Issue Two by TrackDriver magazine

Issue 2

k u . o c . s k e e w t n o m e d sales@demon-tweeks.co.uk . w ww RACE AND TRACKDAY RACEWEAR racewear packalgee

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WHY WE ARE NUMBER

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SEATS AND HARNESSES - HUGE STOCK

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Alpinestars Tech 1-R £69.94 £135.12 £135.12 £116.32 £85.48 £63.03 £46.94 £122.78 £105.16 £87.53 £87.53 £63.45

OMP Long Johns £41.79

Sparco Top Driver High £146.87

OMP Speed 2 £45.82 OMP Speed 2 ALPINESTARS Tech 1-ZX ALPINESTARS Tech 1-Z ALPINESTARS Tech 1-R Boots SPARCO Top Driver High SPARCO Slalom Mid OMP Sanremo 2 OMP Montecarlo 2 ALPINESTARS Tech-1 ALPINESTARS Tech1-Z

ESSES VALID ALL 2010 HARN D OF 2015 UNTIL THE EN Competition Seats COBRA Monaco Pro COBRA Imola Pro COBRA Suzuka Pro COBRA Evolution Pro SPARCO Sprint SPARCO Rev SPARCO Evo’s SPARCO Pro 2000’s SPARCO Corsa OMP TRS OMP RS OMP WRE OMP WRC’s OMP HTE’s CORBEAU Forza Sport CORBEAU Sprint CORBEAU Pro Series CORBEAU Revolution

ROLL CAGES

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OMP Sanremo 2 £149.81

Batteries from

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ODYSSEY Racing 40

Only a small selection. Call for details.

STEERING AND BOSSES Momo Model 78 £144.72

OMP Superturismo £182.65

MOMO Model 78 330-350mm. Black leather or suede £144.72 SPARCO 375 350mm. Black suede £159.15 OMP Superturismo 320mm. Black suede £182.65 LIFELINE Quick release boss Group N bolt to boss £189.41

DEMON TWEEKS Quick release boss Group N £152.75 Standard bosses from £39.00

HELMETS

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DESPATCH

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4.0 ltr Alloy bottle plumbed in electrical system £526.63

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Custom Cages roll cages also available. Call for details.

Sabelt Lightweight 6 Point £160.00

£181.99 VARLEY Red top 15 £101.05 VARLEY Red top 25 £116.32 Bracket to suit 25 series battery £31.60 Bracket to suit 30 series battery £37.60

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SPARCO Subaru GC8 FIA approved weld in £746.65 SPARCO Clio Mk2 FIA approved 6 point bolt in £586.32 SPARCO Astra 91-98 FIA approved 6 point bolt in £618.47 OMP 911 71-90 FIA approved 6 point bolt in £529.91 OMP Evo 5 10 point bolt in £469.30 OMP Impreza GC8 FIA approved 10 point bolt in £469.30

IN STOCK AND RE ADY FOR SAME DA Y

2.25 ltr Alloy bottle plumbed in mechanical system £246.63 4.0 ltr Steel bottle plumbed in mechanical system £239.70

TRS Magnum 6 Point £130.00

CORBEAU Revenge from £450.00 RECARO Furious £398.99 RECARO Apex £475.00 RECARO Pole Position £475.00 RECARO Profi SP-G from £548.99 RECARO Profi SP-A £1598.99 Harnesses TRS Pro Clubman FIA 4 point 3”x2” (Blue Only) £95.00 TRS Magnum FIA 6 point 3”x3” £130.00 TRS Magnum Superlite FIA (alloy adj) 3”x3” £164.50 SABELT Lightweight 4 point FIA 3”x2” each £130.00 SABELT Lightweight 6 point FIA 3”x3” each £160.00 SABELT Ultralight 6 point FIA (alloy adj) 3”x3” each from £215.00 WILLANS Single seater 3”x3” from £151.23

ODYSSEY Racing 25

FIRE EXTINGUISHERS LIFELINE ZERO 2000 (AFFF) 1.75 ltr Hand held £61.33 2.40 ltr Hand held £74.67 2.25 ltr Clubman plumbed in mechanical system £138.76

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OMP RS

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Racesuits FIA Approved SPARCO Sprint 6 2 layer £309.03 SPARCO Sparco 3 layer £575.00 SPARCO Profy 3 layer £746.00 SPARCO X-Light 3 layer £938.00 OMP First 2 2 layer £265.00 OMP Trend 3 3 layer £345.00 OMP Dynamo 2 layer £533.00 OMP Tecnica Plus 2 3 layer £690.00 OMP One 3 layer £938.00 Clubman FIA Approved Underwear OMP Long sleeve top £49.57 OMP Long johns £41.79 OMP Balaclava £18.95 OMP Socks from £13.88 SPARCO Long sleeve top £65.15 SPARCO Long johns £54.34 SPARCO Socks pair from £15.39 SPARCO Balaclava’s from £21.15

Sparco Profy £746.00

Sparco Corsa

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OMP Balaclava £18.95

Sparco Sparco £575.00

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IF A PRODUCT YOU REQUIRE IS NOT LISTED IN THIS ADVERT PLEASE CALL AS IT CAN NORMALLY BE SOURCED WITHOUT A PROBLEM Team Dynamics Pro Race 1.3 from £95.57

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TEAM DYNAMICS Pro Race 1.2/1.315” from £95.57 TEAM DYNAMICS Pro Race 3 15” £78.91 TEAM DYNAMICS Pro Race 1.4G (forged) £324.44 COMPOMOTIVE MO 6 18” each £294.23 COMPOMOTIVE ML from £121.97 SPEEDLINE type 2120 from £151.06 BRAID Winrace A from £157.72 REVOLUTION Millennium each from £117.04

DIFFERENTIALS We have a huge range of products from Quaife ,Tran-X and Kaaz including differentials for chain driven cars. Call with details of your application. Differentials from £646.25

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DASH DISPLAYS AND GAUGES

CARBS AND AIR FILTERS K&N Universal Air Box from £107.82

Castrol Edge 10W60 £45.86

STACK electrical/mechanical from £35.25 VDO Vision range from £34.65 SMITHS Classic range from £38.32 SMITHS International range from £31.03 SMITHS Telemetrix range from £32.41 REVOTEC gauge range from £39.99 RACETECH gauge range from £38.49 TIM gauge range from £11.75 RACE TECHNOLOGY DL1 data logger £586.33 RACE TECHNOLOGY Dash 2 display system £586.33 DEMON TWEEKS lap timing system £134.22

Demon Tweeks Lap Timing System £134.22

Weber Carbs from each £305.00 WEBER 40/45 DCOE Carb each £305.00 WEBER 48 DCO SP Carb each £380.00 WEBER Twin Cable Linkage £96.93 K&N Bolt on filters single carb from £44.73 K&N Universal air box from £107.82 K&N 57i Induction kits from £42.71 K&N Replacement elements from £33.38 PIPERCROSS ram pipe single socks pair £21.95 PIPERCROSS single carb filters from £44.96 PIPERCROSS twin carb/throttle body filter £86.86 PIPERCROSS air box kit with cold air feed £215.00 FSE red top works pump kit £97.47 FSE filter king regulators and filter from £55.10

FLUIDS AND OILS Castrol Edge 10W60 4 ltr £45.86 Mobil Motorsport oil 15W50 5 ltr £68.39 Mobil 75W90 gearbox oil 1 ltr £15.66 Valvoline VR1 10W60 semi synthetic 5 ltr £40.42 Valvoline VR1 20W50 mineral 5 ltr £31.13 Redline water wetter £12.27

SUSPENSION

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Stack ST800 Dash Display Systems from £893.00

STACK ST800 dash display systems from £893.00 SPA DESIGN dash £898.88 SPA DESIGN digital speedo £191.01 Bright 6 warning light module from £29.99 80mm Speedo and Tacho’s STACK ST200 stepper motor tacho’s £233.83 STACK ST400 action replay recording tacho’s £351.33 STACK ST700 dash display with integrated tacho from £428.88 SPA DESIGN combined tacho’s from £243.28 SMITHS speedo’s and tacho’s from £121.82 50mm Ancillary Gauges SPA DESIGN digital dual display from £142.94 SPA DESIGN stepper motor analogue from £108.10 STACK Pro control stepper motor analogue from £146.88

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TRACK PREPARATION EQUIPMENT LONGACRE and Intercomp tyre pressure gauges 0-60psi from £21.00 TRAK-RITE 2 alignment gauges £285.91 ADA caster/camber gauge £63.90 LONGACRE infra red pyrometer £76.80 Jerry cans from £22.94 Full range of coloured tank tapes from £8.83 Camcorder mount rollbar £116.32 GUNSON Eezibleed £17.56 Clean funnels range of colours from £6.13 SEALEY aluminium jack £116.32 SEALEY axle stands pair from £21.99 SEALEY Torque wrench ½” drive £27.50 UK Circuit guides from £5.99 LONGACRE wide angle mirror kit £54.05

TOYO PROXES R1R

EXHAUSTS Huge range of exhausts available from all the big brands including Milltek, Ashley, Jetex and Custom chrome. We can also fabricate exhaust systems to your specification.

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KW V3 and Club sport kits from £1599.00 WHITELINE antiroll bars from £123.52 AVO mono tube GTX kits from £800.00 SPARCO and OMP strutbraces from £58.75 Universal adjustable 2 1/4” spring conversion kit Weld on (To suit 50mm Struts Only) each £33.50

BRAKES

We have a huge range of heat insulation available in stock. Call for details.

Brake Fluid from £6.11

AP brake kits huge range from £777.34 PERFORMANCE FRICTION Z - rated trackday pads from £55.01 FERODO DS2500 and DS3000 trackday to race huge range from £42.56 MINTEX full range of compounds available 44’s, 55’s and 66’s from £36.93 EBC pads from £59.61 EBC discs from £90.19 PAGID RS full range £CALL CASTROL SRF 1 ltr £49.91 CASTROL Response Super Dot 4 1 ltr £12.34 AP AP551 1/2 ltr £6.11 AP AP600 1/2 ltr £16.00 MOTUL RBF600 1/2 ltr £15.28 GOODRIDGE Brake line kits from £59.93

EBC Pads from £59.61

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THE

EDITOR First Words

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EDITORIAL Tel: 01304 831271 Email: editor@trackdriver.com www.trackdriver.com Lime Tree Court The Street Eythorne Kent CT15 4BG United Kingdom ADVERTISING Tel: 07884 252556 Email: ads@trackdriver.com SUBSCRIPTIONS Tel: 01304 831271 Email: subs@trackdriver.com TrackDriver is published under a license by All The Gear Media Ltd, United Kingdom. All rights in the licensed material belong to the shareholders of All The Gear Media Ltd and may not be reproduced, whether in whole or in part, without their prior written consent.

Many thanks to all of you who have taken the time and trouble to give us positive feedback on the first issue of TrackDriver. You’ve written in, emailed, telephoned and even stopped us in the pit-lane – your encouragement makes the countless hours spent producing this magazine all the more worthwhile. Not that your praise will lead us into complacency. With each issue of TrackDriver we’ll be striving to improve upon the last, and when you have a look through this issue I hope you’ll see plenty of evidence of this ambition. For starters, we’ve treated the mag to a shiny new gloss-laminated cover; what’s far more important, though, is the quality of what’s inside that cover. We’ve got a collection of tests and features that should appeal to both race and trackday enthusiasts. Whichever camp you fall into – both, perhaps – I’d urge you to pay particular attention to Jim Cameron’s test of the Jaguar XKR, and not just because the luxocoupe’s track ability surprised him so much. It’s also because Jaguar’s newfound interest in trackdays is tacit admission that the major car manufacturers can see that high performance cars and public roads are becoming very uncomfortable bedfellows. The electronic ‘black box’ all-seeing eye is just around the corner, I fear. Very soon trackdays will be our only real opportunity to stretch a road car’s legs here in the UK, and in a good part of the European Union, too. I for one will mourn that day, but it very much looks like the point has been reached where the momentum for change has become unstoppable. Being one of society’s millions of outcasts – a smoker – I’ve already experienced first-hand how a government’s muttering for change can overnight be taken to extremes! Of course, there are benefits to the public smoking ban; nonsmokers, for instance, now enjoy smoke-free social environments. Similarly, our passion, our industry, will benefit from the culling of another great addiction, road driving for sheer pleasure. That loss could be very much our gain. A greater demand for trackday facilities would increase competition between those who provide them – that would keep prices rises down and improve the quality of service. And, as many of us know from first-hand experience, it can take only on trackday experience to instill a deep desire to go racing: the more folk that are hooked, the bigger the grids, and the bigger the grids the more chance of keeping prices reasonable. At least, that’s what we here at TrackDriver are hoping.

and

are registered Trademarks. The Editors and Publishers of this magazine give no warranties, guarantees or assurances and make no representations regarding any goods or services advertised herein.

John Hayman, Editor

www.trackdriver.com Classic A-Series group test Editor John Hayman Contributing editor Mark Hales Sub editor Brett Fraser Technical contributor Nigel Dean

Often maligned yet bought in its millions as a road car engine, the A-Series lives on as a stalwart of the classic racing scene. We test five very different A-Series-powered racers and discover what makes this motor special

Track test contributor Jim Cameron Racing contributor Nigel Greensall Publisher Stacy Vickers Advertising Hugh Poston Tel: 07884 252556 Design Team: Jon Oscar-Gorf Bob Schkboldy Tony Murray Contributing writers: Alex Baker, Bernard Meldrew, Charles Moseley, David Weston, Fraser Whyte, Graham Clarke, Ken Greenfield, Sarah Bennett-Baggs Contributing photographers: Owen Brown, Jakob Ebrey, Derek John Binsted, Russ H, Ralph Lunt, Jamie Peter Ennis, Jenny South, Andy Morgan, Keith Lowes, John Laycock, Jochen Van Cauwenberg, Steve Goodwin, www.rawaction.co.uk, www.fresh-orange.co.uk, www.frozenspeed.com Cover photographer Brett Fraser Wouldn’t have been possible without: Andy Messham, Brian Ashley, Tony Davis, Julian Crossley, Luke Wilson, Richard Wilson, Peter Chappell, Shaun Hollamby, Fraser Whyte, Stephen Docherty, Paul Rose, Paul Caller, All at MSV, Graham and team at RMA, Ed and team at Motorsport Events, Circuit Days, the Classic Touring Car Racing Club (CTCRC) and last, but not least, Dario and Carrie at OnBoardVision.

BTCC Golf

No other magazine has got behind the wheel of AmD’s BTCC Golf racer – we put it to the test at Snetterton and examine what it costs to race in the BTCC

race Chevron GR8 Mark Hales wrings the best out the retro-themed and thoroughly engrossing new Chevron GR8 during a race at Croft

25 69

Race Club Profile Motorsport Events steps up for its moment in the TrackDriver limelight

track 19

CONTENTS

Saker part 2 Last issue our rookie gave the Saker a thrashing – now it’s the turn of the pros

22 45

Mazda 3 MPS Not your obvious choice for trackday fun, but Mazda’s hot hatch is surprisingly good Airfield Guide For budget trackday fun airfields are a hoot. We steer you through the pros and cons Jaguar XKR-R Jaguar’s now running its own trackdays and the XKR-R is the reason why

regulars 65 81 90

Coaching Corner This issue Coach Hales explains why using your head will make you quicker Team Cars A Lotus Elise S1 expands our fleet, while the RX-7 reduces our bank balance! Project Porsche 944 Some shiny new adjustable suspension improves the 944’s handling and ride

technical 29 72

Abarth esseesse Its standard suspension ruins the Abarth SS, but mods from GAZ improve it hugely Hoses and Connectors Tech made understandable: this issue we examine how to move fluids efficiently

columnists 13 15 17

Graham Clarke He may be grumpy, but he’s got a point: good instruction is worth the outlay Bernie Meldrew Shut up and stop drinking! Or at least when you’re camped in my paddock David Weston Show some respect… So says our man in the marshal’s post

What’s On… SEPTEMBER 11 HSCC – Brands Hatch 12 SEMSEC – Brands Hatch 10-12 F1 GP – Italy, Monza 11-12 LeMans Series – Silverstone 11-12 Dunlop Great & British – Cadwell Park 11 GT Cup – Oulton Park 16-17 Formula Ford Festival – Brands Hatch 17-19 Circuit Des Ramparts, France, Angouleme 17-19 Goodwood Revival 18-19 750 MC - Snetterton

NEWS Snetterton Endurance Team In for Long Haul The 360 Motor Racing Club is seeking to rerun its six-hour endurance event in 2011, despite fielding only eight cars in 2010. Originally devised for pre-1986 Group 1 Touring-based classics of a similar specification to a series’ prime movers, the regulations subsequently excluded some other Group 1 alternatives before being relaxed again nearer the entry date. The final grid was an eclectic mix of saloons, from a MkII Jaguar to an Austin Montego. 2011 Regulations are currently under discussion and the non-profit club is seeking to promote the series further in a bid to increase the grid next year.

Team TrackDriver/Track-Club Secure Entry to Brands Hatch 1000km Elise Trophy race meeting

25-26 British F3/GT, Brands Hatch (GP)

With the support of Stephen Docherty at Track-Club, TrackDriver will be fielding a driver team in the 1000km round of the Lotus on Track Elise Trophy at Brands Hatch on November 6. We have yet to finalise the driver line-up, but we do know for sure the car is one of Lotus’ finest, an Exige R. For more details, check out www.elisetrophy.com

OCTOBER

Not that we’re envious…

18-19 GT Cup – Brands Hatch (GP) 18-19 BTCC – Donington Park 24-26 F1 GP – Singapore 24-26 Spa 6 Hour - Belgium

1-3 GT Cup – Spa Francorchamps 2-3 See Red – Donington Park

Ringmeister Ron Simons, CEO of rental firm RSR Nürburg, drove the Ferrari 599XX on the Nordschleife during a 599XX only trackday at the famous German circuit recently.

8-10 F1 GP – Japan, Suzuka 9-10 BTCC – Brands Hatch 16-17 GT Cup – Silverstone 16 CSCC – Snetterton 16-17

British GT – Donington Park

22-24 F1 GP – Korea, Yeongam 30-31 British Truck Racing – Brands Hatch

NOVEMBER 11-14 Wales Rally GB 18 TrackDriver Brands Hatch 18-21 57th Macau Grand Prix

TrackDrivers track test contirbutor, Jim Cameron, raced in the August Nurburgring 24hr endurance race meeting... (err, cycling) Not even drunk when he agreed to fill a vacated spot on the team, TrackDriver’s Jim Cameron realised one of life’s ambitions by racing at the Nürburgring in a 24-hour race. Unfortunately not this year’s N24, but

in the Rad am Ring cycle race that brings some 10,000 competitors to the Eifel mountains each August for single lap, 25, 75 and 150km races and the main event – the 24 hour team race. Conducted over a 15.6-mile combined circuit of the modern Grand Prix circuit and the Nordscheife, each lap climbs over 1300 feet. The race attracts some serious cycling talent with the big teams completing more than 30 laps in the 24 hours; but as with any endurance event, finishing is an aim in itself. Out of the 1065 four-man teams that started the 24-hour race, only 661 teams made it through the night to the finish line. On a borrowed bike, Jim joined the British ‘Northloop’ B team, affectionately christened ‘Team Mong’. “The climb up from Bergwerk is just ridiculous,” moaned Jim. “It just seems to go on forever. Hohe Acht is so steep that just walking up it is hard, but track knowledge at the ’Ring is still important, even on a bike. “It was great fun overtaking a peleton of lungs with shaved legs down Kallenhard, although I have to admit that the victory was always short lived!” Camped out on the gravel-trap on the outside of the Mercedes-Benz curve, the team members slept when possible between stints, each completing five or six laps over the 24 hours. Jim hit 56mph through the speed-trap set up in the Foxhole, but it was the corners at night that were the most exciting. “Tipping into Brunchen, going faster than you can pedal, at 2.00am with just a wobbly bike light is bloody terrifying,” Jim confessed. The teams were sponsored by Micheala at the Blaue Ecke, Sonia at the FanStop, and Jorg at the Comfy Corner, all in Adenau. In the last two years the Northloop entry has raised more than £1000 for disabled kids in the local area: without their support the teams wouldn’t have even made it on track, let alone through the night. The overall winners were: 1st – C3 Cycle Culture Company: 32 laps in 23:55.47. Team Northloop results: 375th – Northloop Team A: 23 laps in 24:03.49 476th – Northloop ‘Team Mong’: 21 laps in 23:45.23.

Donington Park Open for Business The Adroit Group has passed operation of the circuit to Donington Park Racing Limited, the company set up in 1953 by Tom Wheatcroft, after successful safety inspections took place. The Classic Racing Motorcycle Club organised the first event since Simon Gillett’s Donington Ventures Leisure company closed the doors at the circuit last Christmas, after a failed

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attempt to bring the British Grand Prix to the Derbyshire venue. Car racing and trackday dates are now confirmed. “I am delighted the option has been taken up for Donington Park Racing to once again operate the circuit,” said Kevin Wheatcroft, son of the late Kevin Wheatcroft, and Chairman of DPR Limited. “Racing at Donington is back and we can now assure an exciting future for the circuit and the venue. “I would like to personally thank the Adroit Group for its tireless efforts in helping to re-open Donington. We are delighted with the first stage of improvements.” As a result of these works the entrance to the national circuit chicane has been moved back by just under 100 metres, shortening the back straight and increasing the straight by the same amount on the run to Redgate corner.

BookaTrack.com Renews Caterham Fleet BookaTrack.com founder Jonny Leroux

has confirmed that his company’s fleet of K Series-powered Caterham Superlights will be replaced with the latest more powerful Duratec-engined Superlight R300 in 2011. The 2011 fleet will comprise four Superlight R300 race-eligible cars (complete with full race cage) and two of the larger Superlight R300 SVs – built to the same specification but fitted with standard trackday roll bars for driver convenience.

RaceLogic Launches Predictive Timing Racelogic’s latest addition to its Vbox system is predictive timing. With a graphical and numerical display clearly showing where time is gained and lost in real time, and used in conjunction with the system’s video logging, the system is now an even more powerful analysis tool for the driver. TrackDriver tried the system during an endurance race in late August with positive results; we’ll bring a more comprehensive review in the near future.

LETTERS Email: editor@trackdriver.com or write to TrackDriver Letters, Lime Tree Court, The Street, Eythorne, Kent CT15 4BG. Please include your name, address and daytime telephone number. TrackDriver reserves the right to edit letters and emails for publication purposes. Views expressed are not necessarly those of the TrackDriver team.

Star Letter Forgotten something? Whoa! You can't do a Golf comparison without a mk2. It’s the general consensus among the VW fraternity is that the mk2 is the best-handling Golf ever made, so a track/race Golf comparison without one is like comparing Bovril with Vegemite and not mentioning Marmite! There are plenty of properly prepped mk2 race cars out there: I should know, I race with 40 others in the mk2 Golf GTI Championship (www.golfgti-racing.co.uk). I demand a re-match, only not with my car as I don't want to break anything mid-season! I'm sure one of the championship front-runners with their finely-fettled 16-valve cars would come out and let you have a go. Alex Harris, via email

Congratulations on issue one of TrackDriver, I thoroughly enjoyed it. My only complaint is that in reading it cover to cover I could find no mention of my favourite form of motorsport – hillclimbing. Please don’t ignore us! If you would like an introduction to my hillclimbing club you only have to ask… Derek Simmons, via e-mail Hillclimbing and sprinting are very much on our radar for future issues, so don’t worry. We all want to know why outwardly sensible individuals would go to all that effort for 40 seconds of track time, and TrackDriver needs to get to the bottom of it – Ed

Fuel for thought

The Dream Team Enjoyed your first issue; it’s good to see a magazine dedicated solely to the

www.trackdriver.com

Tech-tastic While I enjoy my driving I’m no mechanic, but I did appreciate the tech feature in your first issue. Normally my brain switches off the minute I see the sort of words they used in science classes at school, but your bloke seems to make technical stuff understandable. Well done! Never thought I’d say it, but I’m quite looking forward to the technical story in your next issue. Stuart Pulford, Exeter

For the love of Lotus Shame you couldn’t have done a bit more on the Lotus Festival at Snetterton, other than a short news story. Seeing all those old grand prix Lotuses sitting together on the grid was pretty special; so was seeing Colin Chapman’s widow, Hazel, waving to the crowd. The demo runs by the GP cars was great, too, especially when one of the Camel-liveried machines spun onto the grass at the chicane before the main straight. There was lots of action during the proper racing as well, including an Elise that went airborne as it came out of the Bombhole. All in all it was a top day out, so I would have liked to have seen a few more pictures! It’s a minor moan though – keep up the good work lads. Johnson Kane, via email

Taking the high ground

Any chance that you could do a fuel test at some stage? I’d love to know what difference – if any – the various types really make, especially as at a petrol station just outside the Nürburgring I saw some 102-octane special brew! I was tempted to fill up with, but wasn’t convinced it was worth the extra expense. Ivan Dobson, Burston, Suffolk

afford a Saker, but those classic Fords you also reviewed are temptingly within reach! Thanks for giving us something to fantasise about, although I can’t promise that our various other halves are quite so pleased. Roy Holmes (and mates), via email

track, especially when it’s free! I showed TrackDriver to a few of my mates and they’re keen to sign up too. We’re all keen trackday drivers, so we’re looking forward to reading more from Mark Hales on how to improve our driving (even though, obviously, we’re all already driving gods…). None of us have seriously thought about proper racing before, but your story on the Saker got us wondering what it would be like to do battle on the track. Not that any of us could

Brands Hatch, good weather, lots of great cars, and the TrackDriver team – you couldn’t fail to have fun

he weather gods haven’t given us much to smile about in the latter part of this summer, but thankfully they decided to shine upon TrackDriver’s inaugural trackday on the Brands Hatch Indy circuit on July 29. The afternoon-cum-evening event was organised on our behalf by the wonderful chaps at MSV and as well as fine few hours of flat-out driving, we used the occasion to launch the very first issue of our new magazine. Clearly we’re doing something right, because the event was sold out weeks in advance – maybe it was the prospect of a TrackDriver goodie bag

(free launch magazine, Autoglym T-shirt and baseball cap) that enticed people along, or perhaps it was the chance to meet some of the TrackDriver team in the flesh. Then again, it could just have been that Brands Hatch is a great place to go and have a play… The variety of cars that turned up on the day was superbly eclectic. Of course there were plenty of examples of regular trackday players – Lotus, Caterham, Radical, BMW, etc – but there was also a fine selection of home-brew specials, including a Ford Fiesta XR2i and a snorty Vauxhall Corsa, both of which looked extremely

Words: Brett Fraser Pictures: Russ H/Brett Fraser 10

well done. The same applied to several of the Japanese turbo nutters, although at the other end of the scale was an elderly Subaru Legacy Turbo (as famously rallied by Colin McRae) that from the outside, at least, appeared to be standard. And, talking of standard cars, the recent-ish Mercedes-Benz CLK may not be the obvious choice for a trackday tool, but it was good to see it out there and being driven with verve. Also being punted round with considerable enthusiasm were a couple of Touring Car-alike classics (or almost classic), in the form of an Alfa Romeo 155 and a splendidly green and leaping

cat-stickered Jaguar XJ-S. The latter, in particular, sounded utterly wild and made a startling break from what you’d normally expect to see at a trackday. Other classics were out in force, notably a strong contingent of race-prepped Fords – an Anglia similar to the one featured in the first issue of TrackDriver surprised many people with its pace. Mind you, if outright pace is your thing, a couple of the Escorts put on a pretty convincing display of pure speed, accompanied by the type of chesty yowl you get only from big-lunged twin-cam motors. Very impressive. In addition to all these delights, the TrackDriver team was on circuit during the afternoon and evening to give hot lap rides. Mark Hales, Stacy Vickers, John Hayman and Jim Cameron did the driving honours, in cars we’d begged, stolen or borrowed from others. Our wheels varied from the purely road-focussed (yet really rather good on track) Mazda 3 MPS featured elsewhere in this issue of TrackDriver, through to the latest version of the Lotus Exige Cup 260 and the bonkers Caterham R400. As those of you who were there may have been aware, our Exige spent more time parked on the M25 than it did at Brands, but while we were waiting for it to arrive we blagged the use of Track-Club’s Cup 260 for many a brisk lap: “A mighty engine,” reported Editor Hayman, “and a finely balanced chassis, but it can get a bit lively at the rear if you switch the traction control completely off. Leave the traction

switch alone, though, and just about anyone can feel like a hero driving this car.” Throughout the day (or afternoon, or evening, or whatever you’d like to call it) the driving standards of everyone there were commendable. There were scarcely any ‘naughty’ flags and very few stoppages; such downtime as there was tended to be due to mechanical mishaps rather than mental moments. Which, of course, is exactly what we all want from our trackdays. By close of play, it was clear that everyone had enjoyed themselves immensely. Without doubt we did, and the feedback we received as people left the track was satisfyingly positive. In fact, we’re so encouraged by the reaction of the TrackDriver crowd, we plan to run a couple more events before the year’s up. So read on and sign up fast – we’ve got a feeling our dates are going to be popular! ■

‘ ’ We plan to run a couple more events before the year’s up

Special thanks: The wonderful chaps and chapesses from MSV did us proud on the day, as did Russ H from RawAction Photography. Also, thanks to Mazda and Lotus for having the confidence in their products to let us rag them around the track. And finally, well done to everyone who paid to come and drove so well

The season may seem to be disappearing quickly, but we’ve organised a couple of events that will give you the chance to get out on track right up until the end of the year.

NOVEMBER 18 Brands Hatch Indy Circuit Open pit-lane – 105db Not only will the TrackDriver team be in attendance, we’ll also be giving passenger rides in a selection of cars, handing out gifts and offering individual advice about cars and track driving, too. In association with MSV, our day is also the launch of MSV’s ‘Advanced Track Driving Course’ at Brands Hatch. So if you’re looking to advance your driving skills, then this is the day for you. ARDS race licence tests are also available on the day.

DECEMBER 18 Brands Hatch Indy Circuit ‘Christmas Special’ Open pit-lane – 105db We can’t promise any ho-ho-ho-ing (although you never know…), but there will be a Christmas lunch at the Kentagon, mince pies and crackers in the TrackDriver garage, plus all the other delights listed above.

See our dedicated page on the MSV website (right) for details

www.clubmsv.co.uk/trackdriver

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According to… …RMA’s very own Grumpy Old Man and managing director. He’s seen some horrors take place on track, most of which could have been avoided if people could be bothered to learn how to drive

Graham Clarke

hen I got a call from editor John Hayman asking me to put some words together for TrackDriver my immediate reaction was, “I can’t follow Melindi; her article last issue was brilliant, very funny, and anyway I don’t want to damage my reputation as a miserable old sod by trying to emulate her ever-cheerful style.” John assured me that if I just write about whatever really winds me up, all would be fine. Well, having long since qualified as a ‘Grumpy Old Man’ I could probably fill this entire magazine with things that ‘really wind me up’. Dot-matrix signs on the motorways that must cost millions and most of the time display out of date or irrelevant information;

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those Muppets who drive the Highway Patrol vehicles and appear to close the motorway if someone so much as drops a cigarette butt and have absolutely no concept of or concern about the chaos they cause; speed bumps that damage the splitter on my car – the list is endless… When it comes to working in the trackday business, the biggest pains for me are undoubtedly Health and Safety officers. But I’d better not go on about them too much or we’ll probably get banned from everywhere as they appear to wield ultimate power. Perhaps I can just get away with saying that after 21 years running trackdays I’ve got a rough idea of what I’m doing and would very much prefer to be left alone to get on with it. A close second to Health and Safety officers on the annoyance front is crashing customers. In my book anyone who can make it to the circuit without having an accident should be able to survive the day: if they’re not experienced they should have some instruction. I’m sure all the decent trackday organisers offer quality instruction for

relative peanuts. Most people really won’t need to spend a fortune: I reckon a couple of half-hour sessions on around six consecutive trackdays will bring the average road driver up to a level where they will better understand the dynamics of their car, be a lot smoother, quicker and safer and equally importantly enjoy the day far more. All for the cost of, say, a couple of rear tyres on a GT3. To endorse the importance of instruction, on our last visit to Spa I offered a £100 bet to everyone present at the drivers’ briefing that there would be a Porsche GT3 in the wall at Eau Rouge before lunch. Unfortunately no one took me up on the bet but one Porsche GT3 owner did enquire about the cost of an hour with an instructor, subsequently dismissing it as too expensive: less than two hours later his car was absolutely totalled at the top of Eau Rouge. He caused the track to be closed while we recovered him and got a kicking from me for doing so. Okay, we all know motor racing is dangerous and in a race situation cars will sometimes hit each other, come off, and occasionally destroy themselves. But we are not racing. Trackdays are there to provide the opportunity to drive road or trackprepared cars quickly and safely. They shouldn’t be competitive. No trackday driver is going to get Schumacher’s seat at the end of the year and as far as I’m concerned those whose ego exceeds their ability should either go racing where they will quickly learn that they can’t actually drive very well, or go and have their accident on someone else’s trackday – and I’m pretty sure Melindi won’t want them either! ■

According to… …regular columnist and self-appointed authority on all things motorsport

Bernie Meldrew E

nough already. I want to know when it became acceptable to be up all night boozing, singing, racing your moped and shouting at each other until well into the early hours of the morning. OK, maybe I’m not quite that miserable so let me be clear: I want to know when it became OK to be up all night boozing, singing, racing your moped and shouting at each other until well into the early hours of the morning in the paddock the night before your track meeting? It really wasn’t that long ago when generators still running after midnight were mysteriously unplugged – or worse – by a self-appointed custodian of the paddock’s tranquillity. Consequently, in the morning the vast majority of our heroes emerged from their tents, motorhomes and caravans fresh-faced and bushy-tailed ready to take on that day’s events, while the hungover or ignorant were left working out which end of the wire on their genny should point in which direction. Of course, we can boo and hiss, but how should we deal with those too ignorant to consider that the wider community might want to enjoy their track event the following day without bleary eyes and a furry tongue? ‘Having a word’ is of limited use. Earlier this year at a UK circuit a particularly raucous bunch were asked to quieten down past midnight: the ensuing abuse stretched on until a fiendish 3.30am. Well, that went well. In recent years I have also personally witnessed: two-stroke scooter racing past midnight, karaoke until 1.30am and – a personal favourite – some ‘fellow racers’ up until nearly 4.00am drunkenly theorising on the

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meaning of life at 105db interspersed with, shall we say, breaks for bladder pressure relief inches from the end of our bed. Oh how Mrs Bernie enjoyed that night… The sad reality is that the paddock is now the last place to be if you want to get some rest. And that’s a shame because hotels can be little better – there is the perpetual danger of an early hours Country and Western night at, say, the Cadwell Park hotel, or maybe Chas ‘n’ Dave until 2.00am at

the Brands Hatch Thistle, or even snoring mechanics. Getting a good night’s rest is tough. A rather well-to-do chum once opined: “Budget airlines, dear boy. Take Barbados. There was a time when it was rather select, but now anyone can go so it’s full of riff-raff and football shirts. So is the paddock.” A harsh view without doubt, and while a number of the incidents above can indeed be attributed to racers at the grass roots of motorsport, a competitor’s budget is entirely unrelated to his or her ability to have some basic consideration for others. I’m not alone in standing on this soapbox and some clubs have taken a

lead. In a newsletter the Classic Sports Car Club has urged its competitors to respect the needs of those staying in the paddock, especially those not ensconced in land-going ocean liners that offer a degree of noise protection, and have set a curfew. All credit to them and I hope others will follow suit. Noise is one thing, but there is a darker side of this moan: alcohol. Sorry, but if you’re still on the Tizer at 4.00am and you’re qualifying at 9.00am, that simply isn’t good. Let me put it another way – it’s particularly not good for me if I’m alongside you on the track. I don’t have a particular issue with those bent on enjoying a social event; just keep it sensible. But if you want an all-night bender, then pick another sport to partner it with. One challenge is that circuits have mostly done away with their night time security who had the authority to patrol and keep order, leaving instead just a man on the gate with a torch, a TV, and a Spam sandwich until daylight. The fix is quite simple. Bring back someone with the power (and interest) to intervene overnight and eject if necessary, and even more importantly, let’s have some breath testing in the paddock before qualifying. It’s one thing having your eyelids on matchsticks waiting for adrenalin to sharpen you up whilst fumbling for the Premier Inn directory and swearing never again, but it’s quite another to be alongside someone at speed, only to remember it was them staggering around and lubricating the back of your motorhome only a few short hours before…■

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According to…

…the man who’ll be waving flags at you and perhaps pulling you from your crumpled wreck. Yep, a marshal, and one who thinks we could all do with exercising a little more respect

David Weston A

little respect can go a long way. Respect between drivers; between drivers and marshals; and respect between marshals themselves. We all know that at times respect between drivers can disappear, especially in the more ‘professional’ championships. But it may come as a surprise that there is also a lack of respect between marshals. This is particularly evident at higher profile meetings. High profile meetings attract large spectator numbers and live television coverage; these factors can sometimes lure ‘outside’ marshals to show up at a circuit simply for the prestige of marshalling a big meeting. There are even some who only turn up because they want to be on TV – the ‘Glory Marshal’. This tends to cause bad feelings amongst the regular marshals at each particular circuit who, when on post, decide to act against advice from briefings as “it’s not their way of doing things.” And when everyone’s not singing from the same hymn sheet, it can potentially put other marshals in danger. Amongst the marshals who attend the bigger meetings – and no they’re not necessarily the glory hunters some may suggest – are a large number of trainees. Some see this as a bad thing, demonstrating an apparent lack of respect. However, I believe that the bigger meetings are an ideal training ground to show how a race meeting is run, particularly in regards to incident handling. In fact, if there are enough marshals to safely and comfortably man the post, then what better opportunity for an experienced marshal to spend some time with one or two

www.trackdriver.com

trainees and talk them through any incidents or just generally pass on knowledge? If ever the post I’m on is overmanned, it’s an idea I always suggest to the Post Chief. The only concern that I have is that the trainees may pick up on an apparent lack of respect and camaraderie between the regular and ‘outside’ marshals at the bigger meetings; so early on in their marshalling careers, it could put them

all volunteers who give up our free time to be involved with an activity we enjoy doing. And whatever the weather and however grand or small the race meeting, our common experiences and goals should unite us in behaving in a fun yet highly professional manner. In a way, appearing in this magazine sort of makes me a Glory Marshal, but rather than doing it for self gain – i.e. to get famous – the aim of this column is to inspire all marshals to

off from returning. And that is something that should be avoided at all costs, as marshal retention is one of the key factors for the successful continuation of motorsport. What every new and experienced marshal should remember is that we’re

consider how they act towards each other, and reserve judgement on their peers’ different approaches until they have tried them in action. A marshal who thinks he or she knows everything should stop marshalling: there’s always something new to learn ■

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Track Test: Mazda 3 MPS M

azda is an enigma to many. While some of the models are infinitely forgettable ‘misses’, others are unquestionable ‘hits’ and the focus of über-loyal owners’ clubs and of course, Mazda is also the only manufacturer to apply serious development with considerable success to the rotary engine. It’s certainly not shy when it comes to pushing boundaries; by way of

www.trackdriver.com

example, a brief look under the last generation RX7 reveals alloy double wishbones and more. Not bad for a child of the Nineties. Because I find this sort of quirkiness quite endearing, Chief Hayman thought of me when after a tester for the 2010 Mazda MPS. The plan was to take in a couple of track events and evaluate it on both road and track, then decide if it’s a viable

part-time track car, or whether it should be left to the go-faster brigade with the odd outing to Sainsbury’s car park after dark. First impressions are strong. The MPS is resplendent with lumps, bumps, inlets and scoops along with a fair-sized towel rail-style spoiler over the rear of the roof. There’s certainly no doubting this is the sporty member of the Mazda3 family.

Inside there’s some very iffy red and black carbon-effect trim that curdles the eye, and yes it’s predictably plasticky, but the rest of the interior is just fine and dandy. Everything is adjustable, the seats are superbly supportive, and all of the important controls are intuitively positioned. And the car delivered to TrackDriver sported every extra you can buy. At least I assume it did because I can’t think of a spare piece of facia or steering wheel you could fit any more buttons or levers.

to most other hot hatchbacks. Turning off all the electronic aids during TrackDriver’s recent Brands Hatch track evening, we exit Clearways one-handed on full power with the MPS finding as much grip as you could ask for. There’s certainly not much to be found in the way of torque-steer, contrary to what you might read elsewhere – yes, there’s some, but by no means is it overwhelming or uncomfortable. What is off-putting is the lack of feel through the steering wheel. Turning

The starting operation is via proximity key and a starter button (aren’t they all nowadays), but then the MPS’s trump card gets played. This car is quick. Peak power from the 2.3-litre turbocharged four-cylinder is 253bhp that rolls up at a fairly pedestrian 5500rpm, but there’s also a tarmac cleaving 280lb ft (380Nm) of torque at 3000rpm. What this means is that when boosted – and it is very quick to spool up – you have power pretty much everywhere, and that makes it very nice power indeed. There’s a sixspeed ’box to go with it, so you’ll always find a ratio to match the piece of track or road you’re on. Mazda has also fitted a genuine limited-slip diff to its rapid front-driver rather than the electronic versions fitted

into a corner there initially seems to be the right signals relayed into the palm of your hand, but closer investigation reveals it’s more likely you’re feeling a series of electric motors pushing and pulling the steering gear gently one way or another. The feel is in there somewhere, but it’s muted by an unseen filter. I tried hard to unstick the rear but failed dismally – lifting, trail braking, left-foot braking; all I could do was change the weight distribution. Try as I might to provoke some oversteer, I’d be lying if I said I’d achieved anything more than the equivalent of a flexing of the tyre tread. There’s been considerable development to eradicate lift-off oversteer, and by George it has worked. Shame. The brakes are a pleasant surprise. With some TrackDriver cars stuck on the M25, the MPS became the subject of close attention from Mr Hales, Mr Cameron and Mr Hayman during our Brands Hatch track evening. The MPS survived not only all their laps, but also a good half-dozen from me; despite all this abuse, the pedal remained reassuringly firm and effective. Speaking as someone who has been

parked in the Brands Hatch pit garages in a road car where the pedal went to the floor after 10 short laps, this is a notable success and a vote for track day practicality. If only the MPS had the raucous soundtrack to complement its swoops and scoops, yet somehow I find myself forgiving this car its foibles. Yes the steering is numb, the trim a bit naff in places, and it’s a bit too stiff if you’re not in the mood or not on the track. On the other hand it’s fully loaded, it’s a practical five-door hatchback that’s only a beast when you need it, and every passenger I took in the car complimented it. And besides, at TrackDriver we usually are in the mood. There’s lots of competition in the circa-£22K bracket, and in the case of the VW Golf GTI, Ford Focus ST and Renaultsport Mégane, some of it is brilliant. And Mazda isn’t really known as a player in the upper echelons of the hot hatch sector, making things even tougher for the MPS. However, should the MPS be on your company car list you could do a lot worse and you’d be a little more individual. This is the best Mazda I’ve ever driven without a rotary engine… ■

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Words: Sarah Bennett-Baggs Pictures: Jenny South

AIRFIELD CHARITY TRACKDAY BENEFITS

HELP THE HEROES’ How an airfield track event raised tens of thousands for a vital UK charity. Sarah Bennett-Baggs was there on the day

rackday veteran RMA hosted its third annual Summer Extravaganza charity event at RAF Odiham in north Hampshire back in July, with 100 per cent of the £24,500 profits destined for the ‘Help the Heroes’ charity. Of course, airfields up and down the country are regularly used for hosting trackday events, but what sets apart RAF Odiham is that it’s a fully operational helicopter squadron base equipped with Chinooks and an Army Air Corps Lynx squadron Lynx AH7. The crews support NATO throughout Western Europe and UK interests worldwide, and even throughout the trackday activities on July 18, a crew was on 24-hour emergency standby. RMA’s Graham Clarke was the driving force behind the charity event

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idea. “We were running trackdays out of RAF Odiham back in 2008; it’s a great venue, but since it’s also an active base we were acutely aware that here we were having our playtime amidst a fully working RAF base where the servicemen helping us were directly involved in the current situation out in Afghanistan”. He goes on to say: “Since the Help the Heroes charity helps run recovery centres for wounded servicemen and women and supports the families of the victims, we saw it as an opportunity to give them something back. The first event was so successful in 2007 it has now become an annual event”. The charity is no stranger to car enthusiasts: Jeremy and Francis Clarkson are both patrons of the Help the Heroes. The staff at RAF Odiham really seem to get behind hosting the events and are proud to display their Chinooks: they usually schedule a timely ‘training’ exercise for guests during the lunch break to show off their flying talents, although this year the Chinooks were officially ‘out on operation’, maybe next year! The track isn’t your usual broken up concrete airfield, either. RMA sets up a two and a half mile circuit with cones linking the access roads to create a little something for everyone. There are tight, flick-flak-style chicanes, some fast, flowing, technical corners and a good hard blast down the main runway straight. The surface is slightly more abrasive than at a race circuit but what surprised me on my first visit was the undulations; rather than being completely flat and featureless, there were several mini rises and dips on the approaches to corners. It’s absolutely perfect for hot hatch and Caterham types but on this day there was everything from a Sports 2000, a Jaguar E-Type, Ferrari California and lots of Porsche GT3 variants. As a trackday regular I can highly recommended a visit to RAF Odiham for both trackday enthusiasts and complete novices; it has a real fun

factor, helped on the Help the Heroes day by some fabulously sunny weather. Finally what cannot go without a mention is the superb lunch cooked up by the RAF Odiham mess crew; clearly more used to catering for hungry pilots than drivers, they swiftly dealt with an estimated 150 covers in one hour with military precision, as you might expect. And yet the food was mighty tasty and easily puts any UK circuit canteen’s efforts to shame! ■ For more info on RAF Odiham visit: www.raf.mod.uk/rafodiham Help the Heroes Charity www.helpforheroes.org.uk For more info on the TDO visit: www.rmatrackdays.com

LOW FLYING Airfield trackdays are the inexpensive path to four-wheeled fun. Stacy Vickers examines the pros and cons

aving never driven on an airfield trackday before, I thought it wise to attend one organised by experts in this type of event – Motorsport Events. Today’s venue is Colerne, previously an RAF base, situated near Bath and a mere stone’s throw from the rather more famous Castle Combe circuit. Colerne has for years been used for motorsport and this shows in how well organised the coning is for the feeder roads, car parks and circuit itself; cones are crucial at airfield venues, because they are usually quite large, flat and featureless. A good organiser will ensure that the cones are laid out on the morning of their event to lessen the chances of the wind blowing them around or local scallywags ‘rearranging’ them the night before!

After signing on there’s the drivers’ briefing, in this instance comprehensive, non-patronising and genuinely useful even for the more experienced. His team of instructors and helpers are nearly all sourced through his Castle Combe circles and have been around the company for many years. They all seem relaxed in their own company, and most of all seem to have a clear understanding of the relaxed nature of the days. The mix of cars is fascinating. On the one hand there are the expected Lotus contingent, a Nissan GTR, Caterhams, Subarus and KTMs, and on the other a variety of self-prepared cars. We spot a set of Peugeot 205s of various configurations, wonderfully prepared but with no numbers on the side. Their owners spend a great deal

of time on the cars but very little money. I ask one of them who mentions fuel surge problems why he hasn’t fitted a swirl pot: he replies that buying the pot, pipework and a pump would leave him with little change from £150 and for that he could buy a lot of airfield track time. Such a philosophy would be lost on the vast majority of racers with large budgets, but this guy needs to see real value for money out of every pound he spends. The 205 guys also explain that they have made a conscious decision not to go racing, sprinting, rallying or hillclimbing – trackdays give them maximum value for money and they’re quite happy staying where they are. And we liked their cars so much you’ll be reading more about them in a future issue of TrackDriver.

Words: Stacy Vickers Pictures: Ralph Lunt

We pick up a few practical tips from the paddock, too. Colerne has reasonable facilities for this type of venue – it even has a good burger van – but some airfields are truly remote. Chances are you’ll need to bring fuel in cans with you, as the nearest services may be many miles away, together with your own food and drink. A couple of spare tyres mounted on wheels aren’t a bad idea, either, especially as many airfield surfaces are very abrasive. And only bring along people who enjoy roaring around tracks at speed – airfields aren’t great for casual spectators, have no other entertainments, are always windy and often cold and wet, too. Motorsport Events claims to enjoy very low accident rates at its events, but do bear in mind that although cones seem like inoffensive trackside markers, clout one (or several) at speed and you could end up with substantial damage to your car. Another potential cause of damage is the track surface – Colerne’s mostly well surfaced, but other airfields are pocked with crumbling patches of concrete that when flicked up by the car in front can chip chunks of paint from your nose and pebbledash your windscreen. Different operators do things in different ways, of course, but today the organisers run a sprint type familiarisation system during the morning at slow speed so you can see which way the corners go. This is

followed by a short session system to make sure everyone has some track time with limited numbers of cars on track. After that it’s an open pitlane free-for-all, but we never witness the queue to get on track extend more than a couple of minutes. The biggest problem once you’re on the track is trying to pick reference points around the circuit. Obviously there are cones at all the usual places, but braking points are trickier. Boards are laid out indicating braking zones but not being able to personalise them for every driver limits their helpfulness – someone used to using track side architecture such as: barriers, fencing or marshal’s posts for reference, might find it takes time to adjust to spotting markers such as clumps of grass or lines in the concrete down at ground level. Talking of which, there are no gravel traps, so any offs mean a grassy excursion or a trip onto unused runway – unless you are frighteningly unlucky, at least there won’t be a big bang at the end of your unscheduled journey. And that’s really the sell of these days, alongside the cost and the atmosphere: if you’re new to trackdays and feel a little uncomfortable with the proximity of the tyre walls at a mainstream circuit – and your relationship with your insurer when not on the Queen’s Highway – you can probably relax a little more on an airfield. You would really have to work at hitting something bigger than a

cone. Of course you can’t entirely mitigate the risk of someone spinning in front of you, or collecting you when you are doing likewise: that’s when it can pay to check what policing arrangements your trackday organiser operates to calm the excesses of overeager participants. We should take a moment to talk about the track surface. The types of airfields that host trackdays don’t enjoy the maintenance programmes of Heathrow or Gatwick, so be prepared for patchy surfaces, potholes and concrete expansion joints that haven’t been repaired for many a year. Also, because the asphalt areas were designed for aircraft, their surface tends to be extremely abrasive and you can find yourself chewing through tyres at an unexpectedly rapid rate. And when it’s wet, the concrete areas can be surprisingly slippery. In terms of value for money it’s difficult to argue with the airfield concept; you get plenty of bang for your buck. Trackday organisers generally do an excellent job of turning a barren, windswept airfield into a temporary race circuit for the day. But it is a temporary track and therefore won’t be to everyone’s taste. But today at Colerne we’ve met a bunch of people who believe the airfield concept works just fine – they can get the most out of their cars in safety, spend time with a decent crowd, then pack up and go home ■

Our thanks to Ed and Natasha Moore, together with the rest of the friendly and professional Motorsport Events crew, for all their help on the day.

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Words: John Hayman/Nigel Greensall Pictures: Owen Brown

Double

Dutch Last issue we brought you impressions of the Dutch-made Saker from a rookie’s perspective – but what do the pros think? Read on to find out

ports racing car newbie and saloon racing car aficionado, Stacy Vickers, was rather impressed with the Saker during his exclusive UK first drive at Oulton Park, as reported in issue one of TrackDriver. Professional racing driver, Nigel Greensall, and my good self also attended that MSV/MSA test day, and were able to strap ourselves into the Saker’s aluminium-lined cockpit for some of our own lappery. That the Saker could accommodate all three of us in its

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snug, scissor-doored cockpit should win it a few friends in the racing world. Stacy won’t mind me saying it, but he’s not a small chap in either height or girth; Nigel, on the other hand, is about as broad as my little finger. As for me – short and very much in the throes of middle-aged spread. And yet after just fitting or removing a bit of foam here, and tugging tight or loosening off a harness there, each of us was safely and comfortably installed in a matter of minutes.

The semi-reclined driving position is familiar to those who have driven cars of this ilk – it’s not as extreme, say, as a sports prototype, but very much a culture shock for the likes of Stacy who’s used to racing saloons in a bolt-upright position. Everything else is familiar territory, wheels, pedals and gearlever just where you’d want them: clearly a great deal of thought has gone into cockpit ergonomics. Familiar, too, is the Subaru-donated six-speed H-pattern gearshift; and when you press the start button, it’s the sound of a gently warbling Subaru flat-four turbo engine that welcomes you to the party. It makes for a slightly curious combination, the Saker’s extreme external appearance married to a cockpit as friendly as that of a production class saloon racer. But don’t let the cabin ambience fool you – the Saker is every bit the bespoke racer that it looks like from the outside. Although only mildly tuned, the Subaru boxer engine churns out 275bhp (at 5800rpm), and with only 756kg to shift along, performance is very spirited. That said, the Saker doesn’t deliver its power in the typical Japanese turbonutter fashion – wait, wait, wait, BANG! – instead, piling on thrust in a nicely progressive way with only a hint of its turbocharged induction. The gearshift action could do with being a little shorter of throw, but the rest of the package is as tight, precise, solid and confidence inspiring as you could wish for in a racing car. Although its bodywork is adorned with enough wings to convince you that it’s downforce-dependent, the Saker actually demonstrates an abundance of mechanical grip. Yes, you can feel the positive effects of the huge rear wing, flat floor and front

splitter through the fast, sweeping corners of Oulton Park’s International Circuit – Island Bend and Druids, in particular – but the mechanical grip really makes its welcome presence known in the tighter stuff, such as Shell Oils Corner and Hislop’s, where the downforce is doing naff-all. Up to a point, the Saker goads you into a bullying, scruff of the neck driving style, for which your rewards are lively agility and stonking pace. Where finesse pays dividends, though, is in the braking department. The Tarox setup (six-piston front, four-piston rear) is superb, the accuracy of the pedal feel allowing you to nudge right up to the point where the wheels are about to lock. I very much enjoyed the Saker at Oulton, despite the warmth in the cabin making me contemplate the appeal of an open-topped version. But what did Nigel, our tame pro with experience of everything from classic Lolas to Formula One on his CV, make of it? ■

Impressions From a Pro The Saker offers a very good balance between power, performance and cost. At Oulton Park it was certainly quick enough to be challenging and exciting, while at the same time it was userfriendly and surprisingly free of driver-worrying vices. Not only is the cockpit large enough to accommodate drivers of all sizes, it also has a good-sized passenger seat, making it ideal for impressing your mates on trackdays. Editor Hayman has already mentioned the excellent ergonomics of the cockpit, to which I can add that the visibility is good allaround and the mirrors are well-placed, important factors in generating driver confidence. The Subaru-sourced H-pattern gearshift was easy to use, but I’m looking forward the forthcoming arrival of a new sequential setup.

The Saker turns into corners with commendable zest, even when running the very high ride height we had to contend with during our test session. The height caused more body roll than may be ideal, but on the other hand this allowed a lot of feel entering the corners, while the transition from understeer to oversteer was nicely progressive. From apex to exit the Saker gives you the confidence to really apply the power, so you can indulge in great power slides while still being in control! The traction in wet and dry is excellent, and the chassis benefits from the low centre of gravity that is the gift of the boxer engine. The Saker doesn’t have the downforce of a Radical, but the downforce it does have makes for the ideal introduction for less experienced drivers; around Oulton Park you can really feel the wing at work through Old Hall, Cascades, Island Bend and Druids Corner.

ground for driving; the Saker Challenge – overseen by JPR Motorsport, the outfit behind the Fun Cup – will be a natural step on from that. At 750kg the Saker is halfway between the lightweight prototypes (Radical, Ligier, Sports 2000) and GT cars, and having raced all sorts over the years, I reckon it will appeal to drivers from both arenas. The GT drivers will delight in how nimble the Saker is, while the Prototype boys will like the downforce and the car’s natural balance ■

Conclusion

I reckon this will be a fun car to race and will give drivers the chance to really develop their talents. I have taken a lot of drivers in to the Fun Cup because I know it’s a great proving

Our intensive three-pronged track test has taught us that the Saker is a rapid yet very user-friendly Sports Racing Car straight out of the box, and therefore ideal for anyone considering a move into this class of racing. And when we say fast, we mean it. Nigel spent hours collating all the data

from the Vbox we’d installed on the day (many thanks Dario at www.onboardvision.co.uk), and his findings make interesting reading. In very wet conditions the Saker achieved a 2:04.2 lap, some five seconds quicker than the fastest of the Chevron GR8s that were also testing that day. Later, on a drying track with slicks that already had 400 miles of use, the best lap was 1:49.8, with a top speed of 118mph into Island Bend and Druids. For reference, the Chevron GR8 pole position the following day in dry conditions was 1:49.5. Word from the factory about the new sequential gearbox option seems very promising: during initial testing at Spa, one of the local drivers achieved a 2:34 lap time – three seconds quicker than his previous best with the H-pattern gearbox. We look forward to giving you an update on this gearbox option very soon: not that we’re keen to have another drive of the Saker or anything… ■

SPECIFICATION Chassis: Steel spaceframe Suspension: Adjustable unequal double wishbones Body: GRP Engine: 2.0-litre, turbocharged Max power: 275bhp @ 5800rpm Max torque: 251lb ft @ 4400rpm Weight: 756kg Pwr-to-weight: 363bhp per tonne Gearbox: Six-speed manual Brakes: 315mm vented disc and Tarox six-pots all-round Length: 4010mm Width: 1830mm Height: 944mm Wheelbase: 2580mm Wheels front: 15 x 8.5" Wheels rear: 15 x 10.5"

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2ND

1ST

3RD

Words: John Hayman/Fraser Whyte Pictures: Russ H/Fraser Whyte

A SHOCKING STORY O

ver the years there have been countless examples of car makers deciding to tune their mundane road cars in-house and getting it very wrong. What has particularly wound

up the motoring press and, in more recent times, the Internet forums, are manufacturers who abuse the once-good reputation of an associated tuning outfit, assuming that the mere addition of a revered

badge on the boot-lid will, in conjunction with an ECU tweak, body kit, fat wheels and drainpipe tailpipe, imbue a humble cooking model with the strong personality of hot hatch royalty.

Previously, Fiat was guilty as charged. It plundered Abarth’s heritage – an iconic tuner that it bought then allowed to fester – to create a bunch of body kits, stickers and keyrings that it sold as accessories through its dealers. No engineering input, no integrity. More recently, though, Fiat has done good by Abarth, resurrecting it as a stand-alone tuning division and allowing it to create sportier versions of mainstream models. Reasonably good ones, too. First up was the Punto Abarth, followed shortly afterwards by the extremely well received 500 Abarth. Given that the original 500 as tuned by Carlo Abarth was the stuff of track legend, today’s version ought to make a cracking circuit car, you’d be tempted to conclude. And, as it happens, on track the 500 Abarth is pretty accomplished. There’s a good turn of speed from its dinky 1368cc turbo four, its brakes are up to the task of slowing down 1035kg of trendy metal, while the stiff, lowered suspension is very much at home on smooth asphalt race tracks. Leave the circuit, though, and your average British B-road reveals some very disquieting tendencies… It is all well and good stiffening and lowering the suspension if track work is your sole pleasure, but if that is going to wreck your car’s on-road composure, plenty of owners are going to be left wearing sour expressions. I’ve had the displeasure of road testing several Abarth 500s and each has demonstrated the same characteristics: a stiff yet well tamed front end (McPherson struts and antiroll bar), but a rear suspension setup that would try the skill and endurance of a rodeo rider. And for £2750 you can make it even worse by opting for the essesse kit – yes, the power hike to 160bhp is nice, as are the groovy 7.0 x 17in alloys, and the uprated brakes are worthwhile, but the even shorter and stiffer springs are, to put it kindly, illconsidered. TrackDriver reader Fraser Whyte knows the truth of this, because he bought an Abarth 500 essesse… ■

The Owner’s View Halfway around a quick, open lefthander we encountered a small hollow: suddenly it felt like the rear of the little 500 wanted to bounce over the front. My first experience of the Abarth 500’s now widely recognised handling problem was at about 50mph on a test drive round the back of the Rockingham Speedway. The salesman sitting beside me said he hadn’t noticed it before and that no one else had mentioned it… Mmm, flashing orange lights! Undaunted, I arranged to test a 500 Abarth esseesse near Slough and after about 10 miles on mostly smooth roads the problem hadn’t recurred. My conclusion was that the esseesse’s harder springs had cured it. The additional power and braking over the standard Abarth 500 were addictive and the little car felt well sorted – how wrong you can be when the heart rules the head… Chequebook out and three months later, with a grin from ear to ear, I collected my white esseesse. Over the coming days and weeks the grin persisted but I realised that something was fundamentally wrong with the suspension.

On smooth open roads it reminded me of my 17 years of racing karts: firm, direct and responsive, but – and it’s a big but – on a rough and bumpy road it all went wrong. The front end, whilst very firm, maintained the control you would expect, but the rear wasn’t in harmony with it. It was as if it had been developed at a different time by a different engineer. My conclusion was that the rear springs were too firm and that the rear dampers were doing very little, if anything. On the Abarthisti forum there had been mutterings from a number of similarly disgruntled owners. We needed a solution. I searched websites, spoke to manufacturers and tried to source well-tested springs and shocks. Whilst many said they could supply replacements, no one seemed prepared to give any assurance of the outcome. The answer came when TrackDriver editor, John Hayman, who agreed with my diagnosis, suggested I talk with GAZ about developing a replacement kit. The brief was to make the car satisfying for occasional track use and also easily adjustable to make it comfortable for a drive down to the Riviera. A tough brief, to which the guys at GAZ have responded admirably. The grin remains… the bounce, thankfully, doesn’t ■

the lightweight billet alloy components such as bases, lock-rings and end fittings, are anodised. The rear telescopic dampers are to the same spec, while at the front are a pair of GAZ 250lb springs; the original esseesse spec springs are retained for the rear – for the time being.

Track test, part two:

Track test, part one: Brands Hatch on an MSV open pitlane trackday and one standard Abarth 500 esseesse. It’s raining but the forecast for later in the day is good. Not ideal conditions to track test the Abarth. In less than a lap I know the esseesse isn’t at home here. The steering weight and feel are light and artificial; the chassis setup is firm yet aloof. Neither is helpful when grip is at a premium. Previous experience dictates that the Abarth isn’t a car to bounce off the kerbs either, so even on the usually friendly rumble-strip at Paddock Hill’s compression, circumspection is required – the last thing I need is for the baby Fiat’s back end to go boing, at speed, in these conditions. That sounds harsh considering the Abarth is flying around the Indy circuit, but its rapid pace is more attributable to my knowledge of the circuit than to any innate ability. Neither ideal or commendable. On a positive note the brakes are confidence inspiring. There’s a fair bit of pedal travel yet the biting point is clear-cut; so much so that the ABS isn’t intrusive. The drivetrain is impressive too, the 1.4-litre turbo producing sufficient power right through the rev range, while the fiverather than six-speed gearbox has ratios surprisingly well suited to the circuit’s demands. Even the electronic LSD doesn’t do a bad job of sharing the power between the front wheels,

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although the understeer dialled into the chassis puts the kybosh on any overly enthusiastic throttle applications. Later in the day the circuit dries but there’s little more to say – just that the cutesy Abarth goes quicker and there’s greater apprehension about the kerbs. Owner Fraser at this point is, to put it

mildly, disillusioned – he’s bought a car that is neither outstanding on the road or on the circuit. Enter Warren Gazzard in the GAZ-liveried pick-up towing an empty trailer – he’s here to take Fraser’s esseesse back to base in an attempt to resolve its suspension woes. The plan is to furnish the Abarth with GAZ’s premium Gold kit (£750 plus VAT and fitting) – its McPherson setup houses GAZ Gold height-, bump- and rebound-adjustable struts with steel nickel-plated 62mm bodies and 22mm hard-chrome-plated piston rods pushing through multi-lip seals. All

Brands Hatch Indy once again, this time around dry and sunny. To be honest I don’t need more than the pitlane to feel the transformation the suspension upgrade has made; every surface ripple, stone and undulation is transmitted through the chassis. The upgrade won’t change the Abarth’s numb and artificially weighted steering feel, but the heightened feedback through the chassis makes it less of an issue than before. But things aren’t perfect; realising that this was likely to be the case, Gazzard and his engineer, Derek Gardiner, are installed in the pit garage with a big box of tools. The first track outing highlights not only an understeer issue, but also a tyre/wheelarch liner interface when under extreme compression, such as the base of Paddock Hill. Back in the garage Gardiner sets to work – the new front springs have settled since being installed with a few hundred road miles under their belts, whereas the original esseesse rears springs have returned to their pre-upgrade position, thus the ‘rake’ is a bit extreme with the front end way too low compared with the rear end. Cspanner in hand, Gardiner adjusts the front spring seats accordingly, as well as stiffening the front damper rebound settings; the rears are softened. Out onto the circuit once more and finally the Abarth has the dynamic ability to match its trackinspired looks. Not only is it lapping Brands a good few seconds quicker than it managed when stock, but the really, really important bit is that it’s now fun to drive in anger on the track. But what about its road composure? Well, there’s one very cheap and DIY upgrade I haven’t mentioned yet that would improve the Fiat’s behaviour even with standard dampers – rear bump-stops. When lowering the 500’s ride height Abarth ignored the fact that the stock ‘stops’ were for longer travel suspension, not a stubby short setup. Therefore, before

the standard rear dampers could properly control the springs, the beam axle had already met the bump-stops. No wonder it boings and bounces! But even with the GAZ front and rear suspension upgrade the esseesse still isn’t quite right on the road: it’s no longer the Spacehopper that Fraser originally dubbed his standard esseesse, but the boing and bounce, albeit considerably reduced, remain. Undaunted, GAZ comes up with an effective solution – bin the original rear springs and fit GAZ replacements, and swap the front springs for a slightly softer pair. The result? A car transformed. Feedback from owner Fraser, a harsh critic and not prone to unwarranted praise: “Honestly, the ride is now bloody marvellous – I couldn’t be more impressed.” Returning to Brands reveals the final setup is also a revelation on the track. While the previous setup had been stiff as hell, it was still subject to considerable forward pitching under heavy braking, especially downhill, for example into Graham Hill. GAZ’s final configuration, however, affords more body control and greater balance, which in turn allows the Abarth to sit more foursquare and really brings the rear brakes into play; you can use the anchors much later and harder. The greater suspension compliance also means that kerbs are now fair game – the two-tier apex kerbing at Surtees, for example,

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becomes an obstacle to relish rather than to give a wide berth. The Abarth’s finished setup enables Paddock Hill to be experience in all its glory, too. Previously tipping the car in over the blind crest was a leap of faith; if the esseesse had let go there the first I

Most importantly it’s the depth of information being transmitted by the car’s rear end that makes the biggest difference. Previously you could charge towards an apex, control the understeer and then hope – rather than be 100 per cent positive – that the back end would follow faithfully round. This new setup not only puts you fully in the picture about how much grip the rear has to offer, there’s also less understeer too, and those factors combined help increase your pace. With the standard esseesse it was frankly a bit of a battle to keep it on the black stuff around the track, but the GAZ chassis improvements make the whole experience infinitely more enjoyable; and in this newfound environment you can make much better use of the esseesse’s excellent engine and brakes. Such a shame that Abarth didn’t get it right in the first place, but then the Italian’s loss is GAZ’s gain ■

Top: Raising the front ride height. Above: esseesse standard brakes with GAS strut installed. Right: After all the upgrades, the Abarth in action

would have known about it was when I was looking out the side windows, so sketchy was the communication through the helm. Now, with GAZ’s finest hardware and settings in place, the chassis is a chatty wee chap that lets me know exactly where to find the boundaries of grip.

Give me an

Words: Jim Cameron Pictures: Owen Brown/Jenny South

In production for almost 50 years, the A-Series engine to this day has the ability to liven up your track time. Jim Cameron discovers its joys in five very different A-series-powered racers

iminutive in size, the A-Series engine has had a large impact on motoring. In production for an astonishing 49 years, from 1951 until 2000, the engine first had a displacement of 803cc and was installed in the Austin A30 and the Morris Minor. Enlarged slightly, it appeared longitudinally in the A35, the A40 and the Sprite until a gifted Battersea Polytechnic educated chap called Alec most famously mounted one sideways – the wrong way – in a car that repackaged convention and came to be known simply as the Mini. Over 1.5 million of these cars were sold in Britain alone over the 40 years that it was in production, and it was in the Mini that the A-Series won the Monte Carlo Rally (ignoring French politics) four times from 1964 to 1967. Worldwide, 5.3 million cars were produced. Although the Mini was its most famous application, the A-Series was

found in two-seater sports cars including Midgets, Riley Elfs and Hornets, while larger 1100cc and 1275cc engines also powered a variety of saloons ranging from the Allegro to the Austin 1100. The various incarnations of the latter may have been the best selling car of the 1960s, but Basil Fawlty probably best sealed the car’s immortality by dealing out a ‘damned good thrashing’ to his. The ubiquitous engineering consultants, Ricardo, assisted in the re-engineering of the A-Series to diesel, producing a 948cc unit turning out a heady 16bhp for use in a tractor and as a marine engine. British Centurion tanks of the 1960s also used the A-Series as an auxiliary power unit to provide battery charging for the 27-litre Meteor main engine, proof of the design’s extraordinary versatility. Most variants of the engine are ‘undersquare’; that is, their stroke is longer than the diameter of the bore.

Such engines are renowned for giving good torque but are limited in their ability to rev, but this came about because the A-Series was designed at a time when cars were being taxed on their cylinder bore. It did have the happy side effect of giving an upright, short block that Issigonis was able to fit, with a gearbox, between the front wheels of the Mini; and increases to both dimensions in later cars improved the power. Latterly the A-Series was brought up to date with a turbocharged engine that chiefly saw service in the Metro, and a dual port injection 1275 with a redesigned head was the final version, hobbled by increasingly demanding emissions regulations. In order to celebrate the diversity of racing applications TrackDriver travelled to Silverstone as guests of RMA Trackdays to find out if race cars powered by such a venerable old lump can still cut the mustard today. Two ASeries-engined saloons, an A35 and an A40, met the two oldest Minis still racing in the UK, and as we’ll be looking at MGs in depth in a subsequent issue, an immaculate Sprite flew the flag for sports cars ■

1956 Austin A35 Brian Ashley I was born in the 1970s, so I confess I had to look up what an A35 is. If the editor’s original email had said ‘Wallace and Gromit’s car’, I’d have got it straight away. Research was required, and I found that a chap called Bill Boddy, of Motor Sport magazine, drove the A35’s predecessor for a similar review. In 1953, he wrote: “In a car which goes along so willingly, handling qualities are of considerable importance. It must be said that the Austin A30 does not possess such good controllability as its near-relation, the Morris Minor. It has a narrower track and is higher, so that steering it on a wet road and in a strong cross wind, or at its terminal velocity downhill, is rather like what we imagine tightrope walking to be – all right if you keep going straight.” He continued, “The suspension is soft, giving a comfortable, pitch-free if somewhat lively ride, but this induces considerable roll oversteer which spoils the cornering properties. Very pleasant high geared steering largely offsets this, and perhaps the fairest way to express the matter is to say that the A30 is controllable, but not enjoyably so.” It is therefore with some trepidation that I approach the A35. I’m expecting a 1950’s race car to look, well, old, but Brian Ashley’s A35 seems brand new. A fresh build this year, this is its first real run out on a circuit, so this is very

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much a test session for the immaculate cream Austin. Brian found the car last year, an abandoned project and saw the potential, but since then the car

has been transformed into a racer by a bare metal rebuild aimed at preparing the little car for competition. It looks great. There’s now a 1293cc A-Series sitting in an immaculate engine bay, and it has Sprite discs on the front gripped by Mintex pads and Sprite drums on the back. “Hydraulic allround,” Brian informs me proudly, and when I look confused he points out that originally the A35’s back brakes were cable operated… Good God. It may be bit ‘Noddy’ on the outside, but you get in it and it feels like a race car straight away. Everything in the build is top quality, reconditioned or new; there’s a rather startling yellow modern wheel that clashes with some of the Bakelite detail on the dash, but the driving position is very good. The details here are excellent, from the crosshatched pedals to the Stack rev-counter beautifully integrated into the central,

minimalist instrument cluster on the dash. The chrome switches look old fashioned until engaged, when they light up the blue LEDs concealed in the end. It’s a bit like discovering a gramophone has an iPod dock. Brian owns Ashley Competition Exhausts in Walsall and the car has been a side project; as such it’s a credit to his company and to the engineering skills and patience of Steve Field, his engineer. I’m duly strapped in, Steve gives me a running-in rev limit of 6500rpm and I’m off out the pit lane to find out if Motor Sport was right. I’m only three-quarters of the way into my first lap before I’m laughing with delight, the Austin already quite happy to turn in and for the LSDequipped back end to become a bit lively. The initial setup is a bit of an exploratory affair as Brian has struggled to find information on racing A35s – certainly not an issue for Mini owners. They’ve given it a lot of camber on the front and it certainly darts about, somewhat nervous about the straight-ahead but with good feel. This will only improve when Brian and Steve work some more caster into the front geometry. The front end of an A35 is a good independent setup, with double wishbones and coil springs, whereas the back has semi-elliptical leaf springs and a live axle. They’ve stiffened things up so it leans, not unsurprisingly for something so relatively tall and narrow, but not excessively and without vice. Momentum is everything in these cars, and the steering in the Austin is fast enough to catch a slide without

needing to back off the power. Grinning like an idiot, I even catch myself patting the car affectionately on the wheel after a particularly spirited Maggotts/Becketts/Chapel combination is conducted all in fourth gear, and none of it in a straight line. I’m amazed at how solid the little car feels. The A35 was the later and more powerful version of the A30, the first British car to be truly a monocoque – there are no chassis rails welded to the underside. Its big rival was the Morris Minor and Morris bought an early A30 to evaluate it. The Morris engineers (led of course by Issigonis) were astonished at what had been achieved: “We were staggered to find that the A30 had a torsional stiffness of about 13,000lb ft per degree of deflection. The Morris Minor gave a figure of only 4500lb ft, and we considered that more than adequate.” In Brian’s car seam-welding and the roll-cage contribute to making it exceptionally stiff. It’s the most fundamental part of good handling – the solid base on which to mount the load-bearing and moving parts and the A35 does not disappoint. There’s some work still to be done here, but on this trackday the A35 was still quick enough in the corners. A Nissan GT-R driver was particularly surprised to find his mirrors suddenly full of an A35 that he’d just overtaken on the pit straight; he’d braked, I didn’t need to and I was shouting at him to get off ‘my’ apex. Silverstone is so wide, and the A35 so narrow, that it feels like you’ve got acres of space to drive around in, aided by the fact that the car is so easy to place accurately on the road. You can drift it on the way into, and on the way out of corners. It is going to be great fun to race, and I can’t help thinking Bill Boddy would have liked this A35 ■

1960 Austin Healey Sprite Peter Chappel I don’t think I’d ever call a Sprite beautiful, but bits definitely are. The Moto-Lita steering wheel in Peter’s car is an object of beauty and function in an interior that makes the scrutineer’s stickers and modern Sparco seat look out of place: it really is that stunning. The roll-cage is incorporated into and through the dash, all colourmatched and gleaming, but the interior is upstaged when the bonnet is swung forward on its front-mounted hinges to expose the engine bay. Between immaculately fabricated square inner wings the green block of the A-Series sits, almost like a museum piece, surrounded by shiny stainless steel and neatly ordered hoses and wiring. The A-Series block, with its brass fittings in these early cars, is a 948cc unit derived from the A35, with the single Zenith carb changed for twin SUs. This car has a later 1275cc lump giving around 85bhp at the wheels with two 1½in SU carburettors and twin K&N air filters ensuring a snorty response to a stab of throttle. The beauty is also more than

paint deep; the bonnet, for example, is handmade in aluminium to save weight at the front. Peter has owned the car for more than 18 months, but this will be the Sprite’s – and his – first season’s racing in the Classic and Sports Car Club’s Swinging Sixties series. Tony Davis looks after the car for Peter and is ideally qualified as he runs a very fast Sebring Sprite himself, and has a workshop full of spares. The car can therefore be turned out in different trim for different circuits or series, and the plan is to develop the car as Peter goes along, using the Swinging Sixties series as a mechanism to learn and to

get the all-important signatures. As a result there aren’t period Dunlops under the arches, but medium compound Yokohama AO48s. With some temperature in them, the cornering force that the Sprite can generate is in another league. The rack and pinion here comes from a Morris Minor, but the front suspension is a coil spring and wishbone affair that – like the A35 – uses an Armstrong lever-arm shock absorber. In this car the springs have been uprated with a thicker than standard anti-roll bar, but in addition

1960 850 Mini Andy Messham

the link-arm has extra triangulation to improve the control of the wheel, a trick learnt from Tony’s race experience. It shows as soon as the car is loaded into a corner, and I’m surprised to find the usual tell-tales of a live axle are also largely absent. This car has rose-jointed stabiliser rods that triangulate the rear axle to the central tunnel and resist axle sway and tramp, another measure that is very effective. I struggle with the pedals, because there’s an A-Series lurking where you’d like your left foot to be: straight ahead of your left foot is the dipswitch for the headlights. To the right of that are clutch, brake and accelerator, but there’s no way for me to heel and toe, which is always frustrating. Even though the Sprite wasn’t designed with 6' 2" guys like myself in mind, once I’m in the thing (thanks to Tony for the tip for the head-first entry) and the door is closed, I’m pretty happy. There’s no mistaking what I’m driving: the bulge of the headlights over the curved bonnet frame my view, and although I’m in and ‘snug’, the hardtop does give a surprising amount of headroom. I’m pretty mindful though, that if I hit anything there’ll be bits of Sprite

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embedded in me that will require invasive surgery to remove. The gearbox and drivetrain in the Sprite are also lifted from the A35, and with different diff ratios available, to a degree it is possible to adapt the gearing to the circuit. Reliability of this car has been good, but that is a lot more torque (and mechanical grip) to subject the drivetrain to, and halfshafts and gearboxes tend to suffer. The engine in this car isn’t on top form today, which is a shame, but I am regardless left with the impression that the Sprite has more grip than grunt. This is, of course, very much a factor of tyres and conditions, and with many other Historic series running control tyres, this ratio will change. Tony is also very clear that there is more power to be had with a racier head and cams. This car, of all of them, feels the most ‘Historic racer’, the most retro, and I wonder how much of that is influenced by my familiarity with the ubiquitous Mini and the absolute charm of the Sprite’s interior. It is a proper sports car, albeit manufactured using as many parts as could be extracted from donors while keeping the original purchase price to beneath £650.

I like this car the moment I see it. A real old school racer, built in February 1960, this Mini is startlingly original down to the sills, and owner Andy is keen to keep it that way. He’s owned it for the last 20 years and knows the 850 inside out having originally bought the car to rally in. The switch to track racing came about pretty quickly when he discovered “the entry fees alone for one rally were bigger than my annual racing budget.” The car is now raced in Class E, sub-1.0-litre pre-1966 cars, with later SU carbs, valve and head work meaning output is some way beyond the original 34bhp. Some considerable way, it seems, as the Mini is spluttery and lumpy at idle and unwilling to pull at low revs. I take a trial run around the pits to get the cameras fitted and am reacquainted with that Mini gearbox whine and the overriding urge to treat every car park like an Autotest course. The gearbox is straight-cut and I need to sit and familiarise myself with it before venturing out on circuit. There’s a steel bar obstructing the gearlever in line with 3rd and 4th, to prevent you from crossing the gate and engaging reverse, but the movement in the top of the long lever is minimal – a couple of inches at most. That can’t be in gear, surely? Andy assures me that once rolling it engages easily. It doesn’t take long for me to be shown around the controls and dials, as there aren’t many of them. There’s a dirty great fog-light wedged in the dash in front of me though, that dazzles as it comes on with the ignition and goes out once the engine is started – it turns out that this is the oil pressure warning light. Blimey.

To my right, mounted in the door, is a selection of old school switches including a yellow lamp, which is another oil pressure warning light that is simply marked ‘O SHIT’. I make mental notes to check the gauges often on track, be wary of the gearbox, and Andy cheerfully points out that the handling “isn’t set up for novices.” Get in, adopt the comedy Mini driving position, all high knees and push-me-pull-you bus steering, and blip the throttle a couple of times; all nerves disappear. Minis always instil confidence with their intuitive turn-in, and this one has been optimised for racing over the years by an experienced racer. Out into the pit lane, all gearbox metallic whine and rorty exhaust, hiccup, hiccup and brrrrraaaapp… We’re away. It feels great, I’ve been warned to get some heat into the tyres and brakes so I’m taking it easy, but it pulls hard out onto

the circuit and Andy is right, the gearchange is a doddle, really intuitive. I lift going into Maggotts and whoa, bloody hell, the back end is coming round: quick, back on the power and opposite-lock but I’ve still got to shed some speed for Becketts. “Not set up for novices,” alright, the 850 and I swiftly come to an agreement, and I’m grinning like a loon again. Although I view the period ‘aged’ footwell and spindly-looking pedals with some alarm, it transpires they’re perfectly set for heel and toe. The little A-Series will run to over 8000rpm, but I’m going nowhere near that. There’s a really useful spread of torque, as long as you don’t drop below 3000rpm where the Mini simply isn’t interested, popping and farting before picking up and pulling hard. It is absolutely barking. Properly quick in the bends, the photos confirm that the little red 850 tripods – everywhere! I recreate the

finest moments of Crystal Palace racing by retaking the Enzo that came past me on the straight by sailing up the inside into Brooklands, rear left cocked cheekily in the air. The Ferrari is, of course, on his warm down lap, but that doesn’t matter to me, I’m slaying giants. Andy is a wily racer, used to taking on cars much more powerful in his Mini. The car is just so adjustable, where steering is a balance between hand and toe, a delightful dance that allows it to be placed inch-perfect on the track with momentum maintained. I’m having so much fun I don’t want to go back into the pits. Despite the absence of a tricky diff, understeer isn’t really in the 850’s vocabulary; but oversteer definitely is. The Cooper S brakes with carbon metallic pads are excellent as there isn’t that much weight to haul to a standstill, but going quickly in this thing is all about getting on the power early and the mobile back end is incredibly helpful. It has got to be so entertaining to race, and Andy laughs as he agrees with me when eventually I leave the circuit and reluctantly give the thing back ■

1963 Austin A40 Luke and Richard Wilson Introduced in 1958, Austin had employed Battista Pininfarina to update the A35’s looks and give the A40’s its sharp new Italian design. Much of the mechanicals were carried across from the earlier car, but further updates to the ‘Farina’ came with the 1961 mkII A40, including more power by replacing the earlier Zenith carb with an SU unit. The 948cc grew to a 1098cc; a front anti-roll bar was fitted for the first time, and four inches were added to the wheelbase, increasing rear legroom and additionally improving the handling. Most importantly, the hydraulic braking system now extended to the back of the car as well as the front; clearly this was a safety enhancement in the face of the A40’s heady new 48bhp power output and 24sec 0-60mph time! Father and son, Richard and Luke found this car for sale having been rallied by a previous owner in the RAF Motorsport Association series. It was in a sorry state, with a damaged door, and no seats or carbs, but they saw the potential and rescued it. For just £1500. Something of a bargain, the car is now in its second season of racing with Luke driving, and it is bringing them both a great deal of enjoyment.

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The rally history did mean that the car was relatively easy to prepare, but was fitted with a very short diff for acceleration that by the end of the first season contributed to a incidence of over-revving that put a con-rod through the side of the block. A rebuilt 1275cc replaced it for the current season. The view from the A40 is quite different to the A35 – there’s an oblong speedo in front of you and two rakish wings to look down. The new engine is very sweet, feels the most refined of all the engines on test, and pulls strongly. Built to a low compression specification, it made 116bhp on the dyno and on track feels very healthy. The A40 can be hustled round at a good lick, but the springs are too soft and the body roll is excessive, continually picking up the inside rear wheel and causing the open diff to spin away the power. Experimenting with comedy lines and enthusiastic entries doesn’t alter the fact that the A40 needs to be flat to put the power down, and this is limiting both through and exiting corners. The A40 is a friendly beast as a result. Never nervy, it pulls well and when provoked into oversteer will lift a wheel slowly, then slump back into line obediently. I’m really impressed with the smooth power from the 1275, and the brakes are very effective – although a standard setup with better pads,

there’s not that much weight to stop and they are certainly up to the task. The A40 has been ideal for Luke’s entry into motorsport, despite its handicaps. The car’s compliant suspension was probably desirable during its earlier life as a rally car; the lifting wheel problem has probably been highlighted by the increased power of the new engine, and is ultimately limiting his cornering speed. Reducing roll, increasing the spring rates, better damping and an LSD will all help the cause, but these issues aren’t critical and can be addressed as time and budget allow. Meanwhile the A40 is an entertaining, inexpensive and surprisingly stylish inroad into motorsport ■

1959 1293 Mini Julian Crossley Just three months older than Brian’s 850, this ‘barn-find’ 850 Mini Saloon had been hillclimbed extensively in an earlier life before being stored for 15 years. Rescued by Julian in 2003, the chickens were evicted from the boot and the seized 850 engine replaced for his first race season in 2005. For the last three years it has competed as a 1275 with the customary +20 overbore, taking the capacity out to 1293cc. Racing in a different class of the same series as the red 850, I knew that this smartly presented white Mini was quick by reputation, but I’m really not prepared for the savage way it drags me out of the pit lane and onto the circuit. My first lap is properly terrifying. The seat is way too far back for me – I leave the pit lane laid out like I’m contemplating a drive-by shooting on the marshal’s post at Stowe. I’ve only access to the bottom two-thirds of the steering wheel that I have to ‘feed’ to join the track, and hang grimly onto as we rocket towards the left-hander, Maggotts. Jeez, this Mini is quick… Not to be caught out again, I lift in a straight line, steady the car and turn in under power. The nose tucks in, the

power piles on, the LSD suddenly grips and woah… Catch the slide (using the bottom half of the wheel only), and it snaps back while I’m trying to get the entry to the following right, right. Consumed with the battle that I am raging with the car, and blessed with very little in the way of mirrors, I nearly jump out of my skin as, out of nowhere, a Radical blats past, pursued by a Porsche Cup car. Blips of power mid-corner have a lane-changing effect and although the terror subsides to mere fright, I give up after a couple of laps and coast back into the pits for fresh underwear and a chat with Julian. Having established that he isn’t an orang-utan, the seat is brought more upright and moved forward. It takes just one corner to feel better: I’m on top of the wheel and can happily chuck it about now that I’ve got the confidence to catch it. With hardened rubber suspension cones and a lowered centre of gravity, the alignment of this car is pretty much straight out of David Vizard’s book, How to Modify Your Mini, so the 1275 can be chucked into the corner, scrubbing speed off as it is lined up, allowing the driver to get back on the throttle well before the apex. It won’t tripod, staying foursquare, but almost skipping across the surface instead, it lifts both inside wheels, extracting every last ounce of value from its Dunlops. This is a very different experience to the 850. This car has some serious power that it transmits very aggressively to the tarmac through a ‘Gripper’ LSD. The turn-in is still Mini sharp, but there’s a secondary effect that your right foot has on your track

position, as the LSD shuffles the power between the front wheels. It is much harder to be accurate in this car, but by God does it shift. The power output is estimated at 125–130bhp, and while they may not be shire horses, it feels to be making every one of the angry, snorting, pit ponies. An inspection of the engine bay afterwards reveals great holes in the inner wings where every available ounce of weight has been removed, and with so little inertia the little car absolutely flies. The white Cooper was always my favourite one of the three in the Italian Job, and despite my best efforts at objectivity I’ve got The Self Preservation Society playing, on loop, in my head. Lacking an Alfa Giulia with a siren to chase me, a blue Ferrari 599 volunteers itself instead. Howling past me down the back straight, I catch him

through Stowe, and as he hesitates behind a dithering Atom with an ironing board on the back, I sail past into Vale. It takes the poor bloke half a lap to catch up again, this time on the pit straight, and he falls into the same trap as the guy earlier in the GT-R. Get Off My Apex! Honestly, it is petty, completely not objective, but such great fun. It also transpires that I’ve opened up a whole new realm of tuning possibilities when I return to the pits. A faulty catch has resulted in some experimental Mini aero testing taking place. “Did you know that the boot was open?” Aah… I thought that I suddenly had more downforce through Vale… ■

Conclusion So, which is quickest? Well, timing not being allowed on a trackday it’s perhaps more revealing to look at individual corners. And Stowe’s constant radius is a good test of lateral grip. As such, the A40 suffered the most; despite great turn-in it was simply unable to keep the power down in the long bend at 62mph. Next was the A35, which despite guesswork in the geometry was stiff enough to be accelerating round at 65mph. Both Minis hit 70mph in the bend, the 850 able to brake later, but the 1275’s drive out of the bend gave the white Mini a clear advantage in the run down to Vale. Disappointingly the Sprite never got a fair showing, but nevertheless I had sufficient feel for the prodigious grip available to better the Mini’s speed through Stowe on my very first lap in the car.

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What’s clear to me is how much of a hoot all these cars are to drive, and just how different they all are. With over 14 million A-Series engines produced, powering things as wonderful as Paddy Hopkirk and as dismal as a 1.3-litre Montego, the A-Series can rightly claim, along with the Rover V8, to be one of the engines that built modern Britain. These cars are a part of our history, but also offer real entertainment, and often at a bargain price compared with modern motorsport machinery. Where else can you get a replacement wing for £18, or expect your tyres to last a season?

The older saloons are an education for me and I love the Sprite’s beautiful details; but I’ve also been reminded what a blast a good Mini is. James Hunt knew what I’m on about. When asked why he chose to drive an A35 van, he replied: “I can put everything I learnt in motor racing into driving it round the Wandsworth one-way system on a wet Saturday night, blow off all the Ferraris, and nobody takes a blind bit of notice” ■

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The Cat that

ROARED Thanks to cars such as the XKR and XFR, and a programme of trackdays, Jaguar is reinventing itself as king of the performance car jungle was amazed to see a couple of Jaguars at an MSV trackday last year. And no elderly S-type or frontwheel drive X-type either, but an XKR and XFR. No travel blanket or tissues on the parcel shelf, and occupied by very polite guys in smart Jaguar uniform. They looked a little lonely until it became evident that they were giving passenger laps, for free, and immediately a queue formed. They were quick, too, mixing in amongst the other trackday traffic – over 500bhp hustling a very competent chassis around the undulating circuit. I got a go in the XKR, and was astonished how well it concealed its two tonnes: the only place where it was really apparent was on the brakes, as the car was dragged down from an unfeasible speed into Paddock Hill bend. Fast forward two months and I’m in the back seat of an XFR being driven – no, hurled – around the Nürburgring by Dirk Schoysman. He’s been employed by Jag to help show off what the car

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can do to journos, and he’s really enjoying himself, eventually overheating the diff by drifting just about every corner. Hang on… Is this the same company that, only three years ago, would have sold you a front-wheel drive Mondeo-based diesel estate? You almost get the impression Jaguar has had some form of awakening, to discover it doesn’t make simply ‘decent’ cars, but bloody good ones. The problem is, the rest of the world is still labouring under the impression that Jaguar produces comfortable, sedate, mobile gentlemen’s clubs.

The challenge for Jaguar is therefore to change perceptions and the two cars I’d seen at Brands Hatch were an early exploratory exercise that has culminated in Jaguar’s own track experiences – a travelling roadshow that will stage 27 events this year at six different tracks across the country. With more than 50 staff, these days introduce up to 150 customers daily both to the new range of cars and also to a race circuit. For many of them, having responded to an invitation through the dealerships, this is something very new. The most consistent feedback Jaguar receives is resounding astonishment at the cars’ performance. I’ve been invited along to a press day at Silverstone. Told to try the car out on the road first, I do – by driving my newly acquired convertible XKR straight to Rockingham where a Circuit Days trackday is well underway. I know I’m going to get the chance to try the cars on the Stowe Circuit at Silverstone in the afternoon, and I know that I’ll get my wrist slapped for being naughty, but there’s an important question to be

SPECIFICATION 0-60: 50-70: Top speed: Power: Torque: Brakes:

Emissions: Combined mpg: Kerb weight: Insurance: CO2 g/km: Front wheels: Rear wheels:

4.6s 1.9s 155mph limited 510PS at 6000rpm 625Nm at 2500 - 5500rpm Front – twin piston sliding caliper, discs 380x36mm Rear – single piston, discs 376x26mm Class Euro 5 23.0 1800 kgs 20E 292 8.5Jx20 tyres 255/35R20 Dunlop Sportmaxx 9.5Jx20 tyres 285/30R20 Dunlop Sportsmaxx

answered: can such an opulent, open-topped cruiser actually cut it at a serious trackday? The answer… Yes. The XK’s aluminium monocoque has a high, reinforced central tunnel that makes the softtop remarkably free from scuttle-shake, that shudder felt between seatback and wheel over bad roads or apex kerbs that destroys ride integrity and driver confidence. It is wet at Rockingham, and notoriously slippy, and the electronics do an admirable task of keeping everything in line. The Jag’s got huge brakes, 280/276mm discs front/rear and they are obviously being individually exercised hard as

the DSC (Dynamic Stability Control) works overtime. There’s much more fun to be had, though, if you start pressing buttons. The chequered flag button engages ‘Dynamic Mode’ which tautens steering, suspension and throttle response, and also opens up the exhaust internal valves. This makes the hair on the back of your neck stand on end, as the engine is just mighty. It wakes up from very low revs in a wall of torque, exhaust valves opening to give a guttural roar. All-alloy construction has made this incarnation of the big cat some 100kg lighter than its predecessor; 1800kg suddenly doesn’t seem very much in the face

of 500 supercharged horses and 460 lb ft or torque. The XK is blessed with the same ZF six-speed auto as the XK, and before you turn your nose up at the thought of a slushbox, it is worth bearing in mind that this is one of the finest gearboxes – of any kind – on the market today. In Sport mode it is fully manual, executing pitch perfect blips on the downshifts while masking any hint of hamfistedness by the user. It is an exceptional ’box on the road and is one of the key qualities that sets modern Jaguars apart from their most capable rivals. There are some disappointingly plastic paddles under the wheel on this car

which seems incongruous given the diesel XF gets some rather lovely aluminium ones, but their operation is spot-on. Circuit Days always attract a good and varied crowd and, Radicals aside, the XKR is certainly holding its own. Pressing the DSC button enables ‘TRAC DSC’ mode, which changes the programming of the active differential. This shifts the distribution of power between the back wheels in order to constructively assist drive out of corners, rather than relying on applications of the brakes to keep things in line. It’ll let you get a few degrees of slip, but is perhaps better judged for spirited road

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driving rather than track; on the open expanses of Rockingham in the wet, it feels rather too restrictive. There’s an Audi TT RS holding me up due to the DSC not giving me the drive out of corners to really hook up the Jag, until I manage (with a 10-second press) to turn the DSC off altogether, and immediately bellow past the surprised Audi. Unfettered, the XKR is simply ballistic. I get in trouble on my return to Silverstone, inevitably, but the drive has cemented a few things for me. I expected the XKR to be good on the road, and it deports itself with an Aston-rivalling aplomb. Yet it is on track that it has most impressed.

It’s still raining at Silverstone, and let loose on the slippery Stowe circuit the coupe I borrow is indecently good fun. It would be easy to dismiss Jaguar’s considerable investment in circuit exposure as a calculated ‘repositioning exercise’, but it has been conducted almost silently, without fanfare, and is utterly product driven. Jaguar has been understandably concerned about alienating its more conservative customer base, but in doing so runs the risk of selling itself short. More than the sum of its parts, the XKR is a supercar-rivalling bargain. Don’t be surprised to start seeing owners arrive at a track near you, soon ■

To advertiseâ&#x20AC;Ś E: ads@trackdriver.com T: Hugh Poston on 07884 252556

Words: Mark Hales Pictures: Derek John Binsted

Time Traveller

It may bear a resemblance to the B8 from the 1960s, but the new GR8 Chevron aims to appeal to a modern audience. It has its own series, too

’ve spent enough time trying to beat Chevron B8s and B16s to know that the basic design not only looks right, it clearly is right. The Crossle 9S which I have driven for years with owner Jon Shipman, and which has already appeared in these pages, may share an elegance of line with its major competition, but it simply isn’t as good. Too many times I have watched as someone in front makes a complete arse of the corner and still comes out ahead. I have looked under the B8’s bonnet and seen the spindly anti-roll bars the size of my index finger: always a giveaway to good weight distribution, is that.

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The B8’s design dates back to the late 1960s but you can buy a new one, or a B16 that is even more graceful. There are a couple of outfits making new Chevron sports cars, but husband and wife team Vin Malkie and Helen Bashford-Malkie have been doing it longest. Based in Antrobus, Cheshire, their Chevron Racing Cars business is not so far from the original Chevron premises in Bolton, where Vin worked as a mechanic when the B8 was new. There’s a parallel here too, because Chevron’s founder Derek Bennett (the ‘B’ in Chevron model numbers) ran the company as much more of a cottage industry than his competitors Eric

Broadley of Lola and Colin Chapman of Lotus Cars. Chevron Racing Cars has been catering to the historic race scene for years, but there are only so many cars and customers for which to cater. As a business that’s limiting, especially as the market for continuation cars is very small. It would have been possible to uprate a continuation B8 for modern GT racing, fit a rear wing, bigger brakes, slicks, and a modern engine, and send it off to do battle with the Lotus 2-Eleven and KTM X-Bow. The problem I suspect, would be that potential buyers might be put off by the historic roots – lack of carbonfibre tub

and so on, or much of the reason why historic racers like them. The modern lot might be surprised meanwhile just how fast these cars can go. The Malkies’ solution lies in between. It’s a brave move for a small company to launch a new dedicated

fashion of the time but took about 300 man-hours to make. The GR8’s suspension is conventional wishbones, links and coilovers in the time-honoured layout; brakes are simply huge with AP Racing four-pot callipers. Power comes from a

race model, let alone in a recession. But wearing a badge that remains globally renowned 30 years after the founding factory closed can’t hurt. In view of which, the new GR8 (Gran Rapido) harks back to the shape of the B8 while incorporating modern cues such as a wing, front and side splitters and rear underbody diffuser. The body’s styling is the work of consultant Lester Allen who was responsible, amongst other things, for the Bentley Continental R and Aston Martin Virage. His handiwork nicely reflects Helen B-M’s brief, which was to remind people why the car wears the iconic Chevron badge, whilst looking sufficiently modern. The chunky semi-panelled spaceframe on which it sits is in the style of Lola’s T70 and parts of the B8. It’s the creation of engineer Paul Brown who worked on the originals in Chevron’s Bolton factory. It is visibly strong with large diameter tubes and, once again, has some original cues – for instance, the welded-on steel sheet that spans the gap between some of the tubes and creates a monocoque effect. A carbonfibre tub was briefly considered but the cost of manufacture and repair soon ruled it out. So instead the focus was to make the GR8 stronger but easier and cheaper to build. The B8’s cat’s cradle of small diameter tubes was very much the

Cosworth-modified YD-model 2.0-litre Ford Duratec producing about 260bhp and driving through a five-speed sequential Hewland JFR transmission. The GR8 rolls on a set of 17in front and 18in rear S. L. Corse aluminium wheels with Toyo Proxes 888 road-cum-track tyres – of which more, later. Modern unbreakable stuff, as you would expect. But actually, apart from the aerodynamics and the large diameter wheels that are definitely not period 1970s, it could be a B8-and-a-

half. If someone said it was a development from 1968 that never went in to production, you wouldn’t argue. It’s small too, especially compared with modern GTs which all seem to be huge, not to mention heavy, although that much is required by the regulations for the senior FIA categories. Given the small dimensions, I was expecting to be cramped, but inside there was loads of room for my six-foot frame and large feet, even if they were slightly offset to the left. Current seating arrangements involved Alan Crossley – my engineer for the day – moulding a seat out of two-pack foam and a plastic bag to fit my dimensions on the top and the square space created by the chassis panelling on the bottom. It’s more effective than it sounds although there wasn’t enough support for the upper body and a moulded plastic seat would be better: Mrs B-M says it’s on the to-do list. You sit low too, and the humps for the front wings necessary to clear the taller tyres interrupt the sightline. ‘Need to know’ dash is ahead, long lever for the Hewland is in the centre rather than to the right and connects via cables to the ’box. It’s all good stuff, and feels immediately familiar and reassuring. Part of Chevron’s promotion for the GR8 is a one-make race series. The car is intended as a multi-purpose tool to suit trackdays and various race series including Britcar; as soon as they can finish development, there will be a kit to convert it to the GTC category for British GTs. For the moment there is the Chevron GR8 Challenge in which Chevron runs a guest car, which I took for the Croft round in the middle of July. Of late I have turned down one-off

drives because I know only too well that a hard-earned reputation can be all but erased in a weekend trying to keep up with category experts who have been at it all season. The Chevron was a bit different though because I felt I knew it already, even though I hadn’t so much as set eyes on one. The GR8 is as pretty in the fibre as it is in the pictures. It’s nicely made and looks like a real racer, which probably only heightened expectation that it would be extremely pointy with lots of grip. But it wasn’t like that. It was extremely easy to lock wheels and all sorts of fiddling with the brake bias only shifted the problem from one end to the other. And whenever I tried to lean it into the corners loading up the front on the brakes, it would slither its tail. No matter, if that’s how it was I’d just need to find a way, but it wasn’t like a B8… I was expecting loads of low-down punch from the Duratec engine, too, but it wasn’t like that either. Nothing like the old Ford Zetec that would pull from about 3000rpm. Instead you had to keep the Duratec as close as possible to the 8000rpm limiter without touching it. Easy enough because the Hewland sequential shifts at lightning speed pretty much whenever you want. I found it essential to use the clutch on the way down to avoid locked wheels just when I didn’t need them, but as

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long as I relaxed the gas just enough to release the lower gear, going up could be clutchless. The exciting thing though, was that while it wasn’t difficult to drive, the GR8 was extremely sensitive to slight changes of input. There was always that wonderful challenging feeling that I could go faster if I simply got all the ingredients in the right order. Maybe just a bit more kerb here, brake less hard and carry a bit more speed into the apex there… Maybe try doing what I had decided not to and trail it into Sunny In; then keep it flat in third, hook the inside kerb on the way out and

make sure to pull fourth just before I got there… Or maybe not. Bouncing along the grass probably isn’t the quick way. Better to keep it smooth and late on the way in and aim a bit further round for the second part. Whenever I did set the GR8’s back swinging, it wasted time on the run up towards The Complexes. It’s all the usual things you think about when trying to find speed in a new car. And when it didn’t work, the Chevron would usually just wag its tail and say “no you don’t,” while feeling so absolutely full of stamina I could keep on experimenting until it ran out of fuel. I couldn’t help thinking though,

that it really would be nice to take some more speed in without having to worry about a loose tail, and having managed to take the flag in the first of the two 40-minute races there was good excuse for a fiddle. Former Vauxhall Lotus front-runner and Le Mans racer Martin O’Connell – who oversees the guest car – said much of his testing had been a quest to make the car “oversteer nicely.” And while it wasn’t exactly scary, I certainly didn’t feel like holding the slide with the pedal buried for as long as it took to finish the corner, like you would in a B8. On a couple of occasions it used up a lot of road at the beginning of the Jim Clark Esses. “I think I know what to do,” said O’Connell, “so do you mind if I just get on with it?” “It” turned out to be reducing the front end’s camber (there was a pronounced three degrees on the front but a great deal less on the rear), softening the front roll bar to put some point back in the nose, softening the springs on the back and lowering the ride height, and putting the rear wing up a notch. The thinking was that less camber might allow me to lean on the front a bit more on the way into the turn, while the lower and softer back would help keep that calm while I was trying. And the extra rear wing would keep it tidy through the Esses. “Trust me,” insisted Martin, “I don’t think it will make a huge difference…” He was right-ish, but the car was still resistant to trailing into medium speed turns like Sunny or Tower while the front end then needed two or even three bites to get it round the corner before the chicane. And there was too much push on the twiddly bits leading to the hairpin. It was calmer through

the Esses mind, so we’d achieved something. But not, as it turned out, a second sight of the chequer. I led for 37 of the 40 minutes but there was no doubting the blue nose which grew larger in the mirror every time I got to the tightest parts. Rock musician and

ardent historic racer Neil Primrose left it until two laps from the end then sent one up the inside at the hairpin… The GR8 was great fun and I thoroughly enjoyed my two hours or so behind the wheel. Yes, it is a touch sensitive, but that only makes it more rewarding, and if the regulars don’t do it first, O’Connell and the Malkies will soon find a setup and make it available to all. I have a suspicion too, that the big Toyos were designed for a 1400kg GT car and don’t suit something that weighs just 600kg – hence the need for so much camber. Whatever, these things are all part of a development process that involves everybody because Chevron and its activities still feel like a large family event to which the members all made me feel very welcome. Thanks a lot chaps. The rest of you really should try one soon ■

What you should know about the Chevron GR8 Challenge • It’s run by the BARC and for 2010 is a series; could be granted championship status in 2011. • The format is two 40-minute races for one or two drivers sharing, which will be carried over into the 2011 season. • Features a rolling start. • 2010 entry fees are between £395 and £495 depending on event/circuit. No series registration fee, but BARC racing membership is a requirement. • A race-ready GR8 is currently available for £49,500 + VAT. Be quick, though, as there are only two cars left at this introductory price. Thereafter it’s £55,000 + VAT.

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SPECIFICATION Engine: Cosworth-developed Ford Duratec YD, 2.0-litre, four-cylinder Max power: 260bhp @ 8200rpm Max torque: 190lb ft @ 7500rpm Weight: 600kg (estimated) Gearbox Five-speed Hewland JFR sequential Chassis: Semi-monocoque, aluminium sills and platform, 50mm steel tube spaceframe Suspension: Proflex coil-over shocks Brakes: Ventilated discs allround – 330mm front, 304mm rear; AP Racing four-piston calipers Tyres: Toyo Proxes 888

Words: John Hayman Pictures: Owen Brown

Newcomer to this season’s BTCC is the AmD Milltek Golf GTI. In a TrackDriver exclusive, John Hayman is the first person outside the team to drive it – so what’s it like to play at pro level?

ery occasionally fate smiles and turns something potentially great into something utterly fabulous. Today is such an occasion. We had planned for the TrackDriver test of the AmD BTCC Golf to appear in our first issue, but then luck turned very much against us. Several times. The chance to test the car for issue two, though, seemed far more promising. Not only were we to get an exclusive test drive of AmD’s championship contender, but we were also lined up to do so at one of the rare official BTCC test days. And then fate, for me at least, stepped in – our very own Mr Hales, who was originally down to do the driving, was otherwise engaged on the day in question: well, someone had to take his place… The mere thought of testing an actual BTCC car is the stuff of dreams in itself, but to be doing so in the company of BTCC superstars here at Snetterton is both magical and nervewracking. I’ll need to move my game up a notch or two… Waiting to sign on I’m in the queue beside Jason Plato – although I politely collect my jaw from the floor when I overhear an apparently new member of the admin staff ask the BTCC supremo and telly star, his name. TOCA’s hierarchy isn’t about to let me loose on the track at the same time the regular BTCC racers are out there – thankfully – so I’m to have the Snetterton circuit all to myself. So, a genuine BTCC race car and a 1.952mile track for my personal use: see what I mean about fate’s dazzling smile? Mind you, there are certain pressures. This is a BTCC official test day, so the UK’s motorsport media are likely to be standing in the paddock willing the fat bloke to spank it. And meanwhile, Shaun Hollamby, the Golf’s owner and managing director of AmD,

is doubtlessly perspiring and trembling with panic as he questions the wisdom of handing over his costly race machine to the very same fat bloke. Given that Shaun hasn’t let any other journalist drive his Golf, I feel

though, are pleasingly old school and require the driver to heel and toe. A Motec LED dash displays the usual engine essentials, as well as what gear is engaged, too. Housed across the top of it are a row of shift

privileged to be even sitting in it. And as I get strapped in he runs through the controls. The car’s a left-hooker so the ever-so shiny sequential gearbox lever is on my right: as is the norm with these, you just keep pulling back for all six forward ratios. Reverse is located the other side of neutral and requires a push to engage – thought I’d best find out about reverse, as you never know when you might need it… The Golf’s gearbox is fitted with an automatic ignition quick-shifter, so upshifts involve nothing more than tugging back on the lever while keeping the throttle pedal buried. Downshifts,

lights – if they are all illuminated and blinking then it’s time to change up. Simple. Shaun explains that in case of forgetfulness in the chaos of a race, there’s an electronic rev limiter installed, set at 8500rpm. Most other controls in the cockpit are familiar enough, the exception being the steering wheel boss, home to a quartet of buttons – one’s for the pit to car radio, another for the race control alarm, a third for changing the dash display options, the fourth for the ‘ohso-pro’ pit lane speed limiter. Before I have a chance to play with any of the above, I vacate the seat temporarily so Shaun can do a beddingin lap. The Golf hasn’t been on track since the brake calipers were refreshed; similarly there’s a set of brand new pads to hug all four of the mighty Alcon discs. I’m not complaining. I’d much rather he discovers all’s not well in the braking department, especially when here at Snetterton there’s the end of the Revett Straight to contend with. The other upside of Shaun’s outing will be that the slicks will be scrubbed clean and have a little heat in them before I go out. Shaun throws the ignition and fuel pump switches then waits. And waits… The fuel system has to be fully pressurised before you can start the Golf; all the electronics have to acquire their right settings, too. A prod of the

starter button fires the engine first time, but I must admit to feeling a little underwhelmed. The sound isn’t an angry sound, more of a clattery racket. That is, until Shaun blips the throttle. Then it becomes really apparent that this normally aspirated four-pot isn’t a run of the mill motor, but rather a proper and very expensive race unit. Loads of revs are needed to get it moving and it gains extra assistance from the AmD pit crew as it stutters and pops down the pit lane. While Shaun laps the track I’m anxious that, after weeks of eager anticipation, all is fine with the Golf. Phew! The Golf returns under its own steam; nothing’s leaking or smoking and Shaun is giving me the thumbs-up. And he’s hardly clear of the roll-cage before I’m clambering in with the pace and dexterity of a rush-hour commuter on the London Underground. As it happens, there’s no need to rush. The Golf is up on its airjacks and is sans wheels; the tyres Shaun went out on were simply to check the car was working properly and I’m being given a different set. My nerves are building now, but not because I’m about to venture out on cold slicks. More concerning is the look of apprehension on Shaun’s face; also, Dan Mayo, the BTCC series coordinator, is leaning through the door

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and asking us to “hold on” while he chats to race control on the walkietalkie. This suddenly feels like very professional, top-end stuff and I’m starting to feel out of my depth. All the pro teams are looking on, too, adding to my anxiety attack. But then it’s game on: time to flick some switches, wait for all the systems to prime themselves, then press the starter. Blimey! The throttle pedal is light with a very short throw, so what was intended as a 2000rpm blip becomes a 4000rpm blare. There’s no time to get used to it, though, as arms are waving at me to get out there, which I endeavour to do…

I feed in a good 3500rpm and tease up the very aggressive racing clutch; all goes well for about five feet before I stall. Second attempt: this time letting out the clutch mere millimetres and, once rolling, enjoying a hefty shove from behind by the AmD pit crew. Let the clutch out a little bit more while piling on more revs and now I’m spluttering and popping down the pit lane, then gunning it as the traffic light at the end switches to green. First impressions are that the Golf is extremely spritely, but more overwhelming is the noise in the cabin – nothing is filtered out and it bombards all the senses. The bit I can’t wait to perform is the first tug of the lever for the sequential gearbox while keeping my right foot welded to the floor. Shaun’s advice is to give the lever a hearty pull otherwise it might not engage properly, thereby either leaving you in the gear you’re already in or, worse still, in a false neutral. Advice noted, I give a firm yank and milliseconds later I’ve got the next ratio, the electronics sorting out the throttle operation for me. Riches Corner is now approaching fast so it’s time to feel for the brakes. Hmm, more pedal travel than I’d anticipated… Still, at least I am expecting that stone cold pads and disc aren’t going to slow me down

Shaun Hollamby’s Tale The man behind the BTCC Golf is Shaun Hollamby, managing director of AmD Essex, a performance tuning company based in West Thurrock. He’s been addicted to motorsport since the late 1970s when he raced in karts, later progressing into a variety of single-seaters, including Formula Vee, Formula First, Multisports (in which he was champion in 1989) and Formula Forward. Although between 1997 and 2008 Shaun had less free time for racing following his appointment as TV Director for Formula One Management (FOM), he still managed to squeeze in some seasons in the Volkswagen Racing Cup (20032005) and, in 2008, a season in the Dunlop Sportmaxx Cup. Then, between 2008-2010, he entered the European Time Attack series. Despite all this experience, Shaun reckons that the BTCC represents a big step up from club racing, although the potential rewards make all the effort worthwhile. Particularly, as he explains, because it also makes good business sense. “AmDMilltekRacing.com was started to create a racing team

that would promote both the AmD performance tuning and Milltek performance exhaust brands through motorsport,” Shaun says. “The obvious championship choice was the BTCC, which has huge fan-base and worldwide television coverage. There really isn’t any other form of motorsport that could be so closely associated with the performance tuning market. “The three key areas we had to achieve were as follows,” Shaun continues. “Firstly, a professional, presentable, newsworthy car, something I think we have achieved with our BTCC VW Golf. Secondly, a professional team in terms of personnel and our truck; this is an area I’m particularly proud to have got right. “Lastly, we’ve had to ensure that the car is constantly improving and running at its maximum performance. The BTCC is an extremely competitive championship, so we’re proud to be gradually pushing closer to our midfield target. It’s always important to remember that we are the only independent team in the championship to also build our own car.”

much. Anyway, turn in and get back on the throttle. At the moment the steering feels a little vague, a consequence of the slicks not yet being warmed through. The fact that they’re not relaying much feedback for the moment becomes very apparent through Sear Corner; down Revett Straight they really let me know that they’re cold and unscrubbed, doing what all cold, hard slicks do, which is to weave in a straight line. I relax my hands on the wheel and just let them get on with things, but despite doing this sort of thing many times before, it remains slightly unnerving. With great circumspection I brake and turn in at the Esses; I give the brakes and throttle similar respect through the Bombhole, Coram Curve and Russell Bend. By now I reckon that the brakes, tyres and engine are up to a decent operating temperature so decide to up the ante a little, only to see Shaun hanging off the pitwall gesturing for me to slow down! I guess the sight of my progress down Coram

must have looked scarily rapid to someone already on edge, even though from my vantage point there’s no sign of drama at all. Actually, I’m feeling exceptionally confident with what the Golf is telling me, so I steam into Riches and beyond. Subsequent laps impress further. The Golf feels light – it isn’t, minimum weight including driver is 1170kg – and clearly has a very low centre of gravity. The engine is all about the top end. There’s diddly squat below 6000rpm, but then the sweet spot runs from there all the way through to the 8500rpm limiter; even then, though, it’s not what you might call ‘mighty’. In the first issue of TrackDriver I tested a VW Scirocco R race car that in non-tuned

form gave 270bhp; the normally aspirated but highly tuned 2.0-litre motor in this Golf makes 260bhp. So, intriguingly, a BTCC racer is less powerful than a production-spec competition car.

Those who follow the BTCC will know that Shaun’s Golf isn’t exactly troubling the front-runners and yet, in isolation, it feels as though it could win anything it entered. However, a glance at the test data shows the Golf is well

Still, some well-picked ratios ensure that most of the time the engine stays ‘in the zone’. The way the sequential ’box functions with its quick-shifter is brilliant, and while the brake pedal travel is a tad long, full-on retardation is awesome. Everything about this car is fantastically well honed. Admittedly I’m not here to put in qualifying-style laps, and yet I’m able to push the Golf hard enough to get a thorough sense of its behaviour. It understeers a tad, but the rear end is very faithful and well tied down. Traction is impressive, too, the (adjustable) plate diff doing an excellent job of finding grip without nudging the car off your chosen line or snatching at the wheel.

down on top speed compared with its rivals, and off the pace exiting some of the corners. Blame its power deficit; the Golf’s braking distances and midcorner speeds are right up there with the best of them. An extra 40bhp or so would make all the difference; we’ll find out for sure next year when Shaun’s allowed to install a different engine. All too soon the crew is hanging the ‘In’ sign over the pit wall; but I’m nowhere near finished with it! Never did like that Shaun Hollamby bloke… Driving home afterwards, I’m left thinking about costs and commitment required to take the leap from club racer to full-blown privateer in a premier championship such as the BTCC. I’ve spent the day – when not

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enjoying myself in the Golf – asking Shaun stacks of questions about the insider facts and figures, because I find them fascinating. I’m guessing that you do, too – best you turn to Part Two to discover the answers ■

Opposite: Hollamby debriefs Hayman Top: Hayman plays at being a pro Above: Hollamby gets a shove

Pictures: Owen Brown/Russ H

With equipment and membership costs, joining the BTCC’s club means digging deep… We find out precisely how deep

et’s not beat about the bush, competing in the British Touring Car Championship is bloody expensive, at least for a privateer. But just how expensive is expensive? Shaun Hollamby prefers not to use the word; it’s all relative in his opinion. In fact, he even tells us that in the BTCC “the entry fees are good value when you consider what you get.” That still doesn’t answer the question of what you’re in for if you happen to be a privateer entering the championship and building a car

basically from scratch. So? Well, Shaun’s Golf is an ex-Baltic Touring Car, purchased from the official VW importer for Estonia: it was at the end of its first flush of life and needed a major refresh. In racing terms, a basket case, yet it had a good seam-welded shell complete with a Custom Cages T45 FIA cage, and an engine that seemed likely to respond well to some TLC. A similar car would cost you around £35K, which doesn’t sound all that bad until you learn about development costs and the price of

some of the required support parts. An engine re-fresh is in the region of £20K. AmD’s Golf runs with a normally aspirated 2.0-litre 16v unit that was originally prepared by Lehmann in Liechtenstein when running in Baltic Touring Cars. During its recent rebuild the engine was treated to in-house ECU mapping along with a replacement bespoke Milltek exhaust and headers (thin-wall stainless with a reduced bore to aid torque), Motec ignition and Pipercross filter. It now produces 260bhp and

245lb ft – getting on for a hundred quid per horse when the parts and mapping are included, more if the engine’s actual value is also put into the equation. Some of the Golf’s upgrades are easier on the pocket. The car’s original VW front uprights were binned in favour of a pair of modified Audi S3 units. Meanwhile the front subframe was also modified to raise the engine 10mm – this was to improve the angle of the driveshafts, which previously had been suffering stress failures. Another driveshaft modification was to change the bolts securing the universal joints for some of a higher tensile strength – earlier bolts were stretching under load, contributing to the number of driveshaft failures. To this point the upgrades to the Golf don’t seem a million miles removed from what many club racers do to their cars, but the rear subframe needed modifications, too… It was strengthened and raised in order to work with bespoke trailing arms, designed specially to enable more toe and camber adjustment for the rear wheels. If you’re wondering why so much needed to be done to an already proven race car, Shaun has an entertainingly blunt answer: “This Golf, as it was, was the worst handling racing car I’ve ever driven!” Contributing to his dissatisfaction with its behaviour was the flex in the steering column: so bad was it that during the weaving that the pros do to put heat in the slicks, the Golf would still be pointing in the wrong direction for several moments after Shaun turned the steering wheel. Unsurprisingly, the steering column was also subject to extensive strengthening work.

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Weight reduction was another AmD goal and the team was able to lose 50kg and still be well within the BTCC minimum of 1170kg including driver. The glass windscreen was swapped for a polycarbonate version, while a lightweight Lithium battery trimmed 8kg from the car and £1000 + VAT from AmD’s budget. With weight and handling issues attended to, the team turned its attention to reliability. The cure for the driveshafts failing we’ve mentioned already, but another critical area was the electrics: during the initial rebuild AmD

replaced about 80% of the wiring loom, then when another part failed during a qualifying session, the team binned the rest, too. That was a costly decision as a bespoke wiring loom for an application of this type is the best part of £5-6K. Reliability issues from an unexpected quarter also required a costly remedy – the Golf’s original BBS alloys wheels were prone to bending and a set of 24 replacement rims from Team Dynamics set AmD back £3384. To that, add tyres. At £800 + VAT, a set of four Dunlop control slicks seems fair value. And it is, except that for each race meeting you’ll need one and a half sets, plus some for testing. The reality is that you’ll need about £15K minimum in your tyre budget per season. The Golf’s Carbon-Metallic brake pads are pretty durable, with a life of one to two meetings; the Alcon 332mm discs might last fractionally longer. But then, that’s the price you pay for awesome stopping power. The calipers have already been back to Alcon for a refresh, so when you bear in mind the Golf is only halfway through the season and with only one test day under its wheels, you can see that a BTCC race car really isn’t light on its components. Let’s have a look at some of the other overheads. A season’s entry fee is £17,625 once you’ve added the VAT. And this is the bit that Shaun believes is reasonable value; you just have to think about how much it would cost you to advertise on prime time TV to a global audience. Top left: Team Dynamics wheels better quality than Golf’s original rims. Above: Dunlop control tyres are good value, but will still cost about £15K for the season. Left: Alcon discs

Even so, expenditure is getting bigger now. Which leads me to gear ratios… At the start of the season each team has to select just 20 gear ratios they’ll use during the year, and once that selection is made you’re stuck with them. That’s all well and good if you’ve run a car the season before so have a pile of data to aid your selection process: Shaun and his team, being both new to the championship and running a car that nobody else had experience of, could only make an educated guess. Getting it wrong means having inappropriate ratios to race with. And because they are ‘control’ parts, you can’t really sell them on if they aren’t right. Which is a shame, because at £5K + VAT for your set of 20 ratios, it’s a substantial investment. I’d love to tell you all about the rather special KW shock absorbers: but I can’t. What I can say is that they feature a clever internal pre-load spring, so up to a point the dampers behave much like active suspension does, keeping all four wheels on the deck. James Thompson’s WTCC Alfa Romeo ran these development dampers a few years ago with astounding success, and Shaun reckons their installation has been by far the biggest leap forward to date for the Golf’s development. BTCC rules state that cars’ bodywork must be close to production, although there is some flexibility with certain areas. The front bumper of the Golf, for instance, is heavily modified to incorporate a front splitter and bigger brake cooling inlet ducts: rear wheel arch extensions have subtle aerodynamic qualities. However, everything is moulded in good oldfashioned GRP, as carbon panels aren’t permissible. The whole car is beautifully finished inside and out, and the attention to detail makes the Golf special to look at, let alone drive. A round of applause, then, to a couple of key characters in the team. Firstly, the build was down to

Top left: pedal box built for function yet also a thing of structural beauty. Below: pre-owned Golf has seamwelded shell and full cage. Bottom: AmD team mulls over Hayman’s Snetterton on-track data

Chris Tweed, previously Race Director at VW, and who has also run a Lamborghini for a GT team and a Porsche for an LMS outfit. The race engineer who looks after the Golf at BTCC meetings is Stuart Beaton, exrace engine for Team Dynamics. And, of course, this pair is supported by a highly professional and dynamic team. All this costs. Costs large. If you were contemplating becoming the second privateer team to build then run your own car in the BTCC, you’ll need to dig deep – bargain on about £150K for buying and then building your car, and a further £250K to run it for the season. This type of financial commitment may explain why, to date, Shaun Hollamby is the only driver who has managed to move up to the BTCC from the Dunlop Sportsmaxx feeder series. Well done, that man! ■

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COACHING CORNER with Mark Hales

Pictures: Owen Brown/Peter Robain/Jakob Ebrey/Paul Harmer began in issue one of Coaching Corner with an overview of the coach’s task. I also promised some individual case studies and I will get to those. First I’d like to add a little more generality. In the first of these features I suggested that the mental aspect of the driver’s art is almost more important than the physical part and it is easy to assume that this applies mainly to racecraft. The decision where to place the car, when to attack, how to wrong-foot an opponent, all of it done with the spare capacity that comes with the calm of experience. Now, it’s certainly true that the mind has everything to do with racecraft, but the calm of experience that allows you to do it… That too is a mental thing and, like racecraft, it is not something that can be hoovered up as a whole; you have to do it bit by bit. You have to start with the basics, the most basic of which is the way the driver handles the car. I’ve heard the comment so many times when someone has just climbed out of a car driven by a professional: “He made it look so easy.” And they’ll say, “He was so smooth.” It was something Jackie Stewart tried to impart with his Formula Finesse

courses many years back. Stewart was nothing if not a thinking driver and he had a large bowl fitted to the bonnet of a contemporary Ford in which was placed a tennis ball. The trick was to

‘

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quickly, but progressively. There are the obvious ingredients in the driving process, like steering, braking, gearshifting, accelerating, but how you handle the car is an important first step. It is so important to realise that what you do with one, always has an effect on the others. They are all part of an integrated process, so the way in which you blend them is vital. To study them though, we will first have to look at them individually, then co-ordinate them later. Steering is the first and most important and you can conduct a little experiment to prove it to yourself. Find a deserted car park or area of smooth tarmac where there’s nothing to hit and no kerbs, preferably with a wet surface to save the machinery a bit. Drive along at 30mph and knock the car into neutral. Then wind the wheel as fast as you can. It depends on the car but it is almost certain that it will head straight on, losing speed, then after a few yards will reluctantly start to turn. Now repeat the exercise and instead of frantically piling on the lock, just ease the wheel as if you were turning into your drive. The car will dive in the direction you point it with an alacrity so far removed from the time before that you might

’

He made it look so easy

drive round the circuit without losing the tennis ball. Stewart could do it at near racing speeds and the ball would roll to the rim in every plane but wouldn’t fly out because he never hit any of the controls. He moved them

have fitted a different set of tyres. The difference is startling. This is something that almost every driver with any interest in the process knows only too well. But it is also true that half of them will use the former technique rather than the latter and it is because the thought processes are running more slowly than the events unfolding beneath the wheels, and the driver is trying to catch up. Steering is something that we will deal with in greater depth later in this series, but for the moment just think about the effects of the little demonstration and practice easing the wheel rather than jerking it. You should also be looking ahead up the road, rather than staring at the piece in front of you. This will feed the brain with information as to the nature of the corner and then it won’t come as a surprise. It will also feed the tyres with information, something that is fantastically important. Next is braking, which you also can research in the car park. But before you do, consider what happens when you press that middle pedal. The car is travelling forwards (hopefully) so when you retard the wheels, the weight goes forwards. More weight is effectively added to the front and this gives the front tyres more to deal with. But because the actual weight of the car hasn’t altered during the manoeuvre – it’s only the distribution – the effective amount that has been added to the front has to come from somewhere and it’s the rear. The rear tyres then have less to press them to the road. Attentive readers will already have

spotted that this is something of a metal container filled with annelids, because if adding weight to the front tyres is a bad thing, then surely reducing weight at the rear is good because it gives the tyres less to do. That is true, but less load when braking also makes them more likely to lock which is critical. Conversely, more load at the front won’t necessarily lock the front wheels, but it gives a tyre more to do when asked to steer the car. Consider an extreme in the form of an early Porsche 911. Everybody knows these can be tricky and that the classic accident is in a tightening corner where the driver either lifts off or brakes and the car goes backwards through the nearest hedge. But… the 911’s basic handling characteristic is understeer. If you try the car park trick in one, it will resolutely go straight on when you pile on the lock. The exit backwards from the tightening corner happens because you reduce the load on the rear tyres and there’s a big lump of weight in the form of the engine and gearbox ready to take advantage. You attentive folk might now also point out that this is confusing. Surely, if you take some of the weight off the rear, you reduce the mass in the tail which is the 911’s defining quirk and which causes the problem in the first place. True, and it’s a trick that 911 experts learn to do. The real point in any of these examples is that it’s not the fact that you have applied the brakes in the first place that matters, it’s the way you apply them and at what point in the cornering process. Braking is the most difficult thing to do well in any car and yet another thing to be dealt with in greater depth. But for the moment, practice squeezing rather than stamping on them. Imagine there’s a fried egg on the pedal that you don’t want to burst. Any weight transfer that results from this and the way it makes itself felt via the layout and suspension geometry of the particular car will then happen more progressively and you stand a better chance of dealing with it. Which leaves gearchanging. Like the braking system, a modern transmission is now so vastly better than it was even 20 years ago that using it is less of an essential driving skill. I sat next to James Thompson in the works Astra Touring Car and watched his left foot stay firmly rooted to the middle pedal while his hand just prodded the gearlever. No blip of the throttle, no dip of the clutch. Thompson was very smooth and very

impressive but technology had saved him a job. For those of us without access to a sequential dog ’box, though (and one where the gaps between the ratios amount to a couple of hundred rpm), shifting ratios still demands a little consideration. You can stand on a corner at any trackday and listen to the yelp from the rear tyres as people drop their foot from the clutch after a downshift, followed by a rasp from the engine as it’s dragged towards maximum rpm. This involves a transmission that will eventually break if they keep doing it. Meanwhile the yelp indicates that the rears are locking which is akin to yanking on the handbrake. In fact, all the same problems you get when braking too savagely. Sit in the car

with these people and you’ll probably see them grip the lever like a vice and use enormous force to ram it home. I’ve also heard them mutter about a crap gearchange, whereas in reality it was because their arms were so tense with the effort that they rammed the lever in the wrong slot. Modern shifts are, in general, very light and positive and most have a spring bias to guide the lever. Shift with fingertips and you won’t get the wrong hole because the box will do the work for you. Learn to heel and toe so that the revs will be matched and the tyres won’t protest, but if you can’t – or the car needs some modification to suit your dainty plates – just be more

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considered about the shift. The time you take to do all this nicely will be more than compensated by the speed that comes from a settled car and an early application of power. Now, having already said that you will have to put all these together and make them complement each other – or even use a part of one to minimise the effect of a weakness somewhere else – the point of this little lecture is that doing everything in a considered manner reduces the effort and stress on you and the components, as well as making it easier to put it all together. And having mentioned gearshifting, I’ll introduce the first of our case studies next month when we will deal with the tricky topic of heel and toeing. It’s a vital part of the driver’s art and there was a time when a grand prix driver simply wouldn’t finish the race if he couldn’t do it properly. That’s different now of course, because the technology does it for them, but since I drive Old Motors almost exclusively now, I see it as a vital skill and so do the people who own the cars. So should you, whatever you drive ■

RACE CLUB PROFILE

SEMSEC, the South East Motor Sports Enthusiasts Club, to give it its full title, is based in the South East and primarily runs clubman’s race meetings at Lydden Hill circuit, near Canterbury, Kent.

ydden Hill also happens to be TrackDriver’s editor’s ‘local’: Mr Hayman has raced with SEMSEC on numerous occasions and remains a familiar sight at our circuit as he supports a couple of chums racing Caterhams. The main reason that Hayman and mates, together with many others, choose to race with SEMSEC can be attributed to the ethos behind the club – it’s deliberately aimed at the clubman competitor looking to race his or her car at one-day local events, on a controllable budget, with a strong and promoted familyfriendly feel, along with close yet respectful racing. At Lydden even the (well-behaved!) pet dog is welcome. A typical SEMSEC race day at Lydden Hill entails Saturday morning sign-on and scrutineering. Qualifying begins straight after lunch, although if you’re looking to make a day of things you can also opt to compete in the morning sprints. We’ll race until the end of the day and depending on your car type you should be able to squeeze in up to four rounds. Then you should be able to get home in time for a night with family or friends. The club runs two championships, although one, the Saloons and Sports Car Championship, is in fact split into two separate categories with normal practice being to run separate double-header races for each category. The SEMSEC Saloon and Sports Car Championship also features several away rounds at Brands Hatch run by other clubs, including the Classic Sports Car Club (CSCC) and MSVR. So while ‘away’ events for SEMSEC haven’t yet involved venturing beyond the borders of Kent, there are now plans afoot to visit some far-flung venues during 2011.

Words: Ken Greenfield Pictures: Steve Goodwin

Above: Paul Caller in the black Caterham is a regular with his two sons John and Matthew Below: Hayman chatting to his mate, Nigel Bent

Both the championships and challenge series have been specifically designed to allow the widest possible selection of race machinery to be used, and the class structure ensures close competition between similar vehicles – championship points are based on class results rather than overall race position. Besides the SEMSEC Open SingleSeater Championship and the SEMSEC Saloons and Sports Championship, there are several Challenge series that provide additional opportunities to get out on track. It is not uncommon for club members to participate in three or four races on any given race day. As already mentioned, the club hosts morning sprints at each of its Lydden Hill and Brand Hatch events, which are either promoted in the club’s own name or through associated clubs – Tunbridge Wells Motor Club (TWMC) and the Rochester Motor Club (RMC), for example. These associated clubs provide many of the officials for the various SEMSEC events. The sprints are all qualifying rounds in the All Circuit Sprint Championships, and many are rounds of the regional association championships of the ASEMC, AEMC and ACSMC, as well as several one-make championships, too ■

SEMSEC SEMSEC Open Single-Seater Championship for monopostos up to 2.0-litre spread across five classes – Motorcycle engined-cars, Formula Ford 1600, Formula Ford Zetec and Formula Ford 2000, Formula Renault and Formula Vauxhall. Additionally there’s a catchall class for other singleseaters, including F2 and F3. The 2010 championship is contested over ten double-headers at five events: the next two take place at Brands Hatch on September 12. Being an ‘open’ championship, members of a number of other invited clubs are encouraged to join us (BRSCC, BARC, 750MC and BRDC) subject to a small registration fee of just £10.00.

under the Kit Car category such as Caterham, Westfield and Sylva. Some classes also include a restriction on tyres to keep the racing close and competitive. These championships are usually double-headers, so at each meeting there are two separate races for both category A and B and both categories have separate overall champions.

SEMSEC also runs several other challenge series giving competitors the option of even more races during the day and there is an entry fee discount structure in place to aid this.

The SEMSEC Saloon & Sports Car Championship is, as previously mentioned, split into two categories: Category A is for production-based saloons, hatchbacks and sports cars. Classes differentiate between the cubic capacity of the engine, the tyres used and the level of modification from roadgoing to full spaceframe specials.

FORTHCOMING EVENTS SEMSEC’s next event is at Brands Hatch on Sunday, September 12, where there’s space for additional entries because the grid capacity at Brands Hatch is larger than that of our Lydden Hill base. Additionally, SEMSEC is offering joint club membership and registration for one championship or challenge series from September 1 to March 31 for just £10.00. This will allow competitors to enter either the championship or challenge events at the club’s last two meetings of the year at Brands Hatch on September 12 and at Lydden on October 26 without paying the full membership and registration fees.

The South East Sports Racing & Kit Car Challenge is very popular with competitors in Category B of the main championship, not only a third race opportunity, but also an opportunity to be awarded a trophy as the classes are structured slightly differently to the main championship. The Intermediate Kit Car Challenge is another option and caters specifically for Caterham-type vehicles up to 1.6-litre and only using 1a or 1b tyres (see regs). The day’s racing is usually concluded with the John Taylor Handicap – cars are started at different intervals, and in theory if the handicapper gets it right and the drivers drive at 10/10ths throughout their race, all the cars should arrive at the finish line 12 laps

Category B is titled the SEMSEC Sports Racing and Kit Car Championship. This has classes for all types of Sports Racing Cars; those specifically designed for one-make series such as Radical, Global-Light and prototype Kit Cars. But by far the most popular classes are those that fall

later at the same time. Of course this never quite happens, but there have been some very close and exciting finishes over the years.

FREE MEMBERSHIP FOR CLUB MARSHALS The club is always looking to attract new marshals and officials. SEMSEC marshals get a special membership deal that provides free membership to anyone who marshals during the current season. Simply marshal at one of the club’s event and complete a club membership form or complete the online membership application.

CONTACT DETAILS More details about the club together with regulations and entry forms for the club’s events are available from the SEMSEC website at www.semsec.org.uk, where you can also enter the events online. Alternatively the club secretary and competition secretary, Ken Greenfield will be pleased to answer any queries. He can be contacted any week day evening between 7.00pm and 9.00pm on 01892 652509.

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Be it a full-blown Formula 1 car or the occasional trackday projectile, the effective transport of fuel and oil is absolutely essential to optimise performance, reliability and, not least, safety

On paper, the challenges associated with fluid management within a track car seem rather trivial. Take the fuel system: install a tank, run a fuel line to the powerplant and add a complementary return – job done. However, the transport of pressurised fuel and oil in an automotive environment necessitates a more considered approach. Let’s run through the technologies available for fluid transport and how they can be applied.

Hoses We are all aware of the traditional method for passing fluids from A to B through rubber hoses attached to ancillaries by worm drive clamps. This approach has stood the test of time surprisingly well on road cars, but with superior technologies being openly available (and affordable) we have choices. Rubber hoses are vulnerable to chafing and heat damage, while worm drive clamps can vary in quality significantly: budget examples succumb to corrosion at an alarming rate. Over-tightening can easily damage both the clamp and hose, while relaxation after the first few heat cycles can potentially cause hoses to blow off – not an optimum solution for high pressure fluid systems. This is not news to the motorsport fraternity, and for decades teams such as Lotus visited the States on a regular basis to purchase surplus fluid transfer hardware from the aerospace industry. These superior solutions utilised nitrile hose designs with a stainless steel braided outer and re-usable screw-on aluminium connectors. The advantages were clear: high resistance to pressure, heat and chafing, combined with

Fluid management for the track

the ability to plumb in tight areas with secure and reusable connections. In addition, one product could accommodate the transport of fuel, oil, hydraulic fluid and coolant. Today the track driver has a wide choice of products based on the original 1960’s technology. The least expensive still utilises a seamless synthetic nitrile inner, but has both an integral stainless steel braid and high tensile outer band. Offering an impressive temperature range of -45 to 150

JIC screw connectors installed

Attention to detail pays dividends in efficiency

degrees Celsius and a 6000psi burst pressure (both parameters dependent on manufacturer and hose size), the benefits are clear. An ideal upgrade for the budget-conscious trackday driver, this hose is relatively inexpensive and is simple to install using rubber-coated steel clips. Though far superior to traditional hose, this solution has one downside: due to the aggressive nature of modern fuels, vapour slowly permeates

Unions are available for every conceivable installation

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through the nitrile wall. This is most noticeable in the form of fumes if you leave your car standing in an enclosed space for a couple of weeks. Hose manufacturers recommend this product is not used within the driver’s compartment for this very reason – obviously a potential issue on many track cars where routing through an enclosed cockpit is the optimum way to protect the fuel lines from road debris, or errant jacks missing their target and crushing your metal lines. If you do wish to run lines through the cockpit remember that if your car is destined for competition, the MSA requires non-metallic fuel lines passing through the passenger compartment to be FIA-compliant, or at the least be of the metal braided variety and connected solely with the manufacturer’s approved joints. TrackDriver has seen competitors sent home from scrutineering on the day of an event because a scrutineer has found a capillary oil gauge fed from an exposed unbraided line between the bulkhead and the back of the dashboard. Perhaps harsh, but it does happen especially if the scrutineer isn’t confident it will be fixed for the next meeting. A superior product that overcomes the vapour issue employs a PTFE inner. Being chemically inert, this material does not allow vapour to escape or moisture to be absorbed. Another benefit is an exceptionally low coefficient of friction

Oil cooler in situ with nitrile hoses

(0.01%), thus optimising fluid flow. Being inherently more rigid than nitrile, the overall diameter of PTFE hose reduces by 25% (-6 fuel hose, typically). However this rigidity also increases the bend radius by an alarming 70%. This is a significant disadvantage over nitrile, especially in confined installations. Probably the ultimate and most versatile option for track work available on the market today combines the inert and high-flow capabilities of PTFE with flexibility exceeding that of nitrile. The secret to the design is a convoluted inner that allows the PTFE core to be manipulated with a bend radius a third of that of nitrile. Available with a stainless braided or Aramid fibre braid outer (for ultimate weight saving), this is the solution favoured by many Formula 1 and Touring Car teams. Temperature and pressure performance is impressive, but this solution obviously comes with a price premium. Finally, some teams prefer solid fuel and oil lines for longer runs, accommodated in stainless or aluminium tubing. The solution is compact, robust and extremely neat, but is time-consuming to manipulate and requires specialist bending and flaring tools. It’s most commonly found in airjack applications and on rally cars. Clearly not all hoses and connectors are the same and it’s common sense to establish that what you are buying is of a quality suitable for the application. Remember also that “I’ve never had a problem” doesn’t mean that you won’t – and with fluids such as fuel and oil under pressure, a small problem can become a large one very quickly indeed. As an aside, for competition cars the MSA have introduced a requirement to fit a system into your fuel lines to allow fuel samples to be taken. These relatively inexpensive kits feature a dry break mechanism and are sold by various suppliers; again, it’s advisable to make sure you are buying a quality product.

Hose sizes Automotive hoses are measured by their internal diameter. Since the origin of braided hoses is the aerospace industry, an alternative size terminology is used: dash size. For example -2 (dash two) equates to 2/16th of an inch internal bore diameter (1/8th), -4 (dash 4) is 4/16th, and so on. Slight variances in this internal dimension can occur, however, depending on hose design. For example, a leading brand of nitrile and convoluted PTFE hose varies in internal diameter by 9%, that’s almost a 20% reduction in cross-section area. Consequently, always use hoses and connectors from the same range to ensure compatibility; figures are openly published to assist in this selection.

Dry sump system with typical complex plumbing

Keep it neat, keep it simple

Selecting the correct hose size Correct hose diameter is critical – a fuel feed from the tank is a typical example. A rule of thumb is a fuel line should be able to supply between 125% and 150% of the engine’s full power requirements at any given time. This allows for pump fluctuations, potential reduced flow due to particulates in the filter and reduction of pressure during hard acceleration. Taking this latter point, if your track car can hit 60mph from standstill in 3.5sec, your fuel line could easily experience a drop of 1psi at just the time you need it most. Another common mistake is not to allow a large enough diameter hose for fuel return. When fuel is returned to the tank it undergoes a pressure drop, resulting in any air dissolved in the fuel forming as bubbles. Ideally this needs to be dissipated in the fuel line and not culminate as foam in the tank, potentially resulting in

Clamping the hose firmly one end and providing a threaded adaptor at the other, allows connection of the fitting to compatible ancillaries. It is here that sound installation planning pays dividends, since items such as swirl pots, fuel tanks, oil coolers, etc, can be purchased with threaded male fittings to accommodate JIC connections. This approach ensures consistent installation, be it fuel or oil. Reusable fittings are available in forged or formed tube construction. The former is compact, extremely robust and recommended for use in areas of high vibration, such as engine and transmission connections or where damage may occur due to road debris. This type of fitting must be used sparingly, however: the abrupt change in direction of the bore (due to drilling during manufacture) disturbs fluid flow considerably. A typical example of the massive range of bends available to optimise a bespoke installation

• Swaged fittings: an alternative that should be undertaken by a specialist. The only real advantage with this approach is the lighter, compact nature of the design. In addition, the hoses will be pressure-tested as a matter of course prior to dispatch. • Push-on fittings: available with specific hose ranges that solely rely on barbs to hold them in situ. In basic form they are only recommended for low-pressure applications such as breathers and potentially coolant transport and have arguably limited use in motorsport. However Aeroquip’s socketless system for example is rated to 250psi working pressure with a burst of 1000psi, along with a wide temperature range. Also for those seeking the historic look a woven textile reinforcement hose is available from reputable suppliers that will satisfy a scrutineer. It can be covered in metal braid to satisfy cockpit rules ■

Swept verses forged – each has advantages and disadvantages. Always use the appropriate fitting

loss of power once re-circulated. The same principles apply to dry sump installations and external oil coolers where hose diameter must allow adequate flow, but not be so large as to drop pump pressure. Remember that the larger the hose bore the less the pressure drop, the only constraints being cost, and additional bulk and weight. A good starting point for hose size is listed below, but please check your powerplant’s requirements before final installation -3 -4 -6 -8 -10 -12

Braided brake hoses Hydraulic clutch feed, turbocharger oil lines Fuel for small capacity engines (up to 2.0-litre) Fuel for larger capacity engines Oil feeds for small capacity engines (up to 2.0-litre) Oil feeds for larger capacity engines

Hose fittings Every hose variant has a matching set of fittings offered in varying angles, sizes, materials, etc. The list is almost endless, but three main designs exist: • Reusable hose fittings: generally produced from anodised aluminium (red and blue are common) and can be assembled in your garage with no specialist tools. However, using a viscous lubricant (such as machine oil) is essential to avoid cross-threading during assembly.

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A final word about JIC As with the hoses, fittings are dash notated to identify compatibility. However, they are also described as JIC fittings. This relates to the ‘Joint Industry Council’, a body that has tried to standardise the industry globally. JIC fittings are easily identifiable by the male and female portions mating with a 37 degrees cone, clearly visible from the adjoining pictures ■

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Mr Big Healey The Official Biography of John Chatham Author: Norman Burr

David Vizard’s How to Build Horsepower

Something of a bible this one, which has been updated for 2010. Lots of useful tips and calculations for those trying to squeeze another few bhp, or just trying to understand how it’s done. It’s all in there, along with some debunking of common myths.

During a career spanning 40 years, garage proprietor John Chatham raced all over the world, most famously with his Austin Healey DD300 that became probably the best known of all Healeys. He rallied and raced in Modsports, trials and autocrosses, and at venues including Sebring, Le Mans and the Nürburgring with pretty much everything in between. An entertaining account of one of motorsport’s great characters.

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All New Edition Author: David Vizard

Speedpro Series

Secrets of Speed Author: Nicholas Swager Ignore the title as this book is really a useful ‘how and why’ for blueprinting your engine. You probably won’t find another 50bhp, but you will certainly learn something to make it more reliable and there’s a good deal of genuinely new information even for those who have built a number of engines before. Veloce Publishing www.veloce.co.uk ISBN: 9781845842970 Price: £19.99

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From the one-off Elva model sprang a raft of successful derivatives, all of which are documented here and includes McLaren, Maserati, BMW and Porsche variants, with some technical detail on each. The book’s 160 pages reproduce contemporary reports on cars that were well ahead of their time. Brooklands Books www.brooklandsbooks.com ISBN: 9781855208971 Price: £19.95

The Birth of Formula One Covering the years 1950 through 1954 and featuring Maserati, Cooper and Mercedes as they mounted a challenge to the established order. Fangio, Farina, Fagioli, Parnell, Ascari, Gonzales, Moss and Hawthorn all star, along with footage from the early Nürburgring races. Lots of black and white footage and a little over 70 minutes in length. Duke Video www.dukevideo.com Price: £16.99

BOOKS & DVDs TrackDriver Recommends

The 1000 Lakes Rally, 1985 to 1991

Can-Am Thunder

Three and a half hours of the most inspiring, entertaining and occasionally poignant action from a dramatic era of rallying, during which the Finnish forests and gravel tracks were tamed by legends: Alen, Salonen, Blomqvist, Mikkola, Toivonen, Wilson, Biasion, Auriol, Sainz and Kankkunen. Starting with the mind-blowing Group B missiles, there’s coverage of all the iconic cars from the era from the Lancia 037 and Delta S4, Peugeot 205 T-16 and Metro 6R4, through to the Subarus and Mitsubishis that would come to dominate the sport. Watch out, too, for a fresh-faced youngster called Tommi Mäkinen who pops up in 1991… Absolutely superb.

Mention Can-Am to motorsport people of a certain age and an hour later you’ll still be listening to their wistful reminiscences of how fabulous these cars were – this excellent two and a half hour documentary illustrates why. The giants of Can-Am boasted more than 1000bhp and reached speeds of well over 200mph. And all 40 years ago, before the widespread use of computers or wind tunnels. The results were thunderous in the true sense of the word, and it becomes clear in this DVD why Can-Am developed the fan base it did – awesome cars tamed by top-line drivers.

Duke Video www.dukevideo.com Price: £16.99

European Touring Car Championship 1984/85/86/88 Touring Car Fans will love this festival of 80’s door-handling. All the greats are here from Klaus Ludwig to Steve Soper and Roberto Ravaglia, through to Martin Brundle and Win Percy. Stonking footage of two-wheeling Volvo turbos and Rover SD1s leads on to the arrival of the BMW E30 M3 and the Sierra RS Cosworth, with enough long-forgotten footage to please anyone interested in tin-top racing. Duke Video www.dukevideo.com Price: £14.99 each

Isle of Man TT On Bike Laps 2010 Volumes I, II & III If ever you needed evidence that these riders are a sandwich short of a picnic this is it. A humbling, horrifying and fixating way to spend a few hours, with laps from Klaus Klaffenbock, Bruce Anstey, Keith Amor, Cameron Donald, Ian Hutchinson, Michael Dunlop, John McGuinness and Guy Martin. This includes the fastest ever recorded lap on the TT, set by McGuinness. Unbelievable in more than a few places. Each DVD lasts just over an hour.

Duke Video www.dukevideo.com Price: £9.99 Each

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Photographer: Jamie Peters Ennis

Mazda RX-7 Thundersaloon Stacy Vickers

“A successful test is one that finds a failure.” Or so goes the quote. So by that measure at least, our first outing at Thruxton was a raging success. It wasn’t all plain sailing. During the mapping under boost we blew the water hose from the turbo, which gave us cause for concern, but as it didn’t happen again we left it be and rolled up to the circuit on Sunday morning for its first outing on tarmac. The peak power was more than we’d hoped for, and coupled with a quick-spooling turbo and a decent map, the delivery was nothing like as brutal as I was expecting. However, it was still brutal. We had touched a surprising 500bhp+, which on a 930kg car makes it interesting, believe me, especially on our existing narrow rims… Leaving the collecting area on the new slicks had the wheels spinning immediately; a quick grab for second and the wheels were still spinning. In fact, there was a serious danger of sliding the rear onto the grass and the barriers before I’d even got onto the circuit proper. Once underway and at speed, things didn’t get any better. Under full power in any gear she would reach up and head-butt the horizon. If there was a hint of understeer you could use the throttle to rotate the car. In any gear.

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When you’d opened your eyes again and sworn profusely, it was time to slow down. I rued the decision to leave in the wet weather pads, a legacy of the old series’ control tyres locking up when we installed the full race discs and callipers. On the new rubber at the new speeds, it didn’t take long for the pads to struggle dissipating all that newfound energy and I would routinely find I should have been braking much harder, much earlier. Then there was the gearing. After much time playing around with mathematics, I confidently ordered my final drive for the Atlas axle – I’m proud to say you’d really have to work at it to get it more wrong. I was out of revs in top gear on the exit kerb of Church corner with the long climb of Woodham Hill in front of me. Beautiful. Finally, the gearbox had been getting more and more vague. We were still running a Quaife Type 9 dog ’box (TrackDriver Issue 1) and I was losing the shift movement fast. It really didn’t look likely that we were going to survive qualifying and the race, let alone make it for a second outing. After four laps I spotted moisture on the windscreen; experience has told me this is rarely good news on a blazing hot day. Sure enough, I cruised in and found the turbo water hose had

blown off once more. Back in the paddock we refitted the water hose, refilled the coolant and bled the system. There wasn’t a great deal else that could be done with our other problems, but a timesheet credited us with 5th place on the grid, which was something of a surprise to us all. The race was sadly short-lived: the engine boiled and refused to cool down, and after a lap or two of entertainment with a Sierra Cosworth and a Nissan Primera Supertourer, I retired the car for a full inspection. Back at base the news was mixed. The bad news was that the engine was history. It had become too hot and the housings were damaged beyond repair. The power was great while it lasted, but ‘qualifying’ engines are toys too rich for my blood. Now That’s What I Call Disappointment and all that, but reliability has an appeal all of its own. The good news is that we think we know what we should be doing; firstly rebuild the engine with tighter tolerances, as indications were that the water hose issues were rooted in blowby of the water seals on unmachined plates and it had been happening for some time. That in turn led to an airlock that lunched the engine, so we have now also found a more effective way of bleeding the system.

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The pads are an easy fix, and a quick call provided me with the right diff ratio. We’ve ordered a complete set of new engine parts from Colin at Silverstone Autosports in Cheshire, machined, dowelled and ready for assembly. We’ve got to port it first, of course, and will be having a stab at a full bridge port with a view to getting back out for a Classic Thunder round later this year. Here’s hoping. The final piece of good news surrounded the gearbox. A quick strip revealed that it was a detent screw that had unwound rather than any internal failure. It turns out there is issue in the gearbox in that the screw is too long – wind it all the way in and you have no gears. When loose, it has a tendency to unwind, which gearbox builders fix with some Loctite as there’s nothing to securely lock-wire to. On this occasion that wasn’t enough, so a smart peening across the face and case solved the problem. A longer-term

gearbox is the topic of a number of discussions at the moment, but in the meantime I’m thinking of running a sweepstake on the length of time a gearbox rated to 250bhp will last… Finally, Gummi at Race Technology has kindly sent over a DL1 logging system to install. I’ve been a great fan of data-logging since I first used it in 2002 when I installed a very basic (for modern times) Astratech eight-channel system. However, in late 2008 I purchased an all-singing, all-dancing system advertised in numerous places and, despite being of the computing persuasion, never got it to successfully log a lap and tell me something useful. That still smarts, I can tell you. During the decision-making process back then we came to the conclusion that the GPS-based units were not going to be serious enough to be of use in competition, but over a year on and with a chunk of money down the drain, we’re coming around

to the idea of simplicity… I’ve tried the system in our test Mazda MPS (see elsewhere) and it took the grand total of 10 minutes to successfully install and start logging. See the next issue of TrackDriver for how I get on with it in the race car ■

SPECIFICATION Make: Model: Year: Engine: Fuelling: Gearbox: Tyres: Weight: Power: Value:

Mazda RX-7 (FB – Gen 1) 1985 13B Rotary Bridge Port 1308cc Fuel Injection Five-speed, manual Dunlop Slicks/Wets 930kg 500bhp+ I’ll never sell it

www.easytrack.co.uk Photographer: Brett Fraser

Lotus Elise S1 Brett Fraser

The proceeds from the sale of my 2002 MINI Cooper S were originally intended to become a Porsche Boxster 3.2 S, were momentarily distracted by a mint Citroën 2CV, nearly turned into a Ford Puma Racing and then an Audi TT 225bhp, but finally settled in the pocket of a grateful US airman who was imminently being shipped back home and needed to dispose of his 2000 Lotus Elise S1. The Lotus wasn’t originally on my radar because I’ve already owned one; enjoyed the highs, been slapped about by the lows. People often say you shouldn’t look back and should move on to something new, but I found myself inexorably drawn towards the ‘used Elise S1’ tab on my favourite Internet classifieds, the lure of high connectivity driving too strong to resist. Distressingly, though, the prices of S1s are on a mighty bounce-back right now, having plunged – equally distressingly – around the time I sold my last one. Specialists are snapping up low-mileage examples, refurbishing the cabins, then assembling a big set of numbers to stick in the windscreen: this, in turn, leads some private sellers to have unrealistic expectations about what their cars are worth. Luckily my American friend needed out of his Elise in a hurry, so we agreed a reasonable fee for his 52,000-mile example. I hadn’t really wanted one in such a dull shade – my previous S1 was yellow and another one that colour, or red, was what I was looking for – but the sheaf of invoices for the work done on this car swung the deal. From my own, sometimes bitter, experience, I know that lots of stuff goes wrong or needs fixing on an S1; according to the invoices, most of those things have been done in recent-ish

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times. The cam-belt and head gasket service, for instance, new front and rear dampers, replacement front wheel bearings, new battery, fresh rear tyres, replacement headlight… the list goes on. I’m rather hoping that I therefore won’t need to do much maintenance to the car in the near future, although I’m not counting on it. Of course, buying the Elise has guaranteed a premature end to the summer, which in turn has highlighted an area for additional expenditure – the hood, which offers the water-repellence of loo roll. Real men, I realise, don’t care about a half-inch of water sloshing around the footwells, but pansyhearted me is on the lookout for a replacement roof. EliseParts reckons to have a hood that’s plusher than the OE example and is better at keeping out the rain where it meets with the side windows, so a visit to the specialist’s Kimbolton headquarters is on the cards in the next couple of weeks. Another area for immediate attention is the tyres. There may be new Pirelli boots on the rear, but the front end appears to be wearing the original footwear. All the way around the shoulders the rubber seems to have dried out and cracked, and although (frustratingly) I haven’t yet had a chance to see if that really does

SPECIFICATION Make: Model: Year: Engine: BHP: Fuelling: Gearbox: Brakes: Tyres:

Wheels: Weight: Value:

Lotus Elise 2000 1796cc in-line four 16 valves 118 @ 5500rpm Multi-point injection MEMS 1.9 management Five-speed, manual transaxle Ventilated 283mm discs all-round Pirelli P6000 185/55 R15 front 225/45 R16 rear 5.5J x 15" front 7.5 x 16" rear 974kg £8000 (approx)

make any difference to the roadholding, it doesn’t seem likely that it’s going to help very much. While my plan is to take in a couple of trackdays before the winter settles in, most of my driving will be on the road, which has a bearing on where I turn for replacement tyres. Toyo Proxes T1-Rs seem to have a good reputation and are nicely priced. However, Yokohama Advan Neovas appear to be the most popular choice for the mix of driving I expect to do – hopefully by my next report on the Elise I should have a set fitted. Unless you’ve bought new and ticked all the options boxes, chances are you’ll think of a hundred and one things you’d like to do to your Elise, however brilliantly you reckon it drives in standard form. Already I’m mulling a few possibilities. Not long before I parted

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Photographer: Jakob Ebrey

Ford Falcon Sprint Mark Hales I realise that my presence in anything entitled ‘Team Cars’ is a bit of a fraud, because I don’t actually own one, or at least not a race model. And therein lies a problem because it’s been a bit quiet of late. There was the three-hour with my previous S1 I had it fitted with Lotus’s own sports suspension. It lowered the car which helped reduce body roll, and although the stiffer dampers took away some of the suspension’s wonderful suppleness, the trade-off was superior body control during high-speed compressions and sharp direction changes. When the guys at the Lotus factory motorsport operation did the setup they set the adjustable (front) anti-roll bar to its most extreme; this made the nose playfully pointy on the track, but caused it to tramline wickedly and react severely to cambers out on the open road. Never got the time to calm the anti-roll bar’s effect before flogging the car, so now I’m wondering if I should go down the same path again, only follow it right through to the end. A brake upgrade is also in the back of my mind, although at this stage isn’t essential. Same goes for a sports exhaust; I’d like one more for the aural

character it’ll add to the K-series’ humdrum engine note than for any performance gains it might offer. As yet I’m really not interested in power upgrades as I’d prefer to learn how to drive the Elise properly before getting into that game. I remember riding shotgun in a 115,000-mile standard S1 development hack during a trackday at Le Mans, factory development engineer Matt Becker at the wheel, and overtaking a V8-engined Donkervoort around one of the big corners, while going sideways… Learn to drive your car before fiddling with it, is the proverbial advice from Hethel, and young master Becker provided a masterclass of that ethos at Le Mans. Can’t see myself emulating a fraction of Becker’s talent in this lifetime – old dog, new tricks, etc – but I am hoping that a few track outings will give me a greater understanding of my Elise’s abilities. Even if I learn nothing more, I know I’m going to have fun ■

www.easytrack.co.uk Guard’s Trophy at Snetterton, which is an embarrassing story of incompetence which will wait for another day so, other than Croft in the Chevron GR8 chronicled elsewhere in this issue, I haven’t spent many weekends at a track this year. Jon has called a temporary halt to anything with the TVR or Crossle because business has dictated he spend more time on an aeroplane above the Atlantic than the dusty expanses of any former airfield. We did have an entry for the Griffith at the Silverstone Classic and I was very much looking forward to irritating the establishment again, especially those who keep braying about how a TVR shouldn’t be anywhere near a Cobra. Presumably they feel the same way about the E-types that have suddenly

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found an extra turn of speed, but you never know. Sometimes I think it’s a class thing. Then there was the Aston Martinpowered Lola T70, owned by an American and recently restored to full health by Fox Motorsport in the UK. I was down to drive that at the Classic, too, and a few laps at a press day suggested it might be quite good once the new car niggles were sorted out – not least the installation for the big Aston V8 which is not exactly commonplace in these cars. The owner didn’t agree about any testing though, citing the fact he had sorted his Osella in a couple of hours, so that was shelved, as was a second T70. A Chevrolet-powered Mk3B this time, and a famous one, it too had just been

restored and hadn’t turned a wheel since it was crashed at the Nürburgring in 1967. Just writing those words brings a real sense of the history involved with these cars but any of them need more than a morning at Mallory to make race-ready and with a week to go that too had reluctantly to be scratched. Until I tried, I’d forgotten just how difficult it is to find unsilenced testing in the UK. We had better enjoy what little there is while we can because I fear soon there won’t be any. Compensation was a run in a McLaren M8E 8.7-litre Can Am on the Thursday before the Classic weekend when I must have been asked two dozen times how many cars I would be driving… The answer came through gritted teeth, but then the phone rang.

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It was Ben, the uplifting individual who has not only made an astonishing recovery from a hideous bout of throat cancer but continuously describes himself as “having been so lucky…” His idea of physiotherapy was to buy a Ford Falcon race car as a form of antidepressant and he has since learnt to drive it extremely well. Spending time around people like him makes you realise that whatever problems you think you have, some people have worse ones. Uplifting, as I said. Generous too. Would I like to drive the Falcon in Sunday’s Big-Engined Saloon Car encounter? To which offer was subsequently added Saturday’s race as well. Ben’s healthy disregard for authority remains undiminished by any brush with the Grim One, and what might have once been an innocent prank late on Friday night had him before The Beak early on Saturday, followed by exclusion from the meeting. Ben took it on the chin and promptly called me. Ben’s Falcon is a lovely, tidy, original car. Not a hot rod like some, it has a good engine (just over 400bhp) and a set of stiffer springs, plus some tougher brake pads, but it’s otherwise pretty standard. In which case 8th on the grid was probably predictable, but still slightly disappointing. That became 3rd after two corners in the race when

the inevitable bumping and banging shunted some of the hot rods out of the way, and I thought a top six finish might just be on. That was until I got to Beckett’s and a hefty bang from behind turned me left instead of right. I kept the engine running like you should but

most of the field streamed by before I got back on and I eventually finished 10th, which became 9th when one of the banger racers was excluded. The car was fun, but it had far, far too much oversteer, even for something that weighs 2500lb and runs on 5½in rims.

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I went to find my aggressor afterwards, a tall, charming chap who I know pretty well. “I think, Mark, that to be fair, it was 50-50…” he offered, staring intently at his shoes. I pointed out that his extreme front right corner had made solid contact with my

extreme left rear and that I had gone off smartly left where Becketts is a right-hander. His shortcut across the grass might have had something to do with it… “Err, well, it wasn’t deliberate. And I apologise.” We shook hands and that was that. Meanwhile, Kim, who tends the Falcon, had discovered the slipper in the differential was slipping, not gripping. Kim also looks after former Touring Car expert Patrick Watts’ Mustang that had also been taken out of race one, and had then suffered a blown head gasket. Patrick generously offered us the loan of his diff, and come Sunday’s race the Falcon was much better and I soon made my way from 9th to 4th to sit behind the day before’s nemesis. The car’s owner was now aboard but it would still have been tempting, especially as I really fancied a podium now. For a while I thought it was on: I got alongside at Priory, then again at Copse, but he was driving well, and to make sure of the pass would have risked contact. Maybe if it had been my car… In the ensuing struggle I left myself open to attack from a determined Mustang that promptly pounced. Before I could retaliate, the Falcon lost a cylinder and I had to settle for 5th with third fastest lap. A valve rocker had come loose and the pushrod had jumped out but trying to

SPECIFICATION Make: Model: Year: Engine: BHP: Fuelling: Gearbox: Brakes: Tyres: Wheels: Weight: Value:

Ford Falcon Sprint 1964 4727cc (289 cu in) pushrod Ford V8 410 Four-barrel Carter carburettor Borg-Warner T10, four-speed Front, ventilated discs Rear, drums Dunlop CR65 M-section treaded historic Minilite replica, 5.5 x 15" front and rear approx 1200kg currently approx £70,000

manage the mass and get it to work with me rather than against while not overdriving the car had been enormous fun. Ben has decided to carry out a bit more development, so we might still get a chance to settle a score or two. Politely, of course, and I’ll keep an eye on him at parties. But unless the phone rings in between, next up is the Goodwood Revival and the RAC TT Celebration in Nick Mason’s Ferrari GTO, followed by the Spa Six Hour race with the Shipman TVR Griffith. You can read about it here ■

Photographer: FrozenSpeed

Lotus Exige 260 Cup Jim Cameron I’m bricking it. It is the Saturday morning of the Festival of Speed at Goodwood and I’m sitting in the bottom paddock at the start line for the hillclimb, in a car I’ve never driven before. Lined up behind me is Derek Bell; in front is Allan McNish. It occurs to me that these two ex-F1 drivers have between them won Le Mans six times. Six! I’ve never even been to Le Mans…

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This rather surreal episode started with a kind offer from Lotus to drive the 2010 Exige 260 Cup, the lighter, faster and a bit more mental version of the 240S that I’m used to driving at the ’Ring. No chance for a quiet ‘getting to know you’ session – the car is in the Supercar Paddock, next door to a Koenigsegg Agera, whatever that is. It means that I’ve got to wave my driver’s wristband to get through, and about 100 people curiously watch me fold myself into the Lotus. My first impressions of the car are formed as I nose carefully out through the crowd onto the track, cameras whirring. Lotus manages to shed 38kg from this model compared with the 240S, and boosts the power to justify the 260 moniker. The 2010 car has extensive aero work and the car looks pretty sensational, but there’s some serious competition. I’m following a poser in a Ferrari 458 who stops and pings the 4.5-litre V8 off the limiter, making one small child in the front row of the crowd cry. Point made, he moves off and all eyes look at me, but I’m not playing that game with a Toyota engine. For a fraction of a second, I feel a bit of an imposter in my mid-engined Norfolk plastic car. “Nice car, mister,” comments a small boy nearby, and his Dad has envy in his eyes. I feel better. How hard can this be, anyway?

www.easytrack.co.uk As we edge up to the start line, I get a quick briefing on the 260 Cup’s launch control. But I’m rather more concerned that, apart from the first corner, I have absolutely no idea where the track goes. What’s more, the cars are set off at just 15-second intervals, so there’ll be no dawdling as Derek Bell is right behind me. Behind him is a chrome Veyron that looks like Puff Daddy’s shoe. The Lotus is on Yokohama AO48s – fantastic track tyres, but of course they are stone cold, and I decide to opt for a gentle launch as there’d be nothing worse than stalling it on the line. Nothing except… no, I’m not going to even think about that. Not helping ease the ‘fish out of water’ feeling is the fact that I’ve found myself right behind the unearthly boy’s bedroom wall anglefest that is a Lamborghini Reventón. The ground shakes as it launches in a bellow of Italian supercar machismo. He’s on the brakes well before the right-hander though, so sod it, I’ll try to catch him. I can testify that the top of the range Exige looks after you. Lord March’s drive is a bit more complicated than a cursory glance from the grandstands would suggest, and although driving by sight (as well as using the Force), I wasn’t hanging

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around. Derek didn’t overtake me at least, thank goodness, and I don’t think it looked too shabby from the sidelines so Lotus wasn’t embarrassed. The top paddock gives me the chance for more undignified Exige entry and exits and a quick wander around, before the whole group returns, waving and wheelspinning, back down the hill to the Supercar Paddock. Bruno Senna found time later that day to film his return leg on his iPhone, despite driving his Uncle’s 1993 MP4-8. I settled for waving at the crowds and inspecting the flint orchard wall that is so intimidating on the way up. The Goodwood Hillclimb during the Festival of Speed: that’s one to tick off the list, and I can highly recommend it ■

SPECIFICATION Price: £45,950 otr Year: 2010 Engine: Toyota 1.8 VVTL-I with Eaton M62 Supercharger Power: 257bhp (260PS) @ 8000rpm Torque: 174lb ft (236Nm) @ 6000rpm Transmission: Six-speed, manual Brakes: 308mm vented discs front; 282mm vented discs rear; AP Racing four-pot calipers Weight: 890kg Wheels: Forged aluminium, 16" diameter front, 17" diameter rear Tyres: Yokohama AO48 Front: 195/50 R16 Rear: 225/45 R17

PROJECT CAR

Porsche 944

Alex Baker brings us up-to-date on the progress of Team MSV Porsche’s trackday special t’s been some time since any ‘proper’ work has been done on the Porsche. Unfortunately time in the summer months is scarce when you work at a race circuit, particularly as 2010 saw the launch of our new inhouse race series the Trackday Trophy. We’ve seriously missed our initial goal of competing in the first round at Brands Hatch in March, but at least our new goal of entering the last round at Brands in October isn’t completely unachievable. There’s still a lot of work to do between now and then so it’s great to have the car back after a prolonged visit to Parr Motorsport to have some brand spanking new Gaz shocks fitted. Parr has done a superb job and since it’s a Porsche specialist, we asked the guys there to cast their expert eyes over the rest of the car. Thankfully it turns out we’ve bought quite a peach of a 944 which needs only some minor

work in the future to ensure it stays in tip-top condition. James Leaney, Parr’s service manager, has advised us of the following minor issues: • Discs and pads: in good condition but need a good run out to get rid of some light rust. • Engine and gearbox: a very slight oil leak but nothing to worry about. In generally good condition for a car of this age. Reassuring. • Rear silencer: has a small hole. And the perfect excuse to replace the standard system with an aftermarket exhaust! Although it might be boring, we’re looking at something that isn’t too loud, as this is a trackday car and there are noise limits to think of. • Rear brake hoses: slightly decayed. The plan is to replace these when we fit new discs and pads or possibly even a brake upgrade.

So, what have we actually had done? Well, we’ve opted for a set of Gaz Gold suspension units that are, ‘height adjustable, premium range suspension units designed for tarmac motorsport and the serious trackday enthusiast’, according to Gaz. Which means they’re a top bit of kit as far as we’re concerned! We don’t have much idea about suspension and damper settings; in fact, talk to me about adjusting rear torsion bars and finding the right rake and you might as well be speaking a different language. However, the initial difference the kit has made is obvious even to us suspension novices. Just driving the car at slow speeds reveals it no longer bounces up and down like it’s in a vat of treacle. You may be thinking that top of the range, fully adjustable shocks

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are a strange, expensive and possibly over the top choice for drivers who don’t have the faintest idea what to do with them – my answer to that is you learn only through experience! Everyone in the MSV Porsche team knows how to drive at a respectable pace on track; we know about racing lines, hitting apexes, oversteer, understeer, etc. Ian even has a few years’ race experience. However, this project is not only about creating a respectable track car but also about us taking our circuit driving to the next level by building on what we already know. Therefore, having fully adjustable suspension is not only going to give us the ideal platform to find the best setup for the car, but also the opportunity to learn why a particular setup works well.

The next step is taking the 944 out on the circuit and playing with the settings to find something we’re happy with. But, in case you’re interested, Parr has set the front dampers at 14 clicks from full soft and the rears at 16. This should (apparently) leave us with quite a bit of compliance and a safe setup, with room to run the car on a firmer setup for more grip as we get used to it ■ A big thanks to Warren at Gaz Shocks www.gaz-shocks.co.uk and all the guys at Parr Motorsport www.parrmotorsport.com Next time – reporting back with our newfound suspension knowledge and possibly some added safety devices

cars.bikes.karts.tools.parts.jobs.stuff Championship winning Caterham R300 Won all three of the last Rockingham races – this car has wanted for nothing and has ALL the right parts http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/single-seaters/20328.html

DAF race car transporter Fully enclosed – fits 2 Lotus Sevens. Only needs C1 licence (upto 75000kgs), winch, awning £6000 http://www.motorsportads.com/ transporters-lorries/20334.html

Speads RM07 Monoposto 2008 Championship winner – never had contact or damage this car is in full FIA Spec and can be used in many series £17995 http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/single-seaters/19697.html

Ex Champions race winning MINI Challenge Cooper S 16 wheels and tyres – Not a racer, then use this as a track day car! - £8000 http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/saloon-cars/20330.html

Dallara based DODA SR1 Fire breathing Hillclimb/circuit racer. Honda 1200cc. Also includes trailer £49,000 ONO http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/single-seaters/20317.html

Race winning GOLF V6 Mk4 Built by Volkswagon Racing UK. Got all the right bits on to be at the front with the right driver in VW Cup - £15,000 http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/saloon-cars/19269.html

Cosworth BDH 1380cc race rally engine – 189bhp. Been fitted in Westfield. Holds record all over the place and comes with Jenvey throttle bodies and Emerald ECU £10500 http://www.motorsportads.com/ car-parts/engines/20316.html

Podium finisher in 2010 GOLF Mk 5 Built by Volkswagon Racing UK. Could be available on Arrive and Drive rather than purchase - £21,000 http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/saloon-cars/20329.html

Group A Opel Kadett 210hp engine with MOTEC ECU, dogbox, Proflex suspension All equipment with valid FIA homologation- Eur16,000 http://www.motorsportads.com/ rally-cars/20315.html

FIA certified Sunbeam Tiger 260 cu inch uprated 4 pot AP race calipers 6 Brand New minilite 14inch wheels with TOYO 888 tyres - £29,000 http://www.motorsportads.com/ rally-cars/18634.html

Fiat Ducato race car transporter Fully covered, year 2000, 2.8TDI, wich, sliding bed, with tow bar. Only ever used with race cars - £5995 http://www.motorsportads.com/ transporters-lorries/20309.html

Mercedes 2534 Race truck Total weight truck + cargo 25t, 340Pk, 6cyl - 306.000Km, in perfect condition Tiptronic 16 gear (semi automatic) Aircon Eur35,000 http://www.motorsportads.com/ transporters-lorries/20303.html

1999 FRenault Tatuus Immaculate with absolutely loads of spares inc engines. Ideal for the karter moving up - £19500 http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/single-seaters/12163.html

Ultima drive for balance of 2010 season or negotiate your seat for 201 – Britcar, GT, Castle Combe GT http://www.motorsportads.com/ drives-co-drivers-rides/drives/ 19504.html

MAN 18-403 Three car race transporter Tail lift, hospitality, awning, drivers briefing room VVGC £32,000 plus VAT

Blinding trackday car or run in the Westfield series – It has not been beaten in 2010! Factory built race car - £8000 http://www.motorsportads.com/racecars/gt-sports-cars/20281.html

http://www.motorsportads.com/ transporters-lorries/16760.html

How to advertise – It is so easy for you to place ads like these for

cars.bikes.karts.tools.parts.jobs.stuff go to: www.motorsportads.com Within 2 minutes you could have your ad online and attracting buyers Stealth B6GT 1998 – 1000 kg, Fresh aluminium Chevy v8 650bhp, 520lb ft, Hewland NLT 6 speed sequential. This car does a 1.06 at Snetterton! - £90,000 http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/gt-sports-cars/20247.html

Division 1 Rallycross Mitsubishi Evo 9 MSA British Rallycross / FIA European Rallycross Front running car available with or with out full spares. Headlining class in 2010/11 £35,000 or £45,000 with all spares http://www.motorsportads.com/ rally-cars/19026.html

Mk1 Golf – Fast Road or Track day car – still has MOT and Tax – has proper rollcage and seats. Good fun car - £6000 http://www.motorsportads.com/racecars/gt-sports-cars/20274.html

SHP Space frame PickUp Truck BARC PickUp Championship race winner. This truck has been a front runner from the start. Loads of spares and a transporter available by separate negotiation £17000 http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/saloon-cars/20182.html

5 sets of Speedline Corsa wheels For Aston N24, Vantage, GT4 – Front 10Jx18, rear 11J x18 – track day or Race - £3000 http://www.motorsportads.com/ car-parts/wheels-tyres/19628.html

Swift SC 94 FF Rebuilt car in excellent condition with Bernard Baxter engine and LD200 box. The car has not been used for the last two seasons but has been stored and is ready to race. £9950 http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/single-seaters/20151.html

2004 Mygale SJ04 formula ford zetec Rebuilt for 2010 season. New engine by Stanwood Performance, gearbox refresh by J.P. New harness, extinguisher system, silicone hoses throughout, front crash box. New nose cone - £9000 http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/single-seaters/20236.html

Hillclimb and Sprint Metro GTI. Fantastic car in excellent condition. Runs in the up to 1400cc modified class all the other cars are Minis, and this should be able to beat them in the right hands. http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/saloon-cars/20181.html

Currently competing in the BRSCC Porsche Championship This is a competitive car in the 924 class. Also suitable for the CSCC Future Classics Series £4000 http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/gt-sports-cars/20224.html

Ginetta G20 1400 Zetec. 670kg. This was the prototype car for Junior series. Suitable for club racing, or upgrade to run in Ginetta Seniors, Britcar etc. Add a handbrake and stick it on the road! £7500 http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/gt-sports-cars/18724.html

Radical SR3 Right hand Drive, with new yellow paint, new Intrax 2way adjustable, new nose, new gearbox internals, Only 6 hours on fresh engine, new Dunlops, £23,000 for quick sale http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/gt-sports-cars/20219.html

Custom built trailer for wealthy owner Built by BrooklandSpeed it will carry 1 F1 car or 2 GT cars. 5 star hotels are less luxurious than this transporter. Electronic key access, leather interior. - £135,000 http://www.motorsportads.com/ transporters-lorries/20177.html

Nemesis Sports 2 Litre red top Vauxhall twin 40's Dallara F3, inboard rear suspension, Dallara/Hewland 5 speed gearbox inboard front suspension. Purpose made trailer. £12500 http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/single-seaters/20209.html

OMS 2000M Hillclimb and Sprint 1300 Hayabusa. Fuel injected Hayabusa engine, with milled lowered sump. 4 pot Willwood brakes, programmable ecu etc £14995 – must go, new house! http://www.motorsportads.com/ race-cars/single-seaters/18522.html

The one-stop shop for everything to do with motorsport

The TrackDriver TrackDayDiary is compiled in association with

September

KEY OPL= Open Pit Lane ND = Noisy Day Eve = Evening Int. = International

GP = Grand Prix S = Sessions RCN = Road Car Novice db = Decibels

CONTACTS – TrackDriver Recommends BOOKATRACK.COM W: bookatrack.com E: info@bookatrack.com T: 0843 208 4635 BHP TRACKDAYS W: bhptrackdays.co.uk E: enquiries@bhptrackdays.co.uk T: 01342 837957

MOTORSPORT ADS 01782 436029 www.motorsportads.co.uk MOTORSPORT EVENTS W: motorsport-events.co.uk E: trackdays@motorsport-events.co.uk T: 0844 873 6075

EASYTRACK W: easytrack.co.uk T: 01223 969996

MSV W: clubmsv.com E: cartrackdays@clubmsv.co.uk T: 0870 850 5014

GOLDTRACK W: goldtrack.co.uk E: info@goldtrack.co.uk T: 01327 361361

RMA W: rmatrackdays.com E: enquiries@rmatrackdays.com T: 0845 260 4545

LOTUS ON TRACK W: lotus-on-track.com E: info@lotus-on-track.com

RSRNURBURG +49(0)2691931952 www.rsrnurburg.com

BMW CAR CLUB W: bmwcarclubgb.co.uk E: nick@bmwcarclubgb.co.uk T: 07714 805804

LIVERPOOL MOTOR CLUB W: liverpoolmotorclub.com

BELGIANS ON TRACK W: belgiansontrack.be CIRCUIT DAYS W: circuit-days.co.uk E: info@circuit-days.co.uk T: 01302 743827 DRIVERSDAYS T: +32(0)87539019 W: driversdays.com DUKE TRACKDAYS W: duketrackdays.com E: mail@duketrackdays.com T: 01624 640050

LYDDEN HILL W: lyddenracecircuit.co.uk T: 01304 830557 NSX DAYS T: +41(0)277851500 W: nsx.ch NURBURGRING NORDSCH T: 0049 26913 02144 W: ringhaus.com OPEN TRACK T: 08452 340790 W: opentrack.co.uk PISTENCLUB T: 0049 21537 39211 W: pistenclub.de

ESTORIL CIRCUIT T: +351214609500 W: circuito-estoril.pt

PORSCHE CLUB UK T: 01608 652911 W: msdpcgb.co.uk

FOCUSED EVENTS W: focusedevents.com E: info@focusedevents.com T: 08450 267272

PORSCHE CLUB BELGIUM T: 0033473 668642 W: porscheclubfrancorchamps.be

FR TRACKDAYS W: trackdays.fr

RACE DAYS T: 01952 820453 W: racedays.co.uk

GOODWOOD T: 01243 755060 W: goodwood.co.uk

SLICK ET STOCK T: 0033(0)619558538 W: slicketstock.eu

JAVELIN W: javelintrackdays.co.uk T: 01469 560574

TRACTIONDAYS W: tractiondays.co.uk E: info@tractiondays.co.uk T: 01270 883322

KNOCKHILL MOTOR CLUB W: trackdays.knockhill.com E: enquiries@knockhill.co.uk T: 01383 723337

TRACKSKILLS T: 028 9082 5235 W: trackskills.com

Venue Organiser 8 Oulton Park FC BHP TrackDays 10 Pembrey TrackDays.co.uk 10 Abingdon Airfield Motorsport Events 10 Teeside A/drome FC TrackDays.co.uk 10 Donington Park Nat TrackDays.co.uk 10/13 Tour - Nurburgring Circuit Days 10 Castle Combe RaceDays 11 Nogaro FRANCE FR Trackdays 11 Donington Park Nat Book a Track 11 Pembrey TrackDays.co.uk 11 Elvington Javelin Trackdays 11 Teeside A/drome FC TrackDays.co.uk 11/12 Nurburgring Slick et Stock 12 Ales FRANCE FR Trackdays 12 Estoril PORTUGAL Circuito de Estoril 12 Issoire FR Trackdays 13 Estoril PORTUGAL Circuito de Estoril 13 Clastres FRANCE FR Trackdays 13 Nurburgring GP PistenClub 13 Bedford A/drome GT Focused Events 14 Mazda-on-Track Oulton Park 14 Spa Francorchamps PistenClub 14 Oulton Park GP Circuit Days 14 Donington Park Nat Circuit Days 15 Ecuyers FRANCE FR Trackdays 15 Snetterton EasyTrack 15 Spa Francorchamps Porsche Club 16 Dijon-Prenois NSX Days 16 Spa Francorchamps TrackDays.co.uk 16 Hockenheim PistenClub 16 Snetterton Book a Track 16 Brands Hatch Indy Motor Sport Vision 17 Mallory Park TractionDays 17 Dijon-Prenois NSX Days 18 Oulton Park Int Lotus on Track 18 Rockingham Int Book a Track 18 Woodbridge Javelin Trackdays 19 Kirkistown Trackskills 19 Woodbridge TrackDays.co.uk 19 Val de Vienne FR Trackdays 20 Geoparc St-Die FR Trackdays 20 Snetterton Easytrack 20 Brands Hatch Indy Motor Sport Vision 21 Castle Combe Lotus on Track 21 Brands Hatch GP RMA 22 Cadwell Park EasyTrack 22 Oulton Park Book a Track 23 Mettet Driversdays 24 Abbeville Lotus on Track 24 Hullavington Airfield Motorsport Events 24 Castle Combe EasyTrack 24 Dijon-Prenois Porsche Club 25 Charade FR Trackdays 25 Bresse PistenClub

Details 105db – OPL 105db – S 100db – OPL 105db – OPL 110db – OPL TBA – OPL 100db – S 105db – OPL 98db – OPL 105db – OPL 98db – OPL Eve – 105db – TBA 105db – TBA 105db – OPL 105db – TBA TBA 105db – TBA 105db – OPL Eve – 95db – OPL 100db – OPL 94db – OPL 104db – OPL 105db – OPL TBA – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – S 110db – TBA 105db – TBA 107db – S 104db – TBA 105db – OPL 105db – OPL TBA – OPL 105db – TBA 105db – OPL 103 – OPL 102 – OPL TBA 102db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – S 105db – OPL 105db – TBA 100db – S 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 100db – novice 100db – S TBA – S 105db – S 95db – OPL

The TrackDriver TrackDayDiary is compiled in association with

September

October

Venue Organiser 25/26 Imola CH Porsche Club 26 Bresse PistenClub 27 Castle Combe BHP Trackdays 27 Spa Francorchamps FR Trackdays 27 Anglesey Coastal Book a Track 28 Cadwell Park Circuit Days 28 Silverstone Arena GP Focused Events 29/30 Nurburgring RSRnurburg 29 Spa Francorchamps RMA 29 Spa Francorchamps RMA 29 Oulton Park Int Lotus on Track 29 Silverstone Arena GP Gold Track 30 Ecuyers FR Trackdays 30 Spa Francorchamps RMA 30 Snetterton Motor Sports Ads

Details TBA 95db – OPL 100db – OPL 105db – S 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – S 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – TBA

October 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2/3 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 5 6 7 7 8 8 8 8 8 8 9 9 9 10 10 10 10

Mazda-on-Track Nurburgring GP Castle Combe Donington Park Nat Aintree Club Circuit Mallory Park Nardo Tech Centre Mallory Park Lydden Hill Nurburgring Croix en Ternois Bourbonnais Spa Francorchamps Spa Francorchamps Castle Combe Silverstone Snetterton Spa Francorchamps Oulton Park Int Ecuyers Cadwell Park Magny Cours North Weald Teeside A/drome FC Hullavington Airfield Mazda-on-Track Snetterton Snetterton Elvington Goodwood Knutstorp Lurcy Donington Park Nat Dijon-Prenois

www.trackdriver.com

Donington Park 104db – OPL PistenClub 104db – TBA RaceDays 100db – S Cicuit Days TBA Liverpool Motor Club TBA Cicuit Days TBA – OPL PistenClub TBA Circuit Days TBA – OPL TrackDays.co.uk 105db – S Slick et Stock 105db – TBA FR Trackdays 105db – OPL FR Trackdays TBA Circuit Days 107db – OPL Book a Track 107db – OPL Javelin Trackdays 105db – OPL Lotus on Track 105db – OPL Circuit Days 105db – OPL Circuit Days 107db – OPL Gold Track 105db – OPL FR Trackdays 105db – OPL Lotus on Track 105db – OPL Porsche Club TBA – S RaceDays/LOT TBA – OPL TrackDays.co.uk 105db – OPL MotorSportsAds TBA – OPL Snetterton 95db – OPL Circuitdays 105db – OPL MLR 105db – OPL Javelin Trackdays 105db – OPL Porsche Club UK 98db – TBA RMA 105db – OPL Slick et Stock TBA Book a Track 98db – OPL PistenClub 100db – OPL

10 11 11 11 11 12 12 13 13 13 14 14 15 15 15 15 16 16 17 17 17 17 17 18 18 18 18 18 19 19 21 22 22 23 23 23 23 24 24 24 25 25 25 26 26 27 28 28 29 29 29

Venue Organiser Barkston Heath RaceDays Ales FR Trackdays Cadwell Park Javelin Trackdays Colerne Airfield Motorsport Events Spa Francorchamps Gold Track Spa Francorchamps Gold Track Mettet DriversDays Donington Park Nat Book a Track Spa Francorchamps Porsche Club Oulton Park Motor Sports Ads Castle Combe RMA Snetterton Motor Sport Vision Abingdon Airfield TrackDays.co.uk Croix en Ternois TrackDays.co.uk Goodwood Goodwood Anglesey Int Book a Track Charade FR Trackdays Ledenon FR Trackdays Ledenon FR Trackdays Kirkistown Trackskills Val de Vienne FR Trackdays Odiham RAF RMA Clastres Slick et Stock Castle Combe Lotus on Track Spa Francorchamps DriversDays Geoparc St-Die FR Trackdays Cadwell Park Porsche Club UK Bedford A/drome GT Focused Events Oulton Park GP Circuit Days Silverstone Arena GP Gold Track Ecuyers FR Trackdays Castle Combe MotorsportEvents Spa Francorchamps MLR Keevil Airfield Motorsport Events Dijon-Prenois CH Porsche Club Woodbridge Javelin Trackdays Bedford A/drome GT Motor Sports Ads Spa Francorchamps PistenClub Goodwood Focused Events Issoire FR Trackdays Castle Combe BHP TrackDays Brands Hatch GP EasyTrack Bedford A/drome GT Motor Sports Ads Cadwell Park Opentrack.co.uk Oulton Park GP Porsche Club UK Oulton Park GP Focused Events Cadwell Park Open Track Brands Hatch Indy Motor Sports Ads Nordschleife PistenClub Castle Combe RaceDays Oulton Park GP EasyTrack

Details 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 100db – OPL 100db – novice 107db – OPL 107db – OPL 105db – OPL 98db – OPL 110db – TBA 105db – S 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 100db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – TBA 105db – OPL 105db – S 105db – OPL 105db – OPL TBA – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – TBA 100db – S 107db – S 105db – S 105db – TBA 107db – TBA 105db – OPL 105db – S 105db – OPL 100db – OPL 105db – OPL 100db – novice TBA 102db – OPL 100db – OPL 104db – OPL 98db – S TBA 100db – OPL 107db – OPL 107db – TBA 107db – OPL 105db – TBA 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – TBA 100db – OPL 100db – S 105db – OPL

October 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 31 31 31 31 31

September

Venue Organiser Abbeville Lotus on Track l’Anneau du Rhin NSX Days Bedford A/drome GT EasyTrack Rockingham Int Book a Track Castle Combe Porsche Club UK Oulton Park GP Circuit Days Anglesey Coastal Book a Track Castle Combe Porsche Club UK Clastres FR Trackdays Croft TrackDays.co.uk Croix en Ternois FR Trackdays Anglesey Int Book a Track

Details 105db – OPL 105db – TBA 107db – OPL TBA – OPL 100db – TBA 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 100db – S 105db – OPL 88db – S 105db – TBA 105db – OPL

November 2 3 3 3 4 4 4 5 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 7 7 7 7 7 7 6/7 7 8 8 8

Snetterton Mazda-on-Track Oulton Park Int Brands Hatch Indy Brands Hatch Indy Ecuyers Croix en Ternois Oulton Park Int Croix en Ternois Oulton Park GP Nurburgring Rockingham Int Issoire Elvington Bedford A/drome GT Nordschleife Nordschleife Nordschleife Bourbonnais Val de Vienne Snetterton Hockenheim Nurburgring Bugatti Le Mans Estoril Colerne Airfield Bedford

Venue Brands Hatch Indy Cadwell Park Oulton Park Int Rockingham Mallory Park Snetterton Knockhill Mallory Park Castle Combe Anglesey Snetterton Oulton Park Island Mallory Park Castle Combe

Details 105 – OPL – CW 105 – OPL – CW 105 – OPL – CW 105db – S – OW – CW series reqs – S – OW – CW 105 – OPL – CW unknown – CW series reqs – S – OW – CW 105db – S unknown – S – CW 105 – OPL – CW 105 – OPL – CW series reqs – S – OW – CW 108db – S

October BHP TrackDays Brands Hatch Porsche Club UK Circuit Days Lotus on Track FR Trackdays FR Trackdays Lotus on Track FR Trackdays Focused Events PistenClub Book a Track FR Trackdays Javelin Trackdays Javelin Trackdays RaceDays RaceDays RaceDays FR Trackdays FR Trackdays Focused Events PistenClub RMA Driver Days Circuito de Estoril Motorsport Events EasyTrack

105db – OPL 104db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – TBA 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 100db – OPL TBA – OPL TBA 82db – OPL 102db – OPL 105db – S 105db – OPL 105db – S 105db – OPL 105db – OPL 105db – S 104db – TBA 105db – TBA 105db – TBA 105db – TBA 100db – novice 102db – OPL

To be included in either the TrackDayDiary or TestDayDiary please send information to: trade@motorsportads.com 96

10 10 10 10 15 17 18 22 23 24 24 24 29 30

1 1 6 8 13 14 15 15 16 20 27 29 29 29

Snetterton Oulton Park Int Mallory Park Silverstone Mallory Park Silverstone Pembrey Silverstone Knockhill Mallory Park Mallory Park Silverstone Brands Hatch Indy Snetterton

105 – OPL – CW 105 – OPL – CW series reqs – S – OW – CW 105db – S – OW – CW series reqs – S – OW – CW Champ Regs – S – OW – CW 105db – S – CW 105db – S – CW unknown – S – CW series reqs – S – OW – CW series reqs – S – OW – CW Champ Regs – S – CW 105 – OPL – CW 105 – OPL – CW

November 2 3 4 5 5 5 10 11 17 18 27

Silverstone Mallory Park Silverstone Silverstone Snetterton Brands Hatch Indy Mallory Park Silverstone Silverstone Silverstone Anglesey

Champ Regs – S – CW series reqs – S – OW – CW 105db – OPL – CW 105db – OPL – CW 105 – OPL – CW 105 – OPL – CW series reqs – S – OW – CW Champ Regs – S – CW Champ Regs – S – CW Champ Regs – S – CW unknown – S

CONTACTS

ANGLESEY T: 01407 811 400 W: angleseycircuit.com

PEMBREY T: 01264 882200 W: barc.net

DONINGTON PARK LTD T: 01332 819503 W: donington-park.co.uk

MALLORY PARK T: 01455 842931 W: mallorypark.co.uk

KNOCKHILL T: (0)1383 723337 W: knockhill.com

SILVERSTONE CIRC LTD T: 08704 588255 W: silverstone.co.uk

MSV T: 0870 950 9000 W: motorsportvision.co.uk

CASTLE COMBE T: 01249 782417 W: castlecombecircuit.co.uk

P O W E R

I N T O

M O T I O N

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Autoglym offers the most comprehensive range of car care products available and all are fast, effective and will provide a perfect result, inside or out. Your own car might not place you on the winners’ podium but you can still enjoy a winning shine. For more information on the complete Autoglym range, visit the website at www.autoglym.com

For product and local stockist information, visit our website or telephone 0800 515 779.

BY APPOINTMENT TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN SUPPLIER OF CAR CARE PRODUCTS AUTOGLYM, LETCHWORTH, ENGLAND

BY APPOINTMENT TO H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES SUPPLIER OF CAR CARE PRODUCTS AUTOGLYM, LETCHWORTH, ENGLAND