Okay, i am pretty much back in the land of the living again now! As usual and pretty much as any TOTB competitor will tell you the event is a nightmare to be ready for! I’m pretty sure half of the field has worked every night for the past week leading up to the event, trying to get their cars ready.
Mine was no exception of course, although we didnt have that much to do to it. Bonnet, Tyres, set up on the cams, bit of tidying and washing etc. I have to say here a big thank you to James at Amber. Since i snapped my own carbon bonnet, and i needed another for totb, i ordered a pit-road one from James. When it was clear it wouldnt make it in time, he let me take the one from his car, right there off his display stand a JAE! Also, we were struggling getting tyres. Its not so easy as you would think to get hold of 18" road leagal slicks! Nevertheless, james came through on those too, and my new rubber was delivered to the workshop on Friday.
After an Early start on Saturday morning, we got up to elvington in time for a good few beers outside our pit. The MR2 ■■ and the skyline boys were really the only ones really partying. Skyline lads had got a shopping trolley, which was ace going up and down the runway! Then there was some guy in a plane who got lost (I $h!t you not) who landed and asked for directions! We told him to follow the roads but he was having none of that, and wanted to know which way was north! Its dusk on a sunny day! The sun sets in the west! What type of pilot is this?!
Sunday, bit of a sore head, but up early and a pile of bacon rolls later i felt a lot better. As i walked back to the pit with my stack of rolls one on top of the other some guy says to me in a real broad northern accent (I’m northern so i can say this!!) ‘F’k!n -ell, thats a propper scoooby snack you got there pal!’
Anyway, the conditions were good, and after the briefing we headed over to the handling circuit. If anyone has been there you know what the queues are like, so we thought get it in early.
Got up there and it was way way way bigger than previous years, and i was way way way slower than previous years so i didnt even pick up my time ticket. A lot of tightening corners and left right flicks which really upset the cars handling. Nearly took the cones out a couple of times. A lot trickier annd more of a challenge than the fig of 8 we have come to expect.
Went over onto the 1/4. Mark leant into the window and said to me, take it easy out of the hole on the first one. Yep i thought, thats what i’ll do. 3/4 launch resulted in a 10.93 for the first run of the day! I was well happy!
We got 4 ten sec passes on the day:-
Run 1:-
60’ 1.700
ET 10.93
Terminal 127
Run 2:-
60’ 1.800
ET 10.89
Terminal 128
Run 4:-
60’ 1.78
ET 10.85
Terminal 128
Run 11:-
60’ 1.790
ET 10.86
Terminal 131
Got to say, overall i was pleased with the results. The 60’ times on these runs are something like between 0.1 and 0.2 secs off my pb on a prepped strip (Elvington is just concrete) To loose that kind of grip and still pull it home in the 10.8’s is great. I moved my pb down to 10.85, but i was happier with the 131mph trap on my last ten sec pass of the day. That is up from the more usual 128/129, but its telling me that adding overlap to the cam timing increases top end power so its helping me in the big end of the strip.
The gearbox has taken a beating, 3rd wont actually enguage at race speeds, it just bounces on the gate and wont go in. If i go into 4th then 3rd it will, but i spent most of my runs grinding the cr@p out of the teeth! Looks like its time for that to come out.
On the top speed trap (sitting at one mile) i turned off the boost controller and ran on wastegate. The 1/4 is hard, but ragging a car up to the redline in the higher gears is much harder, a real car killer, so i didnt really fancy pushing it that hard. Went through the trap at 170. good enough for me!
All in we had a great weekend. It was really great to see so many people from here Mark B, Gav, Dave N, Mike, Stokey, Robbie, Martyn, and i’m sure i’ve forgotten people too (sorry). Thanks for coming along and cheering us on. Special thanks to Dave for organising the Entry- we got a great pit place this year, just sorry we didnt finish the legnum in time.
anyway, i guess you are all bored and there are no pictures so i will shut up now!
Cheers,
Ben.
