Castle Combe - Nippon Challenge race report
The weekend started badly a few days beforehand when I read some active forum topics about Shell V-Power Nitro+ which is the replacement for the old Shell V-Power. Plenty of people reporting sluggish cars compared to the old stuff, higher ethanol content being blamed. After talking to Eurospec we decided not to run the risk of leaning out the engine with a different fuel mix, so opted to drain the tank of the old stuff and refill with Tesco Momentum 99 RON stuff and head to Guildford early Sunday for a rolling road session. Power was slightly down on previous results, with a safe level set at 450 BHP. After swapping all the tyres around on the wheels which had been repaired from cracking them at Rockingham, and a does of brake bleeding and geometry alignment, it was back on the road to Combe via a drop-off with some parts we'd sold from the donor car. Arriving early evening at Combe we enjoyed some enforced hospitality in the Jesse motorhome (it's lovely inside, just like the owner :D ).
Anyways, qualifying was fairly good. Sailed through the noise test unlike last year and got out towards the front of the queue and straight away got on with it. Managed a few clean laps with no traffic and put in a time for 5th on the grid. Happy days, especially splitting the Nissan Academy cars. Times were slightly down on my best from last year, but I have older tyres, less power, more aero drag, longer ratio gearbox and carrying more weight - although the new nylatron bushes and increased downforce offsets those a touch.
Race 1 started brilliantly. I think most others on the grid were thinking the same as me, when the second light went on instead of the first light going out it threw us a touch. I noticed a couple of cars around me nearly launch on the 2nd light coming on, and by the 5th light some clutches must've been getting hot as more cars were starting to creep forwards. When the 5 went out I hooked the car up perfectly with a tiny touch of wheelspin and straight away aimed to the infield side of Martin Price's pole sitting Scooby. By the apex of Quarry I had established a lead and started the inevitable worrying about who would be coming past where and when. I fended of strong opposition until Camp when Martin inevitably ducked through on the inside, with Adam Lockwood sitting tight on his rear end in the way he does to take advantage of the open door. By the end of the second lap I'd lost another place to Jason Jesse and was sitting in 4th. That's when things started to go wrong. A noticeable increase in noise from the front of the car and a lack of power saw the rest of the leading bunch come through. A bit of button pushing on the dashboard gauges reassured me it wasn't gearbox related, but that I had no boost pressure. I limped to the pits and pulled up hoping that Ben, Mark and Jonno would be able to fix whatever had popped. It was no use though, the intercooler pipe from the front turbo outlet had come adrift and would need the car in the air and the splitter off to reattach it. We returned to the paddock to start repairs, where, adding insult to injury we found the memory card on the camcorder had corrupted losing all the footage from in-car. Bugger.
Race 2 and all the pipes in the engine bay had been checked and tightened up. For my first time I found myself heading out the pitlane entry lane to take up position towards the back of the grid. The grid certainly looks busy with nearly 30 cars in front, so as soon as the lights went out my headlights came on and I started to pick a route through the pack. By the end of the first lap I'd made up 15 places to get into 12 place, another place on each of the following few laps saw me up to 9th before boost issues returned. Knowing it was probably another blown pipe I carried on at a reduced pace, with what felt like no drive at all out of corners. Bizarrely the detailed timing sheets from the TSL website showed I was losing 4-8 seconds per lap over my performance up to the boost issues, nothing like what it felt like in car. Perhaps slower top speeds and the knowledge I had little power meant I was more precise on the brakes and committing faster to the corners in order to carry as much speed as possible? The only way of knowing for sure would be some GPS/G-force logging. Finally finished the race in 11th place, still on the same lap as the leaders which was reassuring! Back in the paddock I checked the camera and found the bloody thing had corrupted yet another memory card - time for it to take an extended visit to the bin whilst I look for something to replace it. Looking around the car it was also apparent that the front turbo had sprayed some oil out into the engine bay from the open outlet pipe - which maybe figures as the car stopped smoking when the pipe popped off. Marty from the GTO club who originally supplied my hybrid turbos had come to spectate, and kindly offered to sort out some seals and bearings to get it rebuilt ready for the next outing 8-)
Overall a fairly disappointing end to the weekend, but I can take some positives from qualifying and the start of race 1, and be relieved that the car suffered only minor faults instead of a crash or major failure. Next on the agenda for me and the #78 GTO is a bit of a break until going to Elvington in 2 months for the Ten Of The Best competition and then Cadwell for the Nippon Challenge in August. Meanwhile we're building Mark's engine for his #25 3000GT, it's full steam ahead to get it down to Brands hatch next month for the first of 4 outings this year.
http://www.inmotionimages.co.uk/imgs...46f606d3d2.jpg
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Link to timing sheets; http://www.tsl-timing.com/ccrc/2013/132268nip.pdf
