The trials & tribulations of racing a Clio

Hollidog said:

Yes BRSCC. it's worth a look, the top class is 230hp per tonne and weirdly it's done at the fly. There's a couple of PMS engined cars running in class A. I was right at the top end of B.

Grids were generally decent but could have been bigger at some rounds. At Oulton we were 30 cars but at Cadwell only 12.

As above. The preliminary calendar is out now if you want to have a look.

Regs are very open but as it's power to weight it means you don't have to go totally crazy. I'm 216 atf at 1046kg to be at the top of B and it's definitely the biggest class

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Cool I’ll check it out. My car is built to class B of hot hatch which is 175 bhp/tonne limit. Mine makes 182bhp and is 1070kg with me in it.

Hollidog said:

Yes BRSCC. it's worth a look, the top class is 230hp per tonne and weirdly it's done at the fly. There's a couple of PMS engined cars running in class A. I was right at the top end of B.

Grids were generally decent but could have been bigger at some rounds. At Oulton we were 30 cars but at Cadwell only 12.

As above. The preliminary calendar is out now if you want to have a look.

Regs are very open but as it's power to weight it means you don't have to go totally crazy. I'm 216 atf at 1046kg to be at the top of B and it's definitely the biggest class

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Yeah, mine is only 850kg so I’d struggle to get into class B even with a standard engine and definitely not with my race engine at 230bhp. Unless I ballast it up. We’ve got a calendar meeting in the next few weeks to decide what to do next year but with a couple of 2 hour races on the calendar next year, if anything we’re going longer rather than shorter!

colesy said:

Cool I’ll check it out. My car is built to class B of hot hatch which is 175 bhp/tonne limit. Mine makes 182bhp and is 1070kg with me in it.

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I think that would be class c for us but that's all good

robzracing said:

Yeah, mine is only 850kg so I’d struggle to get into class B even with a standard engine and definitely not with my race engine at 230bhp. Unless I ballast it up. We’ve got a calendar meeting in the next few weeks to decide what to do next year but with a couple of 2 hour races on the calendar next year, if anything we’re going longer rather than shorter!

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850kg is wild! Is that with you at race fuel? My 1046 is ballasted up to get me to the class limit.

Hollidog said:

I think that would be class c for us but that's all good

850kg is wild! Is that with you at race fuel? My 1046 is ballasted up to get me to the class limit.

Click to expand...

Fueled but without me in it.

Interesting catching up on this, and then learning about the power to weight considerations in different championships/classes.
Worth knowing for if/when I come to sell the phase 1...
Surprised @robzracing that yours is 850kg with the carbon roof... Feel like I could lose so much more weight from the phase 1 based on that.


Good to see that the 'grey shell' went to a good home. Look to see that coming along/being developed at some point.

So, continuing from my last update...
At the end of September we returned one final time to Snetterton. Feeling confident we went into the weekend to round off our season with the CSCC Tin Tops once again.

We qualified P12 on the road and P2 in class, just 9 tenths off pole in class. So with all to play for it was decided that I start the race and with a rolling start this time it seemed that the pressure would be slightly less.

And that’s where I was starkly reminded that, a: a race isn’t won at the first corner and b: motorsport is dangerous.

Coming up to the end of the start/finish straight I had made a good start, making up a few places but I was on the outside. Two cars a little way in front touched - no drama there but I stayed out wide in anticipation of something more happening. They continued but I found myself coming in a little too hot and heavier on the brakes than I would normally. Cold tires and out on the marbles, I very quickly found the back end coming around faster than i could catch it. With right foot buried and opposite lock applied I did my best to try and save the slide.

What actually happened though was that the tires bit when I was already over 90 degrees turned which then led me darting across the track amongst all the traffic until the inevitable collection by one car on the inside with three quarter to three quarter connection that span me around and spat me back off the outside edge of the track to roll into the barriers. Race over and car done…

worst start ever



Thankfully of course these race cars are build strong and neither I or the driver that collected me were hurt. I spoke to him afterwards and naturally he wasn’t happy but I’ve known him for many years and we both know what one signs up for when you go racing.

Equally Rob, (who’s car it is) was cool with the situation and again, we all know the risks and he knows that we are in it together and i will play a major part in building him a new car. (more on that later)

So we headed home already making plans for QB3. (this is his second Clio already)

The last race of the season for many in club racing in the UK is the Birkett 6 hour endurance race at Silverstone. Entered in teams it is effectively a relay race usually with teams having a minimum of 3 cars in which you could have potentially 6 drivers.

teams can be bigger but of course the more changes you make, the harder it is to do well.

So, with no race engine yet I quickly put together a spare engine with standard internals. A look over revealed it hadn’t been terribly well put together before so I ordered some new big end bearings and ARP bolts and booked a session on the dyno.





The dyno session was long. Being a new dyno there were some teething problems but we spent a good 5 hours building a map and doing some runs. Strangely, the engine didn’t seem to want to make the power I expected though. More on that later…



The Birkett came…and went disappointingly quickly. After being held for almost an hour in the assembly area, once we headed out onto track for qualifying the engine immediately started to play up. By lap three it was done, with the cabin filling with smoke and noises coming from the engine that were not good.

All very odd after it surviving the dyno but maybe the low power was the tell-tale.



Returned to the paddock after engine failure, just as friends arrived to watch!
Onwards and upwards…

Plans for '26
So, with another engine failure Rob Q and I came up with a plan.
Since the Birkett we took the engine from his "Darth Vader" and installed it in my car. Although a standard engine it means we have a working car to start a 2026 campaign.
With the engine installed, it started after a few attempts and then the car rolled under its own steam. Out of the garage and on to the road. Leaving a nice trail of fuel!
Sure enough, the tank appeared to be leaking and further investigation seemed to show it was the joint between the rubber flexi from the filler neck and the tank. But no amount of tightening of the pipe clip seemed to cure it. Even after doubling up the clips - nothing.
It was difficult to see clearly but we figured that it was possible that there was a break in the tank around the neck of the flexi. Replacement tank ordered.
This seemed like an opportunity to sort out the fuel level sender too. As the tank is baffled with foam cubes the traditional float style sender doesn't work so I purchased a "dip tube" style sender to install somewhere in the tank.

Which needed some modification. I thought it would come with its own shroud but sadly not.


40mm waste pipe fitted perfectly!

...and a few holes drilled to try and keep the sensor as accurate as possible.

location found that seems to work


Calibrating this with the Aim dash will be the next challenge.
So in the meantime I started to prepare to build a new race engine. Taking 2 spare blocks over to Gosnays Engineering to have them bored to 83mm and ordering all the parts required.

With these now back and everything for the bottom end now acquired these have gone off to my engine builder who will select the best block to build with and we'll keep the other one for the next engine.
So while that's being assembled I'll start work on the top end and in between that we'll book the car onto the dyno with RobQ's engine so we can be ready for the opening round at Donington in March.

With the first race of the season booked. Donington on the 29th March, it's much easier to feel motivated! We also have a shakedown booked for Snetterton on Monday 9th March and before that a dyno session on the 25th Feb. So a bit to get on with before then.
With the blocks now machined they went off to my engine builder with a box of new seals and bearings. He'll be checking through everything and will start the build soon but it won't be a quick job, so for the opening race at least we'll be running the stock engine.


Along with the new engine I was going to send my Helix clutch off to be re-padded but after speaking to them and doing a few checks that they asked me to do it beame apparent that the clutch isn't serviceabe. So a new clutch was duly delivered by Kam Racing along with a release bearing. That will now wait for the new engine.


So, a few things more immediate to be getting on with, the first being getting the fuel tank back in the car. I'm not sure I'll have time to calibrate the new fuel sender before March but we'll see how it goes.
An access hole needed to be drilled through the floor for the new sender, so that was this weekend's job.


And then I bought some black acrylic to make a removable cover and heated it to mould into the correct shape.



Which came out ok..






I'll probably drill this and fit a grommet for the cable to come through if I can't feed it through with the lift pump wiring. We'll see.

And finally, in other news this week I've been working towards doing the ARDS Instructor course. Something I've been planning to do for a few years and now regret not doing sooner as the requirements now are considerably more than a couple of years ago.
To qualify I now need to upgrade my National license to an International C which means a full medical with Stress ECG. This has proved to be very expensive although not as much as the £1000 the local private hospital quoted!
I also have had to do an FIA online course on safety, provide 5 race results in the last 2 years, a Motorsport UK course called the Accelerator, aimed at become a motorsport embassador and finally a DBS check.
So, I'm nearly all done. The ECG and medical will be in March as well as the actual ARDS course so next month is going to be busy, motorsport wise. Not a bad thing!

My haul of race licenses (missing a couple!) so the instructor course is overdue!

A couple more arrivals for the new engine. My builder is concerned about the centra main cap on one of the blocks in that its showing signs of being a little loose. So he's going to make some repairs and then line bore the bottom end. He recommended usng some ARP studs for this once done, so had some delivered yesterday alond with some new standard bolts for the other block which we're going to build up first.


So, yesterday's mission was to make progress with the fuel tank. We got it installed over the weekend, confirming that the hole drilled for the sender access is in the right place.
Following that I've spent a few hours reading up about wiring in and calibrating a custom fuel sender in the Aim dash. So, firstly I ran an Aim patch lead from the tank to the dash and then pinned it into the 2nd analogue input on the rear auxilliary plug.
Wiring in the other end was a little more tricky. It requires a resistor to be connected in line to allow the resistance on the float position to be read using a 5mV supply that the dash uses.
Following that it's al about calibration in the software. Lastnight I got as far as setting up the display on the dash and began a table to convert the millivolt reading into ltrs.
So, today's mission is to start filling the tank in 500ml increments and log the readings to build a table. As the tank isn't an even shape this is the best way to create an accurate conversion table. Then there's a bit of jiggerypokery to allow for slosh, although with the baffles in the tank I'm hoping that will be minimal.
Watch this space!

An overdue wash yesterday and today made a start on updating the livery slightly. Finally moving away from the traditional white number squares on the dors and bonnet and continuing from the Birkett with the more popular, these days - Yellow window numbers.
I've turned the car around so I can get to the near side wing and cill to re-wrap those to complete the tidy up.

More cosmetic work this weekend. Removed the last couple of parts that still had the original wrap on from 10 years ago. They've weathered well in fairness but the wing still had some gravel rash on it from the roll at Craners 9 years ago!
Equally the side skirt was pretty rough under the wrap and as a lot of the paint came off with the wrap it lookslike it had been painted in the past. So that needed a bit of attention before I could wrap it.












Anyway, a few hours later both were done along with sanding down the side repeater and spraying satin black the same as the other side.
Sunday will be completing applying some more stickers and finishing the cover for the lift pump.
The wrap on the skirt isn't perfect but enough for a race car!

Stickers finished, pump cover finished. Just a bit more prpgramming of the dash and its ready for the dyno on Wednesday. Keeping everything crossed!

Off to the dyno in the morning. 🤞

A successful visit today. 212bhp from a pretty much stock engine is more than expected but more importantly its safe. (we hope)

So, just to expand a little on the video posted previously. Dyno day was a success!
Being just a 20 minute drive away meant a fairly leisurely start as they didn't want me there until 10am and knowing the setup there now made getting the car off the trailer and into the dyno pretty plain sailing. By 11:30 we were strapped in and sipping coffee.




In fact this may have been the smoothest running dyno session I've ever experienced. No delays from a car on the rollers before me; no software or dyno issues and no gremlins with the car.
So we went right through pretty much without stopping. Building up the site maps from 1000rpm up to 3500rpm afterwhich you can set the software learning the nature of the engine and it populates the whole map ready to be tested.
Once the power runs started there was very little tweaking to do. The first full power run yielded 205bhp which I would have been happy with but Steve could see that the engine wanted more, so a bit more adjustment and we went again. This time 212.4bhp. Much more like it and almost identical to the same spec we ran back in the day and with 158lbft of torque it should be nice in an 850kg car.
I do wonder whether the race engine is worth the effort!

Decent numbers with a nice usable torque curve!
Internally stock just with some Jenvey ITB's and ECU? (Manifold/Cams?)

PerthRS said:

Decent numbers with a nice usable torque curve!
Internally stock just with some Jenvey ITB's and ECU? (Manifold/Cams?)

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Yeah, this engine has stock internals and standard cams. Everything else is the same as when I run the race engine. ITBs with high pressure pump and fuel return, 182 manifold and Yozza system and of course the Emerald ECU.

Its always a sign of a good day at the track when you can drive the car on to the trailer at the end of the day.

Weather wise, we couln't have asked for more and with a rare private trackday at Snetterton the day promised some good, clear track time.
If only the car behaves...
Not off to a great start when the car cuts out completely exiting turn 2 on the sighting laps! A strange one and a quick reset and it goes again and behaves for the rest of the laps.
Back in and swap the drive with Rob Q and he experiences the same thing. And again the car is fine after that.
So, we get sighting laps out of the way and the 3 of us begin a rotation of 1-3-1. (one out lap, 3 hot laps and 1 in lap). The car cuts out again on a acouple of occasions but other than that it behaves and we all start to get comfortable.

Despite a private day there are still 60 cars there (about half a normal track day) but they are mostly road cars and mostly novice track drivers which makes for some rather hairy closing speeds and unpredictable behaviour. All good but just needing to be alert and only Rob Q got a couple of clear laps and started making some progress.
Late morning we encountered our second issue. Fuel surge.
As I was monitoring the accuracy of the new fuel sender I was expecting the fuel surge as we wanted to run the tank down so that the low fuel warning would come on. But it wasn't working entirely as planned as the level strated to become a little erratic, pointing to a sticking float. Not a huge issue though and we decided to drop another 20ltrs in the tank and carry on.
Strangely though, the car continued to surge. And the high pressure pump was getting noisy and fuel pressure had dropped half a bar.
AFter some investigation, we adjusted the fuel pressure on the regulator and cleaned out the fuel filter, (it wasn't too bad) and then sent it again.
It ran nicely for a couple more laps and then started losing power and surging again.
More investigation needed so we moved on to the engine bay. Injector wiring has been the cause of issues in the past so we stripped and checked all this. Nothing doing, except for a pin in one of the injector plugs wasn't engaged properly inside the body of the plug so we don't think it was properly connected to the injector. A quick adjustment and then out again.
Again, it ran great for a few laps and then... it cut out again!
Back in the garage we banged heads and turned our thoughts to the electrics. We had the car idling while we all vigorously wiggled wires and pushed connectors. Nothing doing....., until we turned the steering. With EPAS we noticed each time we turned the wheel the fuel pump note changed. and also the variable steering adjuster seemed to be working intermittently. So we concluded that either this adjuster is failing or the steering rack is getting stiff and putting tto much load on the motor or the actual steerng column motor itself is failing.
We turned it all off and went back on track. The car ran faultlessley. The humans, however did not. With so much camber and castor the steering is incredibly heavy. The tight turns need an immense amount of effort to get the car around and this amount of effort prevents any kind of accuracy. Even Rob Q, who is a ranked british Cross Fit competitor was struggling after 3 laps.
So, some attention needed and then some more seat time before the 29th March. Hopefully we can sort the issue and find space on a track day.

Alternator voltage ok? If its on its last legs, that could cause the epas to cut ign if volts dropping too low.

Brigsy said:

Alternator voltage ok? If its on its last legs, that could cause the epas to cut ign if volts dropping too low.

Click to expand...

Alternator is fine I think. Producing way over 13v while running but you can see voltage drop below 12 as the steering is turned. Might be worth investigating. Its a new alternator too.

Thought i knew this car it appeared on videos from our track day group all saying "man that clios fast" and its pretty distinctive!

So do you know Richard or was it freind of a freind advertisement. I would have had my 172 there if it hadnt decided that having a working uch wasn't for peseants and died on that weekend just before.

Super small world!

HemiHusky said:

Thought i knew this car it appeared on videos from our track day group all saying "man that clios fast" and its pretty distinctive!

So do you know Richard or was it freind of a freind advertisement. I would have had my 172 there if it hadnt decided that having a working uch wasn't for peseants and died on that weekend just before.

Super small world!

Click to expand...

Yes, I know Richard. We've raced together for over 10 years. Would have been nice to have another clio out. Be good to see the videos!

The EPAS is quite sapping on the electrical side which is why I haven't put it on my track car

You need the 110A alternator to be able to run it without issues, the 75A cup alternator will struggle to keep everything alive, especially if you've got a bigger fuel pump

Klumpy Dumpy said:

The EPAS is quite sapping on the electrical side which is why I haven't put it on my track car

You need the 110A alternator to be able to run it without issues, the 75A cup alternator will struggle to keep everything alive, especially if you've got a bigger fuel pump

Click to expand...

Except that the car has been runing in this configuration for 5 years. Nothing has changed which suggests something is breaking down in some way. The most draw from the EPAS is normally when moving the car around at slow speed/stationary when it needs to make the most effort so I'd say something is definitely wrong.
I'll report back soon.

robzracing said:

Yes, I know Richard. We've raced together for over 10 years. Would have been nice to have another clio out. Be good to see the videos!

Click to expand...

ill try group the videos together but its like trying to heard cats sometimes! Richard is a very chill guy, think I've known him also about maybe 10 years now, maybe 2016 2017 is when we met, his red "suit" is made by the same people who did mine, hence how we met, walked up to me asking about it, gave me a card, walked back to a very very shiny red R32 and drove off, meanwhile I'm trying to collect my jaw off the floor.

Had a bit of time on Saturday this weekend to start investigating our issues. First off was draining the tank so we can see what's going on with the sender and possibly look at the pump.


Once starting to pump the fuel it became apparent that there was air in the swirl pot. I only managed to lear it after repeating the priming process about 30 times! This could easily be why we had low fuel pressure and the pump was noisy. Once I had cleared the air, the pump emptied the tank without issue.
As a precaution though, I have ordered a new pump.

I then turned to the EPAS. It's difficult to test the Ebay controller kit but the rheostat adjuster appears to be working ok. Again, as a precaution I have ordered a new one. (Can you see a pattern emerging?)
I then stripped out the column to see if there was anything obvious going on here...




and dismantled it...

With the motor removed the column felt quite stiff but figure that might be just how they are as they have a worm gear inside. I tested the force required to overcome the internal resistance and measured just under 5Nm. But once apart, nothing internally looked awry other than a dry needle bearing at the steering wheel end which really isn't doing much anyway...





But... As a precaution I've ordered another one!

I'll pack a bit more grease in this one and reassemble it and when the new one arrives I'll check the force required to move that one as a comparison.
Of course, just to complete the parts canon barrage I've also ordered a new alternator. There is a new one on the car already so I needed to replace that one in my spares box but once the fuel system is back together I'll properly test current from the alternator as a final check. I know the voltage is good from the dash but I can't test current from there so I'll put my clamp meter on it with all systems on and see what it shows.
I need to get on with this if we're going to have time for another test before Donington on the 29th.

Parts have arrived and a bit more progress made.

New - second hand steering column arrived. tested the stiffness and feels pretty much the same as the existing one. So, I've cleaned and repainted the existing one and for now that will go back in.
Also received the new controller

I'll look at replacing just the rheostat first as they appear to have changed the spec on that.
New fuel pump also turned up. I recon there's probably nothing wrong with the current one either now I know that it was air in the system but I've swapped it out anyway as if the pump ran dry for too long it may be on its last legs anyway.




Also the GPS module arrived for the Aim dash so now we should have speed, gears and timing (although I have timing on the VBox anyway)


And finally, this evening I started to tackle the fuel sender and discovered that plastic domestic waste pipe doesn't like Super unleaded!


And also discovered there must have been some dirt in the new tank. This wouldn't have helped!


So back to the drawing board for this but I already have a plan that I'll implement tomorrow I think.

Not much to report but steering column is back in and seems to be working. Haven't changed the controller yet.

So, one day to go and I think we've done all we can in preparation for Donington on Sunday. Yesterday John came over for one final spannering session before the weekend and we may have found a smoking gun. Some fraying wires on the external cut-off button. One of the terminals was literally connected by 2 strands of wire and only through the hole in the connector. the solder had failed completely. So, I stripped and re-did both terminals and heatshrunk them. All good and hopefully that might be it.

One other job ticked off the list was a stripped thread on top of the gearbox. One of the three bolts securing the mount. A common failure and luckily an easy fix with a helicoil.
John fitted the new brakepads which after inspecting the old ones, was just in the nick of time!

In other news, the race engine is coming on...

I need to start preparing the head.


A quick bath this afternoon and then it will be onto the trailer tomorrow before heading up in the afternoon.
Watch this space!

I just read the whole thing from start to finish. Great job on keeping this clio alive AND race ready! I lost the count on the engines, so I will probably just keep mine stock for casual trackdays! Looking forward to see you go!

Race report
Packing tetris complete, I began the 2 and a half hour drive up to Donington on Saturday afternoon with a view to getting a good spot in the paddock, unloading the car and then heading to the hotel for the evening.

An uneventful journey followed but they weren't letting any Sunday competitors into the paddock until after 5pm, so I joined the queue up to the main gate.


once in, there was plenty of space and I pitched up next to our friends at Recycled Racing who surprised me with their "Jarman" broom. so named apparently after i borrowed it from them many years ago after an excursion into the gravel and duly ruined their nice new broom!


With the gazebo arriving in the morning, it was just a case of dropping the car beside the trailer to reserve a spot for the night.



The next morning John and i convened at the track at 7am for a track walk as the sun came up. Always a nice way to start a race day and we always do it if we can.


And after that it was down to business setting up.
Although I had packed as much as possible into the car, in theory there wasn't much to do so we only unpacked the bare minimum.
The car was already brimmed so we just swapped the front wheels for some fresher rubber and set the tyre pressures ready for quali. After that Rob arrived and we discussed the day's strategy over a coffee.
The weather was clearly going to play a part but what that would be remained to be seen but we were hopeful for a dry qualifying at least.

With new brake pads in it was decided that john would take the first stint, bed the brakes in and then build speed and settle in. He was nervous having never raced at Donington. (although he's done many laps of testing there)


This is what a nervous John looks like!

john's stint went well and he set a decent time that would put us where we wanted on the grid so I took over with the hope to improve if possible.
But after a couple of laps getting warmed up I tucked in behind Joe Hathaway (who's Clio is the same spec as mine with my race engine) and decided to see if I could keep up.

Although he was faster in a straight line, in the bends and under braking I was probably quicker...until the car started stuttering.
Just when we thought we had sorted everything it started losing power at the top end and I decided to pit just before the end of the session as i clearly wasn't going to go any faster. P3 in class which was good enough.

As the race wasn't until 5:20 we had plenty of time to trouble shoot the issue and i was pretty certain it was fuel again.

By this time the rain was coming down and with the wind the gazebo wasn't giving us much protection. Pretty miserable conditions to be working on a car but at least we weren't crawling around underneath it!

After isolating the high pressure pump we wanted to confirm fuel was getting out of the tank. but priming the lift pump wasn't showing any fuel at the rail.
Next we disconnected the line from the swirl pot and found fuel was getting there fine.
more bashing heads and a decision to check the filter again. ( we did this at Snetterton already)

Sure enough though it was clogged! The new fuel tank must have some crap still in it. Once this was cleared fuel was flowing nicely.
Problem solved!

Throughout the day rain continued until about 4pm. With at least an hour and a half before our race we were hopeful the track might dry but with it being so cold it was looking good and sure enough by the time we were called to the assembly area it was clear the race was going to be challenging.

Lined up in P11 on the grid, Matt Churton in front of me in a lower class Clio (no throttle bodies) had done a great quali itme but as we stood by the cars he mentioned that he would be braking early into Redgate at the start so feel free to take a lunge but please don't go into the back of me! So that was one place made up before we even moved!
Beside him was Peter Parkin in his 306 who was P2 in our class. So he was the target at the start.
We had agreed at the beginning of the day that a podium spot would be a good result considering the issues and lack of testing.

The time came all too soon to start the green flag lap and straight in to a rolling start.
If you can be bothered, the on board video is here. It might seem painfully slow but you will see from my steering wheel that it was pretty greasy, especially at the start.

Donington Race 29-3-26

I had a decent start and as planned, passed Churton and also Parkin through Redgate but not before John Bellamy in his pesky, but pretty quick, Pug 106 got past and prevented me keeping up with the lead pack. It was so slippery off line it just wasn't worth the risk of making a move. (watching it back now of course I'm shouting at the screen at every corner!)
We had a fair fight though until the pit window opened and simulaneously there was an almighty shunt on the start finish straight after the leader made a mistake, lost the lead and then tried too hard to retake it by trying to get through a gap that wasn't really there. He was turned in to the pit wall and very nearly flipped. The end of a beautifully prepaired Civic TypeR and sadly ended with Andrew Windmill, the driver in hospital.
We changed driver as they red flagged the race afterwhich there was a pause for about half an hour or so while they cleared up the mess and gridded everyone up for a restart.
So John continued where I left off, battling with the 106 and that's how the race ended.
P2 in class and 9th overall will do for the first race of the season on a stock engine.




CSCC Live streaming of the day. Our race at 8hrs 42minutes roughly

The last week since Donington has been quiet thankfully. It's a welcome change to come back from a race without a long list of issues to sort.
So, with so much optimism we booked the next race already. At Brands Hatch Indy on the 24th May. Again with the Tin Tops. Second driver to be confirmed but it will either be John again or Rob Q.
I've also booked a trackday there for Wednesday 13th May to get our eye in.
We still have a bit of a list to get through but nothing that's going to stop us racing. The first is the in car radio. We've always had a compatibility issue between my kit and Rob and John's kit. With an adapter I was able to hear the pit radio in Rob's car but they could never hear me. In my car, my helmet works perfectly but Rob and John's doesn't at all. Some work to do (and probably some money to spend)
Second is the passenger door which is sagging somewhat and it looks like the hinge area of the fibreglass needs some reinforcing. I want to address this before anything fails completely.
The rear GoPro has alway only worked on its own battery. The remote start and stop works but it is always prone to running out of power. So an adapter kit has been purchased to deal with that.
The GPS module on the Aim dash didn't work at Donington. It wasn't picking up any satellites. It looks like I hadn't installed it properly in the software so that's now done and we'll test that at the trackday.
Finally, an oil change for engine and gearbox is due as a precaution.




In other news, over the past few months I've been jumping through all the hoops required to become a qualified ARDS race instructor. Not a cheap process as you now have to hold an International C license which requires a stress ECG test as well as completing a couple of online courses for the FIA and Motorsport UK before finally spending a day on the ARDS course which is a mix of classroom and in car training.
The plan is to offer my services for racers looking to improve their lap times or race craft through a combination of in car instruction, data analysis and car set up. As I have all the equipment required for this it should be easy to offer this which is a little different to most ARDS instructors who tend to work for TDOs and experience day companies sitting next to Joe public. I don't really have any interest in doing that but we'll see where it takes me!


Finally, the race engine is almost complete. My builder messaged me to say that the oil pump chain and sprocket were looking a little tired so new ones were aquired and they will be the last piece of the puzzle before the bottom end can come home.

Pre Brands Hatch prep has started today. Hinge reinforcement being first on the list.
After removing the hinge from the door it was clear that the fibreglass was starting to fatigue with some noticeable flex.



Definitely needs reinforcement although to be fair its lasted this long, so it can't have been too bad.

rather than getting into the messy business of building up the fibreglass I opted to make up an alumnium spreader plate to mount on the inside.

So this has been bonded into the door and clamped through with the hinge.
A good improvement that will hopefully last.




One other small update is an improved pit board.
Until our in-car comms is sorted this is going to be needed!

8 days to RACE DAY
Earlier this week John and I convened at Brands Hatch for a day of practice. Little did we know what biblical weather lay ahead.





I arrived early to try and grab a garage only to find that every one had been reserved. Fortunately though, I recognised a name on one of the reserved signs.
Mark Gillam, owner of Abbey Motorsport did a lot of the work on our race prepared Nissan 350Z when we were running corporate track days. So it was no problem to jump in the garage with him and his rather trick 350Z that he was preparing for Oulton Park this weekend.


The morning was glorious although we were aware of the forecast, we decided to crack on and get as much dry running as we could.
Sadly for Mark, the Nissan's engine had other ideas with a rod leaving the chat within half an hour of starting!



Not an outcome I'd wish on anyone of course but the silverlining being that we had the garage to ourselves for the rest of the day. (we did help them push the car onto the trailer though, and I bought them coffee too)



Progress was good all day, even after the inevitable rain came... and then the hail...and thunder and lightning!



During a stint on a damp track John, unfortunately outbraked himself up into druids and ended up in the gravel. Nothing too serious but the usual gravel clearout lost us a bit of time.





But it was business as usual after half an hour or so.

We both set our best times in the morning while it was dry, with John just 0.4s behind my best time. A quick review of the VBox data at lunch revealed he was losing all his time through Surtees and Mclaren, so we firgured he'd be able to work on that during qualifying next week.

We called it a day at about 4pm as there was no sign of the track drying out and we weren't learning anything more.



Back home I made a discovery that has changed our plans.
Our assumption was that next weekend we would be racing on Sunday. The usual qualifying in the morning and the race in the afternoon. BUT.... CSCC have changed the format for the Bank Holiday weekend, with qualifying on Sunday but the race will be on Monday. the idea being that hopefully this will attract more spectators on the Monday where they will get a whole day of racing to watch. We'll see.
However, it looks like John can't make Monday so I'll probably be racing solo. It's been a while since I've done a 40 minute race on my own. Could be fun!

Back in the workshop today, I've strated working through the, thankfully quite short list of things to address before next weekend.
With the remnants of the trip into the gravel still evident under the car I started with getting it up on the Quickjacks and giving the underside a jetwash.
After that it was oil change and start of a spanner check.


Oil looked healthy which is good news. Other jobs included rewiring the plug to the transponder which had broken at some point. One of the cameras in the car has lost a power feed for some reason and only runs off its battery. that still needs investigating.
I still need to check the fuel filter so we don't have the same issue as at Donington if there is still crap coming out of the tank.

More importantly though is the failing wheel bearing I discovered while refitting the wheels. Not in the plan but thank god I didn't leave this wrok until next Friday!
Hub was stripped out easily. (Only 7 bolts) and my mate will collect it on Monday to press in a new bearing which i had on the shelf fortunately. I've ordered 2 new ones from Nick at PMS as well. just in case the other one fails soon.






Should have the hub back Tuesday eve so I'll jump back on the car mid week and hopefully have everything done in plenty of time.

The hub is back and back on the car. So last night I set about ticking the last items from the list. The problematic fuel system being the main focus.
After finding the filter blocked at Snetterton a couple of months ago and not checking it at Brands last week I was expecting it to be clogged again. So after the tedious process of pumping the fuel out of the tank I stripped the filter once again only to find it was clean as a whistle. Good news!


However, once I extracted the lift pump from the tank I found the sock filter there had collected a fair amount of crud.



The main reason for going into the tank though was to adjust the baffles which were, once again preventing the float on the sender from moving. I need to find a permanent solution for this but as its not a race ending issue, for the moment I repacked the baffles and reassembled everything.



Other items were, a new plug for the transponder which was not working during the first race at Donington and a check of the camera wiring as the front camera appeared to be only running from the battery at brands last week. Not sure why but after a wiggle of wiring it all seemed to be working last night. Something to keep an eye on.





Finally, after having no luck getting the AM GPS unit to work at Brands last week I contacted AIM a couple of days ago and they suggested just sending it back to them to inspect and repair. From the symptoms I described they seem to agree that it's not right. So, i won't have it back for the race but it's only a "nice to have", not essential.

So, other than a check of the camber after reinstalling the hub and then torquing everything up I think we're ready!

Brands Hatch 24th & 25th May
What a weekend!
Not withstanding the ridiculous temperatures on track and in the car, it was an eventful weekend. Not the result we wanted but a great couple of days all the same and by all means not a disaster.

Sunday morning I was in the paddock at 6:20 with a decent space for the car, trailer and gazebo and at that time in the morning not too hot to start setting up.

An hour later, once people started waking up I got set up in time for John to arrive with his mate to help! Thanks guys!



Also rocking some new branded merch!


There wasn't too much to get done on the car before quali at 12:40 other than Scrutineering, so after doing the usual checks, of tyre perssures, fuel and comms and having a general catch up with racing friends in the paddock, as well as making a few new ones we were left with just heat management to deal with.



I got through a fair few of these electrolyte sachets over the 2 days!

The car sailed through scrutineering and at the end the scrutineer actually said he thought the car was too good for TinTops! (There can be some scruffy ones sometimes!) The classic stuff tends to be immaculately turned out. And there were some beauties there this weekend.





So qualifying crept up on us and before I knew it I was sitting in the assembly area in a cabin reaching 60 degrees and it didn't get much better once on track. Everything was hot.
I very quickly discovered a major flaw in my dash calibration as the cooling fans cut in even once we were moving, which has never happened before. Great, you might think - just doing what they're supposed to do. Unfortunately I had set the dash to turn entirely red and flash a "Cooling Fan" message at me constantly. Useful in normal circumstances as it would normally point to a problem with the engine. The trouble is that with this message on the dash, everything else is obscured, including the actual engine temp. So I had no idea if the engine was about to go pop or not.
After about 5 laps I pitted for a tyre pressure check and a for a few seconds the fan stopped so I could see that things were hot but not dangerously so.
I continued out to carry on with the 25 minute stint running 2 hot laps followed by 2 cooling laps just to be safe.
The track was nice and sticky and I finished with a best time of 55.491 and 6th on the grid, P2 in class but just 0.087s behind 5th and P1 in class. James Wilson in his Pug 306. Pole was a 54.178 set by a DC2. With my race engine and an extra 30bhp I recon I would have been up there easily but there you go. (I could equally have blown the engine and not raced at all which has happened far too often too)



So, we were left in a rather unusual position of having nothing more to do until Monday. We altered the configuration on the dash, checked the fuel filter again and went for a beer watching a bit more of the qualifying and 1 of the races that were actually being held on Sunday. After that it was home for a shower ready for another early start.


Car tucked away for the night

Race day came all too quickly and again by 6:30 I was back on the paddock. Too early to make noise so time for a track walk.
I've walked plenty of times around Brands and you cannot underestimate the value of walking a track. You see small details that you subconsciously lock away and somehow your brain utilises that information the next time you are behind the wheel. It sounds unlikely but its amazing how much more accurate you can become.
It was already hot though and I had a good sweat on by the time I crossed the finish line!



The race was, thankfully earlier than the qualifying session and by 10:40 we were back in the assemby area. his time with Rob Q on race engineer duties along with my youngest daughter, Siena on the camera. She's studying film at Brighton so I'm expecting an impressive edit of the day's activities some time soon!
Siena had also brought her friend, Erin who is studying Motorsport Engineering and has been pit crewing for a team in the City Cup so she was on tyre pressures and timing.
Eventually we headed out straight into a green flag lap and a rolling start. It was hot already!
Obviously the start is the most nerve wracking part of any race. So much can go wrong but also things can go really right sometimes too. The main goal is always to get through the first corner and at Brands that's Padock Hill Bend, a notorious corner at the best of times. I was on the outside of the track making me vulnerable to be pushed out into the gravel but it can also be a chance to get around the outside as most people squeeze up towards the apex.
The start went well though, with no dramas for anyone. Wilson who was right beside me at the start missed a gear and dropped back but the Civic behind me used his superior power to come past me through the centre and squeeze ahead once we were out of Druids at the top of the hill.
Coming out of Surtees, further around the track, Alfie Jones in another Civic running in 2nd pulled on to the infield as his engine let go which brought out the safety car just a lap later.
Once that pulled in the race continued and I ricocheted up and down the top 6 having various battles along the way, especially once we started meeting the backmarkers.
With just my stock engine I was seriously lacking straight line speed but i was making up for it in the corners and under braking which is one of the reasons there was lots of passing going on. It was great fun.
After most of the pit stops had been done, including ours I soon found myself in P2 overall. Although P1 (another civic) was a long way ahead and lapping quicker and I knew John and Tom Dee in their DC2 (the pole sitters) were catching me fast after they dropped back due to a trip throught the gravel earlier it was looking like a P3 might be on the cards.
I didn't know it at the time but our pit stop had been short. With a minimum pit time (entry to exit) of 1:30 it's critical to try and time it right so that you are released and heading down towards the exit, ideally so that the clock clicks over 1:30 just before you exit. It can be tricky and this time our stop was a 1:29! which meant we were hit with a 30 second penalty.
However, with about 7 minutes to go I started to have another problem. The car started to stutter...
It was clearly a fuel issue and as it started to get worse each lap it was clear I was running out of fuel!
Our radio wasn't working properly either so I didn't know how much time as left and all I was getting from the pit board was my position.
2 cars passed me and then another and then in the distance, in the mirror I could see James Wilson in his 306 slowly catching me. Finally as I came onto the start-finish straight, he was on me. In front of me the chequered flag was waving but he just pipped me on the line! Oh well, I thought. P2 in class - not too bad. And then I heard about the penalty.
So, a P10 finish overall and P3 in class but a hell of a fun race and the car came back in one piece.
There was a live feed on YouTube of the race. The link below and the race starts at 1hr 27 minutes. There's a good amount of coverage of me, especially when I'm running in P2 and the commentators realise I'm about to get a penalty.

https://www.youtube.com/live/Bx3Hszql7_w?si=Mfypj3udLze3S1D7



So, the next race is a 2 hour endurance back at Donington with 3 drivers permitted, followed a week later by Cadwell Park. We need to decide what we're going to do but for now, I'm off to Italy for a wedding on Friday so I'm forgetting about the car for a week. (That's what the wife thinks anyway)