Lesson for the day: Overtaking

Well well well... Sunday comes round and that means it's a day for racing ! :)

Final result ? 3rd in the B final on 21 laps with .015 seconds between 3rd and 4th place today...positions changed on the last lap so that I moved from 4th to 3rd. I'm most happy about the way I overtook people today as I was bashed and bumped into last place on the 1st lap.

After the trip to Sevenoaks last weekend I spent a couple of hours on Saturday setting the car up and noticed a possible reason for the belt flipping over in the front of the car. The screws that hold the top deck in place had come loose at the layshaft end and worked themselves completely loose, nowhere to be seen !

This meant that the spur gear had come loose and was twisted at an angle, causing the belt to flip over.... or so I thought. More on this later :)

I left a little earlier than normal with the plan being to pick Charlie up and grab some McD's breakfast along the way. This was going well until I was parked up outside the McD's waiting for Charlie to get the food. The radio switched off and all sorts of lights came on in the dash cluster, not good !

I managed to get the car home (idling along as there was nothing when I pressed the accelerator) and transferred the gear to another car.

We still arrived on time though as we'd left about 1/2 hour earlier.

Setup for today:
Camber link/Quick roll centre position: 3 all round
Front shocks: Hole 3 (middle)
Rear shocks: Hole 4 (standing up)
Motor: Checkpoint Money
Gearing: 82 spur, 20 pinion, then changed to a 21 pinion after the 1st run as the car felt slow.


Charlie's car had a problem in practice in that he had steering issues, with the car turning more one way than the other, so we took it all apart, reset the EPA, DR and Trim settings on the radio, then set it up from scratch. He was pleased with it, and from what I saw of his races, he had plenty of steering, the car looked fast and stable !

My own day wasn't so great... started with 19 laps and felt very slow, but I think it was more me than the car. I was going too deep into the corners, so decided that I'd try to get a little closer to the apexes for the 2nd run as well as some changes to setup.

Changes: Turned the speedo power up, went up a pinion from 20 to 21 as this seems to be the sweet spot for the West Kent track with the Checkpoint motor for me.

2nd run came and went with an improvement for me after the 5 minutes were up. Up to 21 laps (almost 22). I had noticed that the belt had flipped over yet again, so although the spur from last week had something to do with it, it wasn't everything !
After fixing it (flip it back over) and tightening it, I had a closer look at the belt and the drivetrain and noticed that the power capacitor was rubbing on the belt at the bottom and might have been pushing it out. I moved the cap up away from where it was and cable tied it to some wires that were routed.
I decided that I'd leave other things as they were for the final qualifying session and just try to be a little closer again on the apexes.

I had terrible inteference in the 3rd session with the car going through a "dead spot" on the track, which I think may have been to do with the power cap being next to the wires, but I can't be sure. I didn't have a problem with the belt flipping over this time though, so that's a good thing :)

In the final I started in 5th and was knocked about during the first half of the lap, so that I was in last place coming down the straight. The car felt quick, but I felt like I was fighting against the lack of grip (maybe the tires have had enough now... 11 runs on them so far) I managed to get myself back into 3rd place and then clipped the apex of one of the corners to let the guy from 4th through...
I was about 1/2 a lap down by the time I got going again and had to really push it to get back close enough to have a go at passing him. By the end of the straight I was close enough to him that I could pass if I got a good run into a corner, but was too close at the first corner, so went through the first two into the 3rd corner behind him. Coming out of the 3rd corner I gave it some throttle and instead of letting off going through the high speed chicane, I went on a line which would have been the inside for the 6th corner, and outbraked him into the apex. I pulled away ever so slightly coming out of it, and was over the line in 0.15 seconds less than him :) 3rd place means that extra point and I need every one of them with Vince flying away in 2nd at the moment !

There is a video of the final, which I'm processing at the moment. I'll add a link when it's done