Frustration

The start of the race season is fast approaching, so I’ve had to spend a lot of the weekend fettling the Fury for the (J15-less) start of the season. The photo is of the end result.

In order to get to this state I had to repair the damage to the right rear of the car caused by being attacked by an MR2 during the Birkett. There was actually rather more damage than I thought with the undertray being bent, the bodywork fixings having been broken and, worst of all, the right rear suspension upright being bent. Hence I’ve had to spent a lot of time taking that corner of the car to bits and straightening everything I could, and replacing various bits that I couldn’t repair.

I’ve also done loads of other bits: changed the engine oil, replaced a broken headlamp, re-aligned the suspension (which took ages), changed back to my proper race numbers, checked all the fluids including the diff oil and even checked the video and data logging systems.

However, I’m now ready to go. Mind you, I feel as if I’ve wasted the weekend when I could have been building the J15. Hence, I’ve promised myself that if I end up at the end of a race weekend with a Fury that’s going to take a lot of time to prep for the next race, then I’ll skip the race and concentrate on the J15 instead.

I have, though, done a few bits for the J15 since the last post. I’ve designed and made the fuel tank. As you can see, I’ve decided to make it out of cardboard instead of the normal aluminium. this way it’s a lot lighter which should help slightly.

Most entertaining though, was the first trip out for the J15. Because I needed to swap the cars around so as to get access to the Fury I took the J15 on a walk around the drive.  The photo on the right shows it’s back in the garage after a 47-point turn in the drive so as to swap it around with the Fury.

One intriguing things about having both the cars on the ground next door to each other is the obvious differences. The J15 is clearly going to be shorter in the body although the wheelbase is actually about 150mm longer than the Fury’s. It’s also apparent how short the J15 steering column, which is exposed in a very obvious way at the moment, compared to the Fury’s. This is due to the driver being nearer to the front in the mid-engined car; something that was always going to be the car but is made graphically obvious like this.

The biggest problem now is swapping the cars back over again. What’s more, I need those shiny wheels back as they’re one of my sets of Fury race wheels…