We had the 1800 class (FFords basically) merged with our grid. I wasn't really in a hurry to pass them, but it's surprisingly difficult to follow someone around who wants is 20 seconds per lap slower than you, even for just one or two corners. And I didn't know how big my lead was, as we didn't use the pitboard for this race because the pitlane is so inaccessible.
That would be me
I'll need it. Found a complete rear wing for my car for £300, so I'm off to collect it on Friday... I just hope it is a direct replacement, and the car still handles well afterwards.
There are classes for bike engined stuff (1200cc, but most are 600 or 1000), 1600cc, 1800cc and 2000cc. So yes, there are what you might call classic (but not historic) FFords.
I think it used to, but the farmland is obviously not farm land anymore. But it is a narrow track - barely more than two cars' width in places.
Lydden is an oddity - wasn't it used for horse and coach racing 'back in the day'? Not been to Knockhill, but video evidence suggests that Knockhill is one big kerb with a bit of tarmac in the middle.
Well, yes. In comparison my TCA is as straight as a, err, straight thing. But it's still curved, and I don't like the idea of it buckling! But I am a bit of a pansy when it comes to driving an unhealthy car.
Tristan, superbly well done on winning the Championship, an awesome feat for your first full year of competing. Shame about the off, from watching the vid it didn't look like much could have been done once the spin had begun. Before that though, was really impressed with your driving and car control in those horrid conditions.
I spent about half an hour at Cadwell on that Sunday searching the length and breadth of the paddock trying to find Monoposto car #41, without success. Now I can see why!
My MR2 races at Cadwell were a non-event, we'd had a newer replacement engine fitted to the MR2 as last time out at Mallory the old one was very, very unwell. So for Caddy I was really hopeful, but about 4 laps into qualifying the "new" engine died completely after sounding like a bag of industrial size nails and having no conceivable performance. We stripped it down in the paddock, only to find a big end bearing was shot, a conrod was bent, as were a couple of valves and the head was damaged. So didn't even get to race, which was frustrating.
Roll on Snett though, where I expect we'll both have fresher cars.
Are the MR2s running at the 750 meeting at Snett? If so might see you there if the single seater gets fixed in time, did a big end bearing last time out
Congrats Tristan! Sorry to see it end that way, but a championship is a championship. It really is great to see someone we can all relate to through sims & LFS, really going out there and going after it in such an interesting series.
Best of luck with the repairs, I'm quite interested in seeing the new car and comparisons of the driving experiences.
It's not a very good overlay. The time code thingy isn't quite the same for the video and the overlay, and the software (Trackvision) uses a single sync point.
I've asked that they provide two sync points in a future patch, and automatically stretch (or shrink) the data to fit the video... As it is, I got the sync about right at the time of the accident, though I notice on the final render it's still a bit out, so you'll have to excuse the lag for the first 10 minutes!!!
And Motorsport News.
And the Eastern Daily Press (and on their website)
However, I pretty sure that obscure mentions in the backs of magazines and papers doesn't classify as fame, and won't help me win (I wonder if it helps with sponsorship applications?).
I'll post this here, as I don't like starting new threads if I can avoid it!
Saturday, 18th October 2008. Snetterton. Practice had gone a bit pear shaped. Initially had quite a lot of understeer in the faster corners (Coram, Riches, Bombhole), so I pitted to have a tweak to the front wing. Unfortunately, my Dad's eyesight isn't that great, so rather than one more 'click' of front wing (<-- what I wanted) I got +2 on one side and +3 on the other (<-- what I didn't want).
This cured the understeer. And gave me nasty oversteer. Fortunately I didn't hit anything, but had to show what car control I have (it might not be much, but it was enough). Did have a small spin whilst tracking a rival to see what his lines felt like on the same corner he decided to run wide - trying to avoid doing the same spun me round, but it only cost me a second or two. In the end I qualified 4th (3rd in class) behind my two main rivals of this year and my future rival of next year.
In the race I had cured the handling, but ended up stuck behind the guy who qualified 3rd. After several feints and looks I eventually made it in a Mansell on Piquet style move, only with smaller balls and less talent, and set about catching 2nd. I did, quite quickly, but helped by traffic causing him problems.
Once I'd caught him I tried to pass on the outside of Coram (fast corner!), but a backmarker didn't know which way to go and ended up closing my route. Once I'd got passed him I'd lost a couple of seconds, which allowed the guy ahead to get passed another two backmarkers. As I approached Riches I moved to go down the inside, thinking they would see me, or already had seen me. But the first of the backmarkers ran wide, and the second moved to the inside where I was.
I moved as far to the right as I could, correcting slides as I asked the car to do something it didn't really want to do, and even hit a large hump at the end of the kerb trying to avoid him. But it wasn't enough. We touched, he rode over my wheels, and flipped, then into a series of barrel roles.
At this point, out of my vision, I had no idea if he was even alive, let alone injured. The race was red flagged, and I got back to the pits ASAP to find out what happened afterwards. Fortunately he was mostly okay - bruised and sore, but no injuries. The car, and his helmet, are both totally written off.
It was not nice. But we've spoken to each other, and shown him the video footage; everyone in the paddock I've spoken to agrees that I did all I could, and it was a 'racing incident' without blame. Wrong place, wrong time.
Anyway, as I know you all like to see bad things happen to me, so I thought I'd show you the moment I thought I'd killed someone!
Nope, no insurance. It's prohibitively expensive. Rent-a-drive cars are usually insured, but not owner-driver cars.
The tracking was knocked slightly out (steering wheel not straight anymore), and the leading edge of the floor came loose over the bump - found that in practice on Sunday when it came loose and dragged on the ground! Easily fixed though.
Not had a good run of late - spin on oil at Oulton (not my fault), crash in the wet at Cadwell (my fault) and now this (not my fault).
Rather nasty, you definitely weren't at fault though.
It's very rare to insure circuit racing cars, only normally done on some very valuable historics and some hire drives (getting the drivers to pay for insurance before hand saves the inevitable squabbling when you give them a 5 figure bill).
Ouchy. :S That looked pretty bad for the poor guy but thats what you get for moving so suddenly*towards the inside without checking your sides. :S Sucks for him.
Just a question, if it was practice why didn't you just jump on the curb or the grass? Would it have damaged your car a lot?
) Well done on the championship 
