A long weekend at Brands

Extraordinary wallowing carSo, I’m back from Brands and I’ve finally got around to updating this site. The problem is, I’m in the middle of writing the “qualifying dissertation” for my PhD and haven’t really had the time to get around to this place. Still, the one line summary of Brands is that I went faster than I’ve ever done before but it was still a rather frustrating weekend.

I got to Brands in the early morning having driven, on Thursday, from Cambridge to York (to see my PhD supervisor) to South Mimms (for the 750 club’s Race Technical Committee meeting) to Cambridge to Brands Hatch. I was knackered. There was a bit where the single lane of the M25 that existed just before the Brands turnoff (anyone’s who’s been past in the last 5 years or so will know the world’s largest road works seem to be going on here) came to a complete halt. I think they were craning something over the road. I was seriously concerned that I’d fall asleep in the cab of the bus and the chap behind would have to come and wake me up!

Still, I got there, parked up and went to bed. In the morning the weather looked fine, unlike the forecast. So, I put on the testing tyre set, of which the left rear in particular is a bit second hand these days. Doubtless Clearways would wreak its own brand of havoc this weekend.

Now, the objective for the day was to get below 54 seconds, something I’ve dismally failed to do in the past. After looking at the logs it seemed as though I could brake lots later at Paddock and Druids without ending up in the kitty litter.

Out for session 1 and I had a grotty time really. I was so frustated that I forgot to stop the logger before I took the data card out so I don’t even know what the time was anymore. If I remember correctly, it said something depressing like 54.9 on the display. I thought I’d been driving the nuts off the car, although on the video, which did work, that’s clearly not true. I also had armfuls of oversteer all over the place. I was thinking that there was something wrong with the rear of the car. In fact, on the way back to the paddock (it’s quite a trek at Brands) there was an awful lots of creaking and groaning from the rear of the car. I decided that perhaps the rear ARB was making life bad and I thought I’d try disconnecting it.

I did so and the next session was a little better. I was now back to a modicum of understeer at Clearways. If I could only persuade my right foot to be harder on the loud pedal then I might be able to kill that although I’d have to be confident enough that I wasn’t going to end up in the gravel, of which there’s several hectares around Clearways.

Mind you, the time wasn’t too impressive at 54.18. A new measure that I’ve been using that I’ve dubbed the lead foot metric was 41.3%. This is the proportion of the lap where the throttle is over 90% applied. It seems to be related to laptime in a mostly monotonic manner which makes it interesting to look at. To be fair to myself, I wasn’t on the best tyres and that the circuit was thick with marbles wasn’t helping. I had a couple of trips wide at Paddock when I overdid my efforts at late braking and the quantity of marbles made it a rather exciting experience!

Much against my better principles I signed on for the afternoon although I knew it’d be busier. (We were mixed in with the locosts which is often bad news as they get in the way all the time. Mind you, they probably get hacked off by those bloody RGB cars…)

Mind you, nothing could be as bad as the boat-tail Corvette that was out on the circuit. At least that’s what I think it was, see the video capture at the top. For this thing slow just doesn’t come into it… Still, he was probably having fun which is the main thing. It made life rather difficult getting a lap though.

Amusingly, there was a yellow Ginetta G20 out on the circuit too, with a novice cross on the back. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that the driver was a brand new novice and they seemed to be jumping nervously whenever I came up to lap them, which was quite frequently. By the end of the day the car was just being driven up to every corner on the inside of the circuit, which seems an odd tactic. They bang on at you at the ARDS test about sticking to the line so as not to surprise any more experienced drivers. This particular person was obviously not awake at this bit of the test…

After lunch I was, though, really going for it. I seemed to be able to run various bits quicker although Graham Hill Bend still seems to be a bit of a mystery to me. I put my right rear off the circuit at turn-in once which is something I’m not going to repeat in a hurry…

FL in this session was 54.83 and the LFM was a mere 36.4%. I suspect, though, that almost all laps were blocked in one way or another due to business of the circuit.

One of the problems I have at Brands is the Surtees/Maclaren bit which ends with an off camber turn uphill while braking. (See? Dead easy…) It almost feels as though the car’s jacking up at the rear as I go through here. I wonder if the rebound damping is too high? Perhaps I should have bought the double adjustables after all?

In the final session I continued tweaking things and even tried setting the dampers to full stiff at one point. A bad idea that, I doubt my dentist will be impressed…. The FL was back down a smidgeon though to 54.3 with the LFC at 43.7%. So, not good enough really. Hopefully it’ll be better with the race tyres on.

On Saturday I stayed down at the circuit even though we weren’t on track again until Sunday. So I did things like cleaning the car and deglazing the brake pads. I put the race tyres on and did a certain amount of minor fettling. For example, I rubbed the throttle pedal down: powder coating on throttle pedals is a very bad idea as it sticks to your boots. Shiny metal is much better. The only problem is it’s now going to rust. I may just have to polish up the pedal before each race meeting.

On Sunday the weather forecast was better than we’d been led to expect earlier in the week. In the assembly area we were looking at the weather, all firmly on dry settings, and hoping that the grey skies wouldn’t turn into something horrible. As it turned out, they didn’t. The sun broke through and the rest of the day was great.

I’d got near the front of the qualifying queue, always a high priority at Brands so with luck I could get a decent time before we caught up with the back markers. After a couple of laps a 53.9 appeared on the display, and a few laps later I managed a 53.82.

So, at least I’d managed to lay the 54 seconds problem. The only issue is that I was 14th, 8th in class. Martin had done an absolutely astounding 52.47 to claim the class C pole. Of course, his car’s actually on the weight limit, not least because the bodywork’s so thin that when left out in the sun it cracks. Mine isn’t on the limit you’ll not be surprised to know…

The best bit about qualifying is that I was in front of Colin, albeit by a mere .02 seconds…

The first race was at about 3pm and it was now bright and sunny. I made a half decent start although not as good as I’d planned (!) and was at the end of a train with Richard and David in front of me. I made several manful attempts at getting past David but he has to be the hardest bloke in RGB. He give the impression of not having seen you at all although I suspect this isn’t true. If I was just a bit more forceful it’d be much easier. Oh well. After a while the distant Josh in my mirrors was replaced by Colin and he got closer and closer and I eventually made a stupid mistake into Surtees (a theme of the weekend) and he got past. After that I sort of lost touch with him and finished about 2 seconds behind him in 11th place, 8th in class. FL was 53.9 but I’d done that early in the race and after that I didn’t seem to be able to string a decent lap together; there’s a whole bunch of 54.3, 54.4, 54.1s etc.

I determined that I was going to try harder in the second race. However, I got a dire start and Josh to the right of me got an even worse one and I had to dive left to avoid him. That meant that Colin got the jump on me at the start. David and I were behind him and we swapped place twice, I think. At one point I nearly managed to get past Colin when he left the door open at Druids. However, he turned in on me and we banged wheels fairly forcefully. However, it didn’t seem to do much damage although I’ll check at the weekend. Unfortunately, I was still behind him.

Then, in what is a signature move of mine, I cocked up getting past a back marker and David got past me Surtees again. After that I struggled manfully but couldn’t make it past again and that’s how we finished. I was 10th, 7th in class and just 0.4 seconds behind David at the line.

However, the FL was the best I’d managed all weekend at 53.74. However, the data loggers theoretical FL is now 52.85. If I could only string those fast sectors together, they were all done on Sunday so it’s quite feasible, then I’d be right at the front. So, consistency is still lacking, really…

Next meeting is Cadwell so I need to stock up on Ginger Nuts (for their medicinal properties). I’m also thinking about changing the rear spring rates and putting the rear ARB back on, although being careful that it’s working properly.

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