Not sure I can remember who was sending me messages approx 1 year ago about making the jump to motor racing IRL as I've deleted them so I thought I'd just share my experiences with racing in my first season.
A little bit of background. I've been driving on circuit non-competitively for the last 7 years doing regular trackdays in various cars and in that time I've been a frequent visitor to Germany for touristfahren on the Nordschleife. Over winter last year I decided that I wanted to take the plunge and have a crack at racing for real in the UK.
I already had a car nearly suitable that I'd been using for trackdays and my trips to Germany so went looking for series it would be suitable in. The first one I found was Trackday Trophy aimed at novice racer drivers with long races allowing the ability to share a car with someone and more importantly share the costs. As a serviceman I had the opportuinity to race my car in a series just for serving personnel, not an outright race for the line but consistency scored, meaning anyone can win regardless of power, weight and cost!
The build of the car can be seen here. Before the conversion to race car it was standard apart from race seats, harnesses and a full roll cage.
The first race is covered in the thread above but race day was a disaster with horrible weather conditions and us taking a massive gamble by staying on hard compound race tyres, it was very difficult to generate heat for the first few laps.
My second race was at Anglesey, North Wales in May. This was the first RAF race meeting I'd attended, hot weather but I was very thankful of the newly fitted roof vent for cabin cooling. Video can be found here: Click me for video.
Unfortunatley I couldn't make the 2nd round of the Trackday Trophy as I was on a charity rally around Europe raising money for Help For Heroes, but my friend (andyjeb on here) drove the car on his own at Snetterton and came a respectable 2nd in class (beaten by an E36 M3, upto 125bhp/ton????).
In June prior to me attending my charity rally round Europe I had my Land Rover tow vehicle stolen with all my race equipment inside (tools, spares, suit, boots, helmet etc) luckily though the race car was nowhere near it at the time. This prevented me from racing at Lydden Hill in early July as I couldn't replace my equipment in time.
Mallory Park - 25th July - RAFMSA round 3. This is where I really wanted to get stuck in now, another new circuit I'd never driven before. When we do the RAF races I always book an 'Allcomers' race at the end of the day, this is just a fun race where any cars from the meeting can go together at the end, afterall it's a long way to drive just for 1x 15minute race!
Here are the vids:
Race 1 - I got punted at the hairpin by an out of control Locost race car, he avoided 4 other cars before he was committed to hitting me, there was no where else for him to go. I was rather angry by this and didn't really concentrate for the race. Poor driving standards by me followed. Video.
Race 2 - Car preservation was my main priority for this race as it was booked a another race 7 days later and we already had some damage to get fixed from Race 1. Another poor start again by me then a great battle with a Jaguar for most of the race. Video with GPS overlay here.
Round 3 of the Trackday Trophy saw us hire out 'my' seat in the car as I was Best Man at a stag weekend, not something I could really get out of. The seat was hired out to a close friend who'd worked at Mallory Park for a few years (he was driving the green D-Type replica in Race 1 above at Mallory). They came first in class and 4th or 5th overall. The M3 that beat the car at Snetterton 4 weeks earlier was weighed and promoted upto class C as it was underweight to fit into ours, meaning we just have won at Snetterton also. No video from this event, sorry.
Cadwell Park, September. No video from this one either but the car did three races that weekend, one with a friend driving on the Saturday and two with me driving on the sunday. I managed to get my first outright win in the RAF consitency challenge even with a few mishaps. I was much more comfortable at Cadwell Park as it is a circuit I've done a lot of trackdays at and utilised a lot of instruction there also. I had a good battle in the 'Allcomers' race where I finally managed to beat the yellow rover I lost to at Mallory Park in the year.
Brands Hatch, October 23rd. The forth and final round of the trackday trophy and a wet race. No video either for this one but we qualified 6th O/A and 2nd in class next to a Golf mkII on the grid. I got my first decent start of the year and managed to take 1st in class and 5th O/A at paddock hill bend, from here I ended up defending the position for three laps and allow 4th place to pull clear. To get away from 6th place I managed to back him up into a Mazda MX5 so he had to defend. This allowed me to pull away from attacking distance and get my head down. We started to catch back markers after only about 10minutes and when the pit lane opened at 18minutes I decided to jump in for an early pit. I was catching a battle of approximately 5 back markers and didn't want to get held up.
We were one of the first cars to pit, it is a forced 3-minute pit stop too allow for the driver changed, I briefed the 2nd driver (Andy Jeb again) where it was slippy as it was wet etc etc. When Andy left the pits most of the field entered meaning he had a clear track for three laps, straight away Andy was on the pace, whereas the class B Peugeot 205 that was in 4th before out pit got caught up in the traffic I wanted to avoid, after pit stops we were 10 secs infront of 5th but a massive 40 secs down on 3rd.
Andy managed to drive a sensible race, we showed him the gaps on the pit board and he adjusted his drive accordingly. We won the class and managed 4th overall. The classes for this race were A=upto 200bhp/ton, B=151-175bhp/ton, C=126-150bhp/ton and ours D=upto 125bhp/ton. My car came in at 119bhp/ton after the race.
The final part of the season was a 6 hour relay race at Silverstone on the Bridge GP (F1 circuit upto 2009). 64 cars on the grid and upto 6 cars per team, we had 5. I was in a team with a MG Midget, Rover Metro VVC, Locost (with Fireblade engine) and my friend in his D-Type replica. I was to be used as a wet weather capability (I prefer it in the wet).
Here are the videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU3b-3BFDU0
Stint 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAadfcHzAz8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... y--So&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... 9mj9M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... snP7U&feature=related
Stint 3 (nearly dry now)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... 0vk5I&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... 0p3Ik&feature=related
How has LFS helped out with my transition?
Well mainly LFS taught me the art of racecraft. XRG/XFG racing taught me the move to get past the big Jaguar at Mallory park seen in the video above, I was quicker in the corner but he was faster on the straights so I left room to make sure I didn't get stuck behind him in the bend and got straight past when I did catch him as he wasn't expecting it.
XFG driving also taught me the art of using Lift-Off-Oversteer to an advantage when carrying too much speed, or even when you need to make a move on someone.
Next years plan?
Same RAF series again but I'm upgrading my license over winter to allow me to race in Europe. I've got an offer of a drive in RCN at the Nurburgring, Germany and possibly a drive in the VW FunCup 25hr race at Spa, Belgium.
If you've ever thought about having a go I would definitely recommend it, however I would have a go at doing trackdays first to see if you've got the ability to drive fast on a circuit with the advantage of being able to carry an instructor on a trackday.
So, here's to 2011
A little bit of background. I've been driving on circuit non-competitively for the last 7 years doing regular trackdays in various cars and in that time I've been a frequent visitor to Germany for touristfahren on the Nordschleife. Over winter last year I decided that I wanted to take the plunge and have a crack at racing for real in the UK.
I already had a car nearly suitable that I'd been using for trackdays and my trips to Germany so went looking for series it would be suitable in. The first one I found was Trackday Trophy aimed at novice racer drivers with long races allowing the ability to share a car with someone and more importantly share the costs. As a serviceman I had the opportuinity to race my car in a series just for serving personnel, not an outright race for the line but consistency scored, meaning anyone can win regardless of power, weight and cost!
The build of the car can be seen here. Before the conversion to race car it was standard apart from race seats, harnesses and a full roll cage.
The first race is covered in the thread above but race day was a disaster with horrible weather conditions and us taking a massive gamble by staying on hard compound race tyres, it was very difficult to generate heat for the first few laps.
My second race was at Anglesey, North Wales in May. This was the first RAF race meeting I'd attended, hot weather but I was very thankful of the newly fitted roof vent for cabin cooling. Video can be found here: Click me for video.
Unfortunatley I couldn't make the 2nd round of the Trackday Trophy as I was on a charity rally around Europe raising money for Help For Heroes, but my friend (andyjeb on here) drove the car on his own at Snetterton and came a respectable 2nd in class (beaten by an E36 M3, upto 125bhp/ton????).
In June prior to me attending my charity rally round Europe I had my Land Rover tow vehicle stolen with all my race equipment inside (tools, spares, suit, boots, helmet etc) luckily though the race car was nowhere near it at the time. This prevented me from racing at Lydden Hill in early July as I couldn't replace my equipment in time.
Mallory Park - 25th July - RAFMSA round 3. This is where I really wanted to get stuck in now, another new circuit I'd never driven before. When we do the RAF races I always book an 'Allcomers' race at the end of the day, this is just a fun race where any cars from the meeting can go together at the end, afterall it's a long way to drive just for 1x 15minute race!
Here are the vids:
Race 1 - I got punted at the hairpin by an out of control Locost race car, he avoided 4 other cars before he was committed to hitting me, there was no where else for him to go. I was rather angry by this and didn't really concentrate for the race. Poor driving standards by me followed. Video.
Race 2 - Car preservation was my main priority for this race as it was booked a another race 7 days later and we already had some damage to get fixed from Race 1. Another poor start again by me then a great battle with a Jaguar for most of the race. Video with GPS overlay here.
Round 3 of the Trackday Trophy saw us hire out 'my' seat in the car as I was Best Man at a stag weekend, not something I could really get out of. The seat was hired out to a close friend who'd worked at Mallory Park for a few years (he was driving the green D-Type replica in Race 1 above at Mallory). They came first in class and 4th or 5th overall. The M3 that beat the car at Snetterton 4 weeks earlier was weighed and promoted upto class C as it was underweight to fit into ours, meaning we just have won at Snetterton also. No video from this event, sorry.
Cadwell Park, September. No video from this one either but the car did three races that weekend, one with a friend driving on the Saturday and two with me driving on the sunday. I managed to get my first outright win in the RAF consitency challenge even with a few mishaps. I was much more comfortable at Cadwell Park as it is a circuit I've done a lot of trackdays at and utilised a lot of instruction there also. I had a good battle in the 'Allcomers' race where I finally managed to beat the yellow rover I lost to at Mallory Park in the year.
Brands Hatch, October 23rd. The forth and final round of the trackday trophy and a wet race. No video either for this one but we qualified 6th O/A and 2nd in class next to a Golf mkII on the grid. I got my first decent start of the year and managed to take 1st in class and 5th O/A at paddock hill bend, from here I ended up defending the position for three laps and allow 4th place to pull clear. To get away from 6th place I managed to back him up into a Mazda MX5 so he had to defend. This allowed me to pull away from attacking distance and get my head down. We started to catch back markers after only about 10minutes and when the pit lane opened at 18minutes I decided to jump in for an early pit. I was catching a battle of approximately 5 back markers and didn't want to get held up.
We were one of the first cars to pit, it is a forced 3-minute pit stop too allow for the driver changed, I briefed the 2nd driver (Andy Jeb again) where it was slippy as it was wet etc etc. When Andy left the pits most of the field entered meaning he had a clear track for three laps, straight away Andy was on the pace, whereas the class B Peugeot 205 that was in 4th before out pit got caught up in the traffic I wanted to avoid, after pit stops we were 10 secs infront of 5th but a massive 40 secs down on 3rd.
Andy managed to drive a sensible race, we showed him the gaps on the pit board and he adjusted his drive accordingly. We won the class and managed 4th overall. The classes for this race were A=upto 200bhp/ton, B=151-175bhp/ton, C=126-150bhp/ton and ours D=upto 125bhp/ton. My car came in at 119bhp/ton after the race.
The final part of the season was a 6 hour relay race at Silverstone on the Bridge GP (F1 circuit upto 2009). 64 cars on the grid and upto 6 cars per team, we had 5. I was in a team with a MG Midget, Rover Metro VVC, Locost (with Fireblade engine) and my friend in his D-Type replica. I was to be used as a wet weather capability (I prefer it in the wet).
Here are the videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU3b-3BFDU0
Stint 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAadfcHzAz8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... y--So&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... 9mj9M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... snP7U&feature=related
Stint 3 (nearly dry now)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... 0vk5I&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... 0p3Ik&feature=related
How has LFS helped out with my transition?
Well mainly LFS taught me the art of racecraft. XRG/XFG racing taught me the move to get past the big Jaguar at Mallory park seen in the video above, I was quicker in the corner but he was faster on the straights so I left room to make sure I didn't get stuck behind him in the bend and got straight past when I did catch him as he wasn't expecting it.
XFG driving also taught me the art of using Lift-Off-Oversteer to an advantage when carrying too much speed, or even when you need to make a move on someone.
Next years plan?
Same RAF series again but I'm upgrading my license over winter to allow me to race in Europe. I've got an offer of a drive in RCN at the Nurburgring, Germany and possibly a drive in the VW FunCup 25hr race at Spa, Belgium.
If you've ever thought about having a go I would definitely recommend it, however I would have a go at doing trackdays first to see if you've got the ability to drive fast on a circuit with the advantage of being able to carry an instructor on a trackday.
So, here's to 2011
