Mallory Park Race.

Motor racing is a strange mix of fun and frustration, and our second race held at Mallory Park in Leicestershire was no exception. After the elderly gearbox broke at our first race at Brands Hatch, we quickly had a fresh one built and were looking for a little extra speed going into Mallory.

Unfortunately, as soon as I went out in qualifying it was clear that something was wrong...the 4th gear was far too tall!...so much so, that the engine was having trouble pulling it. This was not good as Mallory Park is a fast track and 90% of the lap is 4th gear. It turns out that the top gear that was installed was the lowest gear available in the short time we had between races and the gear that we need is an unusual one and is a special order item from the states. (our gearbox is quite and unique specification in that it uses a Type 2 Bay Window crown wheel and is much lower geared than normal. Its far lower than even a drag racing box) As an example, if you were to put this gearbox in your standard 1300 Beetle, you would have a TOP SPEED of 55mph!

When the correct 4th gear is installed, we will have four close ratio, semi straight cut gears suited perfectly to the engine characteristics. Unfortunately we won’t see these benefits till after the seasons over. The result of this tall 4th gear at Mallory meant that we were quick out of the super tight ‘Shaws hairpin’, but everywhere else on the lap we got creamed!...even by much lower powered cars.

Qualifying ended with us being at the rear of the field with just a DKW 3=6 and an Alfa Romeo Guilia Sprint GT behind us. The race started well as the car pulls like a train in the first 3 gears. I managed to power passed the Mini Cooper S and Triumph 2000 MK1 off the start line and moved up 2 places before the first bend, but once in 4th gear I was open to attack down the straights and there was very little I could do to defend (weaving all over the track like they do in the movies is a definite no-no in racing and you will get excluded it you drive too aggressively)

On lap four, while approaching the 77mph ‘Gerards bend’ I spotted a shiny line indicating that someone had dropped oil or water on the track. The marshal correctly held the red and yellow striped ‘oil flag’ out to warn me, but there were a pair of marshals standing directly behind the flag wearing bright orange overalls, making it impossible to see until it was too late. The result was that the rear of the car stepped violently to the left. I managed to catch it but then the rear stepped to the right. I corrected, but I was running out of road and the tyres had no grip, so I decided it was better to stop fighting it and go through the gravel trap. I could have tried to keep it on track, but the car would have probably hit the gravel sideways and either rolled or at best, got stuck. There was plenty of run-off, so I took the safer option and rejoined the track dead last.

It took a couple of laps to get back up to speed, but I was soon gaining fast on the DKW and Alfa Romeo once more and looked like finishing in my starting position, but annoyingly caught up with them just as the race finished!

Despite the gearbox frustrations and going off track we had better luck than the Mini Coopers that we share the 1300cc class with. One overheated and the other, driven by Roger Godfrey backed his car hard into the guardrail just after ‘Gerards’ whilst avoiding a spinning Alfa Romeo. Both the Minis Misfortunes meant that once again we were gifted a class win (2 class wins in only our second race)

The good news is we weren’t far off the pace of the similar engine sized opposition in the first 3 gears at least and this showed at the start where, off the line the Beetle went from 0-60mph in 6.5 seconds and 0-80mph in 12.5 seconds...All this from a 1285cc engine that has more power to come and hasn’t been on a dyno or rolling road yet! We also got officially weighed at the track and found the car to be 55kg heavier than the Minis. If we drop the weight of the car by 7% (which is possible) to get to the class minimum figure we can (if the motorsport magazines are correct!) reduce our lap times by 3.5%. This would have made us two seconds a lap quicker at Mallory and (theoretically at least) put us around 3 cars further up the grid by weight reduction alone. Think how much modern British Touring Car drivers complain when they have to carry an extra 20kg of success ballast....We were carrying an extra 55kg and we’ve got less than half the power of a current BTCC car!

If you’d like to watch the complete Mallory Park race (from the drivers seat!) go to our ‘Tech Tips’ section, where you can watch the in-car footage. We will be adding more in-car race movies in the next week or so as the next race is this August Bank Holiday at Oulton Park in Cheshire which is a terrific twisty track that will suit our car better. We are entered in two test sessions, a 20 minute HSCC points race and a 1 hour, 2 driver ‘Tourist Trophy’ race.

Changes to the car since Mallory are small, but we’ve added a 3rd oil cooler (oil temperatures have been 120 degrees in previous races and we’d like to get them down to 85-90 if possible) and we are going to try adding a power pulley in testing and if the engine temperatures aren’t too high we will keep this pulley on for the races as it gives us an extra 7-9bhp at 8000rpm which will benefit us on the exits of the corners, up the hills and help pull that tall 4th gear.

Future plans are a lower 4th gear, lower weight, set the engine up on a rolling road, add a new pedal box with full brake bias adjustment and replace the standard cooling system with a large electric fan (the standard cooling fan and alternator wastes approx 14bhp@8000rpm!) The electric fan and small race alternator hopefully won’t use more than 4bhp. These improvements will come too late for this season, but they will make a huge difference to the performance. With this in mind we will be right on pace in 2010 and we’ll be able to take the fight to the other cars.

Next week I will let you know how (and show you how) we got on at the Oulton Park Gold Cup.

Bye for now.

Ian