The trials & tribulations of racing a Clio

I always enjoy reading your Post and have done for a long time. Keep them coming

Jamie86 said:

I read as well! What do you think the fuelling issue is? Pump itself?

Shame about the penalty but sometimes a fun race is better than some plastic trophies

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Was definitely a fun race! Not sure on the fueling issue yet. Possibly fuel vapourisation due to the heat, or possibly more crap in the system. I've got a Walboro uprated lift pump to fit in the tank which I'll do in the next couple of weeks in the run up to Donington on the 21st. Someone has also suggested checking the mesh filter on the fuel regulator which is worth a look. We'll see.

Andy P said:

I always enjoy reading your Post and have done for a long time. Keep them coming

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More to come soon!

No GoPros for the Brands Hatch race. They hate the heat! So I cobbled together the VBox footage. If you can stomach the poor quality the racing gets more interesting about 15 minutes in.

Genuinely love reading the updates on this Clio

robzracing said:

No GoPros for the Brands Hatch race. They hate the heat! So I cobbled together the VBox footage. If you can stomach the poor quality the racing gets more interesting about 15 minutes in.

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That’s a watch for when I get to work

Messing around with AI today. Don't look too closely!

Preparations for Donington 2 hour race started this week starting with retrieving the car from its new storage space. A mate of mine has just had a storage unit built for his car collection so I had to ask if he might have room for one more! A Clio takes up very little space after all! And in return I offered to keep an eye on things for him while he's not around. (he spends time between London and Melbourne) He's started filling it already and there's more to come!


Once back at its more humble home I started with the easy stuff.
Not happy with the new wheel bearing which has a small amount of movement in it, the hub is off again to have another bearing pressed in. this time a better quality SNR one.
I also collected 2 wheels from the powder coaters one from the crash at the end of 2024 that will stay as a spare and the other a new one that replaced it at the end of 2024 but was only available in Bronze at the time so had had a rattle can finish until now.
Tyre will be fitted this week too.




After this I turned my attention to the fuel system yet again, starting with the filter which after stripping (yet again) proved to be clean as a whistle. So then it was on to the tank.
The symptoms at the end of the Brands race was fuel starvation, so the best result here would have been a near empty tank and we could chalk it down to human error. Alas, still plenty of fuel in the tank!


So, the lift pump came out again and that's where things started going to s**t.
All my own doing mind. I had a Walboro uprated pump sitting on the shelf so decided to swap this out with the existing one incase the pump was on its way out.
Unfortunately though it's not so easy to swap these pumps. the Walboro needs some adaption to the housing to fit and the flexi hose needs to be attached. But this did not come off the exisiting unit without a fight. In fact, it wouldn't come off at all without cutting it! And that left me wthout a hose. The Walboro comes with a small piece of rubber hose in the kit but it is no where near flexible enough. I had to can the whole idea and pulled all my spare pumps out to try and find a good one. It was getting messy.




None of the pumps are the same with one probably from a phase 1 with an integrated regulator and the other without a fuel return line but had been adapted. (this was the one in the car when i bought it back in 2013) So all I could do for now was try one of these.
After testing the pumps which seemed to work I reassembled everything and tried it. Nothing! I wanted to run the lift pump without the high pressure pump so i could empty the tank, but the one I put in didn't seem to have the strength to pump anything.
So in the true spirit of, "F***k it, I've only got a week and I really can't be doing with this" the parts cannon was wheeled out. New lift pump ordered and also some new flexible hose to try again with the Walboro. I have to wait for these to arrive before tackling it again.
So, with that headach shelved I moved on to some cosmetics.
the front bumper was looking a little tired and the rubber lip has been bothering me for a while, so recently I ordered some 50mm lawn edging which I've seen used before to replace the lip and also add a little more protection to the oil cooler which sits slightly lower than the bumper.
I had to tidy the chipped black strip first by wrapping it.





We'll see how long this lasts!

And finally, while I had the vinyl out, I added the valve markers back on the refurbished wheels.

more to come in the week as we prepare for a tricky weekend.

The weekend has arrived and we're about ready. (I think)
New lift pump assembly arrived in the week along with the front hub with a far better quality SNR bearing from PMS pressed into it. Feels much tighter.




Need to check the camber setting once on some level ground but much happier now.

With the new pump installed it immediately sounded much healthier and I was able to quickly pump all the fuel out of the tank. So with that companent replaced, the only remaining part not replaced is the fuel pressure regulator.
it was suggested that these can get clogged inside but as mine is at least 13 years ols and never been opened I didn't want to try it without having some new gaskets ready to go back in. no time for that this week. So instead, i ordered a replacement regulator that will come with us to Donington. If the problem returns in qualifying, this can be swapped out, along with a new set of injectors. After that I cannot think what else could be the problem. So lets hope there is no problem anyway!


On Tuesday evening Rob Q came over to give a hand and with him he brought his VP Racing fuel jugs. These deliver fuel quicker than jerry cans and so we'll be using them to refuel during the race.
With a mandatory minimum 6 minute pit stop we wanted to time filling the tank from empty so we had some idea how much of the 6 minutes will be used refueling, as while the car is being fueled nothing else can happen and the drivers must be out of the car.
The result was 4 minutes to dump 40 litres.
We won't be putting that much fuel in at each stop but it was a surprising amount of time and its not going to give us much time to do anything else other than swap drivers.
The pit entry for the race is incredibly complicated; with the Melbourne loop being used as the pit entry and pit lane speed limit coming in to play half way down the straight before we are fed out into the paddock and past the petrol station (where people can choose to fuel if they wish) and then back into the pit lane to stop infornt of your allocated garage to fuel up and change drivers.
To add to the fun the speed limit drops from 60 kmh to 30kmh once we enter the paddock and then goes back up to 60 when in the pit lane. Plenty of opportunity to slip up and incur penalties!
but all this means that another good chunk of our 6 minute stop will be taken up with travelling to the garage!
So with all this being the case, I've prepped the inside of the car with 2 timers and some key time and speed information as reminders while we're in the hot seat.


All we have to do is remember to hit the start button on the 6 minute timer as we enter the pit lane and then watch the speed.
As radios are not allowed at Donington unless you have a proper license we are having to rely solely on the pit board which isnt ideal but we're going to have to work out some clear signalling code!
With most jobs done, the front bumper was reinstalled properly and in doing so, noticed a flat spot on one of the tyres that I had completely missed!


So a quick change over for now but we still need to pick our 4 best tyres before the race.
And so with everything back together, I collected the trailer this evening and tomorrow morning will be spent packing and loading ready to set off around 3pm Saturday afternoon.

Race report to come. It was not without its drama!

Right, not the full race report or even video yet. But - a little montage of every time we were passed by the outright race winner.
While we won our "TinTops" class race, we were far from the quickest on track with some seriously quick GT cars on track. With the slowest being the Ford Pumas, some of the closing speeds were insane but despite this not a single safety car came out during the whole 2 hours.
Also for reference - during the race we covered 150miles on track. The winner did 190miles!

A short film made by my youngest daughter who is a first year film student at Brighton Uni. Hoping to get her to a few more meets in the future.
Its great for those who don't have the attention span to watch one of my on-board films (most people I'm guessing - me included!)

Donington 2 hour endurance 21st June
Well that was stressful!

This was the first event of its kind at Donington and the CSCC had put a fair amount of effort in to its smooth running.
There were actually to be 2 endurance races. One for the modern stuff, (including us in the Tin Tops) and a classic race for the 60s stuff etc.

So with a 2 hour race we were allowed up to 3 drivers and would have to make at least 2 mandatory pit stops of a minimum of 6 minutes each (pit in to pit out) and at least one refuel during one of those pit stops.
I think it is fair to say most people refueled in both pit stops as most of the cars don't have tanks big enough to carry enough fuel for much more than an hour's running at full chat.
The biggest complication though, came from the option to refuel via the petrol pumps at Donington. I'm not sure whether this was part of the deal that CSCC did with the circuit to secure the race (so they might make a bit of money selling their exorbitant fuel) but it was not a popular option and made the pitting process painful to say the least.
So... To enable the refueling at the station, pitting was via the Melbourne loop, and then through a fenced off road through the paddock, passing by the fuel pumps and then around to the medical centre and through the gap back into the pit lane! Extremely convoluted and again, made doubly complicated by varying the speed limit from 60kmh on the track and pit sections and then 30kmh through the paddock. With heavy penalties for any speeding.
Refueling was in the pit lane if you chose not to use the pumps.
So once we had absorbed all that we needed to start figuring out some timing, it soon bacame apparent that the 6 minute minimum may not be far off it was going to take us anyway. Once we had navigated the pit entry, refueling was complete (when no one else can touch the car and the driver must be out) to strapping the next driver in this was all taking a fair amount of time.
As mentioned in a previous post, I had mounted an extra timer in the car set to 6 minutes which we could start as we pitted, allowing us to keep over the minimum time. In theory this was a good idea. More on that later!

I arrived Saturday evening at Donington about 5:30. We were told that no one would be allowed in until 7pm because another race meeting was taking place on the Saturday. All endurance racers were to set up in the garages (rather than out in the paddock which was for the other short races taking place) but we were not allocated specific garages, meaning that it was first come first served and therefore no surprise that at 5:30 there was already a queue at the gates and by the time they started letting us in to the circuit the queue extended out into the road. Not ideal and needless to say a bunfight ensued in the paddock and at one point I, (Mr. non-confontation) was having to stand my ground with a rather irate lorry driver trying to muscle in on the garage I had nabbed bacause I was able to squeeze through a gap that an artic couldn't!
Anyway, as I explained to him, there are always enough garages to go round and within an hour or so everyone was sorted.


Queuing to the road


I pulled up in the public parking area.

Rob and John both arrived soon after I started setting up so within an hour or so we were ready and headed off to the hotel for some food and an early night.

We agreed to an early start for the obligatory track walk at 6:30am and the weather was perfect.





...and joined by Shaun from Recycled Racing who we were sharing a garage with.

Once satisfied that the track still went the same way we remembered, we returned to the garage to prepare for scrutineering and quali.
All good so far.. Quali came soon enough and it was agreed that I would do 10 minutes, Rob would then do 20 minutes because he hasn't driven the car since March and then John would finish off the last 10 minutes and hopefully get some clear air for a decent lap with a lighter car after fuel burn.



the track was really busy of course and the crazy closing speeds between the fastest GT cars and the slowest Puma Cup cars was something to keep us on our toes.
My stint went ok but nothing special and the changeover went ok with Rob settling in quickly and soon setting equal lap times to me.
When John jumped in he got 2 or 3 laps in before coming back in with the dreaded fuel starvation issue. Not what we needed. It left us qualifying in 32nd position out of 43 cars and second in class.

So, not the nice chilled break between quali and the race that we hoped for and after some food, a driver briefing and a chat about a plan, we went to work stripping the fuel assembly at the rear again.


We inspected the filter again and still nothing obvious. As the problem has only started since changing the tank over winter we are wondering whether there could be a restriction in the breather causing a vacuum in the tank? A difficult one to check so in the end we decided to eliminate the one possible restricting factor despite it looking ok; the filter.
At least for this race and with a new filter on the lift pump in the tank we figured it should be fine. And with everything crossed we assembled everything and prepared for the race.

Running order would be the same as quali and at each stop we would refuel, just brimming the car. We didn't feel quite as prepared as we had hoped but we had planned the changeover procedure carefully and we each had a role. We just needed to keep an eye on the time.


The start

A rolling start of course and with such a variety of cars and speeds the run into Redgate wasn't too sketchy and I made a couple of passes on the first lap but then got almost taken out by Nigel Ainge in his Integra going into the 3rd lap. His car was quicker of course but I had a good run through the final chicane and was along side him on the outside in the run up to Redgate when all of a sudden he moved over and ran me onto the grass.
i'm not actually sure he knew I was there!


Not a lot of space!

I got past Nigel in a couple of laps by following a faster Porsche, lapping us into the final chicane and the rest of my 40 minute stint was spent watching the mirrors for the insanely fast GT cars leading the race and occasionally having a legitimate tussle with the cars around me.
We were currently P2 in class with Blair and Shaun of Recycled Racing in their Civic a little further down the road.
however, I could feel the clutch starting to slip and spent the last half of my stint managing the gear changes a little more carefully until I finally came in to refuel and swap with Rob.
So, as I came to the Pit entry line on the Melbourne loop I was conscious of having to start the 6 minute timer. But I also had to hit the pit lane speed limiter button as I crossed the line and all of a sudden I was patting my head and rubbing my belly and somehow didn't hit the timer button hard enough!

trying and failing to hit the timer!

I only realised as I stopped the car at the garage that the timer wasn't running. So i hit it then and we began a guessing game on the timing!
The refuel and driver change went like clockwork though and I had time to warn Rob about the failing clutch and we released him hoping and praying that we got the timing right. And looking at the timing sheets afterwards, we were certainly safe with a 6:38 stop.

With Rob out we were crossing fingers for the clutch and the fueling gremlins which so far seemed to have gone away and he managed to have a trouble free stint, briefly having a good battle with Blair in the Civic before getting stuck behind a Jag that was quicker in a straight line but unsurprisingly much slower through the bends. It frustrated Rob but with the slipping clutch there was nothing he could do.
Sadly, for Shaun and Blair the civic expired just before they swapped for the final time, leaving us leading the Tin Tops category. All we had to do was bring it home!
When John climbed in the clutch was really struggling and he spent the last 40 minutes managing the gears and just trying to get the car home.
He put in some good laps still, but couldn't keep position on the road with a couple of cars that we had passed earlier catching back up and finally passing him but they weren't in our class so it didn't matter.
And as the clock ticked over 2hours and 1 minute he crossed the line!



A class win! Albeit by default but a win is a win and it makes all the hard work worth it.
For John and Rob, their first red caps too! So a good day all round.

The next race is at Snetterton on the 19th July. I have a new clutch already and just need some time to prep the car. Rob and John will both be away so I'll be riding solo and just need to rally some help in the pits. (If any one wants to offer?)

Great stuff on the class win! As someone one day looking to get into racing a car properly (more than likely a Clio at this rate), this thread's a huge inspiration to finally get into it.

Always a top-quality read when you post dude