Brands Hatch 3 Apr 12 - Booked!

[Grin-a-lot]

I'm hugely excited, first trackday of the year booked, off to Brands Hatch for the evening and for the first time since owning it I appear to have a car that doesn't overheat instantly, has had the geometry set up and is not running rich!

I'm as excited as a school girl at a Take That concert!

Video to follow!

[Krazyken]

Grin

You will love Brands it is a great circuit, just put some growmore in your underpants for Paddock Hill Bend at the end of the pit straight.  Once you drive it you will know what I mean.  Enjoy!

['The Gaffer']

Excellent, enjoy it

[Grin-a-lot]

Well Brands Hatch was truly awesome (eventually)!

It didn't start too well, when I arrived 1st gear and reverse were almost impossible to use, turned out the recently replaced clutch cable had stretched a bit more so within minutes of arriving the car was jacked up and I was under it tightening the cable .

It was run as Open Lane and following the sighting laps I queued straight back in the pits ready for the first chance to get out and tackle the track at my own pace.

Well Paddock hill turned my trousers brown , the BTCC coverage at the weekend doesn't do the gradient and corner itself justice.  Not only that the gorgeous Simpson's silencer that I had from Dave H took a battering as it bottomed out in the dip after Paddock Hill (sorry Dave ...).  The hairpin at the top I could take quite quickly, the tyres sticking to the track in a way that was missing at Donington (where I spent most of the time sideways or in the run off areas).

3 laps in and the geometry courtesy of Camber Dave and the BKCC discount was proving its worth.  Coupled with some great value part worn tyres from Steve Harkness (another discount) meant that while the road cars were squealing, I was cornering like a ninja (well felt like it).  I was impressed with the straight line acceleration which seemed a lot more responsive and sharper since I stripped and cleaned the carbs over Winter and it stacked up well against most of the road cars that were there.  I really had the upper hand in the corners, being able to brake later and corner quicker than most of the other cars that were out there.

Sadly the start of lap 4 saw an epic cloud of white smoke from the passenger side of the car .  I limped back to the pits fearing the worst and whipped the bonnet off.  Turns out that the catch tank had not only filled itself with oil but promptly dumped most of it out of the vent, hitting the hot exhaust primaries and creating a smoke screen that the Army would be able to hide a Challenger 2 tank behind.  I think that in my excitement I overfilled the sump and my naturally heavy breathing engine courteously dumped it into the tank in short order.

Still, oil level reset, car idled ad driven around the back of the garages for a bit and all seemed good so back out I went with everything crossed.  A couple of pedestrian laps and it was behaving well and then full throttle again.  Paddock hill didn't get any easier as far as I could see and Dave's old silencer continued to take a battering .

Several laps later and I lost loads of power, and limped back to the pits again, fearing that the earlier oil had caused real damage .  A bit of investigation and it turned out that one of the HT leads had fallen off the dizzy cap .  Reconnected, started the car again and once again running like a dream.

So back out on track and stayed there for some time, everything got up to temp (my oil cooler addition – thanks again Dave H - did a great job at keeping water temp under 100degC all evening) and it was overheating brakes that finally caused me to come in.

Checking the tyres even saw the little rubber wormy/sperm shapes on the inside edges where I was pushing me and the car quite hard.

Sadly there were more red flags than at a communist's tea party as the chav brigade made an appearance.  One young man (and I wont judge as didn't see the cause of the accident) managed to roll his old shaped Golf at the bottom of Paddock Hill.  He walked away unharmed – which was more than could be said for the car which didn't appear to have a single panel left the way God intended.

So basically it was brilliant following a ropey start.  A real mix of cars and it was nice to see how my little 1989 registered Westfield stacked up against some production cars.  The F430 scudiera was marginally quicker and it was clear that I was the weak link in my car's performance rather than the other way around this time.  The discounts and help through BKCC have turned around the performance of my car and I am hugely grateful for all that as well.

All I need to do now is give the car a good going over to make sure that the oil incident hasn't caused any damage (drove London-Portsmouth afterwards and it seemed fine), check the nuts and bolts for tightness, consider changing the oil, I think I should be running 20/50 rather than 10/40 and raise what's left of Dave's silencer of the floor a bit more.

So Brands Hatch is highly recommended by me, pictures to follow when I get home at the weekend!

[YellaBelly]

Sounds like you had several versions of fun there chap

Glad it all worked out in the end, maybe one day, if I get my jallopy on the road I might be brave enoguh to at least take it for a mediocre lap around a track somewhere.....

Can't wait for the piccies.

Oh, and 10/10 for the perseverance

[Grin-a-lot]

Yeah; the emotions were up and down more than the track itself!

You should definitely treat yourself to at least one track day as a reward for all your hard work!  For me its not about being the fastest but getting the car to a position where you can enjoy the twists and turns on the track.  These 7-esque cars (even with comparably small engines like my little crossflow) happen to feel right at home when its all working properly.  Given that this was a bit of a shakedown for the car and the hardest its ever worked in its life, an evening session was ideal.  Half the price of a full day and enough track time to do a number of 15min sessions before coming in (out of choice!) and letting things settle down again.  I think i'd recommend it if you are not sure how your car'll cope on its first track day.

As for novice days, the jury is still out on that for me.  It was good because they had the cones for braking, turning, apex etc but I felt there were a number of less thoughtful people on track that made me slightly nervous about whether they'd behave (only overtake on straights not corner etc).  That might have been speculation, judging people and their cars though because on the whole the majority were well behaved and, as with any track day, there were just a couple of people that decided the rules were there to be bent a bit...

I also fashioned a mount for a little video camera but it kept tipping itself skyward (the run onto the pit straight was surprisingly bumpy I thought), if there's any usable video i'll stick that up too.

['The Gaffer']

Nice write up Grin Sounded like a great day you had there.

If you want more stopping power I have a pair of Willwood Superlight alloy 4 pot calipers with vented discs and Willwood pads. They are ex Dave H so if they stopped him, they would stop anybody

[foggy]

Enjoyed reading your account, sounds thaht you had some fun that day.

[Moleman]

I injoyed reading it aswell. Glad it all went well despite afew minor repairs which got fixed easily enough.

When you doing your next one then? 

[David H]

Fair play Grin! Glad to see your giving the car hell. Tis what its for.

[Grin-a-lot]

The photographer only had a few of me but I negotiated a good price on a CD of photos, these are probably the 2 best.

[YellaBelly]

Nice pics chap

Might be worth taking a couple of inches out of the exhaust pipe and lifting the silencer to give you more clearance mate? You've lost most of the clearance you have under the belly of the car!

JB

[Krazyken]

Well done Grin, glad that you had such fun and found the benefits  BKCC membership a great help.  Now that you have experienced Paddock Hill Bend, the next stop is either Honda Curve at Pembrey or Craner Curves at Donington, just don't forget to bring a clean pair of underpants. 

[Lucky Ed]

Looks like you had a great day in the end. Well done with the running repairs! I agree with Krazyken Craner Curves is a real must do. I really hope to get back there later this year.

Gaffer - I might be interested in your Wilwoods if they will fit Sierra hubs and the discs aren't too big - I think I'm going to run out of brakes on my first trackday - watch this space

['The Gaffer']

Gaffer - I might be interested in your Wilwoods if they will fit Sierra hubs and the discs aren't too big - I think I'm going to run out of brakes on my first trackday - watch this space

Ed, You are welcome to have a look. PM me for contact details if you like.

[Lucky Ed]

Thanks Gaffer, I'm off to Pembrey at the end of the month, and have fitted new(er) discs and yellowstuff pads, so I'll see how it works out.

If I go straight on at the hairpin, I'll be straight on the blower to you!

[David H]

Gaffer's brakes he has for sale are the nuts for seven type cars. I ran the model below these ones and I only ever had trouble stopping when I finally melted the tyres.

Great bang for buck.