Hill Sprint 60th Anniversary

It was the figure of eight layout on Sunday, and with all the heavy rain on Saturday, I was very pleased to find the weather cooperated. We had no rain, and blue skies at one point, and the track was green to start with but soon came in as the temperatures rose. In practice I was miles off the pace, I just couldnt get the Avons to work. And at lunch, when I fitted the two year old Pirellis, the car was 2.6s faster, and I was FTD on the first run off, 0.6s ahead of Steve Potter in the Empire, we were both in the 53's. On the second and final run, I really pushed the car very hard, and improved again to set a 52.95s time, but Steven had a better first lap and pipped me with a 52.76s, so took the win and FTD by just 0.19s. Well deserved too. We had a great day, spurring each other on to go faster, and such was our pace, we were 5 seconds faster than the third place car.


The car had wool tufts stuck on to the floor and side pod that houses the intercooler, and I was filming the air flow. Henry, the student at Oxford Brookes Uni, who is writing his dissertation on my car, has peformed CFD on a digital computer model of my car, and in the meeting we agreed that we wanted to correlate the results against real evidence. One of his recommendations was to modify the side pod, which I did, and that, coupled with me finding and unblocking two water spray nozzles, lead to air charge temperatures never seen before. They were typically up to 15C lower than the data from the same event the year earlier, even on a warmer day, which is effectively a 6% increase in power output. Thanks Henry :D

I was also trialling a different torque clamp % in traction control, which worked, and there were several other changes, all of which added to the performance. I was 5mph faster on the finish line speed trap than last year, reaching 120mph, even with steeper wing angles, so that just goes to show the continued increase in performance this year.

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Escort RSR printed trigger disk

I've sent the STEP file off to have a pair of these trigger wheels printed for an Escort RSR that needs wheel speed pickups. We were considering radially mounted dowel pins, but in the end decided on axial, due to the placing of the proximity sensor. The car runs a Motec M150 ECU, and we've gone for 20 dowel pins.

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Photos from Pembrey

So there was a photographer at Pembrey afterall. At £12 an medium resolution image though, and £24 for the hi-res version, I stopped at just the two mediums.


On this picture you can see the cold air intake ahead of the exhaust, and how parallel the floor sits against the ground. The wire ropes on the side pods were added for Mallory, and prevent the floor from being pulled downwards by the low pressure underneath the floor section as the vehicle speed and downforce both increase.



This morning I entered the Llandow sprint in August. After an hour they'd reached 60 entries. I've never been before with the Mygale, I did make a few visits in the Fiesta which could take the kerbs, something I'm not going to tackle with the single seater. There is no overnight camping at the track, and the local caravan park does accomodate cars with trailers, but they want you to book two nights accomodation, so I think I'll be driving down to S.Wales early on a Sunday morning, to keep the costs down. At least the traffic should be ok at that time of the day.

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VVT Fail

Entirely my fault, when you're sat in the queue for the start line, and nearly stall the engine, the oil pressure dips, and this causes a VVT Failure. The Dash4Pro dashboard flashed up "LIMP VVT" which is what I'd programmed it to do, but I hadnt tested it since doing so. As soon as I saw the message flash up, I knew I had to power the ECU off and on again, which resets the trip and the ECU is then taken out of limp mode. Brilliant.

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Class record run from Saturday at Pembrey

Two class records in one run, and a second quicker than I went last year.

The ferry is now booked for the N.Ireland trip in August. There is a 15% discount code for motorsport competitors, which brought the pair of crossings with the van and trailer down to a modest £372.12p, which would be even less if I'd not booked a seat in the Hygge lounge, which is an extra 'tenna' each way.

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HSA Class Record

I just realised last night when I was checking the records on the HSA Speed Championship, that my best time on Saturday was quicker than the 'Above 2.0' class record held by Terry Holmes in the Lola V8, so I'm now the HSA record holder with my 94.17s time; Thats a score of 12 points for the HSA championship too. Nice.

In the HSA Championship I run in the Above 2.0 class, and in the British Sprint we have our own 1600T class, which Pete and I battle over. Pete's set some incredibly quick times over the years, and I've set a few myself, but not as many as I need to to win a championship. Must try even harder :D

I was running ExtraBoost on the run offs again at the weekend, and with the >25C ambient air temperatures the charge temperatures were quite respectable peaking around 54C, even with the additional boost. I did have some Gear Shift settings to try, to reduce the wheel spin between up-shifts, but didnt want to take any risks with zero testing, so I left everything as it.

On Saturday the car used 8.248L of fuel, and on Sunday, 8.678L, making a total of 16.91L used.

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Taking the Championship Lead

After posting some good results over the weekend, with a pair of second places on Saturday plus setting a new class record, then a 3rd and 4th on Sunday, where the tyres really struggled when I hit a patch of oil spoiling the first runoff, I am now 12 points ahead of second place, which is a great place to be.


The weather was perfect all weekend, but the track temperatures were very high Sunday, and with the track having such an abrasive surface, which itself introduces heat in to the rubber, the Ultrasofts and the Avon HC3's simply got worse the harder you worked them. Supersofts or even Softs would probably have worked far better.


The car was flawless all weekend. And I have a new cold air intake setup, which was met with intense scrutiny by rivals, one even said 'yes but it looks f*cking ugly'; the ambient air temperatures were far lower than I would have had with the airbox sat above the engine, and this paid dividends with the power output. On saturday evening I added additional heat insulation to the filter duct work, which made another differnce to the air temperatures on Sunday. And whilst upgrading the insulation on Saturday evening, I spotted a tiny droplet of pink antifreeze on the surface of one of the black silicon hoses that supply cooling water to the turbo, so I removed the end of the hose and shortened it by an inch, to ensure it didnt burst when the engine was hot.

During the almost spin on Sunday when I hit the oil patch on the first run off, I captured some very useful traction control data, which will allow me to tweak it to make it try and catch the spin earlier, should it happen again.

9.5 hours driving on the return trip to the circuit, no dramas, a first in class trophy for Saturday, and the championship lead. All in all, a great result.

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Coming up: Pembrey weekend (June 1st and 2nd)

A couple of things to further increase the performance of the car will be trialled at this coming weekend's sprints at Pembrey. Spurred on by the calibration changes made at Blyton, where I now have a Run Off mode which allows for extra power, we're developing some more enhancements which will be tested on the extremely fast Welsh circuit. I certainly couldnt have gotten in to the 55's at Blyton without the changes, so I hope the weather plays ball in South Wales.

Contrary to what was written in the BSC report for Blyton, I was not running the new ExtraBoost map on Saturday. After trying it in first practice, the car felt sluggish and I realised it was severely down on power. Looking at the map1 levels, I figured out we'd made a mistake with the Wastegate Control MAP Target Adjustment for CAL 02, so I reloaded the previous map, and that restored the power back to the previous power levels, which were enough to win both run offs and FTD. During Saturday evening I corrected the error, loaded the ExtraBoot map back on, and on Sunday ran CAL 02 for the qualifying runs, and CAL 01 for the Run Off's. The difference on CAL 01 was definitely noticeable to me, the engine pulled so much harder, it certainly put a smile on my face. There were some corresponding issues which we found afterwards, which are being corrected for Pembrey. The rebuilt and upgraded engine is certainly capable of producing more power :D

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Onboards from Blyton Park circuit

Saturdays 4K FTD Winning run on the Eastern Circuit

Sundays 4K 3rd place 55s run on the Outer Circuit

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Blyton Park circuit - Six in a row

I was overjoyed as you can probably imagine to win both run offs and set Fastest Time of the Day for the sixth time on the Eastern Circuit. Everything went according to my plan, no dramas, nothing broke or fell off, and I was clearly the fastest car around the circuit all day. Perfect. I was in the lead of the championship too, by three points. The weather was incredible, low 20's and sun all day. You couldnt complain about anything. Well done to Longton DMC for putting on a great show, and thanks for the Best Longton Member award too.

Sunday was also a very successful day. I was in the 55's for both run offs, both new PBs, and on the same second as the winner, finishing 3rd both times, and netting 48 points. The car was perfect, the two seasons old Pirellis did what I asked of them, and the EcoBoost engine pulled very strongly in every gear. I dropped back in to second place in the championship, but its clearly going to be another two horse race again this year, with both EcoBoost's swapping positions.

The 30 dowel 3D printed trigger wheel on the rear axle worked perfectly all weekend, leading to a 2.12s 64ft on dirty two season old tyres on the final run on Sunday. I'm happy with that. Last year I had a surge in results after the other drivers's tyres grip levels fell off a cliff, so I'm hoping that if I keep applying pressure like I am, and taking care of my rubber, then the same thing will happen again. I had zero nearside front wheel lockups over the weekend, so thank you to TripleM motorsport for performing the corner weighting the other week, as the chassis is now balanced allowing me to brake harder later.

Clive Wooster

The worst part of the weekend was hearing of the untimely passing of regular sprinter Clive Wooster. He died at home on Saturday morning from an apparent heart attack. Clive was such an ambassador for the sport, and will be sorely missed with his Green Radical a familiar sight at sprints in the Midlands and South West. RIP Clive.

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30 dowel trigger wheel fitted

I removed the nearside driveshaft again last night, and slid the 20 dowel printed trigger wheel off, and replaced it with the latest 30 dowel version. The ECU then had the new CAL loaded, and I set the wheel speed sensor up for 30 teeth. This will allow 12° rotation of the wheel per pulse, which coupled with the 20 dowel trigger wheel on the front axle, should make a further improvement to the launch and traction control. With the wheel fitted, I can spin the axle around by hand, and the ECU displayed some very smooth data from the sensor, which is currently adjusted approx 2mm from the dowels. I will need to keep an eye on the dowels, which only weigh 0.5 grammes, they shouldnt move, but we'll find out at Blyton.



A question that came up on facebook recently was whether the steel dowels would come out when the car was being driven. So I've just done a quick calculation, and at 150mph, with the rear wheel rotating at 2227 rpm, the dowels have an effective mass of 133.6 grammes per dowel. Which sounds a lot, but, to push the dowels in to the plastic ring, requires over 10kg of force. That is, if I place the ring on to my kitchen scales, and push the dowel in to the ring, the scales are overloaded before the dowel is forced into the ring. And as the scales have a max reading of 10kg, I take that as more than 10kg of force to insert each dowel. Thats the theory, lets see what happens at Blyton.


The entry list for the Blyton sprint is now out. Only 72 entries though from 120. Not a great turn out, but there are 17 BSC drivers in total, which is pretty good.

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Fifth injector update

The 3rd version of the fifth injector assembly turned up from 3D People at the weekend, and everything fits together properly now. The orb fitting on the injector rail works perfectly with the AN6 fitting I bought from torques. And the O-rings on the Pico injector seat properly in the fuel rail and the main body. So I guess its time to get one made from aluminium now and see if we can get it working with the ECU.



I also have the front and rear trigger disks back from 3D People, and I've populated two of the rings with 4mm dowels. The steel dowels weigh just 0.5g each, so even when fully populated the plastic rings arent that heavy.

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Corner weight check

I took a trip over to TripleM motor sport today for a corner weight check and to have the new Avon wets fitted to the rims. Alan and Nick placed the car on the scales, and to my delight the car was just a couple of kg's off front left to right rear, which was easily adjusted by altering the length of the right rear pushrod. They also checked the toe and camber and nothing needed adjusting. Alan then clamped the brake pedal closed, and they turned the front wheels to see how much torque was needed to turn the wheels against the brakes, and both wheels required the same amount of torque. So the reason the front left keeps locking under hard braking maybe down to the pad materials in the new pads. If the front left locks again at Blyton, I'm to swap the pads over left to right, and see if the issue goes away.

I drove past the show ground at Lincoln on the way back, and there were huge queues of lorries and tractor units, for exhibitors for the truck show at the weekend. I was glad I wasnt caught up in that traffic.

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