GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

[alladdin]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

that 1st timed run looked very sweet.

[Paul C]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Are you all reaady for Fat Albert Gavin? You've got a good seeding.

Do you know if muddylanes, Van Roy is going again this year?

[Clint]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Just sat a watched them videos and throughly enjoyed them

Lovely car Gavin and great to meet you the other day !

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Are you all reaady for Fat Albert Gavin? You've got a good seeding.

Do you know if muddylanes, Van Roy is going again this year?

I think I'm ready, loaded everything up last night after refitting the passenger seat, harnesses, fire extinguisher, so Barney can be comfy

We're seeded at 7, one higher than last year when I came 6th overall but they're some quick late entries appeared so we'll see what happens, looking forward to it now

Van Roy's not going this year, he's got something else on

I did Loton Park and Curborough 2 weeks ago, but have been very busy sorting houses out, so I'll write about them later

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Finally got some spare time to do some reports on the last few events - I moved house from West Wales yesterday and now I'm renting a little cottage near Bristol, only 3.5 miles from work instead of 110 miles

Loton Park Sat 12th July

This was my 5th event at Loton this year, trying to do 6 events there for the Loton Park Championship, and I was up against Steve in his Mk1, a double driven MR2 who are normally 5s behind and Karl Stevens was back in his very quick Mk2 so I was expecting a good battle

1st Practice, a nice dry hill but not much grip on the corners so we all had a steady run, I was on 62.76s, Steve on 62.52s and Karl on 61.94s

2nd Practice, and the hill was now clean and I was happy with 61.38s, Steve was down to his usual 61.81s and Karl set an amazing 59.88s

1st Timed Run - Over lunch there was a quick shower but it was drying nicely so I was surprised when Karl fitted some wets for this run, but he must have known something as there was a torrential downpour as we lined up for the run. I did 73.92s, just pleased to get up the hill in one piece, Steve had a few big moments as well (also on slicks) and did 78.37s while Karl did 71.87s nearly going off himself. After this I was 3rd in class behind the first MR2 driver who had gone up in the previous batch when it was drier

2nd Timed Run, the hill was mainly dry so it was flat out again, but I wasn't expecting to get that close to Karl as I've never been under 60s. I tried my best, 2.36s off the line, 23.61s to Triangle (2/10th's off my PB) and finished with 60.86s (4/10's off my PB) and I felt I couldn't have gone any quicker so I was happy, finishing behind Karl who was just ahead with 60.60s, and Steve was back in 3rd on 63.02s

Fly was going well as always, but the starter had been getting lazy for a few events and I needed a bump start for the last run (thanks to Dave and Gaz), so I loaded up and headed back to Dave's that night where we built a new motor and solenoid into the starter housing ready for Curborough on the Sunday

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Curborough 13th July

Another round of the Midland Speed Championship, 2 laps of Curborough Sprint Track and just 2 other cars in my class, Tony Hart in his Renault 5 Turbo who is currently leading the class and a 1500cc Bond Equipe who was just out for a play

1st Practice, a sensible 65.75s with Tony on 66.61s so that was a good start, and 2nd Practice was a good improvement to 64.64s but Tony had his foot down this time, setting 62.33s

1st Timed Run, and a disappointing 64.72s but Tony had Four Wheels Off going too wide to start the 2nd lap so this was a failed run for him

2nd Timed Run, very consistent with 64.73s but nowhere near Tony who was down to 62.49s to win the class easily and extned his lead in the Championship, but I should have got some good points in the Old Ford Sprint Championship which I am currently leading, as no-one else has done that many events

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Some in car from Loton Park, I thought I'd uploaded all the runs but I must have missed the wet Timed Run

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCwi8FHaiYEYouTube - Loton Park 12th July 2008.

I must sort out a better camera mount for next month as there's too much vibration at the moment!

[Dave]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Excellent posts again Gavin.
The vid seems OK to me, I think a bit of vibration adds to the feel of speed.

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Thanks Dave

Fat Albert Stages Sat 26th July

Barney was in the hot seat for this rally as his car wasn't ready and seeded well at 7 we were hoping to improve on my 6th place last year

The event is run at Keevil near Trowbridge and we arrived bright and early and passed scrutineering without any comments. Behind us in the queue was Mark Ellis in an immaculate orange Mk2 seeded at 11 which Barney recognised as the shell had been built by Meirion of West Wales Motorsport Fabrications, so we had a closer look...

We thought it was a 2.3 Duratec, but no it was a "2.4 with 296 bhp", the front suspension was very fancy "£3.5k a corner" and Mark proudly informed us that he had invested £72k in this car

Onto the 1st stage out of 10, all about 8 miles long and we started with the soft Matadors all round. The stages were very similar to last year but a few tighter chicanes meant the handbrake was well used and after the first lap the rear tyres seemed to have lost all grip, whenever I put my foot down, Fly just disappeared sideways, and near the end of the stage coming round an open 60 left flat in 4th, the back end stepped out in a big way, which might have scored us plenty of points in a Drift competition but took a bit of sorting out before the next chicane

But we had set 14th fastest time and decided harder rear tyres might be a better idea for stage 2 and we set a time 20s quicker, moving us up to 11th, and Fly was back to handling as she normally does

3 & 4 passed without incident but by now the weather was really hotting up, we were finishing the stages with an oil temp of 120 C and water up to 110 C not that there was anything we could do, so we carried on knowing a lot of cars would break in the heat.

In between stages we would just check the tyres and fuel then retire to sit in Barney's air-conditioned pick up

We went to go out for stage 5, but the starter wouldn't engage, so we rounded up a few people and bump started Fly, which is fine, but then there was a 15 minute delay while they extracted a few cars from the bushes, so Fly wouldn't rev freely when we left the line (the plugs foul after idling for too long) but it cleared quite quickly and we were away again. Stage 6 was similar, not being bothered to look at the starter and we went into the lunch break 8th overall and 3rd in class, behind a very fast RWD Corsa and quick Peugeot 205, but 15s ahead of Mark Ellis's £72k Escort

After lunch, with the stages reversed, I decided to have a little charge and try and pull back some time on the 205 who were gradually pulling away from us. All was going well, braking as late as possible everywhere, until halfway round the second lap, coming round a very wide left flat in 5th on the rev limiter (about 120mph ) I braked a fraction late for a 1st gear chicane and slid into it pulled Fly round and came out again, went to turn right round the apex of the chicane and went straight on, the fornt left tyre not doing anything After a bit of toing and froing, we got going in the right direction and by the end of the next straight everything felt better and I put my foot down again and just as we crossed the finish, a large cone popped out the back of Fly, which explained all the problems

Looking at the times, we dropped about a minute from this, going down to 11th and 5th in class, so a slightly more sensible stage 8 was called for, and on this one we passed the 205 who was struggling and had to take a maximum, so that was 10th and 4th in class.

The last 2 stages passed without any more incidents and we finished 9th Overall and 4th in Class but without the cone we would have been a couple of places higher up

Anyway, thanks to Barney for co-driving and Sarah for the encouragement

[Dave]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

I love watching cars competing, but I readily admit to rarely knowing what is going on ie. who needs what time to beat who in what class against who did what in the last round etc etc. Generally all that stuff just escapes me. (luckily, at Oulton Park the very nice man on the pa explains it for me )
Reading your excellent posts give the likes of me a much greater insight into what is going on, both inside the car and out on the track/circuit/stage.
A big thanks from me for taking the time to share your experience and enthusiasm.

[merp0]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Great vid and right up.

[mervhill]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Nice one Gav, good write up mate, and well done

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Loton Park Sun 27th July

I was in 2 minds whether to enter this one the day after doing a rally but Fly is usually reliable and it was the last National B meeting of the year at Loton so the last chance I'd have to compete there this year, maybe next year I'll try some of the 2 day National A meetings

So another early start after emptying the van of rally tyres and adding the hillclimb slicks I set off for Shrewsbury, but coming into Bridgnorth there was a loud hissing noise from the front of the van which I'd never heard before and when I came to the next junction I found the brake pedal was solid and not very effective and realised that the vacuum pump had failed so the servo had stopped working

I drove very slowly after that and arrived a bit later than planned, but found my paddock space and started to fit the hillclimb slicks. I'd changed the rears when a rather 'picky' scrutineer turned up and started off by complaining about the grubbyness of my overalls, so I explained I'd done an 80 mile stage rally the day before and got a bit sweaty and he proceeded to give Fly a thorough going over, not being impressed by the metal wires showing on one of the front rally tyres, so I gave him the slicks to check instead. And he said my seats wouldn't be allowed on rallies next year as they aren't homologated, and reluctantly gave me a sticker

I finished changing tyres, did the pressures, got changed, organised Steve with the Mk1 to tow start Fly with his Discovery (I still hadn't bothered to look at the starter) and was ready just in time for first practice. I warmed the tyres as usual and pulled up to the start line with the marshals looking a bit puzzled Then they asked where my Timing Strut was and I realised it was still in the van - maybe the scrutineer should have spotted this instead of complaining about everything else

1st Practice - They let me go without the strut but just said my time wouldn't be 100% accurate. There was a surprising amount of grip for the first practice and I was happy with a 62.61s, as I don't normally start off that quickly

My main challenge today would be from Steve in his Mk1, who had become cheesed off with setting consistent 61.8s runs and had bought some new hillclimb slicks which were slightly narrower but worked better on his 6" rims. On Sat he had set a new PB of 60.33s, quicker than I'd ever been up there. The rest of the class was a Seat Ibiza Gti, a Saxo, a 205 and a Tigra, mainly from Liverpool Motor Club as this event was co-promoted by them

2nd Practice - Tow started again, got nicely into the first couple of corners only to be Red Flagged as the 205 had a big moment further up the hill, so I came back and had another go. The weather was boiling again and after the previous start the tyres were nice and warm and I got 2.31s off the start, quickly round to Triangle in 23.53, nicely up the hill to finish on 60.85s and this was still practice so I was well chuffed, hoping to improve on my PB of 60.47s in the afternoon

By this time, Dave had arrived to spectate as usual was happy to help me remove the sumpguard and have a look at the starter over lunch. So we jacked Fly up and removed the front wheels and he dived in to look at everything - "Why's the starter sitting on the sumpguard?" was the next thing I heard - maybe that's why it wouldn't engage, it wasn't even attached to the engine anymore

Ten minutes later, the sumpguard was off, the starter cleaned up and fitted with new bolts and Fly started under her own power

1st Timed Run - I'm not really sure what happened on this run, but Fly just didn't feel as stable as normal, maybe because it was really really hot now and the tyres were starting to overheat, but I only managed a 61.26s whereas Steve set another PB with 2.32s, 23.24s and 60.24s

Before the next run, I sat in the shade for 30mins, drank some Red Bull and cooled down a bit and wioth a couple of minutes to go, played with my tyre pressures, Steve having said he was running 26 front and 22 rear, where I had 22 all round, so I pumped up the fronts to 26, and thought about where I could gain a second up the hill

2nd Timed Run - Steve was running at the start of the class and I could see he did a 60.59s, so I decided to see what I could do A serious tyre warming session and plenty of revs off the line got me to 64ft in 2.32s and I tried to carry a bit more speed through the first square left, along short straight into a long left hander which tightens about halfway round, before a 30 right 45 left kink onto the straight going down to Triangle. Previously I'd spotted a good marker for the tightest point on the left hander and apexed the corner here, then found I was going a bit wide on the last bit, so put 2 wheels on the grass on the 30 right, giving me a better line down to Triangle with a split of 23.40s, just 0.01s ahead of my previous PB. I didn't feel that I got out of Triangle that smoothly (although Dave said it looked very good from the outside) so I made up my mind to take the crest at the top of Cedar Straight completely flat - all year I've tried to do this but have always braked or lifted just before as it looks a bit tight and is only 75yds before an open hairpin left . But this time I kept it flat in 4th and braked enough for the hairpin left, up another hill, round a hairpin right and over the finish

And the time was 60.31s, just 0.07s behind Steve but a new PB for me and the first time I've taken time out of him on the second half of the hill. Now I know the crest is flat, there should be more improvement next year

Even though I finished 2nd in Class, I was very happy with the time and how everything had gone over the weekend

Thanks to Dave again, and also to everyone who helped me move house last weekend

Next events are in September, starting with a Midland Speed Championship Track Day at Curborough where I'll take some of the Sponsor's round in Fly, so I'll dig out some old tyres and see how sideways we can go

Then I've got a weekend at Wiscombe, one at Shelsley, one at Curborough and the last round at Prescott, all in September

No videos from Fat Albert or Loton Park this time, I never got round to fitting the camera as it was so hot

[mervhill]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Nice one Gav, well done mate, gonna come to Anglesey to watch end of this month?

[Dave]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

He's got more imprtant things in his diary for that day
Excellent writeup again Gav. Don't know where you get the bottle from to go flat out in a place you aren't sure about.