On Friday evening I decided I had better do some race prep. In the garage there was disappointingly little to do. I checked the oil (it had used none), check the tyre pressures and torqued the wheel nuts. That was pretty much it. I then decided to make a new shift gate since the last one had flown off during a race. It would seem double sided tape is not as robust as I had hoped it might be. I had been having some issues with gear selection. The centring spring on the Toyota shifter we were using was not up to the job of pulling the lever back to the middle. This caused me to grab 6th from 5th instead of 4th. Not a major problem on the road, but a little hairy when diving into turn 5 at 200+ on race day. Craig had made up a new spring which had transformed the shift and made the whole driving experience much more pleasant. You see, like I said before, its the small things.
Anyhow, there was still the issue of not knowing if you had selected first or reverse. The Audi six speed box has reverse and first next to each other up and to the left. In normal cars there is a complicated lock out system that stops you inadvertently selecting reverse and careering into the car behind you at the stop street. We had looked into all manner of lock out mechanisms for the Type 6, but in the end I decided on a simple shift gate that would show you visibly which gear you had selected. The first one I made worked well, but I had attached it to the centre console with double sided tape just in case I needed to removed it for some reason during the racing. As it turned out it decided to remove itself. I just caught a flash of aluminium as it exited the car. The new one would be screwed down for sure.
About an hour later I was done and happy with the result. It's no Ferrari gate, but does the job and I think suits the car, which is all that really matters in the end.
Saturday morning was clear and calm. Predictions for the day had us only enduring around 25 deg C which would be great. I packed in my race bag and headed off to the track. The new covered area opposite the Harp Motorsport workshops had been completed at last and I arrived at my pit bay to the sight of four other Harpers parked and waiting for the days festivities to begin. Craig was going to have five of his cars racing on one day. An all time record and proud day for dad.
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| New covered pit area |
Ant was of course present in his 2.0l Turbo powered Porsche killing Type 5. Haydn was doing his first race in his supercharged and beautifully prepared red Type 5 and Didier the frenchman was racing the white factory car. Lastly, Craig had managed to finish the rebuild of his engine and fired his car up for the first time only the night before. He said he was going to run the engine in during qualifying!
I grabbed my documentation and when to scrutineer. No issues where found so back at the pits I attached the stickers of our new sponsors for the season (thanks BigFoot Express Freight and Execuline Insurance!!). Qualifying was looming large so I suited up and when off to the holding area. There were a lot of cars lined up. Thirty five to be exact. This was close to a record field for Sports and GT's and certainly the largest field of the day. It was going to be busy out there.
Qualifying was a blur of Porsches, Nardinis and other assorted fast machinery. It was over far too quickly and I had managed to qualify second from last in Class D. Not great, but I was still battling with the car under heavy braking. It was squirming about causing me to brake far to early on the two fast corners. This was costing me seconds per lap. However, brake bias is not something you setup during a race meeting so I was going to have to drive around this for the day.
The family had arrived so we wandered over to the clubhouse for and egg and bacon roll to calm the nerves before the first race. Race 1 was called and I saw the family off to their view site before heading to the pit to get ready. Parked up in the holding area I was again struck by how many cars there were. The holding area was almost full. I had Paul in his GT40 parked next to me and the two V8's idling away sounded superb.
The marshals signalled us to leave and we threaded onto the track for our warm up lap. Sports and GT's do one warm up and one formation lap with a rolling start. The field entered the main straight in close formation. I was in 3rd gear and had my eyes on both the start lights and the car in front of me, out of the corner of my eye I could see Craig's orange Type 5 just next to me. The lights went off and I floored it. The car shot forward and Craig disappeared from my peripheral vision only to appear a split second later when I hit the rev limiter. What a noob error, to forget to change gears, for goodness sake!
Craig made full use of my stupidity and snatched the corner from both myself and Paul's GT40. He then spent the rest of the race dicing it out the Steve Humble who was wringing the preverbal neck of his Lotus Europa. Steve normally drives a scary quick Opel powered Mallock, but was in the Europa for the day and I could swear he was having more fun with us in D than he does when threading the needle at the sharp end.
I spent my race locked in a titanic battle with the GT40. It had more grunt than me on the straights, but I was quicker in the corners. On the second last lap we came out of turn 5 side by side. The sound of both V8's coming onto the power at the same time gave me goose bumps. I can only imagine what it must have sounded like to the spectators. We crossed the line a couple of hundredth apart.
This was racing! For my previous season in my Lotus 7 I had spend most races sprinting around the track all by myself at the back. Class E was a lonely class and often there was only one or two cars racing. While this was great for getting to know the car and the track, it was not very exciting. If my first race in Class D was a sign of the season to come, it was going to be a brilliant season!
Grid positions for race 2 are drawn from a hat per class. This helps to mix things up a bit and creates more of a spectacle for those watching. I had draw second last on the grid again, but had the rather quick Lotus 7 belonging to old hand Hennie behind me. The race started and I managed to get the drop on Hennie....briefly. By the third corner I could hear the buzz of his Lotus in my right ear. I tried to make my car as wide as possible, and managed to keep him at bay for two laps. On the third he had clearly had enough and dived past me under brakes in turn three. I decided to use this as a learning experience and tracked his racing lines for the rest of the race, well at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Again, it was fantastic racing with cars around you all the time. I was going to enjoy this year very much.
Back in the pits I collected my kit and packed the car. Ant had a fantastic day and was lapping consistently in the 24's giving him a great battle with his Class C Porsche friends. Haydn, who was racing in Fine Cars for the first few races of the season, had had a great day out too. Sadly Didier, also racing in Fine Cars, had spun while in 4th place and damaged his rear suspension while Craig 's car had developed a short and was continually blowing the fuse that fed the fuel pumps so he had not raced in the second race.
I arrived home late in the afternoon, tired but happy with the outcome. The Type 6 had now complete five full pace 8 lap races with no apparent ill effects. Long may this last!
The next race day was on 17th of March and I still had the brake bias issue to sort out. Some track time has been booked so, all things being equal, I should be able to start braking much later next time around. Hopefully this will show in the results!
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