As you can tell, I’m back! This post is really a bit of a small test. I’ll now go away and tell you how we won the trophy on the right, which is for a class winner at the Birkett… I bet you can hardly wait…
Author: Tim Hoverd
And so it ends; again
So, we’re already at the end of the season and we all made the final trek to deepest, darkest, Lincolnshire for a double header at Cadwell Park. This circuit is unique in the UK for the combination of elevation change and general twisting and turning. There isn’t really much of a straight there and it needs a huge amount of work to build up to the flow around the circuit that’s needed. (Along with the requirement at one point to just grab the car by the scruff of its neck and throw it down a particular series of bends.
The photo on the right is due to Bryant Photography, have a look at their Facebook page.
Dijon et pierre d’argent
Don’t worry, there’s only a little French… In any case, my abilities to express myself in French seem to have rather atrophied since I worked in Geneva. Not that they were much good then really.
In any case, you might wonder why I’m wittering on in French. You may remember from other discussion here (in particular about escapades at Spa) that Colin and I occasionally make a European foray. This time we had booked ourselves onto a track day at the Dijon circuit in France. Like Spa, which isn’t actually at Spa but at a little place called Francorchamps the circuit at Dijon isn’t actually at Dijon but at a little village called Prenois. The circuit, though, is forever associated with the last laps of the French GP of 1979 which had Gilles Villeneuve and Réné Arnoux in a tremendous tussle for second place. (Without looking at the link, and if you’re a racing fan, can you actually remember who won the race?)
Red nose day
OK, I realise that I’ve been very uninformative recently although some of you may have noticed the odd posting on Facebook. As a consequence this is going to be a rather truncated posting to just give you the general idea.
In a while you will understand the relevance of that rather spectacular photo on the right, for which many thanks are due to Dan Sayles: “Afghan Dan” to his friends for reasons too bizarre to go into. He always takes a set of great photos of RGB meetings and this is one of the best. For now, though, just look at the nice picture.
Eeek!
It’s getting awfully close to Rockingham now, but I think it’s going to be possible as long as I don’t strike any fundamental problems.
One of the things to do is to add a front and rear floor to the car. In the future, I’m doubtless going to want to be more sophisticated about this but I decided to do something simple for now. For the front floor, I haven’t sorted the rear one yet, I made a mould by bending a sheet of aluminium around some bits of wood and laid up a mixture of various bits of fabric using some polyester resin with some stiffening ribs made our of coremat embedded in the mix. Also embedded in the mix, as a consequence of the location, are 1 Red Admiral butterfly and various bits of honeysuckle.
Note the innovative use of three wheelie bins… Continue reading “Eeek!”
Aiming at Rockingham
Well, even though I hate the circuit, I’m now aiming for the next race at Rockingham which will take place on 5th and 6th of July. What’s more, that’s the date of the annual RGB marshals’ BBQ so I really have to be there.
As such, I’ve got a real mountain to climb although I think it’s just about feasible. Getting some time for testing sounds a bit tricky though.
The return of the job list
Well, it’s not that long since the last update and I have made some progress. I’ve been a bit spurred on by going to the RGB race at the weekend and feeling that I was missing our rather a lot. The objective now has to be to get the car ready, in whatever expedient way is possible, just to be able to go racing. I can tart it up after that. Assuming I don’t biff it of course.
A plan gets closer together
So, carrying on from last week, I pressed on with the overall bodywork fitment. Having started fitting that ply floor I showed you last time I carried on and added some diagonal supports to stiffen it up. You may noticed that I added a piece of angle all along the edge of this; this will provide some place to rivet the outer surface to. Continue reading “A plan gets closer together”
So near but so far
I’m getting closer to the end of all this, but there’s still a long way to go. I’ve got a few things to say, though, which is quite good considering I’ve been out of the country for a week recently. A consequence of getting closer to the end is that there’s a whole lot of more bitty things been going on. Hence this is going to be a bit fragmented.
First up, and with its own photo, is a better strap to hold the battery in place. Told you it was going to be interesting, didn’t I? Continue reading “So near but so far”
The finishing line hoves into view
Although, to be fair, it’s still a long way away… I’ve managed to make a decent bit of progress over the long Easter weekend, the time albeit being marred by death of an old friend and being laid up with a bloody migraine. (I reckon I know what it is now, whenever I take a holiday I get cluster of migraines. Apparently that’s not uncommon.)