Ben's second-car thread - MR2s and Westfields inside...

[Lauren]

Well done, Ben. Good to see you out there. Sorry I didn't really get a chance to talk, as always it was pretty hectic!

Great day though.

[Ben]

Cheers Lauren. Yep, really enjoyed myself! Felt like a bloody hero after my last run of the day (even though I know I still have a lot of work to do on my track technique)

See you at Croft?

[super]

Ahh so it was you in the Westie! Penny drops...

[Ben]

Yep! Everything leads back to here

[pistol pete]

Ahh so it was you in the Westie! Penny drops...

Indeed it was him..
blame him for everything now yoy know who it is I do

[Lauren]

Booked the PI at Darlington, currently £54. So yes, see you at Croft.

[Ben]

One of the things I was struggling with at Woodbridge was getting enough temperature into the fairly hard-compound tyres. I'm currently running a set of Federal RSRs which are fine for road and track-day use, but need a couple of laps to get them warmed up.

So yesterday I went and picked up a set of sprint wheels:





13" Minilites shod with SG (super-soft compound) Toyo R888s. Probably wouldn't last a whole trackday but will be ideal for ten single laps from cold. Gave them a quick road test yesterday and the difference is immediately noticeable

[super]

Better

[pkmr2]

Looks to me as though you are catching the bug Ben

[Ben]

Well, managed to get a few pics sorted from the weekend at Croft. This was my second sprint and, again, on a track I'd never driven. Croft certainly takes some balls to drive fast!

The sheer volume of cars meant I only got 6 timed runs, which meant less time to get to know the track. My first three were still feeling my way around a bit, and then on the lunch break I did a bit of homework (known as 'frantically watching youtube videos from last year to learn the track better!). My best run was straight after lunch - a 1:44.02 (after a first run of 1:51.44) which I was pretty happy with. I even knew where I could make up more time, but alas it was not to be. I got a really good start on my last run and then locked up into Tower Bend, resulting in a fairly spectacular spin.

I ended the day third in class, behind the same 3.0 V6 Westfield who beat me at Woodbridge and a Chevy V8-powered Ultima. I'm not too sad about that given that I have at least 100bhp less than either of them, and with my new sticky R888s I was only 3.2 seconds off the pace (as opposed to ~6 seconds last time around).

Only one slight issue to sort before the next round - apparently it was throwing fuel out on fast right handers. Probably something worth fixing....

Anyway, a couple of pics of the day:







Next round, Blyton. I'm looking forward to that a lot - not only is it a shorter, twistier circuit which should negate my comparative lack of power a tad, but I've driven it a handful of times before. Fingers crossed

[Ben]

A few people were asking what it sounds like. Given the on-board footage sounds a bit pony, I managed to get hold of a short drive-by filmed by Pete to give you an idea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeluAt2iCwg

[Lauren]

Sounding good Ben!

[Ben]

The last Javelin sprint of the year is coming up tomorrow at Cadwell Park. The westy hasn't had a huge amount of use since the last round at Blyton - a combination of crappy weather and busy life dictated that. I did manage to get a decent run down to my parents' place in Surrey a couple of weeks back though (partly due to necessity - the OH had taken my Subaru for the weekend and omitted to leave me the only key she has for her 996...).

Fortunately the weather was kind and I managed to have a pleasant drive down there, although the track-oriented setup isn't particularly relaxing on the pot-holed Surrey back roads. Caught up with the old man though, and this lovely old thing he's currently looking after:



Unfortunately the drive back was slightly less smooth, and it quickly became clear that I was getting a blow from the exhaust manifold. Manifold gaskets are pretty much a service item on this due to the fairly crude craftsmanship used in the construction of the exhaust system, so without really investigating I whipped the manifold off, changed the gasket, and... the blow was still there.

Damn.

This was on Sunday evening, and on Monday evening I was due to travel up to Stoke for the week. I managed to throw in a cheeky half-day on Monday with the intention of changing the gasket again, but when Monday came a bit more investigation revealed:



Cue a brief 'where the hell am I going to find a welder on a Monday afternoon?!' panic, before I gave the chaps at Haynes Car Care in Wallingford a call. They did most of my servicing when I lived round the corner so are fairly used to me turning up with weird and wonderful cars at short notice, but Mark really excelled himself. 20 minutes after phoning (and after a very foggy drive down) he'd got the welder out and patched it up for me.



Hooray!

Past experience with cracking exhausts suggests that lightning will probably strike twice, but if it can get me through this weekend I'll be happy. I'll look at a more long-term repair/replacement this winter.

Oh, did I mention the weather forecast looks wet for Cadwell tomorrow? My tyre choices are either Federal 595RSRs or Toyo R888s. This should be interesting

[Ben]

Oh, and just found a nice sideways pic from Blyton

[Lauren]

glad you got it fixed Ben. Given the weather and that is currently very wet, standing water at Cadwell is a big issue, so be careful!

Track was red flagged yesterday due to it

[pistol pete]

Oh, and just found a nice sideways pic from Blyton

Image Replaced With URL For Quote [url]http://i429.photobucket.com/albums/qq14/benedwards64/s1505_js49_18_zpsl7ufck2s.jpg[/URL]

awesome pic.. but this one is better..

congrats to ben... very quick at cadwell despite the weather..
and was leading his class for the morning.. till it dried up and the silly powered car could get its power down..
but 2nd in class for the day and 2nd overall for the year.. good work sir

I'm sure he will be along ot explain all

But ben GET A GO PRO for next year. we need some vids..

[JD]

Nice. I'm also liking the Wolverine look.

[Ben]

Helmet hair

[Ben]

Right, time for a final season update. A little later than planned, I’ve been off in Iceland for a week doing this:



Anyway, back to the Westfield. Cadwell Park was the last sprint of the season, and allowing for the end-of season awards do the Toyota guys were holding it was being run on a Saturday. Having already had a mid-week panic with the cracked manifold I was still feeling a bit disorganised and out-of-sorts when I headed up the M40, and a traffic-ridden 5-hour drive to the hotel didn’t help much. Still, it was a lovely clear night when I turned up so I had high hopes for a dry day’s racing.

I was woken up at 3am to the sound of rain crashing off the roof of the hotel lodge. Bugrit.

So, off to Cadwell in the rain – we arrived fairly early but the paddock was already quite full, and unloading the trailer on the rain-soaked grass wasn’t much fun. I finally managed to get off and through to scrutineering, whereupon I measured 108dB on the noise test. xxxx. A bit of jiggery-pokery and we managed to get through with a barely-on-the-track-limit 105 and I was waved on my sheepish way, protesting cries of “I’ll get a new exhaust!” meeting stony-faced expressions from the Cadwell scrutineers. Oops.

We finally headed out onto the sighting laps, my first time at Cadwell, and it was still soaking wet. There was a lot of standing water along the start/finish straight, and even more along Park straight. Plus there were a lot of leaves on the track through the woodland section. My tyres? R888s that are almost on the wear limits.





Fortunately I had actually done a bit of homework this time round and had spent a fair amount of time learning the track on YouTube, and of course everyone else was in the same boat (almost literally!) as me. My first two runs I managed to keep pretty tidy, and when the timing sheets came out I was very surprised to see I was leading my class – ahead of a Duratec-powered Westfield and a Caterham on wets. My confidence started to build (despite aquaplaning at 100mph down Park a couple of times!) as the track started to dry, but this meant the more powerful Duratec car could get his power down and he ended up knocking a couple of seconds off my time which I couldn’t claw back. Still, I was happy with steady improvements in my times until the rain started again mid-afternoon, at which point I knew I couldn’t beat my best time of 1:50.45. My last two runs of the day were me taking the opportunity to explore the limits of the car in the wet a bit more – leading to a void run after over-steering over the kerb at Mansfield, and then on my final run carrying too much speed through the Gooseneck and cutting off the apex…. Still, you’re not trying hard enough until you fall off, eh?





I ended up runner up in my class but down in 11th overall – not my best result but given that the Westy struggles to get over 100mph on track (@ almost 7,000rpm in 4th) I tend to be less competitive on fast tracks. I was also very chuffed to be awarded overall class runner-up for the season as well



So that’s it for sprinting until March (probably, depending on Javelin’s calendar next year). I’ve enormously enjoyed my first foray into competitive motorsport and will definitely be running in the series next year.

I’ve got a few bits to keep me busy over winter though – after cracking the manifold and, apparently, blowing all of the baffles out of the silencer it’s time to invest in a new system. It has always been a bit noisy (apparently you could hear me going round Cadwell from the main road….) and it has got steadily worse this year, so ideally I’ll be after a system that will see it comfortably under 100dB. On top of that I need to experiment with raising the gearing a bit – the 13” track wheels I have are currently running 185/60/13 R888s all round and one pair are pretty low, so I might try a pair of 205/60/13s on the rear to raise the gearing slightly (this would match the overall diameter of my road wheels, so I’ll try these on a track-day and see if an extra 5-10mph at the top end is enough). On the other hand I think my diff could do with a rebuild, so it may be worth biting the bullet and getting it rebuild with a different final drive. Some head-scratching to do there I think. Other than that it will get some routine servicing and another alignment check to make sure everything’s in order, and hopefully we’ll have some nice sunny winter days so I can get it out and about!

[Lauren]

Great work, Ben, well done.