Mallory Park Race Report 2012

Mallory Park Weekend

What a blinder of weekend! A little taster video before we get started.

It has to be said, from my point of view, Mallory Park Circuit is not the most exciting of race tracks out there, but it certainly led to some exciting exploits.

I arrived at the circuit 17:00ish on the Saturday evening to find the Paddock almost empty. I was a little surprised by this as usually I am normally one of the last few to arrive and end up having to find a space to squeeze into with the van. But this time I had a blank canvas of free choice.

Team Spire along with Tim Gray Motorsport were there already having tested all day Saturday along with Arthur Rogerson who had just acquired Matt Higginson Spire GTR only a few weeks prior. First thing Arthur said was….’this car is just magical!’. He was comparing it to his old car, and at the end of his test day had a smile from ear to ear. Great stuff….i thought. I no longer have him to overtake. Damn it?!

Saturday night circa 30 of us headed off into the near by village to the pub to have our fill. Very nice it was too! The shoulder of lamb was fantastic. If I could remember the name of the pub I would recommend it, but I can’t, so I won’t. Got back to the circuit about 23:30 and just before I headed back to the camper van I saw Rew Chapelle struggling to assembly a number of camp beds for his kids in the dark. I offered a hand but he was adamant it was all under control so promptly left him to it. Poor kids, camping on evening such as it was, I am sure they must have been freezing cold. I was cold in the camper and I had the gas heating on!

Sunday morning arrives and bloody hell it was cold. Ice on the windscreen of the camper I was praying the sun would make a prompt appearance and help me thaw out.

Tris turn up with the Fury about 07:15 at the circuit to which I had a phone call….’Hi…I am at the gate of the circuit….where are you?’. I replied ‘In bed still……’. At that point I thought it was time I got up and got the bacon and eggs on the go.

Time ticked by, did the driver briefing (unlike some who were fined £160 for not doing so. Won’t mention names. Arthur your secret is safe with me), then got the car down to scrutineering. No dramas to be found there, so started about prepping for qually.

Lining up for qually, the dreaded noise check was first. To be fair I never know what to rev the car to exactly. ¾ revs? Well I did 7,500rpm which was just shy of ¾ but was miles under the DB linit. 101.6 decibels. At that point, I wasn’t sure if that was okay. Turns out 105 DB was the limit, but was waved on into the holding area.

QUALLY

Not the most fantastic of qualifications. Having never driven the circuit the 15 mins qually for me was all about learning the circuit. More importantly learning ‘Gerrads’. How much speed should I take into the corner? Which gear? Should I be bouncing off the limiter? All things I have to phathom out in my 15 mins qually. Turns out I qualified 21^st out of 24 runners with 52:45 best lap. Although it wasn’t a great performance, at least I wasn’t last.

Once thing I did notice in qually was the unevenness of by brake balance. Obviously front to rear balance is easily solvable by adjusting the bias…..but right to left? I found going into the hairpin I was consistently locking one wheel and getting hardly any braking from the other front. It was causing the car to be really unstable under heavy braking resulting in a lot of ‘Wobble’.

Got back to the paddock area and notice the smell of burning oil. Whipped the bonnet off…….’OH *&~@!!’ The entire engine bay was coated in oil. Thinking the worst i.e. I had blown the engine in a big way, the cause of the Exxon Valdez oil spill was down to the oil filler cap not being present.

Not wanting to cause an issue over this, but it wasn’t me who checked the oil level. That was down to Tris to which in my honest opinion I believe he didn’t screw the filler cap back in after topping up the level, but of course this is all denied.

After 4-5 kitchen rolls later the worst of the oil was mopped up. I suggested checking the data logger to ensure we had done damage to the engine, but oil pressure was just maintained throughout qually. I think if I did one more lap it would have been curtains that’s for sure.

‘Would car #21 RGB please report to the Clerk of the Course’. Hey? That’s me… What have I done wrong? I nipped over to see them, explained who I was wondering what the issue was. ‘Some of the marshalls radioed in and think you may have an oil leak. We thought you should know’. I burst out laughing….’yeah you are not kidding’. Not knowing if the engine was okay at this point, I said it could possibly mean an early bath for us due to the issue.

Got back to the van, went through the data logger to find all was well. Thank god! Bring on the RACING!!

RACE #1

I really need to improve my starts. FACT! The Reds go out….and I stalled. FFS! Calmly restarted, but my clutch control had regressed to something like when I first started to learn to drive when I was 17. Incredibly jerky! I just couldn’t get it right. Sod it….i thought. Just floor it. Promptly lit up the rear wheels and left the biggest number ‘11’ on the grid. The car skewing sideways, bit of opposite lock and I was away. At least it got some heat in the tyres.

I caught the pack up going the ‘Esses’ and proceeded to start racing.

Not many laps into the race I came through the hair pin to be confronted with what looked like a war zone. Car debris everywhere. 30 yards later I clocked Dave Watsons MNR parked up with the right front hanging off. Not one for rubber necking, I pushed on and lap by lap the circuit was slowly cleared of debris with the marshalls doing an excellent job keeping the race going.

This video shows what happened with photo below showing Dave driving over Austen Greenways Fury. Doesn’t have much luck does Austen. The incident does make a very good case to having a full roll cage….that is for sure.

I saw the race to the end doing my obligatory eyeballing of the rear view mirrors to check for the leaders lapping me. Had a butt clenching experience going round Gerrads when Derek Jones and John Cutmore decided to simultaneously over take me sandwiching me effectively doing close to 105mph. Luckily Class R cars have far superior grip so they got round no problem. I just focussed on holding my line.

Race complete it was time to go through Post Race Scrutineering. Up till this point in the season I never really paid a great deal of attention to the whole thing, until now. Mallory weekend they decided to check weight limits and min ride heights. The queue of cars started going through, but I was left a little baffled as to why some disappeared off to the left and some off to the right…slightly puzzled, so when I drove onto the weigh bridge, as they checked the car I ask…’why have some cars gone one way and others being held over there?’. The reply I received was, ‘Turn left sir out of here please’. ‘Why not turn right?’ Left if you have been good, right if you have been naughty. It would appear a large number of my fellow competitors have been….how can I put this…..CHEATING!!! Ride heights is part of the rules and regs with a minimum ride height of 75mm imposed. It would seem that rule by passed some people.

Not really worried all that much I didn’t hang about after given the all clear. Toe down and away I went back to Paddock.

Race Result: Race #1

Started 21^st out of 24.

Finished 14^th My best result to date! We won’t mention all the disqualifications.

Best lap time: 52.15 secs…quicker than Qually

RACE #2

This was quite an entertaining 20 mins of my life. No sarcasm intended. Again a really poor start (must work on my starts). But Race 2 worked out to be a game of 2 halves. After 5-6 laps out comes the red flag. Race Stopped. ‘Oh no…I was just looking forward to the part when I get lapped…and its not going to happen….boo hoo’. Putting my disappointment to one side I continued round to the starting grid where everyone had gathered waiting for restart. What I found a little unfair however, I had actually made up a couple places on the initial out laps but I was duly shepherded to the back of the grid behind those I had over taken. Not fair! Guess rules are rules.

I decided to hit the fan override switch on as I was eyeballing the latent heat billowing out the back of all the cars in front me. Not wanting to tempt fate with any engine related dramas, I sat there patiently waiting for the restart. MUST IMPROVE ON MY STARTS…..GOD DAMN IT!!

We were off. Past Rew going into Gerrads then queued up behind Arthur and Ian Kempson whilst I watched on as they did battle. There wasn’t a lot I could do about overtaking them as they had much quicker cars and I was scrabbling about trying to catch up in the corners.

Arthur, went for it on the exit of Gerrads and passed Ian without any drama then it was my go. Lap by lap I had the new MK in my sights. Reeling him in the corners but loosing out on the straights. That MK is very wide! Couple of times I poked the car down the inside at the hairpin but a damp track and Ian closing the door on me I just couldn’t get the manoeuvre to stick. AB later said in the paddock….’I would have been tempted to trade some paintwork if I were you Ed’. That was definitely one possible outcome, but what with it being my last race in the Fury with buyers lined up for the bodywork, chassis etc I really didn’t want to damage it.

I kept pushing and pushing. The more I pushed the more the MK responded, but with almost disastrous consequences. I couldn’t help but think at the time, under heavy braking the MK at the rear was all over the place. Brake and the car lept out to the left. Going through Gerrads the car snatched quite violently (you can see in the video if you watch closely) and almost had Ian off the circuit digging potatoes. I was a little concerned I may end up collecting him on my way past if he had an incident. This was case almost in Race 1 exiting the Hairpin into Devils Elbow where the MK just swapped ends, into the tyres then back across the track. I was left with a 50/50 choice….left or right. Left or right?

Post race I went over to see Ian and congratulated him on being able to keep the car on the track. He duly thanked me for providing a bit of exciting racing in the dying moments of the day.

Unfortunately for Arthur in his newly acquired Spire GTR, he wasn’t able to finish the race as he decided to place the car neatly in the tyre wall through the Esses. Not had much luck as previously that day he had to have his exhaust weld up with the added help of a baked bean can to help resolve a rather noisy exhaust system.