Spin doctors

I'd like to say that the morning of our fourth regional race day dawned crisp and clear, but that would be considerably more than poetic license. I woke around 5am to the pitter patter of rain drops. There was a strong compulsion to stay in bed, but I managed to fight it off and got myself going. Thankfully Cape Town is built on the confluence of around 4 weather systems so the one I was experiencing at home was entirely different to the one at the track a mere 20 odd kilometres away. Something to do with the mountain people say.

Table Mountain trying to hide behind a rain cloud

At any rate, I arrived at the track to crisp clear air and blue skies. More importantly the track was dry and clean. The clean bit, it turns out, is quite important. You see, we had had the mother of all rain storms the previous couple of days and this had effectively served to wash the track surface. I though this was quite a good thing. Surely a clean track is a happy track. Actually, it seems a clean track is a slippery track. But more of that later.

I pulled into my pit bay next to Paul's GT40 and set about getting the documentation sorted out for the day. Scrutineering passed without incident and it was time for coffee and a catch up. Ant in the Turbo Type 5 was present as was Haydn in the red supercharged Type 5. Today would be his last race in Fine Cars before he upped the stakes and joined us in Sports & GT's. Conspicuous by his absence was Craig who was busy making a new light weight body for his car. He tends to follow the Colin Chapman approach of "adding lightness" to the problem of going faster. Myself, I tend more towards the American view of adding cubic inches rather. Craig had promised to bring his pom-poms and come and cheer-lead for us later in the morning. 

I stood for a while and chatted to Paul about his GT40. It's a wonderful machine and he has been getting steadily faster all season. Tweaks to his brakes coupled with more confidence had seen him come very close to the 1:24 Class D barrier last race day. We chatted about breaking out since I had snuck in a 1:23 during our track test the previous week. We both decided that sandbagging would be a good idea lest any of us end up in Class C.

Qualifying was called and we all hustled to the grid to get a feel for the track surface we would be playing on for the day. It still amazes me how different the track can be from race to race. There were only 25 competitors entered in Sports & GT's, a rather depleted field with many folks away, taking advantage of the short three day week we had just had. I lined up behind Paul and we headed out. The track was cold and seemed to be a little more slippery than usual. Still, with the tyres warmed up I managed to pass Paul and get in a couple of quick laps before the front runners started lapping me. At this point clear track is a thing of the past so I pulled into pit lane behind Steve Humble's Mallock which had suspicious wisps of steam coming from the engine area.

Back in the pits Paul seemed quite happy with his performance, he had put in a concerted effort just after I had passed him and was feeling good about qualifying high up. Thus, it was quite a shock to him when he discovered he had qualified second last...in Class C. The silly chap had posted a cracking 1:23:3 instantly punting him up to Class C. He grumbled a bit, but I think he was secretly quite chuffed, as well he should be.

This, rather surprisingly, left me on pole for Class D with Hennie and Martin breathing down my neck. My car was now feeling fantastic. The brakes were working exceptionally well and my new approach to the gears seemed to be having the desired effect. Ant was still plagued by his miss fire from last week so had qualified second last in the field and was considering sitting things out.  

About this time Craig and the crew arrived and he set about assisting Ant in sourcing a new set of plug leads which cured the miss fire. This effectively meant I now had Hennie, Martin and Ant breathing down my neck for turn 1. 

Ant in full race trim

The day was warming up nicely as race 1 was called. We rolled out on our usual warm up form up sequence, and I made sure I was close behind the car in front of me when the lights went out. Twenty five cars thundered into turn 1 and I managed to keep my place fending off a serious attack from Hennie. Turn 2 was much of the same, but then as I blocked Martin on the outside both Hennie and Ant shot past on the inside down to turn 3. "The buggers" I thought and set off in hot pursuit. The field stretched out and they left me a couple of car lengths back. Finally I managed to get my rhythm going and started to reel them in. Because they were battling each other they were slowing down allowing me to catch up. I bided my time. It was bound to happen. Hammering into turn 4 Ant spun after the first apex. He did a graceful pirouette off to the inside and neatly reversed back across the track. This required Hennie, who was close behind, to spear off into the farmlands of turn 4 to miss the reversing Harper. I sailed passed the mayhem and set about putting as much time between them and myself as possible. 

We would later discover that Ant had done slight damage to his right rear wheel, giving it some negative toe, which resulted in him spinning off again later and also adding his own brand of "lightness" to the front of his car by removing sections of the fibreglass nose.

Hennie, thankfully, remained a slightly growing silver dot in my mirrors while I rather surprisingly passed Paul with ease on the back straight of the final lap. The race ended with me managing to secure the win in Class D. It was only when we pulled into the post race holding area that I noticed a couple of cars missing and some others sporting trendy new paint markings. Seems the racing had been quite close, and possibly a bit too close in cases. Eric's rotary Lotus 23 was parked up on the exit of turn 5 looking a little worse for wear after a coming together with a Porsche. While a couple of other heated discussions were on the go regarding rights of way etc. Paul had some fetching Mallock orange down the side of his car too. Steve had touched him while trying to avoid a Lotus during a lapping manoeuvre, in the process folding Pauls mirror back. This left Paul with a serious blind spot, not difficult with a GT40,  and together with a gear selection problem had seen him call things off and coasting home.

I arrived back in the pits to find Ant busy shovelling sand out of the front of his nose cone. The ever useful duct tape was employed and he pronounced his car fit to race. No one had noticed the odd toe out of the rear drivers side wheel at this point. While we headed over to the clubhouse for some lunch Steve decided to change the head gasket on his Mallock. Its amazing what some guys can do in the couple of hours between races.

I had drawn third on the grid for the second race so would be starting behind Martin with Hennie next to me. Ant and Paul would bring up the rear of Class C ahead of us. You could have covered all five cars with a dainty hanky. We were that close. A mere 3 tenths of a second covered all five drivers. This was going to be a close one. Provided everyone stayed on the black stuff of course. I was determined to repeat my race 1 performance and was glued to Martin's rear as the light went out. I knew I could out drag the two Lotii on the straights, but the twisties were a different matter. I bolted ahead of Hennie into turn 1, but he emerged next to me on the exit. I out dragged him into turn 2, but was slightly distracted by the odd snaking actions of Ant ahead of me. Hennie managed to sneak passed me and then, narrowly missing Ant, dived passed him too into turn 3. Something was not right with Ant's car and as I went wide to pass him on the outside of turn three he slowed to pull off, a victim of the ragged handling induced by the rear wheel toe out.  

The two Lotii were now a way down the track and I set off after them. A lap later I had managed to catch up and I passed Hennie on the main straight only to be passed by him again coming out of turn 2. I pulled out to pass him again on the back straight, but almost collected a slow moving Porsche on the right of the track. This was not going to work, I needed a better plan. About this time we were joined by Arno who had spun in turn 2 and for a couple of laps he mixed things up with us until he passed Martin and made a break for it down the back straight. 

By this time I had figured that the only way to stay ahead of these two was to pass them on the back straight and make up as much time on the front straight so that I could stay ahead in the twisty bits. I figured that as long as I could get to the back straight again ahead I would be able to pull out a lead and be safe. As Arno passed Martin going into turn 4 I saw my chance, we were all bunched up and as we exited turn 4 I unleashed the V8 and swallowed Hennie whole. Martin has a turbo rotary in his Lotus so was having none of that, but I did manage to dispatch him down the main straight and slithered into turn 1 on the hairy limit almost throwing it all away mid corner. Still, they were both behind me which is what counted. Now to keep it that way. I hauled the car around the back of the circuit braking as late as I dared and powering on as early as I could. I made it to the start of the back straight in front and the rest was history. Once I had the two straights to my disposal I managed to put a good number of car lengths between us. 

I could now see Paul's GT40 ahead and I seemed to be catching him. New target then and I set my sights on his twin tail pipes in the distance. 

The rest of the race was spent chipping away at his lead. I realised that I could out brake him into the fast corners and was gathering much distance on him into turn 5 and 1. But I was running out of laps. On the last lap we entered the back straight a couple of car lengths apart. I cooked up a crazy plan to out brake him into turn 5 and then sprint to the line ahead of him. In the spit second it took to formulate the plan it seemed perfect. I drifted towards the inside of the track and waited for his brake lights. Once they came on I waited some more and then climbed onto my brakes and headed for the inside of the corner. "Fortune favours the brave" rang through my mind. Turns out I waited a little to long. The cliche says nothing about the timing of the brave. Thankfully Paul is a gentleman of a driver and saw me coming.

I hit the corner way too fast and vainly tried to get my tyres to both steer and stop beyond their limits at the same time. I failed, losing the rear, catching it again, losing it again and ending up facing the corner viewing things from the curb. I swear Paul waved as he shot past. Suddenly I thought about Hennie who could not be far behind. Paul was Class C, but Hennie was Class D. I would have thrown the Class D win away if he passed me now. I hooked first and skidded back onto the track the engine bouncing off the limiter, hooking second just left the rear wheels spinning and finally third got me going again. I crossed the line to take the win in Class D berating myself for almost tossing it away. In the post race holding area I went over and apologised to Paul for almost taking him out.  He told me that he had seen me coming and was wondering how he was going to keep me behind him until he heard the screeching of tyres. Then he figured he just needed to stay out of the way and I would do the rest for him. How right he had been. 

Anyway, it had been a good days racing, with my first outright class win where I had actually passed people and beaten them as opposed to winning because there was nobody else in the class. I was happy with the car and now knew for sure that I could not brake at the 50m marker on the back straight. On the up side I did manage to record my highest ever top speed, 221km/h. Not surprisingly it was going into turn 5 on the last lap of the race.

A sweet victory at last

Unfortunately I did not have the camera mounted for race 1, but the clip for race 2 can be viewed from the link below. The middle bit is a little boring, but the finale is worth the wait.

5th May 2012 - 4th Regional - Race 2

One twenty one

Goals. Good things to have in life. Not something that should define ones life particularly, but good none the less. I tend more towards one having a direction in life. Goals can then be useful to make sure you keep heading in the right direction.


One of the numerous self help authors (I forget which one) once said that your goals need to be achievable and realistic else they tend to cause anxiety and depression. The depression I guess is owing to the continual missing of said unrealistic goals.


I tend to have many small goals that get modified as things change or they are achieved. One such goal was to have brakes that were up to the demands of racing. A goal that was recently achieved by Craig. A second goals was to not arrive at the next race meeting with untested brakes. Another one that was recently achieved.


A third goals was to go faster. We are talking lap times here, not outright speed. This too was recently achieved.


Bit of a bumper week when it comes to achieving goals you might say. 


Here's what happened.


Craig, been the jolly nice chap that he is, offered to spread some of his considerable racing skill and experience around by taking us on track for one on one training sessions in our cars. The plan was to book the track for a couple of hours. He would then set a bench mark time in our cars with us as passengers. We would watch closely the lines and driving style during the benchmarking and then spend some time trying to emulate this on our own. He would later check back with us, this time as a passenger, to see how we were progressing. 


I was first up. My brakes had finally been sorted and this would be the first real speed test. We strapped in and Craig caressed and slid my car around the track to yield a number of 1:24 laps culminating in a 1:23.646. A time that would have car and driver bumped up to Class C had this been a race day. Luckily in race conditions one seldom has the entire track to oneself and times like these are unlikely...hopefully. Anyway, it was Craig driving not me, so I was worried little.


Now it was my turn. I had been furiously taking mental notes as I watched Craig driving. First off, he was braking much later than I had been. I put this down to the now much improved brakes. Possibly more telling was that he was driving the entire track in a higher gear than I usually do. Where I had been hooking third to take corners, he was staying in fourth. This resulted in less gear changes and, significantly, less power induced oversteer out of corners. The torque of the V8 combined with the relative lightness of the car made this approach both smooth and quick.


I was keen to try.


It took a couple of laps to get used to not changing gears as I had before and then a few more laps to get used to the fact that the brakes now actually stopped the car pretty well. I was braking later and later into the scary turn 5 at the end of the back straight. It was time to push the limits.


Pushing the limits in a race car results in a somewhat predictable outcome. You tend to spin. Craig had told us to find the limit then dial it back to 99.95%. Percentages have never been my strong suite.


I did manage to find the limit, three times actually. Twice in turn 1 and once in the notoriously difficult (for me anyway) turn 2. This is all part of the process, however.


It was the best fun I had had in the car to date. I could dive into corners with confidence and slide the car out the other side with ease now that I was not over powering the rear wheels with too low a gear. The laps were feeling quick, if maybe a bit inconsistent.


Pulling into the pits to let driver and car cool down a bit produced an opportunity to check the laps times. I have a nice little bit of software that runs on my phone and connects to a high accuracy external GPS mounted on the roll bar. You start the software up and put the phone in your pocket. It then times each lap as well as eleven sectors I have setup around the track. It's very accurate, coming to within one hundredth of a second of the official lap timing transponders we use on race day.


My times proved to be both surprising and erratic. The erratic part was understandable given all the "finding the limits" I was doing. The surprising bit was, well, surprising. Amongst the 1:30's and other assorted spin induced slow laps were a number of 1:24's. I was suitably chuffed. But then there was one that stood out. The software actually highlights it in green so that you don't miss it. It was a 1:23.493. Faster than the bench mark Craig had set.

Results of training day

 As they say in the classics, "that is a result!"


Which kind of brings us to the whole goal thing again. One of the goals that was achieved on the day was the going faster one. I had a goal of doing 1:25's in the car by the end of the season. I had maybe underestimated the car's abilities somewhat. A 1:23 was pretty much a shattering of said goal. 


Of course, this kind of goal is an ongoing one and needs to be re-calibrated when its met. But what was next?


Well, this was made fairly easy by my nifty bit of software. It has a feature that calculates a best theoretical lap by adding together all the best sector times from all the laps to create a "perfect" lap from the session.


This time is displayed with a T next to it. If you have not already glanced up at the screen shot above, I can tell you that the next goal in the "going faster" category is 1:21.401.


To put this in perspective, that's near the top end of Class C. A somewhat rarified space normally populated by racing machinery of german descent.


That's a little scary, but testimony to the level of car that Craig has built.


Of course this is all much easier to achieve when one has the racetrack all to oneself and lots of laps at hand. Our races are only ten laps and are pretty busy in the Class D bit of the field.


We race on the 5th May. Tune in thereafter to see if any of this transfers to the actual race environment. I'm really hoping it will, but then I don't really want to break out of Class D just yet. Fine line? Maybe, maybe not. At least I now know where the problem lies if I fail to achieve this particular goal.