Pushrod kings MK1 Escort race car

[Pushrod King]

well done nick, gearings can be a funny thing, dave runs a 4.29, but 17inch wheels, me on the other hand only managed 6.4K on a 3.9 in a direct to with 18's, although if you were pulling the same revs as dave it sounds like your 3.54 was a touch too long

Yep a 3.77 would of been ideal

[Pushrod King]

Who wants a write up on my day at Silverstone?

[Graham]

i think you should, thers no point in hoping my son will

[4drmatt]

Who wants a write up on my day at Silverstone?

i want to read one

[Pushrod King]

Oh well as Stephen won't do one I spose I will

Day went like this: 4.30am got up dressed etc,let the dogs out, had two cuppas in quick sucession then a bit of brekkie waited for my pit crew(13yo daughter) to get out of her pit,do make up etc finally get away at 5.30 am made good time on the 145mile trip and arrived at the circuit at 7.50,signed on,unloaded the car went to start it to take it to scrutineering and it wouldn't start!! Just span over without firing,I know it was cold but it's never not started 1st turn,anyway I managed to coax it into life and trundled off to the scrutineering bay and was showed to the front of the queue where two scruts went through the car with a fine tooth comb,one found a roll cage bolt that he thought was too short and the other reckoned that the front wheel studs were too short despite them being more than 1/2 way through the nuts,after a little bit of discussion they decided to give my the pass ticket and let me race.

Qualifying: Started near the back of the pack of 52 cars,spent the 1st 2 laps trying to learn the circuit having never even seen any of it in any configuration before,then spent 2 laps trying to make some space for a quick run, crossed the line and went for a quick lap only for my gear lever to come off in my hand at the 2nd corner leaving it in neutralI pulled off and tried to screw the lever back in but the plastic retainer had jammed and I couldn't move it with just my fingers! I managed to get 1st gear and drove back to the paddock,stayed in the car and got Alison to pass me tools (got to teach her what's what) but it was too late and the session finished,I qualified in 43rd with a time of 2min 26.854 secs which put me ahead ofthe bda engined mk1,a saph cossie,renault 5 turbo,couple ofxr2s,a jagxj300 sport,fiesta zetec s,metro gti and an old vw beetle.With the reserves sorted I started on row 20 which is 40th.

More later.

[stephen bahr]

apologies for being an ass nick.
the car went quite well (whilst it was working )
it's all development and time in the car, so best of luck for the next outing.

[Pushrod King]

apologies for being an ass nick. .

Ok don't do it again or it'll be the naughty corner for you

the car went quite well (whilst it was working )

Only 1 DNF all year

[Pushrod King]

RACE ONE:Got off to an okish start having to guess when the lights went out because I started so far back
Got past a couple of tin tops before the 1st corner then the sierra that started infront of me blew a rad hose and went off which allowed me to get past DW in his sierra and steve noble in his xe powered nova, got past another 2 or 3 cars on the very fast hanger straight and ended up behind last years tin top champion Gary Chappell in his rapid celica gt who I managed to force into a mistake and get past, I then had a dice with the renault 5 turbo which I managed to overtake around the very fast bridge corner where my car was excellent,I spent the next lap trying to get on terms with the Cox brothers in their very rapid zetec powered mk2 fiestas who were dicing with each other and then the following lap trying to find a way past only for my throttle cable to snap on lap 6 (of 7) giving me my 1st dnf of the season I had got up from 40th on the grid to 29th which was only 3 cars away from 2nd in class and 8 back from Graham Bahr! At least I had 4 hours to replace the throttle cable before race 2.

[stephen bahr]

Ok don't do it again or it'll be the naughty corner for you

Only 1 DNF all year

was referring to the throttle cable issue

[Pushrod King]

Race 2: Lined up in the assembly area at the very back of the grid in position 46,seemed to wait for hours before going out onto the track,then waited some more while the grid was formed at the start line (I was approx 1/4 of the way along the start/finish straight) went out for what seemed to be a very fast warm up lap (average 64mph) considering that the cars right infront of me were only capable of a 66mph average around the 3.2 mile circuitand the safety car's meant to keep us bunched up!
Not being able to see any lights and with the rest of the pack disappearing into the distance I started racing as I came out of the luffield complex (as did Richard Brent who had started behind me) going past the Vw beetle,jag and a couple of others as I went along the straight! By the end of lap one I had passed 10 cars including DW and the bda engined escort of Paul Goddard,I then went after the xe powered nova and passed him as we went round Bridge and also got past the no 30 proton and 52 car of Gareth porter who'd had a backwards grass tracking moment,on lap 3 I had an excellent battle with the mg zr 190 ofTerry searles eventually passing him through my favourite corner Bridge,he kept me honest for another lap until I chased down the quick pug 106gti (the one that DW had problems with in race 1) passing him on hanger straight only to have him deliberately weave from one side of the track to the other so I just gave hime a very wide berth and kept my foot in and just drove around him and took up position with Terry following me through only to have an oil pipe (I think) burst at the end of the straight firing him off down the escape road! on lap 6 the xe powered nova just drove past me down hanger straight and although I caught and passed him through (you guessed) Bridge he got me back and made it stick on the last lap. I finished 2nd in class and 28th overall which meant that I had made up 18 places in 7 laps.Although I had gone side to side with most of the cars that I passed there was not 1 bit of contact
Roll on Brands hatch!!

[david_white]

Good write up Nick, you had a great race.

I just wish I hadn't dropped all of those places in the first race as I was ahead of the nova, protons, mg zr190 etc before losing my exhaust not that I'd have kept your pace though once you got infont

[Pushrod King]

I see that Alex is entered for the last round,will be interesting to see if I can keep up.

[david_white]

I see that Alex is entered for the last round,will be interesting to see if I can keep up.

You'll be doing very well if you do as he's been flying this year

[4drmatt]

good write up, and well done on the result. sounds like a lot of fun!

[Pushrod King]

You'll be doing very well if you do as he's been flying this year

He sure has got quicker than ever

[david_white]

He sure has got quicker than ever

Especially at Brands, will be interesting to see the lap times if its a decent day although I don't expect we'll find much grip out there this time whatever happens

[david_white]

Well done today Nick with a couple more prizes, hopefully see you at Brands to lend a hand with the intermarque race

[Pushrod King]

Thanks Dave,I don't know how I got best prepped car with my old wreck Let me know if you want tickets for the 14th,will be good to have some help

[Pushrod King]

Race report Brands Hatch 31st Oct/1st Nov: I knew we were in for an interesting weekend when it started raining just as we set off for Brands Hatch at 7am on saturday!
Qualifying was a dismal affair with me not having even tried for a quick lap when the red flags came out as a certain mr X had ended up in the gravel trap at paddock hill and then following a dash for the loo (getting old) whilst waiting in the pit lane the session was ended with me having only covered a total of 4 laps and setting a very slow time of 1min 3.9 secs which meant that I started in 24th overall and 5th in class alongside Dave White's Sierra and behind a blue 3dr cossie.

Race1:With the weather and track drying out I elected to start on slicks and on the rolling start out dragged DW and drove around the outside of the cossie around Paddock hill bend making it stick for several laps until his hp advantage showed and he overtook along the start/finish straight,I then came across the spinning car of Graham Bahr which was on the grass at the end of cooper straight and passed the 205 of Richard Brent around the start of Clearways as he limped into the paddock,I must of been distracted as the no 98 mini of Michael Edgell somehow got past me just as the safety car came out infront of us at the exit of the pitlane and then waved us past so that he could pick up the leaders,as I got to Clearways I could see why the sc was out and had to pick my way through the debris as the obviously rolled car of Nik Barton was in the gravel trap at the exit of the corner The incident which DW has described must of happened just after I passed the #90 205 as DW must of been 6 or 7 seconds behind me at that stage! Anyway after 5 laps following the safety car the race continued (would of only been 4 IF a certain Nova driver had kept up with the pack like he's meant to)at the restart I was lining up a move up the inside of the mini when we were both passed by the sierra thundersaloon of Brian O connor who went between us just missing the front of my car,I went past the mini around the outside of paddock hill and blocked him into druids I diced with another mini (Julian Howell) for another lap or two finally passing him along the start finish straight,I finished 21st overall and 4th in class but had lapped in the 56/57s consistantly with a best time of 56.3seconds.
Race twos report will follow.

[lee 1]

Well done on the result

Good write up too,can we have race 2 now please

[Pushrod King]

RACE 2: After watching and looking at all of the weather forecasts that forecast torrential rain for sunday I decided to fit the full wets that I had when I was sprinting the car whilst the car was in the garage ( I took the car home on sunday) BIG mistake!! Although it pissed down for most of the journey up to Brands and for a bit while we waited for our race by the time we actually got out on track there was already a drying line starting to form
Anyway I was out there and had no choice other than not to race so I joined the grid behind the Nova of Graham Richardson and alongside the 3dr cossie of Peter Taylor who was behind the mk2 escort of Alex Ribbens.As the pack followed the safety car around Clearways I saw Rod Birleys' Escort wrc pass the safety car so thinking that the race was on I nailed it coming out of clearways passing several cars only to find that the lights were red(unbeknown to me there were 2 safety car laps and Rod had pulled off because his car was broken) so a bit redfaced I anchored up and let the other cars back infront before the line and continued on the 2nd safety car lap,this time though the cars infront were ready for my move and didn't leave any room although I did pass the 3dr into paddock, as I came onto the cooper straight Alex Ribbens was off on the grass avoiding the Seat of John X so I managed to get past Alex and mr X and was making a move on another car when I was passed either side by mr Bahr and an escort cossie (I think)both cutting across the front of my car so sharply I had to brake ruining my overtake (you can't go 4 abreast along the Cooper straight) and then spent the next lap defending against the recovering no 66 car eventually letting him past into paddock hill bend,on the next lap I was passed by Uncle Eric in his Fiesta I then spent the rest of the race just trying to stay on the track as I had no grip whatsoever,luckily I had enough of a buffer between me and the cars behind that they didn't catch me,I eventually finished 26th overall and 3rd in class D.

At the awards ceremony I awarded the Quaife best prepared car award..... My prize.... a Sealey torque wrench!

This Season out of 16 starts in the Dunlop Saloon Car Championship I managed to gain:

1x 1st in class,
4x 2nds in class,
6x 3rds in class,
3x 4ths in class,
1x 5th in class.
And 1 non finish.
Which is enough for 9th overall in the whole championship and..................................................................2nd in class D.
I also took two class wins in the Barc Intermarques at the start of the year

Not bad for a bald,fat old git driving a totally self built car (also the lowest powered in class)in his first full seasons' circuit racing

Next and last race of the year,Brands Hatch on the 14th of Nov

[4drmatt]

good stuff

[Toymex]

Well done Nick you must be really pleased with your year ,what you dont say in your write up is that the only help you have in the paddock is your 13 year old daughter it really is a good achievement and only losing out to Bill and his mini which gives the class above a run for there money at times
Hope to see you in the paddock next year if funds allowmight be in the same class aswell

[dangerousdave]

Congrats nick on a cracking first year racing

Roll on next year for more class wins

[andypipe]

Not if I can help it

[Pushrod King]

Not if I can help it

It's ok Andy you can have 2nd in class next year

[Pushrod King]

Well done Nick you must be really pleased with your year ,what you dont say in your write up is that the only help you have in the paddock is your 13 year old daughter it really is a good achievement and only losing out to Bill and his mini which gives the class above a run for there money at times
Hope to see you in the paddock next year if funds allowmight be in the same class aswell

Thanks,Due to rule changes Bills' car is now a class C car for 2010,shame it doesn't apply retrospectively As for you going 16v........NOOOOO........You're quick enough with the 1400 8v!!!!

[Stringpants]

Well Done Nick....thanks for all the write ups..

Nice to read of your exploits,

Regards,

Russ.

[andypipe]

It's ok Andy you can have 2nd in class next year

Had it in 07 and 08 so another year wont mater

[david_white]

Well done in the first race today Nick, great result.

As for the second race you were either very heroic or a bit mental, but either way it was highly entertaining and to get to the end and not DNF in those conditions was quite a feat

[Pushrod King]

Thanks Dave,as for heroic/mental; on hindsight probably a bit of both,I didn't realise it but I was actually 2nd in class in the 2nd one so got another award

Will write a full report later,unless DW fancies doing one from his perspective?

[david_white]

Well I'll let Nick do the write up for race one as from the pitwall we had a limited view, but basically Nick qualified a good 9th out of 25 or so cars and after dropping back a bit on the start made it back up to 7th overall and 1st in class

Race Two was a different story though. The conditions had been changable and damp at least all day and Nick made his way to the collecting area still on slicks, partly because the weather could go either way and mainly cos his wets were pretty useless anyway. He decided it was worth the gamble and as it meant we didn't have to change his tyres in the rain we were happy too

In the collecting area the light drizzle suddenly turned into a massive down pour even with hailstones and very high winds. And Nick is on Slicks

As the cars went out they did the usual 2 green flag laps due to the bad conditions but the cars failed to come round a third time. They had all been held on the starting grid because the safety car had deemed the conditions to be too bad to start the race so they sat on the grid probably for about 10 mins before setting off.

The track still had deep puddles/rivers running across surtees, graham hill and paddock (and probably other places out of our sight) and Nick was at the sharp end of the grid with totally the wrong tyres. They all got going and we waited for Nick to come around. Either on the first or second flying lap the front runners came down the back straight minus Nick, but I could just see his roof slowly moving up towards druids so it was obvious he'd had a bit of an off after paddock. As he entered Graham Hill (oo er) the car snaked left and right and some very wild tank slappers followed but Nick held on to it and Kept going. Lap after lap Nick had te car pointing every way but forward but kept it off the grass and in the end against all odds he didn't DNF or pick up damage and ended up with a second in class

[david_white]

Well I'll let Nick do the write up for race one as from the pitwall we had a limited view, but basically Nick qualified a good 9th out of 25 or so cars and after dropping back a bit on the start made it back up to 7th overall and 1st in class

Oh forgot to say the reason Nick dropped back a lot was because of a big first corner pile up again triggered by one of the over eager fiestas. He hit Alex Ribbens' escort and Terry Searles' MG causing those two to go off and resulting in Alex hitting the tyre wall heavily to avoid T boning the MG.
The same fiesta then crashed later in the race bringing out red flags

Back in the pits quite a bit of straightening had to be done to get Alex's escort straight again but with everyone mucking in it didn't look that bad and Alex started from the back in race 2, although on his toyo tyres he made great progress up through the grid and must have got a decent result. He was the first escort home at least

Just a pity we didn't have any toyos for Nicks car as they are a great option when you don't know which way the weathers going, they will work on a bone dry track or equally well on a damp track or even heavy rain if they aren't too worn down

[Pushrod King]

Last race reports of 2009 .
Saturday 14th November 2009,BARC intermarque challenge.

Qualifying:Although the rain had stopped for a while with our qualifying being the 1st session of the day the track was still pretty wet but as I was out with the tin tops who have to run road tyres I gambled on going out on slicks thinking that a dryish line may appear,I had intended to take it easy for a few laps to let the track dry but the drivers in front of me either had the same idea or were being too cautious so I just went for it overtaking too many cars for me to remember, my times started at 1min 10.7 seconds on the 1st lap,went down to 1min 4.1s on the 2nd then 1min 1.889s on lap 7 finally going down to 1 min 1.247s on the last lap (13) of the session,leaving me in 10th on the grid with Alex Ribbens (running as a tin top on toyos) alongside me (9th with 1m 059s) and the yellow Renault 5 turbo of Dave Clark directly in front of me.
Pole position was held bythe DMN class B Golf turbo of Steve Dann who was running in the tin tops guest class (on toyos) with a 58.2s.
RACE1:
On the rolling start I made sure that I kept close to the R5 only to be held up by him and the slower accelerating car infront of him who both move to the outside as the lights went out and we were racing,I was aware of Alex moving accross so I couldn't do anything but follow the R5 into paddock hill bend (glad I did) as we all got there at the same time there was an over optimistic move by the Zetec powered mk2 fiesta no47 who started behind Alex who tapped him on a little as we all braked causing a 3 car shunt which resulted with Alex hitting the tyre wall in avoidance of the other two cars(R5 and MG ZR) all three ended up in the gravel trap necessitating a 3 lap safety car period and leaving me in 14th place as I had braked almost to a standstill avoiding the carnage!
Lap 4 the lights went out on the safety car and Steve Dann took up the job of controlling the speed of the restart. on lap 4 I passed the no 30 car then set about chasing the 46 car passing him around Graham Hill bend and the no 57 (Intermarque Class C) Caterham roadsport around Clearways on lap 5/6 putting me back up to 10th, on lap 6/7 I passed the 49 car along the start/finish straight and then set about the rover tomcat turbo of race instructor Pete Winstone forcing him into an error around clearways and passing him up the inside as he got all crossed up,this moved me up to 8th,I spent lap 8 on my own although gaining on the cars infront lap 9 the 47 fiesta had a big off going up the hill out of paddock hill bend which bought the red flags out and the end of the race. I finished 7th overall and 1st in Class D of the intermarques Incidentally car no 47 caused both a safety car on the 1st lap and then made the race end early with his crash on lap 9 (we only had 10 minutes of a 14minute race)
More Later.

[Pushrod King]

Race 2:It was VERY wet so I went out on my option (as in only option) tyres full slicks! (that's why I'd put a wanted add for toyos/yokos)

Got of to a good start but on lap 3 went into paddock hill bend way too hot aquaplaning off towards the outside of the track,threw the car sideways,clipped the gravel trap at the bottom of the hill,got on the power and spun off backwards uphill on the inside of the trackI ended up dead last of 32 cars and because I couldn't get any traction on the wet grass/mud lost nearly a minute!
I got going and despite aquaplaning through most of the corners managed to catch and pass a car or two and even passed a proton (that had lapped me) along the start/finish straight,another of the protons (ex challenge cars) lapped me around clearways but cut in too soon,clipped my front wheel and spun himself off. Anyway I managed to finish 24th of 32 cars and 2nd in class

So to add to my tally for the year I took home a 1st and 2nd place medal.

I also ended the year 2nd in class in the BARC Intermarques so that's 2nds in two different championships in 2009.

[lee 1]

Shame about the weather spoiling your final meeting of the year but you have got to be happy with second in two championships

Whats the plans for next year?

[Retromotorsport]

Well done Nick

[Pushrod King]

Whats the plans for next year?

Well IF I wanted to easily win my class I'd do a full season in the intermarques but I'm more than likely going to do another season in the DMN. Plans for the car include:
Lose weight out of both myself and the car,find some more power out of the poor little engine,better brakes,improve the handling,replace the oil cooler (started to leak at the last dmn round),replace the temp guage (stopped working in the last race) and tidy up the shell a little.
Oh and buy some wets

[Pushrod King]

No real news on the car but I managed to get a sponsor today,Demon Tweeks................They do a scheme called pole position which IF a picture of your competition car is published in certain magazines you get a £200 voucher per time it appears.If I had been on the scheme last year I would of had at least £1000 as pictures of my car appeared 5 times or more and even on local tv (courtesey of Rod Birley). The highest earner on the scheme last year was in my class,he earnt over £3k!!!!!

[Pushrod King]

Just go my car back from my new sponsors Golding Barn Coachworks who repaired the damage from last year and added some sign writing.



Just need to find a new windscreen,fit a pair of head lights and the grille and the body's sorted.