Category: Testing

The season creeps up on us

It’s almost the start of the race season, as I write. So far, I’ve done the club trackday–which was really an opportunity for the car to be track tested for an upcoming Autosport feature–and most recently a Javelin trackday at Cadwell Park. The latter was a wet day but very useful as it gave me a chance to try out a few aspects of a wet setup. To be honest, the car was really good to drive in the wet.

The photo here was taken by Neil Kirby at Cadwell and I think it’s my new favourite race car photo. Neil’s managed to get in a really interesting place to take the photo. I think this must be between Charlies 1 and 2 but I’m not sure really.

Dijon et pierre d’argent

Dijon=PrenoisDon’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?)

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Fettling again

Yet again, it’s back into the garage with a few things to sort. However, before that, here’s something interesting. You will remember that I was in a real race at Silverstone with a certain amount of position swapping going on. It seems as though the action was actually a little closer than I’d thought, as here’s a  small battle wound…

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Competition returns

So, last weekend we returned to Silverstone for the start of the new season. Traditionally RGB races at Silverstone (which up to now have been held on the August bank holiday weekend) are held in climatic conditions that more resemble the depths of winter than a summer, even an English one. However, this weekend was to work out well. It got a bit gloomy on a couple of occasions but that was it. Amazing…

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Silverstone bound

Well, it’s really close to the first race of the season now, so it’s time to make sure the car’s ready to go. To be honest I feel very unprepared but we’ll see how the Silverstone test day goes. As you’ll know the only test I’ve done this year was the trackday at Rockingham (see the photo above courtesy of Charlie). I really should have put more time into it but haven’t managed to find the time.

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Rocking On

Time for the first track outing of the new season. I booked a track day with Bookatrack at the Rockingham circuit which isn’t too far away from us. I went to Rockingham many years ago in the Fury, when I was first learning to drive it. So, although I could just about remember the way round there wasn’t much in the way of knowledge; especially as the circuit we were using this time was different.

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Hitting the ground dawdling

I managed to find a bit more time to get onto the car at the weekend. And, as you can see from the photo and jumping ahead a bit, I’ve got the car down on the ground and all the bodywork back on. Addmitedly I’ve now taken the bodywork off again but that’s in the nature of the racecar beast. Bloody hell, though, I’d forgotten how horrible the roll cage looks…

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Too slow…

Last weekend was the first of out visits to Snetterton this year. We were running on the 200 circuit which is pretty much the same sort of layout at the original circuit, albeit with the hairpin at Montreal which is huge shame after losing Sear and the left hander at Murray’s which is a replacement for the original Russell chicane. It’s a shame to lose the original Coram corner and, also, Jim Russell’s name from the circuit. The interesting bits of the new circuit are all on the 300 circuit, as I tested on earlier this year.

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