Well that was fun - hard work but fun. Dave and I had arranged to meet up to on Saturday morning to pick the car from TDi North. Neil and Lou had done a sterling job to prep the car (including a gearbox change). I was at home just mooching about when I got a call from fellow competitor Umar Masood (RX7 Turbo). His tow car was having problems with its steering and I suggested that he called into TDi North for investigation.
We then learnt more than we ever wanted to about Wrangler Jeep's power steering lines. A couple of hours passed punctuated by the raucous roar of Dougie's ROTREX drag car and urdu curses.
Eventually we set off in a loose convoy for our trip over the border. We stoppped for Lunch somewhere on the M6 and then settled back to enjoy the view Lake District. Just as we were approaching Knockhill Umar rang up again - white smoke and the temps had gone through the roof. Sounds like the head gasket we concurred - try putting some water in when it cools and carry on.
By 6PM we had turned up at the paddock and got the car off the trailer when Umar rang again. He'd got it going again but it had died completely at the services. I knew what he was going to ask, but made him ask Dave.
A few minutes later we set sail south again seeking a service station allegedly only 42 miles away. Seventy minutes later we found them and hooked on hig huge trailer complete with gearbox "strapped" on the back. Umar's a great friend but he doesn't travel light - in fact he has a bizarre bazaar of RX7 bits from rotors to diffs, to 4 complete suspension struts. I had already warned him that tough choices would have to be made, our van was pretty full and in the end he elected to take the car bits and share our tools.
The journey back to the Circuit was somewhat slower - of particular note was the clanking of the gearbox on the trailer as we passed over the expansion joints on the Firth of Forth bridge. As I watched in the mirror I noticed the traffic falling back from the trailer in pure fear. Dave and I were trying to calculate whether it would fall in the water or in carriageway - secretly I rather hoped it would be the water and that would be the end of it. We finally got to the hotel after 10 and I passed over a couple of tickets XDCX and arrange with him to fill our fuel churns - a task we had failed at due to our outbreak of kindness.
After a MaccyD's and a couple of scoops we retired for the evening - knackered.
We were up early and on the road back to circuit for 7AM. Man it was cool, breezy and it was clear that we would have rain to contend with at some stage (s) of the day. Dave and I struggled with his gazebo device and used the van as windbreak - this was to be one of our smartest moves of the day.
While Dave was signing on and attending the drivers briefing, I started Spirit to warm her up. Rather strangely after about 7 or 8 minutes the EPS light came on and a quick tug on the wheel indeed showed that there was no power steering. I restarted the car and held my breath as I prayed that the light would go out - which after what seemed an eternity, it did. Of course this left me in a bit of a dilemma as to whether to tell Dave about the potential problem, which I did in the end.
By 9 a decent crowd was gathering and taking a keen interest in the cars. They're a hardy lot up there - quite a few just in T Shirts and by 9.15 I'd seen one of them determined to enjoy his day with a breakfast can of Carlsberg.
We were planning a low key warmup and were somewhat surprised to find Dave at the sharp end of the timesheets. Our good friend and nemesis Bo Nielsen (Astra VXR) was soon over to have a mooch at Spirit to see what we had done since Oulton!
Practice saw the positions reversed and it was clear that the 4 cars in FI FWD were very evenly matched - however I knew that Dave had quite a bit in hand and wasn't going to show the car's potential in a stage where there are no points up for grabs.
Unfortunately things were not to go our way in the afternoon. We had hoped that the 3rd and 4th gear selection problem that had troubled Paul West at Oulton began to re-appear as the pace picked up. I was carefully monitoring the gearbox temps all day and each successive session they were going higher and higher. Although we had swapped the gearbox once we had seen the badly worn gears and synchros, we hadn't realised that the selector cables were knackered too.
So come the final we had to settle for 3rd, there just wasn't anymore in the car. We can take some satisfaction in these analysis figures
Speed Trap 1
88 Andrew BARBOUR 127.6
61 Matthew LAWSON 125.7
79 Alan FREELAND 123.1
333 Jon MATHERS 120.7
82 Chris BENNETT 115.5
48 Umar MASOOD 114.1
103 Dave THORPE 113.0
97 Romain LEVESQUE 112.0
41 Mark POLLARD 110.0
77 Gerry ATKINSON 104.0
33 Bo NIELSEN 101.8
9 Adam KINDNESS 100.9
23 Jimmy WHITE 48.2
Speed Trap 2
88 Andrew BARBOUR 117.9
61 Matthew LAWSON 115.5
79 Alan FREELAND 111.8
333 Jon MATHERS 107.5
103 Dave THORPE 106.0
82 Chris BENNETT 105.8
97 Romain LEVESQUE 105.4
48 Umar MASOOD 103.7
41 Mark POLLARD 101.5
77 Gerry ATKINSON 96.0
9 Adam KINDNESS 95.2
33 Bo NIELSEN 91.4
23 Jimmy WHITE 57.5
Further more the ideal lap time showed that if Dave hadn't been struggling with gears he would have been over a second a lap quicker.
Still thats MotorSport.
Here's some pictures from the day - there's plenty of pictures of Spirit so here's some different images.
Romain's CRX
Gary's Seat
Bo's Astra
Dave, Romain and Bo splash some wheel cleaner about
Umar's car
And the big man himself
Well we couldn't leave him back in Glasgow - frightening the locals with his rucksack and fuel churns!
Hope you enjoyed the tale of our weekend. Roll on Brands.
Seano
Well just one then
Umar attempts FWD lines in a RWD car.
But he found this line on all on his own - Bless him!
