Time Attack Brands Hatch

[gambler]

Brands Hatch Write up

After Knockhill, the turbo was sent down to AET to see if they could salvage it. Unfortunately, the turbo was pretty much pumped, both the exhaust side and compressor side of the billet wheel were wrecked. I now had a decision to make. Could the car be competitive in the class with a GT30 and better response or should I just go for a GT35 which would be a bit more laggy but certainly give a fair bit more power? We had not seen what the GT30 would be capable of in the class as it had been damaged at Knockhill and there was the misfire at Cadwell. Being a typical man, the decision was made that the bigger option would be better. MORE POWER (Tim Allen voice) Arrff arrff arrff. It turned out to be less laggy than the wrecked GT30 anyway. A bit of tweaking from Andy Forrest and we were good to go. The car did feel ballistic after the mapping session. On a damp road it could possibly spin the wheels in 3rd and 4th gears… Not that I would try something like that as it would mean exceeding the speed limit! But a guy in the pub told me!

Warm up –

The day before there was a Ma5da meeting and some Time Attack and EDC testing. 3 cars had kindly dumped their oil around the circuit and it had been nice and moist all day. I walked the circuit the night before to try and establish where the grip might be. The answer was no where, especially on the racing line on several corners. Bearing this in mind I headed out trying to see what the track was like and to try and find the parts of the track with the most grip, without binning the car. The circuit was a slippy as a greased up gimp going down a waterslide. Paddockhill was hilarious, the car just wanted to over steer into Graham Hill bend and I had to reduce entry speed until it felt like I was pretty much crawling and Clearways was just a drift fest on the exit. Most corners were just oversteer and understeer maybe followed by some more oversteer for good measure, basically, all kinds of steer! Good fun on a track day but pretty difficult to get a clean lap in. The time sheets came in and I was 4th in class with a 1:00.171 which was 0.04s from the quickest in class. It looked like things were going to get close.

Practice –

Someone had kindly lubed up the track with another engine or two worth of oil and it was probably more slippy than Warm up. I went out and pushed even harder this time. Leaving a very small margin for improvement/error as no points can be scored for practice and cars were going off left right and centre around me. The wet grass was being very unforgiving and there were quite a few shunts into the barriers. Discretion was the better part of valor here and I had learned where I could push a touch harder if it was going to be wet during the timed sessions.

I pulled back into the pits completely buzzing with my brain in overload, the filming company, Togethia asked if they could do an interview. Id probably struggle to put a sentence together, luckily they gave me 5 minutes to compose myself and then I had to try not to make a complete gimp of myself on camera. It is something that I have done before and does not really phase me, I just detest seeing the results. It is ok if I am driving at the time and safely hiding behind a crash helmet. I’m just not keen on seeing my big dish on the tellybox.

Time to have a look at the timing sheets.I knew that I had been pushing harder, so was looking for a decent result. 2nd and half a second clear of the car in front... Happy Days! Then I realised that I was 3 seconds slower than the Neil Robertsons Evo. I probably had half a second to a second tucked away safely if I was to push harder, but 3 second, not a chance. There was a fair bit of head scratching going on in the pits on where Neil's sudden burst of pace had come from. Everyone's ego said that it must be gucci tyres so one of the lads went to have a look. Turns out Neil was using a set of full motorsport wet tyres as he was thinking about moving to Pro class where they can use those and slicks. For anyone who is not familiar with them, basically, if you drove them on a dry road for 10 miles, there would be nothing left of them. They are made from a super soft compound and Marcus Webster was saying that they are nearly as grippy in the wet as 888s are in the dry. A big sigh of relief was had by all.

Qualifying -

The track had finally dried up but was still a bit greasy from all the crap that had been dropped before and by the next set of cars that decided to s*it their engines. I had not driven brands in the dry since 2010 and was now packing a lot more power, better brakes and handling. I was going to have to get up to pace pretty quickly. There were a lot of One Hit Wonders at Brands and the circuit was unusually busy for the Pro classes, getting clear space was proving to be very difficult and I would have to make the best use of any space that I could get. Finally a clear lap and I managed to put in a 54.4, not bad but there was a lot of room for improvement. Then someone decides to drop their engine, oh good, more oil on the track. In to the pits while they clear it up, out again and on the 2 nd lap, someone decides that it will be a good time to bin the car. Back to the pits again. Back out again and I was really getting into the swing of things on the 1st flying lap. Most of the track felt like it was pretty much nailed but I thought there was more to come from Surtrees, the high speed left, right before the long last corner. I must have been driving down the straight saying '' watch this'' to myself (that never ends well) as rather than just having a small increase on braking and entry speed, It was a much better idea to enter the corner 20mph faster. Far too much entry speed accompanied with not enough trail braking to give the front end enough grip gave me some massive understeer. At this point, it was time to have a look into my bag of talent to see what was left........ It was EMPTY. The pretty smooth grass looked much more appealing than trying to make the car dance round the corner. So off we went for a bit of grass tracking. A couple of laps later and I caught up with Warren Kelly who was local to Brands so I decided to stick with him and Warren went off at exactly the same corner. These are both in the qualifying video. I chuckled my was round a cool down lap and then nailed a properly quick lap of 52.758 with a wee bit of traffic.

Back into the pits for a look at the time sheets and I was 4th in Class 0.9s off the leader. A bit less traffic and a couple of set up changes and I would not be far off the pace.

Final -

It had stayed pretty much dry since qualifying, so I had decided to put the race fuel into the car for a bit extra power. Sods law, the second the race fuel was put in, it started tipping it down. The 1st quick lap was taken pretty easy to asses the levels of grip and it was sideways everywhere, looks like there was no grip. The traffic was an absolute nightmare. Everyone was pretty much flat out the whole session trying to stick a decent lap together and there was not much difference in pace making it pretty difficult to pass people. A bit of heroics were needed and I finally managed to get a clear lap. A quick look at the clock showed about 3 minutes left in the session. The plan was to do one pretty quick and clean lap and then throw the balls to the wall for a banzai finish. The timing point was half way round the circuit and on the clean lap I was 0.4s quicker than my previous lap and I was sure that I had been significantly slowed up on the last 2 corners. Things were looking promising. A nice controlled 4 wheel drift out of Clearways and we were melting it down the start finish straight. 300m to go and the turbo made a really strange whizzing noise and all boost was gone. I cruised over the line only 0.05s slower than my fastest lap in traffic. It later turned out that the noise was the turbo dying. Unhappy days!

The time sheets were in and I was 3rd in Class, it then turned out that the guy who was quickest had been running motorsport wet's and I was promoted up to a very frustrating 2nd 0.18s from the win. If the turbo had just held out for a couple of hundred more meters then it could well have been a different story.... That's Motorsport for you though.

Qualifying Video -

Final Video -

Official Time Attack Video from Togethia

Again, i would like to give a massive shout out to all my sponsors. Especially RA motorsport who have been putting a huge amount effort into getting the car competitive in a very tough class. Nothing is too much trouble for these guys.

Massive thanks to all the people who have sponsored and supported me

RA Motorsport Developments

Andy Forest Performance

Whiteline

J T Innovations

Syvecs

John Stevenson Motorsport

ABC Autoglass

Flat Out Photography

Cosworth

Carlimits.com

[gambler]

Oops, wrong link for the Togethia Video

[scooby222]

unlucky Scott! you keep getting closer and closer so fingers crossed for next time!

when are you back up at RA, want to catch the donut run again

Dave

[gambler]

Lol, Ill be up at RA pretty soon as Anglesey is not far away. I never arrive at RA without any food, id get lynched, they are used to it now