2 Weeks ago we had the final race meeting of the season at Donington. The finale being a 40 minute night race following the usual 40 minute race on Sunday afternoon. All the racing over the weekend was streamed on Youtube so we got plenty of coverage over the 2 races. Not always for the right reasons though!
There wasn't much to do after Thruxton. The car had run well; I'd hardly used the brakes so pads were fine and as well as the new set of AO50s I ran at Thruxton I also had the new set of AO52s to run at Donington.
We had booked onto the test day on Friday with a view to getting Jonathan more seat time in the car, getting him familiar with the track and also scrubbing in the new tyres. Of course I was praying for a dry day but the gods were not looking down on us unfortunately.
The day started dry and we managed about 15 minutes of running before the rain came. Enough to get the front tyres scrubbed but not the rears, so we swapped front to back and ran like that in the wet for the rest of the day.
All went well apart from the inside fogging up even with the blower running but a trip to the shop and some anti-fog cured that. (amazing stuff)
Jonathan also brought with him a small amount of sponsorship from the company he worked for.. (they contributed to the new tyres)
He has since left them!
Towards the end of Friday the scrutineering for the weekend began so we took the opportunity to get it done. at this point my day went down hill rapidly. While waiting in line for the scrutineers I felt something on my neck, went to brush it off only to be stung by a wasp! Of course I'm allergic, so I said see you later to Jonathan and took myself off to the medical centre.
An hour later, dosed up on Ibuprofen and antihistamines I got back to the garages with a lovely swollen and bright red face! So that was the end of my driving for the day. Jonathan did one more stint and then we packed up.
As we weren't racing until Sunday I had a day ahead of me free which was fortunate as the wasp sting symptoms weren't over.
By the evening I had a full body rash (very attractive) so managed a quick dinner at the hotel and then went to bed. In the morning I woke up with what felt like a neck brace on! The rash had gone only to be replaced by a rather swollen neck. (I certainly wouldn't have been getting a Hans Device on like that!)
So I spent Saturday watching a very wet day of racing interspersed with sleeping and praying I'd be better the next day.
Sunday, thankfully was forecast to be dry and that was to be the case.
We had got set up Saturday evening in the garages so Sunday morning was pretty chilled with qualifying not until 10.35.
Qualifying was difficult with a few yellow flags and the car also picked up a slight hint of a misfire. We finished in 10th but with the 2nd place man sadly retiring quite spectacularly we were bumped up the order.
A beautifully prepared Integra Type R that was only just back in the series after being punted off badly at Thruxton in 2018.
On the grid for race 1 I was lined up directly behind Tom Mensley who historically is the fastest Clio and a regular all out winner. So I planned to tuck up behind him into Redgate and try and stay with him through Craners. With a rolling start this had the potential to work well as long as Tom had a good start.
Toms gearbox blew as the lights went out and I quickly found myself boxed in behind him and losing places rapidly!
So the first few laps were spent making places back up but also trying to manage a slightly worse misfire which we apparently hadn't cured.
A safety car after 10 minutes or so bunched us all up and after the restart I was just trying to hold position while the misfire was hamstringing me out of each of the corners, yet at WOT the car was flying again. Very frustrating.
I handed the car over to Jonathan in 10th and while he managed the same issue I had a bigger problem ultimately put us out of the race.
Coming through some backmarkers the car all of a sudden stepped out and spun onto the infield. So after establishing that the car seemed still to be running ok Jonathan limped back to the pits with a very sorry looking car.
The problem can be seen on the floor under the car!
A bolt had come out of the end cover of the gearbox and dumped oil over the back wheels. So a frustrating first race of the weekend but we were determined not to let it end there.
New bolts and new oil sorted the gearbox. A bucket and sponge sorted the appearance and that just left the misfire.
So we spent the next few hours trying to diagnose this.
Coil pack and leads were changed. Plugs were checked. Injectors were checked - basically all the usual suspects. Nothing seemed to be working until while plugging and unplugging the coil pack the misfire all of a sudden went away! So, we put it down to a bad connection on the plug. Got the cable ties out and then took it for a spin around the paddock. It seemed to be fixed!
Before the night race there was a 30 minute "acclimatisation" session. Not a qualifying but still a timed session. So with lights on we went out to see what it was all about.
After about 20 minutes we were the fastest car on the track! The car was running beautifully and Jonathan was getting into his stride nicely too.
On the back of this I decided to make Jonathan start the race. He needs signatures for his licence so it made sense for him to try and get his stint done.
We started 7th on the grid based on our earlier qualifying time. This race was a mix of Tin Tops, Turbo Tin Tops and the RX8 series. He had a good start and made up a few places only for the race to be red flagged on lap one due to a car rolling at Craners.
So after a restart he still managed a few places and the car was going beautifully. After 15 minutes we were up to 2nd although a long way behind Andrew Jordan who is unsurprisingly in another class!
BUT... as he came into the pits to change over, the dreaded misfire began again! F***k.
I came back out into 4th place and right behind Tom Mensley again. For a couple of laps I stuck with him and another Civic both of which I was quicker than until the corners when the misfire would appear. After a bit though the misfire started to get even worse and I spent the rest of the race nursing the car home, being passed by cars until we finally finished in 13th.
brakes reached over 400 degrees!
So a very disappointing end to the season results wise, but still immensely enjoyable with the YouTube footage and commentary adding a really nice perspective to the experience. Hopefully next year we'll see more of that. In the meantime there will be an edited program going out on Sky and Amazon Prime at some point over the winter which should be good.
Some investigating to do on the car over winter too!
another casualty of the race!
