“There is nothing on this earth like a good weekend’s racing, it beats anything else hands down.”
That’s what I said last time. This time, the converse is more appropriate – racing brings the lowest of lows, too.
Regular followers will know we went off to Wiltshire’s legendary Castle Combe track this weekend past. To give you an idea of the fame – or rather, infamy – of this place, a single statistic will tell you all you need to know: 25 per cent of ALL motor racing accidents across the UK happen on this circuit. It’s really fast (the slowest chicane is 90 km/h in the Mini). It’s really bumpy. And to quote the officials, Castle Combe does not use kitty-litter to slow spinning cars, it uses wet grass, concrete walls and Armco.
Things started out alright for Thursday’s practise session, with the first session passing incident-free. However, after session two the troubles started. I noticed a puddle under the car. The radiator had boiled over. Bad sign. After laboriously stripping the water pump (which turned out to be fine) Paul, my mechanic for the weekend, decided the symptoms were most likely related to a blown head gasket. Much more labour later, the head was off and whilst there were signs of local over-heating on cylinder 1, there were no immediate indications of an actual bypass of gas, water or oil. Still, we reckoned we had been lucky and caught it early. Paul worked through the afternoon and the car was all back together for Friday morning.
We hit the track for the first practise and the Mini sounded very much louder and rougher than ever before. It was also pig slow. 5 seconds a lap off my previous pace, despite pushing much harder. After tinkering and testing the day away, it was decided that the motor would have to be replaced entirely. Great. Another day totally wasted for me and another labour-filled evening for Paul. Some hours after the decision, the motor was on the garage floor and we discovered that it had a full half inch of lateral float on the crankshaft. It’s amazing the thing hadn’t disintegrated.
Saturday morning dawned and things were looking better – new motor and fresh hope for salvaging the weekend.
Nope. Sorry. Not this time. Qualifying was chaotic – they brought out the safety car twice (what the point of a safety car in qualifying is, I will never know), and after the second red flag qualifying was stopped. I had managed one preparatory lap (finding brake markers for the now very different Mini), one semi-flyer and one quick run spoiled by a dunce. Compounding this was the disciplinary that I was called into for over-taking someone and setting my fastest lap under the safety car (blush). I managed a reasonable explanation and got away with a deserved warning.
And then the races. Ha – the first lasted about twenty-four seconds. I was shoved unceremoniously off track just metres from the start. My car launched into the air as wheels clashed and the resulting puncture and suspension derangement ended my race before Turn One. I sat on the side of the track in the drizzle and watched. Paul was then faced with yet more labour to get the Mini ready for Race Two. He pulled a near miracle and got the job done.
It had rained in the meantime, so we went with a wet set-up and softened the suspension on the Mini. This left the traitorous beast wallowing and rolling like some gleeful, sunburnt, warthog. Add in an uncorrected malady on the left rear corner (the one that does all the work on this clockwise track) and the second race was performed sideways. Every single corner of all thirteen laps: brake lightly, look at the corner (no particular steering input), Mini goes sideways, counter-steer, balance the throttle, wait for the apex, apply full throttle. Amusing, but slow.
So from the two races, yet another DNF and an 8th. Really not what we were hoping for.
We have a 5 week gap now before Zandvoort in Holland. I will have to get my head down for this, as it is the second last chance of the season to achieve anything!
The footage of the Brands Hatch Indy races is now available at Mini Challenge. Our previous Oulton Park outing will be ready shortly too.
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