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| Diving into turn 5. Photo courtesy of Quintin Smit. |
The Harper Type 6 has no issues with going fast. At 850kg and 205kw you can do the sums, but to help you out, that gives a power to weight ratio of 252 Watts/kg, close to a Porsche GT2. Quick it certainly is. Of course it could be, and will be, quicker later on, but for now it does of fine job of scaring the willies out of me on the back straight.
What it is not so good at right now is the stopping bit. Now, this is no real fault of the car. No, we decided to fiddle with the brakes. The obvious question of course is why, to which the simple answer is "they were, quite frankly, crap for racing". Even Craig was less than impressed on driving the car at speed a while back.
In actual fact the brakes originally worked well, perhaps too well. The car was fitted with boosted brakes. The disks are large 275mm vented jobs off the Toyota RunX and when boosted could lock all four wheels up with ease. This made driving fast a little tricky since there was not a whole lot of feedback prior to the afore mentioned lock up. Cars don't steer well on locked wheels, in fact they don't steer at all, and instantly convert driver into passenger. Not a great scenario when you are pretending to be a race driver. Somehow "race passenger" does not have the same cool ring. But I digress.
I said we fiddled. We removed the booster for a whole lot of good reasons and the car was faster, well actually I was faster with the car since I could now brake with more confidence and hence later. But the brakes required inordinate amounts of pedal pressure. Leverage ratio was diagnosed as the problem here. The pedal operates a shaft since the master cylinder is offset to the centre of the car for space reasons. This shaft creates the leverage to transfer the pedal pressure to the master cylinder and hence the brake pads. A new shaft was made with adjustable leverage, the master cylinder was dropped in line with the actuator shaft and everything was generally beefed up. The brakes felt infinitely better, maybe a little spongy, but my right leg was very happy with the improvement.
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| Now much stronger and lower MC location. Previous holes were for the late booster. |
So, it was for the second time in a row that I arrived, bright eyed and bushy tailed, at race day with untested brakes. I was starting to get used to testing out new developments during qualifying. Four Harpers where running again, Craig in his orange "original", Ant in the Turbo dragon (it spits flames!), Haydn in the supercharged, and by far best looking, Harper and me in, what the kids have nick named, Toothless (after the night fury dragon from the Train your dragon movie). Well at least I hope that's were it comes from and is not related to my driving style!
The Sports and GT field was a little thin. Around 25 cars were entered, way down from the 38 at our previous race meeting. It is a busy time of the year with Easter and all, but the consensus along pit lane was that is was the impending rain that had scared folks off. Especially the ones who race on slicks.
We were racing in a late slot so qualifying was at a leisurely 9:30am. Craig opted for an even later start and was due to join us around 10am. We were all casually getting dressed and ready when the PA system surprised us and announced we were on 15 minutes early. This was to become a bit of a trend for the day.
Mass panic ensued as cars bearing half dressed drivers burst forth onto the holding grid. The marshal blew his whistle for us to leave and more chaos ensued as drivers feverishly tried to attached helmets and gloves while trying to maintain their place in the first come first serve qualifying grid. Eventually we all ended up on the track. The Sports and GT folks are generally a considerate bunch with the quali grid being "understood" to go on a "fastest first" basis allowing the fast classes to qualify together. However, with the rather abrupt start, the field was wonderfully mixed, making for some really interesting action as sub 1:20 cars who had been sitting with tyre warmers humming away all morning mixed with slower folk on ice cold rubber. In the end nothing serious happened, but the session only lasted 5 laps and a clear lap was as scarce as the preverbal rocking horse poo.
I was not particularly phased by all this since my primary goal was to feel out the new brake system. Things were looking, or actually feeling, good. The pedal pressure was now matching the expected rate of deceleration and the car was feeling stable under hard braking. The pedal was a bit more spongy, but the car was certainly stopping consistently.
This was a good thing!
Back in the pits it was good to see Craig had decided to roll in, not only because he's a nice chap and fun to have around, but also since this meant he would be bringing up the rear of Class D and not me for a change.
We grabbed some coffee and stood around discussing the possible cause of the spongy pedal. Craig had taken the entire brake system apart a couple of time in search of the cause, but to no avail. Theories were floated and discounted in vast number until we decided we had no idea and headed off for a bacon and egg roll breakfast.
Race one was called 45 minutes early. We had learnt from the morning qualifying session and were all ready in time. Management was furiously trying to move things up to miss the forecasted lunch time rain showers. We were not particularly concerned about the rain, its actually quite fun racing in the wet, but apparently the guys that race on two wheels don't have quite the same view.
The race proceeded without much excitement while I tried to adjust to the new brakes. The track was a bit cold and slippery. My brake markers from the last race were all wrong with the now better brakes and I found myself braking too early for the first couple of laps. This saw me pretty much out on my own at the back of Class D. Finally towards the end of the race I started to get the hang of things and managed to squeeze out a 1:25.6, my fastest lap ever.
Back in the pits drivers were all abuzz with excitement. Slippery track aside everyone had had a good race.
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| Ant and Craig mixing it up with the GT3's. Photo courtesy of Quintin Smit |
All, that is, except for Ant who had broken a drive shaft. Tools emerged and willing hands appeared resulting in the quickest removal of a drive shaft I have even seen. It was summarily dispatched for repairs.
Lap times would later confirm things, with virtually everyone posting their best lap times to date. Sadly, or not, for some this meant they broke the hallowed 1:24 barrier and were summarily shunted upward into Class C for the rest of the season. We lost both the leading Porsche drivers in this way thereby shrinking Class D regulars down to myself, Craig, Hennie in his blistering Lotus 7, Martin in his screaming rotary 7 and Paul in the grand (and indecently fast) GT40. I might even score a couple of point this season if things carry on this way.
We all stood around chatting, kicking tyres and listening to the tick of cooling engines until hunger drove us to the clubhouse for lunch.
We now had a rather drawn out wait until a scheduled 4:30pm for our next race.
After the lunch break the clouds that had until then been hanging around and taunting the organisers finally decided to join the party and gently sprinkled the track with just enough wetness to really irritate those trying to decided which tyres to use.
The Fine Cars race after lunch, and on said damp track, was carnage with some seriously shortened versions of the cars returning on flatbeds after the race. The bikes who ran a bit later miraculously missed the isolated showers and had a pretty dry track, much to the joy of the riders.
As expected our second race was called early. Craig and I had bled my brakes again just for the hell of it and predictably produced a no firmer pedal. Ant's newly welded up drive shaft had also arrived during the down time and a reverse of the disassembly process produced a running car in record time. I swear Ant works on his car in his dreams at night. He could put some of the F1 crews to shame, but then he does tend to take his car apart quite often.
Rain had fallen just prior to our race being called which left Paul and his 500hp of slick tyres sitting things out. In typical Cape Town style the sun broke through as we sat on the grid waiting to start. I had drawn second on grid in Class D for this race so was keen to try and keep a respectable place in the field, buoyed of course by my just achieved fastest lap.
This was not to be.
The lights went out and turn one loomed large and .... oddly shrouded in a cloud of dust. Mike in his Nardini was doing a fine impression of a farm implement on the inside of the corner while a Porsche was trying to outdo him on the outside of the corner.
One thing you don't really want on the first corner of the race is a lack of visibility. I plunged into the cloud of dust praying feverishly that everyone else was doing the same and facing the same direction. Brake lights loomed very large and bright in front of me as I almost rear ended Martin in his Lotus. It would have been just revenge for him punting me last race day, but that would really have been childish and expensive so I jump hard on my squishy pedal. I was vaguely aware of a black Porsche spinning off to the right and the rest of the field filing through past me on the left. By the time we all emerged from the dust cloud Martin, myself and the Porsche were virtually last. The Porsche quickly rectified the situation for himself, however Martin and I then proceeded to have a nice little battle for a couple of laps. He's normally much quicker then me so I was wondering why I was catching him. I finally concluded it must be my sudden new found driving skill and eventually blasted past him on the back straight. He disappeared into the distance behind me. Of course, I was to discover later that he had opted for a set of intermediates thinking it might rain and was being heavily penalised for his choice with his rotary powered 7 trying desperately to exit every corner in reverse. I do so despise reality some times.
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| Me about to subdue Martin for the final time. Photo courtesy of Quintin Smit |
Once I was past Martin there was no one in sight ahead of me. Memories of my days in Class E flooded back as I circulated all alone in no mans land. Still, it was a good time to try some new lines and wave to the family who were watching in the stands. The race ended without incident or excitement and yielded a couple of 1:26's. Not as good as race 1, but still decent times.
Craig had turned out another fastest lap leaving him just 4 tenths shy of the all important 1:24 Class D barrier. With the two Porsches having been evicted up to Class C his times now put him at the sharp end with Hennie and Paul.
My car goes back to the doctor again this week to finally remove the sponge from the brake system after which I seriously plan to go and give them all a flippen good hiding.
Famous last words!
Next race is scheduled for 5th of May and if the current Cape Town weather cycle remains (hot weekdays, rainy weekends) we should be racing in the rain. Bring it on!
The rather mundane race videos are available on the links below for those interested.
April 14 Sports & GT - Race 1
April 14 Sports & GT - Race 2
