On a wing and a prayer

Spoilers. Wings. Fins. Negative lift devices. Aerodynamic aids. Call them what you want, I have never been all that partial to these things folks bolt to the boot lids of their cars in the mistaken allusion that they will magically transform the dubious handling of their family sedan into that of a race bred machine. At best they will add drag and slow the car down, at worst the wing might be ripped off at speed and slice the head off some poor sap following on behind minding his own business.

Look Mom, I'm a race car!

Personally, I like the name "spoiler", since generally that's what they do to the lines of a car.

So, it was with more than a little trepidation that I started considering fitting a wing to the rear of my car. My thinking was, however, helped considerably by the last couple of outings following my recent upgrades. You see, I had taken the car out four times since the wheels, brakes, pedals etc had been upgraded and, of those four outings, I had managed to spin during three of them. The spins were also a little confusing. You can generally tell when you have overcooked something and will be mentally ready for the inevitable consequence. I have done this plenty of times in the past so it is not all that new to me. I quite regularly seem to run out of talent in certain corners. However, these last couple of spins where totally out of the blue. They all happened in corners, as one would expect, but not where one would expect them to happen in the corner. The most impressive was probably the spin into turn 3 during the first practice following the upgrades. I spun just at the entrance to the corner, did a complete 360 and exited the corner as if nothing had happened. The others were a little less impressive and a whole lot more alarming. Notably the spin in turn 4 with Quintin on board. I think he might still be picking the sand out of his ears. We had spun mid corner during a track day and engulfed the car in a cloud of mole hill sourced debris that I am still finding in nooks and crannies around the car. 

Anyway, discussions regarding the problem pointed to my lack of recent driving practice and the extra front grip the new wider tyres introduced into the equation. The concept was that with the, now, much increased front grip, I was entering the corners as I always had - expecting some light understeer - and was thus inducing oversteer instead. Oversteer with my car was not good, and was exceptionally difficult to catch, unless you were really expecting it. In these cases I had not been expecting it at all and thus ended up farming.

The solution to the problem was to, firstly, improve my driving skill, but more realistically, to increase the downforce on the rear wheels. This meant I would need a wing. I mentally relented and a wing was duly commissioned from Team Harper Headquarters. After much beavering away at the factory, Craig eventually requested the presence of my car for the fitting of the wing. It was a week before race day and I decided that it would be a good idea to have the car serviced and generally check over at the same time. I had been racing the car for close on two years now and, excluding the recent upgrades, not much had been done over that time, save for an oil change and some rear bushes.

Craig set about the car in earnest, which was good, given the short time frame. A phone call a little later in the day shed a staggeringly bright beam of light on the spinning problem. During the routine checks on the car, it was discovered that the right hand side lower ball joints were ever so worn. To the extent that my right rear wheel had its own version of dynamic rear toe adjustment. Rear wheel steering is nothing new, and never really caught on. I can assure you that random rear wheel steering will definitely never catch on. It causes you to spin at arbitrary places in corners. This of course brought up the question of whether I still needed a wing. It was a moot question as Craig had already fitted mine. 

I finally got to see the car on Friday morning, the same day I was scheduled to practice for Saturdays race day. My first impression was "Wow, that's a rather cool wing". It was large to be sure, and wide, and large. Did I mention it was quite large. It stood proud over the back of the car and added a serious dose of race cred to an already mean looking vehicle. I was suitably impressed with Craig's design efforts. Now it was a case of seeing if the wing would make any difference, so I set off to join the practice. Craig had a few things to finish off on the wing and was scheduled to meet me at the track in time for the last practice slot. I was going to run in the midday practice without the wing and gather some "before" data that could be used for comparison to when the wing was fitted. This plan was royally scuppered by some road works that had me inching along in bumper to bumper traffic and eventually arriving hot, sweaty, irritated and too late for the practice slot. I now had a two hour wait before my next slot so headed to the club house for some lunch.

Eventually it was time to head out for some testing. Craig arrived in the nick of time and we bolted the wing to rear of the car. I took the first couple of laps easy just to see if anything would would fall off. The car felt fantastic, but this was more due to the new ball joints than the presence of the wing. Finally, after a couple of warm up laps, I managed to stretch the car a bit and could immediately feel the effects of the wing. I was able to brake much harder without locking up the rear wheels and the car was feeling much more stable under hard cornering. Sadly the practice session was littered with visiting Sports & GT cars, down for the GT Invitational race the following day, so I only managed a handful of clear laps. On the upside, I was treated to the glorious sounds of a Ferrari 430 Challenge downshifting at full song next to me as we entered turn 5 side by side. 

So, with practice wrapped up for the day, it was looking to be an interesting race day as I, once again, would be getting used to a "new" car during a race meeting. Some things never seem to change.

New wing doing it's thing - Photo courtesy of Dieter Dolinschek

Race day was an early affair with us qualifying at 8am and racing at 10am. Thankfully I had made good use of my two hour wait the previous day and had completed documentation and scruteneering. This at least gave me a little more time to get organised in the morning.

Qualifying was a bit of a non event as we had a large field for the day and I ended up only getting in 5 laps of which possibly one was clear. This did not really concern me as I was going to be using the day to get cozy with my car again. This is always best done from the rear of the field.

Race one was called and we lined up for the start. I was fourth on the Class D grid and had Ant's Type 5 and Hennie's Corvette behind me. The lights went out and the three of us roared off into the first corner. During the mayhem of the first lap, Hennie managed to pass me, but as the race settled down a bit and I realised I was catching Hennie's 'Vette. The mist descended and all thoughts of "getting to know the car" where out the window as I focused on the rear of the black Corvette. I quickly realised that, with my added downforce, I was able to out brake him into the corners. Thus, the plan was hatched. Pick him up at turn 5, climb into the air hole behind him down the straight, at the last minute pop out and duck inside to take the corner. Easy enough, but this needed me to be really close to his rear end. 

Going onto turn 5 I was glued to his rear, focussing on the red ZR-1 sticker low down on his bumper. I exited turn 5 in third gear as close as possible, snatch fourth to match his speed down the straight, dropped the clutch and floored the throttle. I was met by what can only be called a howl of protest from the engine as I appeared to have missed the gear. I quickly snatched third, but was too high in the rev band and tried fourth again, but with the same effect. I seemed to have lost fourth gear for some reason. I hopped across to fifth, but by this time I was stone last. Images of little steel teeth happily bathing themselves in the warm oil of my gearbox sump flashed through my mind, but something about the gear shift did not feel right. It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what had happened. 

My gear shift is cable operated, with the gear cables being quite special devices having to be both compression and extension resistant while being flexible. To this end, no section of the flexible bits of the cable can be exposed outside of the outer sheath, for if they were, they would simply bend when asked to "push". A  while back a section of my outer sheath had come adrift and I had relocated it with some fuel hose and pipe clamps. Clearly this fix had failed and all push ability of the cable had been lost. This effectively meant I only had "pull" gears, being first, third and fifth. Not exactly ideal considering I mostly use fourth around the track. I decided to carry on anyway and at least finish the race, so spent the remaining laps alternatively buzzing the rev limiter in third or coughing down the straight in fifth. 

Back in the pits my diagnosis was confirmed and I set about fixing the problem again. About three metres of duct tape and an hour later, I had a working gearshift and headed to the club house for some lunch. 

Unfortunately, Ant was having overheating problems and pulled out of the first race, which was actually a good thing since he has now officially eclipsed me as the most powerful Harper, following his recent turbo work. He was certainly showing a significant turn of speed and would likely have shown me a clear pair of heels had he stayed in the race.

Ant hassling my new wing at the start of race one. Photo courtesy of Dieter Dolinschek

For race two, I had drawn fourth on the grid which put me behind Hennie's Corvette and Paul's GT40. I had some unfinished business with Hennie and was keen to get back to the action, this time with a couple of extra gears. We rolled around for the start of the race and three V8's thundered into turn 1. Everyone was well behaved and we exited the other side intact and in the same places. Paul was still trying to get to grips with his rebuilt GT40 and was being cautious in the corners. This was a bit of a problem as I was behind him at this point and I could see Hennie making a getaway up front. Paul's GT40 boasts a significant 5.7l engine and he ambles away from me down the straights. Finally, after around three laps, I built up some courage and applied my new found brake force to out brake him going into turn 5. I had tried this once before and ended up watching him wave to me as I parked up backwards on the exit of the corner. This time, however, my wing did its thing and I stuck to the corner like glue, exiting ahead of the GT40. I could see the Corvette at the end of the front straight. He was probably around 5 seconds up the road from me. This meant I would need to lap around 1 second a lap faster then him if I had any hope of catching him with enough time to pass him before I ran out of laps. This was a tall order, but I put on my race pants and set off after him. This would also give me a chance to get to grips with the car while I had some open track in front of me. The next few laps were a bit of a revelation as I braked later and later and tried to cautiously find the limits of grip in the corners. Craig, who was watching from the stands, told me later that I was indeed catching the Corvette at a rate of around a second per lap, but in the end it was not enough, and we crossed the line some three car lengths apart.

All told, it was a good day. The car was very much on song now, and the wing, which turned out not to be a spoiler, was showing some serious benefits. Later lap sector analysis would show that, while I had lost around 10km/h top end on the straights due to added drag, I was faster through almost every corner. This has two direct spinoffs. Firstly, I now need to spend time with the car to explore the limits and reassess my brake markers, but secondly, and more importably, I need more power!

Now where did I put that turbo....

A moss covered stone

It's true. A rolling stone does indeed gather no moss. Unfortunately, for the last couple of months I have been a rather stationary stone. Consequently I am covered in moss. This was proved rather embarrassingly a few weeks back when I rolled out onto the track again for the first time since my moss gathering began. 

Ok, so I do have an excuse. All racing drivers, however wannabe they are, have excuses. But, seriously, mine are good. You see, I decided to make some changes to the car. Most folk do this over the Christmas period, when there is lots of time to get everything done. Me, I decided to do it mid season. And not just a small change or two. No, a complete change of the wheels, hubs, brakes, pedal box and clutch. Of course, all for good reason.

The structure for the new top mounted pedals. Much stiffer than before!

Thing is, it always takes longer to finish than you think, especially when you are making significant changes that require aftermarket parts to be matched to an existing system. Anyway, subject to Craig's considerable skill and dedication, the niggles where all eventually sorted out and the car was ready. At this exact point I decided to go overseas on holiday with the family. So, by the time I finally drove out of pit lane, some three months later, and the Saturday before race day, I could hardly remember which way the track went, let alone how to drive my car.

Thankfully, the brain does appear to have some sort of muscle memory and within a couple of laps things started to come together. Now, the main reason for doing all these changes was, obviously, to make the car go faster. At this point in the practise session things were not looking good. I was barely managing to break 30's let along storm in the 23's as I  had been hoping. It was time for an egg and bacon roll and some expectation reassessment.

The second practise session yielded somewhat better results as I realised the car had much more grip than before (due to the wider tyres) and much better brakes. It was now a matter of finding the limits, without crashing into something hard, all the while adjusting the brake markers. By the end of the session I was back to lapping around 25's. Not stellar, but at least back to where I was before. It was only during the third, and last, practise session that I started to realise the car handled quite a bit differently. We had upsized the front tyres from 195's to 225's. Consequently, the car had a lot more grip on turn in. I had been driving as before, balancing cornering for the slight understeer I knew the car had. I was rather euphoric  about my massive discovery, so much so that I promptly spun going into turn 3. It was a neat spin though, the marshal hardly had a chance to bring out the yellow flag, before I had completed my unscheduled 360 and was scampering down the track again, a little less euphoric. I managed to sneak in a high 24 during this session, but was now painfully aware of the fact that the car was very different to what it had been, and I would essentially have to learn it all over again. This moss was proving to be rather sticky stuff.

Thus rolled on race day. It was a long weekend so numbers were a little down. I figured this was a good thing since it would mean less things for me to hit. I arrived nice and early and parked up next to Paul and his GT40. Paul was eventually back after his fire induced rebuild, but was having all sorts of small issues so was not expecting to do that well. The car, I must admit, looks awesome. It now sports a much racier look, with low front defuser and aggressive rear arches over its massive slicks. As always it sounds as good as it looks. The GT40 really is one of my all time favourite cars.

The Harper contingent was made up of myself and Alan in his turbo powered, slick shod rocket. Thankfully he was way up near the top of Class C. Craig, who was still rebuilding his car and Ant, who was running his new engine in, came to watch with Ant promising to be back for the next race day. Class D was therefore only four cars, myself, Cyril in his new GT3, Rob in his neat Lotus 7 and Nic, also in his Lotus 7. Nic had always been down in Class E and was seldom a concern for me. Clearly Nic has no issues with moss attachment as he seems to have found an indecent turn of speed with his little Lotus.

Qualifying was called and I again applied my, so far, fairly effective strategy of going out mid field. I had five clear laps and managed to notch up the fastest qualifying time for Class D. I was not all that elated, since it was only a rather yawing 26. Most of the others in Class D had run into traffic issues. Still I was on pole, so to speak.

Not that it lasted all that long. As a matter of fact, by turn three of the first race I had been taken by Cyril and had Nic dangerously close behind me. Still, I was not concerned and set off after the GT3. A brief glance in the mirror down the back straight confirmed my thoughts as Nic receded behind me. I set about the rear of the Porsche, but he was too quick down the  straights. Passing would have to be a corner manoeuvre. At the end of the front straight I gave a cautionary glance in the mirrors just in case there was something there and almost missed my brake marker. My mirror was full of Nic and his 7. There was no time to figure out how he had overcome my massive torque advantage and ended up glued to my rear, it was now all about staying ahead. And so the race progressed. I tried to badger the rear of Cyril's Porsche as best I could while trying to fend off the increasing insistent Nic. By the time the chequered flag fell I was panting like a rabid dog, but had managed to hang on to second. Predictably, lap times were not spectacular, as they seldom are when you are covering lines all over the place, but it had been a great dice and that, after all, was why we were doing this.

A post race investigation revealed Nic had only added slicks to his Lotus, the rest all coming from his rapidly improving race craft. The family duly arrived for lunch and we headed to the clubhouse for a break and catch up with the other drivers.

A couple of hours later we were back and lined up for race two. I had surprisingly drawn pole in Class D for this race so was up front again. I was determined to make the Harper as wide as possible and keep both the Porsche and Nic behind me from the start. Alas, it was not to be. While I was on pole for Class D, I was also behind Class C and on my side of the grid this meant I was behind Paul and his GT40. Paul had been struggling with handling issues the whole day and was being ever so ginger into corners. At the start, the lights went out and we stormed to turn 1. I was on the inside of the corner and ended up boxed in by the GT40 up front and a string of cars passing me from behind. By the time I exited the corner I was stone last. Things can happen fast during a race. I quickly dispatched the GT40 into turn 2 and set off after the rest of the field. After a lap or two I managed to catch and pass Rob in his Lotus and slowly reeled Nic in. I was much quicker than him on the straights, but he out braked and out handled me on the back side of the circuit. Eventually after around six laps I was about ready to deal with him. The plan was simple, I would catch him down the back straight, brake as late as possible into turn 5, then overpower him down the front straight and make the car nice and wide going into turn 1. Easy stuff, now just to execute. 

Everything went exactly according to plan until turn 5. I braked late, turned in using my, now much improved, front grip and promptly lost control of the rear. You see, while the wider front had eliminated the slight understeer characteristics of the car, it had somewhat exaggerated the tendency to oversteer. And with a 60/40 weight split, once the rear let go, you needed to be a much better driver than me to catch things. Half way around the spin I did at least have the presence of mind to hit the clutch and keep the engine running. The car skidded to a halt backwards off the outer edge of turn 5, the shower of gravel bouncing musically off the back of my helmet. Through the dust I could see Rob sprint past. I cursed a bit and got the car going again, bolting off down the straight only to be met at the end by a marshal furiously waving the "change in surface" flag. I could actually see the oil on the outside of the straight, right about where the brake markers started. The thought did flash through my mind as to what would have happened had my plan succeeded. If it had, Nic and I would have been side by side at that point and one of us would have possibly ended up smeared across the barrier wall way past the turn 1 run off. We do over 200km/h at the end of the main straight.

After that, the race deteriorated into more of a cruise as turn 2 showed similar oil slick problems. Finally, after another lap, the race was red flagged and we headed back to the pits. The oil presented a bit of a conundrum for the marshals since none of the cars had shown any signs of massive engine failure usually associated with this amount of oil on the track. To mimic the Exxon Valdez you really had to spectacularly destroy your engine or gearbox, both events producing smoke clouds that would make a small WW2 tank proud. But, no smoke there was, which is why the marshals took a bit of time to notice the oil. Thankfully, it was with enough time to alert most drivers. The slick rendered turn 1 unusable and hence the race was stopped.

At the end of the day I managed to snatch a third over all, so was fairly pleased with the proceedings. I had at least managed to provide some entertainment for the crowd as well as Nic. More to the point though, while the actual race lap times were nothing special, my nifty lap timer proudly presented theoretical 23's for both races.

All I have to do now is string a couple of good sectors together per lap and I should be near the top of Class D again. That is, of course, assuming I can keep the car pointing forward! In the meantime I'm off to find some industrial strength moss remover.

-xxx-

For those who want a good chuckle, check out my parking manoeuvre in turn 5 here. 

The full races can be viewed here for race 1 and here for race 2.

A cat in a bag

The cat is out of the bag. It's an odd saying really, and always confused me as a youth until I put it to the test with our trusty, and mostly laid back, family cat. Actually getting the cat into the bag is not a problem as they are naturally curious creatures. They are also fantastically suspicious, especially around the motives of a ten year old with a sack. The furious feline exited the "bag" as a hissing bundle of fur and claws leaving me somewhat bloodied and in no doubt that the cat had left the bag, and would not be entertaining any future bag activities.

I suppose that's more what it's about. Once the cat is out, it's not going back. As it is with certain changes that are going to be taking place with my Type 6 over the course of this season.

A photo appeared on Facebook a little while back depicting some engine parts, one of which was the unmistakable shape of a large turbocharger. Craig then ran a little post on the Harper Sports Cars web site around some upgrades heading the Type 6 way. 

Go faster goodies slowly coming together

The activity drew a couple of comments, but nothing too compelling. However, during the race meeting this past weekend I was accosted by quite a number of drivers around the plans for my Type 6. More specifically they were all Class C drivers and wanted to know what power and torque figures we had in mind. Competition is a good thing, and it's always good to know as much about the competition as one can. While I appreciated the fact that they thought I might be able to compete in their class at some point, I was under no illusions that trying to harness the Type 6 when it sported twice the power output would be a job my limited skill might not accomplish all that well.

Still, you can't get better by staying the same and I tend to throw more power at the going faster problem. Probably not the best way to solve the issue, but it does make for some fun times.

However, I am not oblivious to the fact that making a car go faster has a number of side effects, the greatest of which is that, well, you end up going faster. This is all good and well, but it means at some point you have to slow down again. Upgrading the acceleration parts of a race car without looking into the deceleration parts can turn out to be a mistake you only get the chance to make once. So long before any of the go faster goodies come near the car, we are doing some more mundane upgrades. These include larger 17" rims that can take wider semi-slick tyres, but more critically can house much bigger 300mm disks for massive added breaking force. We are also looking at redesigning the pedal arrangement to a top mount direct push system for a more "connected" feel. 

At this point I would like to introduce you to a new word in the english language. It's a word most sporting folk will be familiar with, but seems particularly relevant in the world of motor racing. The word is "cashcade" and describes the knock on effect of making a small change to an otherwise perfectly fine race car. Thus, to get the new 17" rims to fit means we have to swap from four bolt hubs to five bolt hubs since you don't get 17" rims in 4x100 bolt pattern. Thankfully Toyota have an off the shelf five bolt hub. Then once the hubs are replaced, the rear shocks need to move inward a bit to clear the inside of the rim. The front end does not escape either, since the, now larger, front wheel not only fouls the body work, but also come in contact with the headlights.

A box of Toyota five bolt hubs for the three Type 6's

"Spats" adding to the new brutish look of the Type 6's

Then, finally, the callipers also need to change from the rather lumpy RunX units to the similar sized, but lower profile, Corolla RXi units.  A cashcade of truly epic proportions!

New vs Old disks, quite an increase

New front brakes fitted

New rear brakes fitted

Eventually all the changes will stop, at which point, hopefully, so will the car. The final addendum to the Type 6 prior to us doubling the horses is to increase the downforce. This will allow us to make more effective use of the bigger brakes and tyres. A rear wing and front splitter is on the cards at some point. Of course, by this point the entire season might be over, or the little bits of paper fuelling the cashcade may be depleted. Time will tell which comes first.

Then, just to add to the whole effect, we are fitting a new clutch. There is a good reason for this however. A while ago my third gear synchro decided it had had enough of this track racing nonsense and went from synchromesh to just mesh. Luckily I use a standard off the shelf Audi gearbox and quickly sourced a new used one off Gumtree. However, once we came to fit the box, we discovered the source of my persistent pull off shudder. The clutch plate was basically spring-less and about to become spline-less as well. With three days 'til race day there was no time to faff about getting it rebuilt so a standard off the shelf Audi unit was quickly dropped in. The clutch felt fantastic and the race meeting went off without a hitch, although in hindsight, I might have felt a bit of slippage near the end of the second race. The following weekend was a open track day and we decided to make a bit of a day out of it. I was planning to take the kiddies for a joyride and Leigh was going to venture out in the car for only the second time. We were all poised for some fast fun when, coming down the back straight as I shifted into fifth, there was a muted bang at the rear and the car lost all forward urge. Thankfully I had enough momentum to coast around and into the pits. This put a rather immediate stop to our days planned activities and the car was duly dispatch to the doctor for analysis. 

The results, I suppose, were somewhat expected given the ask we had placed on the little off the shelf clutch plate.

Manufacturers specs somewhat exceeded

I had always been a little concerned about my clutch and, frankly, am quite surprised it has lasted a whole season. However, there was absolutely no chance the current setup would manage with any increase in power. Something better will be needed. 

After some ernest searching, conventional wisdom was that we needed to fit a more racing biased unit instead of the standard road unit we had. A little later we had procured an ex Nascar twin plate Quartermaster clutch from the fine folk at G&A Promotions. 

Then the cashcade effect once again set in and we finally ended up with a whole new flywheel and clutch assembly. 

New twin plate vs old single

On the upside, the whole assembly has gone from a somewhat hefty 15kg, down to a flyweight 7kg. This should really help the engine spin up!

By the time everything is back together again I'll pretty much have a totally different car and should, once again, be following my trend from last year by pitching up on race day with a whole bunch of new bits. Qualifying will be more fun than usual I suspect.

So what about the actual race day just gone past, you might ask? Well it turned out to be a great day of racing. The weather was fine and slightly overcast making for a cool day. I had a great battle with some Class D guys, notably Hennie in his 'vette, while sadly the other Hennie shortened the front of his Lotus 7 by slamming it into the back of Martin's 7. The two had been furiously dicing and exited Turn 4 literally nose to tail. Unfortunately, as Hennie pulled out to pass Martin, Martin missed a gear. With Hennie accelerating to pass, and Martin not accelerating any more, the two came in contact, forcing both to retire for the day. 

In race two I once again showed my lack of race craft while trying to overtake the Corvette, finally getting the job done after far too many laps. I then, surprisingly, managed to catch a Porsche GT3RS and, even more surprisingly, managed to pass him in Turn 1 while we were tangled up with the three leading Class A cars.

The day ended with a Class D win for me, and a rather nagging feeling that I should be leaving well enough alone. Ant had just fitted an aftermarket ECU to his car and had tuned things up to a nice 200kw. It did not last long, with him melting his pistons not far into the race. 

Maybe that large turbo is not such a good idea after all. But then, I fear the lure of 400kw might turn out to be just too strong to resist.

------------

You can catch some of the action, and watch my misguided attempts to pass Hennie, in the footage from race 2 here. Keep an eye out for the corner action around lap 6 when myself and the GT3 are both passed by three class A cars between the entry and exit of Turn 1.

Stripes

It is a well-known fact in the go-faster community that putting stripes on your car makes it go faster. I mean, take a look at the evidence. Buy a normal Ferrari F360 and its pretty quick, but when you want to go racing you need a Stradale - which has stripes. This fact was even known back in the sixties. Carroll Shelby knew about it. When he built his Daytona to beat Enzo Ferrari's 250GTO he knew it had to have stripes to stand a chance, so stripes it had. And it of course beat the 250.

So it should have come at no surprise to me that once I put stripes on my car it would go faster.

Most folk use the Christmas break from racing to fettle with their cars. Some change cars completely, as seems to be the manner with the Porsche contingent. Others change engines, upgrade suspension, removed weight or generally try to do things to their cars that will make them faster. Of course this often means they actually go slower as they now have to re-learn their car, but eventually they do go faster.

My car had been so reliable during the last season that I was a little reticent to fiddle with anything. I knew the car was still much faster than I was, so the fettling actually needed to be done on the driver more than the car. Still, it is almost considered bad form to pitch up on the first race day of the season with exactly the same car as last year. What are you going to chat to your fellow drivers about if you do that?

Then I discovered the secret of stripes. A brief googling confirmed that pretty much all sports car manufacturers that produced a go faster version of their standard car had a version with stripes. That was it then, I simply needed stripes. Since my car was vinyl wrapped and not painted, adding stripes was ridiculously easy. I contacted the "vinyl man" who came around to the house one afternoon and literally an hour later I had stripes on my car. Of course, one cannot simply add a bunch of stripes across the top of the car, everyone does that! Striping is an individual thing. Luckily the Harper body has a number of "angles" that lend themselves quite nicely to striping.

My car created quite a stir when I arrived at the track, bright and early on race day.

Showing off the new stripes - Photo courtesy of Dieter

Qualifying was a rather early 8:30, but the day was warm and bright. The preceding week had seen some furious testing on the track, as last minute changes were tested by all manner of cars and drivers. Thus, I was expecting the track to be nice and grippy with some fresh rubber having been laid down. I was following my semi successful approach from last year of going out earlier in the pack to get more clear laps. On this occasion I ended up around sixth in line. Lap one was just to get a feel for things again. By lap two I could feel the track was nice and grippy so coming into lap three I gave it beans. The stripes clearly were working as the lap timer proudly presented a 1:24 lap time. I was well chuffed with that, so as soon as the faster cars started to appear, I pulled in to the pits. I had managed five laps, two of which had been sub 1:25's. Things were looking good for the day. I was especially pleased, as I still had my last season's tyres fitted which were starting to show serious signs of the last years abuse. Why, you may ask, did I have a well used set of tyres fitted. Well, that will all become clear in the next blog entry. There is some scheming afoot, is about all I can say.

Anyway, my stripe induced lap time put me firmly at the front of Class D for the first race. Now, Class D had been somewhat depleted towards the end of the year, with the last couple of races only managing to produce two or three cars in D. Today was a little different, as no less than five cars lined up, and that was with two usual drivers, Hennie and Craig, being absent. Craig, it should be noted, is on the hunt for two extra seconds as he totally rebuilds his car for this season. We had some new folk joining the fray too. There was Robert, in his red and white Lotus 7, who had raced the last race of last year, showing a rather indecent turn of speed, and then new boy Clinton who had not even bothered to spend more than a couple of qualifying laps in Class E before posting a time in his rather well sorted Lotus 7 that punted him somewhere near the top of Class D. I can see this chap is going to be trouble this year.

Jean was also back racing after a two year sabbatical. He had brought his absolutely stunning Nardini, all painted in Ford Focus orange. Paul, of the burning GT40, was also present, but without his car, and promised to have his Grand Dame together for the next race. 

A side view of my stripes and Jean's Nardini next door

Race 1 was eventually called and we all lined up for the rolling start. True to my adage of starting slowly I managed to allow Alan's turbo charged Type 5 and the R8 past in Turn 3, but, more to the point, Martin also snuck past going into Turn 2. This would not do. This was the battle for Class D leadership. I set about making the stripes work for their living. On the second lap I had managed to reel Martin in and I took him going down the back straight. Ahead now was the Class C R8, so I set my sights on catching him. This was all going rather well until I thundered into Turn 1 on the third lap. A small black object lying on the track caught my eye just as I hit the brake marker. There was no chance of swerving at this point since I had the small issue of dumping around 100km/h in the space of 50 odd metres. I only just missed the object with the right front tyre, but the back right hopped up over it. Since the car was under heavy braking at this point it did a nice little side waltz kind of motion and shot from the right to the left of the track in the space of a couple metres. Thankfully nobody was trying to out brake me on the left, else two would have become one. I was convinced I had punctured a tyre, so backed off completely with the intent of circulating back to the pits. However, half way around the track, and once everyone had passed me, the car was feeling fine. I decided to pull in anyway and ask the marshals to check my tyres. I now have an inkling of what it must be like to be handed a drive through penalty. The pit exit marshal checked my tyres and declared them all still inflated, waving me back on to the track just ahead of Louis in his Lola. 

I was now a little annoyed.

The hard work my stripes had done earlier in the morning had been dashed by some small car part dropped on the track by another car. There was nothing to do, but to put my head down and chase whatever I could find, with serious intent. I let Louis past in Turn 2 and decided to use him as a rabbit. Louis normally laps around 1:22 so I had little hope of keeping up with him, but the incentive was there. What followed was a brace of 1:24 laps as I  wrestled and flung the car around the track by the scruff of its neck. Eventually, on the final lap, I caught up with Cyril in his Chevy powered Porsche 944 and took him on the back straight. Great, now I was at least not stone last!

The race duly ended with me bringing up the rear in Class D, but having posted the fastest Class D time. Ah, the irony of racing. Back in the pits we gave the car a good going over, but no apparent damage was found, so we called lunch and headed to the club house for some much needed refreshments. 

Now, our standard procedure for the second race grid positions, is to draw lots from a bag of numbered blocks. We do this during the drivers briefing in the morning and I had drawn number 6. Considering there were only five cars in Class D for the day, and adding to that, my position in the first race, my location at the rear of the grid was pretty much cemented. I would have to do it all in Race 2 if I was to have any hope of kicking off a good season of points for the year. 

But I was little worried. After all I had stripes!

Race 2 rumbled around and we squared up entering the main straight. I had Robert's Lotus 7  ahead of me and Martin's turbo rotary powered Lotus 7 next door. The lights went out and I floored the throttle, slapping Martin silly with some V8 grunt. I was focused on the rear of Robert's 7 trying not to rear-end him when a thundering black beast slid down the centre of the track and into Turn 1. That would be Hennie in the Corvette then. Hennie was a new comer to Sports & GT's, but by no means a new comer to racing. He had been campaigning his black Corvette in the Fine Cars section, until he was deemed too fast and booted out. He raced a few races with us last year, but his times were firmly in the Class E category. Clearly he had not been sitting around during the Christmas break, and he did not even have stripes! 

The Corvette locked up its rears in the corner, slid slightly and thundered out the other side. I was so mesmerised by the spectacle that I forgot to block the wily Martin who snuck past on the inside again. Bugger that for a joke, I thought, and tried to squeeze Martin out wide on Turn 2. Unfortunately I was not close enough and had to yield. I knew I was faster than him in a straight line, so figured I would just wait until the back straight and dish him up a torque sandwich. This all went according to plan except my race craft, or rather lack thereof, let me down. Instead of retaking the racing line into Turn 5, I stayed wide. Predictably Martin and I exited the corner side by side and he edged ahead onto the straight. I mumbled a few descriptive words and gave chase, trying to take him on the inside of Turn 1. We had started to catch quite a gaggle of cars now and I had to back off owing to the fact that Turn 1 was rather full. No problem, I thought, I just had to repeat the previous lap. Which is what I did, exactly, including the bit about letting Martin through again into Turn 5. I know, the definition of insanity and all that. The mumbling was a little louder this time around. There would not be a third time! Or at least that was the plan. I did a replay of the previous two laps, but this time slammed the door firmly shut in Martins face, almost rear ending Ant's Type 5 in the process. Coming out of Turn 5 I headed towards the pit wall in an attempt to take Ant, but he squeezed me out. I tried to criss cross, but was too late as Martin shot past both of us. My plans for winning Class D were not exactly going according to plan at this point. I tracked Ant around the back of the circuit and took him on the back straight. Ok, now just for Martin. Again! Meanwhile, the rest of the Class D guys were getting further and further ahead. Time was running out.

It was time to toss a little caution into the wind to see what would happen. Martin drifted towards the pit wall on the main straight, taking the racing line into Turn 1. I slipped left and speared into the corner on his inside. I had tried this once before going into Turn 5 and had almost taken Paul's GT40 out as I spun off into the bushes. Thankfully, this time I managed to control the squirming rear end and pulled out of the corner still ahead of Martin. I took the exit line, closing the door on any aspirations he might have and bolted up to Turn 2. I checked my mirrors and knew I had finally subdued the annoyingly fast 7.

Ahead I could now see Robert and the Corvette, so it was chase time. I reeled Robert in slowly, catching him at the end of the back straight, but just not enough to pass. He was awfully quick though Turn 5, but not quick enough, and I oozed past him on the inside down the main straight. 

Two down, two to go. Things were looking up.

There was now the small matter of a 5.7 litre Chevy to contend with. I was later to learn that Hennie had spent the Christmas break stripping an incredible 175kg out of his car. To put that in perspective, it's the same weight as my entire engine! I slowly caught up to the black beast, noticing that it was not that quick through the corners. On the straight, however, we were pretty much level pegged. Into Turn 5, I was on his tail under breaks and my lesser overall weight got me almost past him on the main straight. But not quite. We cornered through Turn 1 side by side, then a rush of blood seemed to infuse Hennie's brain as he waved me past into Turn 2. I suspect he mistook me for the Juno coming up to lap him. Either way, I was very thankful. I suspect the interior of the Corvette was probably a little blue once he realised it was me and not the Juno.

Now there was only Clinton left and he was going to be a major challenge. He had been showing some rather embarrassingly quick times, and as I finished the lap, the timing board announced only two laps left. I figured we were probably lapping within half a second of each other which effectively meant I had no hope of catching him since I could not even see him yet.

I lost a bit more time as the two leading Porsches blitz by and I made a few nooby errors with gear selection. I was beginning to resign myself to second place as there was still no sight of Clinton's 7.

Then I was treated to an entirely different sight coming into Turn 4. The corner was mostly obscured by a fabulous cloud of brown dust. As I entered the corner the dust became thicker. I backed off and strained into the cloud for signs of anything on the track ahead. T-boning somebody in Turn 4 would definitely end in tears. Then I caught a glimpse of a silver 7 slithering to a halt on the grass. The track was clear so I booted the throttle and ploughed through the dust storm. It took a few fractions of a second for my brain to twig that it was actually Clinton who had so effectively pulled a David Copperfield move on Turn 4.

I crossed the line at the top of Class D and well chuffed. It was one of those rare races where I had won by actually catching and passing people instead of mechanicals claiming them. Ok, two places had been handed to me, so it was not all down to my rather mediocre skill. But a win is a win as they say, and his particular one was rather satisfying.

The race 2 win put me third in Class D for the day, which, considering my race 1 performance, I was more than happy with. More to the point though, was the large field of cars around the 1:24 to 1:25 mark. Reviewing the results at the end of the day showed that two Class E drivers, Hennie with his 'Vette and Nick with his Lotus 7, had broken into Class D. Thus, once Hennie (the other Hennie with the Lotus 7) and Craig were back in the fray, there would be nine contenders in Class D. This would make us the most densely populated Class in the entire field.

I suspect some really good, close racing will be on the cards for the next race day. I just hope no one else decides to go put stripes on their car.

Here are some videos of the action. Well, ok, race 1 is a little dull, but race 2 is quite fun.

Sports & GT - Race 1

Sports & GT - Race 2