Turbos.
So, at last the season finale and the exciting prospect of seeing one of our NSXs actually on a race track! My dad opted to drive the NSX with Vicki Butler-Henderson whilst i shared the Elise with our mate James. With Brands Hatch Indy at last favouring the Lotus, we were keen to claim another victory. Later in the day, James and my dad would be racing the NSX again in the night race for GT cars.
The Elise survived the 6 hour Silverstone race without any damage and just needed a good going over. Being the NSX's first race, we couldn't really do more than wait and see... so all that has changed was a bit of day-glo and a few stickers.
First up was qualifying. We knew Kevin Clarke's BMW had improved this season, but we were confident with the Elise. It felt great.
My dad was getting to grips with NSX, experiencing some very heavy steering. We were worried how VBH would deal with it!
Things were much closer than we thought! The Elise achieved pole by just 8 thousandths! Eat your heart out F1...
VBH soon got to grips in the NSX and was commendably close to my dad. They finished qualifying 3rd in class, not bad.
Some changes were made to the seat position in the NSX before the race. Mainly because VBH is pretty small, but also to give better leverage for the truck like steering! Because of the additional padding VBH needed, she had to start. She was understandably nervous in the collecting area...
However the boys' minds were firmly on the task at hand!
In contrast to Vicki, James was confident of a good stint in the Elise. However, things weren't looking so good as i watched the NSX's in-car video. James span it on the warm up lap hitting the wall!
Confidence turned to panic as the stricken Elise came back in for some patching up. James was sent away 4 laps down...
To his credit, James got a move on and soon started unlapping himself. We weren't giving up!
Meanwhile, Vicki had done really well, despite being hit twice! Thanks to great driving and other people getting into their own incidents, she was up to 5th place despise carrying battle scars of her own.
40 minutes into the race, Vicki came in and was understandably shattered! My dad got in and cracked on.
Soon after, James came in and passed the Elise over to me. I would have to drive like banzai for the rest of the race, we were still well down the order.
I almost went straight off at the roller-coaster corner that is Paddock Hill. The lost splitter meant massive understeer i wasn't expecting!
Sadly, just as the Elise was gaining steam (quite literally, it was overheating!), the NSX ran into gearbox problems and my dad could only use 3rd gear!
Fortunately, the NSX was comfortably placed and even had fastest lap for it's class. It cruise home in 7th, 2nd in class.
Little did my dad know, he politely let me past a few laps before the finish when it was actually for position! So, from 4 laps down, we managed to finish 6th overall. We were still disappointed, but pleased we still got a valuable point securing 2nd in our class for the season.
The poor Elise looked a little worse, as always! It will be repaired this week for a reappearance on the GP circuit on Saturday.
Being a bunch of kids, despite only having 3rd gear we still decided to run the NSX in the GT race (another 90 minutes!). It did brilliantly considering, even beating Porsche GT3s and Astons and started from the pitlane!
So, what's happening next season? To be honest, no idea as of yet. The NSX is definitely getting power steering and a sequential though. It will be subtly refined to meet class limits too. What we do know, is things bode well for a car running a stock engine and gearbox to be just 2 seconds slower than the Elise. Bring on 2010!
Thanks for everyone's support and a bigger thanks to Nick and Andy off here for the amazing photos!
The Elise survived the 6 hour Silverstone race without any damage and just needed a good going over. Being the NSX's first race, we couldn't really do more than wait and see... so all that has changed was a bit of day-glo and a few stickers.
First up was qualifying. We knew Kevin Clarke's BMW had improved this season, but we were confident with the Elise. It felt great.
My dad was getting to grips with NSX, experiencing some very heavy steering. We were worried how VBH would deal with it!
Things were much closer than we thought! The Elise achieved pole by just 8 thousandths! Eat your heart out F1...
VBH soon got to grips in the NSX and was commendably close to my dad. They finished qualifying 3rd in class, not bad.
Some changes were made to the seat position in the NSX before the race. Mainly because VBH is pretty small, but also to give better leverage for the truck like steering! Because of the additional padding VBH needed, she had to start. She was understandably nervous in the collecting area...
However the boys' minds were firmly on the task at hand!
In contrast to Vicki, James was confident of a good stint in the Elise. However, things weren't looking so good as i watched the NSX's in-car video. James span it on the warm up lap hitting the wall!
Confidence turned to panic as the stricken Elise came back in for some patching up. James was sent away 4 laps down...
To his credit, James got a move on and soon started unlapping himself. We weren't giving up!
Meanwhile, Vicki had done really well, despite being hit twice! Thanks to great driving and other people getting into their own incidents, she was up to 5th place despise carrying battle scars of her own.
40 minutes into the race, Vicki came in and was understandably shattered! My dad got in and cracked on.
Soon after, James came in and passed the Elise over to me. I would have to drive like banzai for the rest of the race, we were still well down the order.
I almost went straight off at the roller-coaster corner that is Paddock Hill. The lost splitter meant massive understeer i wasn't expecting!
Sadly, just as the Elise was gaining steam (quite literally, it was overheating!), the NSX ran into gearbox problems and my dad could only use 3rd gear!
Fortunately, the NSX was comfortably placed and even had fastest lap for it's class. It cruise home in 7th, 2nd in class.
Little did my dad know, he politely let me past a few laps before the finish when it was actually for position! So, from 4 laps down, we managed to finish 6th overall. We were still disappointed, but pleased we still got a valuable point securing 2nd in our class for the season.
The poor Elise looked a little worse, as always! It will be repaired this week for a reappearance on the GP circuit on Saturday.
Being a bunch of kids, despite only having 3rd gear we still decided to run the NSX in the GT race (another 90 minutes!). It did brilliantly considering, even beating Porsche GT3s and Astons and started from the pitlane!
So, what's happening next season? To be honest, no idea as of yet. The NSX is definitely getting power steering and a sequential though. It will be subtly refined to meet class limits too. What we do know, is things bode well for a car running a stock engine and gearbox to be just 2 seconds slower than the Elise. Bring on 2010!
Thanks for everyone's support and a bigger thanks to Nick and Andy off here for the amazing photos!
