RACING EXPOSURE :: Club level motorsport e-magazine

Honda - turbocharged engine

Regulations can be a minefield, and for those involved in setting them, it must be a nightmare.

Some are related to safety.   Some are designed to reduce costs.   Some are designed to try to equalise performance between different cars and engines which offer very different levels of performance.

Safety related items:   Modern Motorsport is now a very safe sport, all things considered.  Yes, there are accidents, and people do get hurt, but thanks to prompt action by circuit Marshals and Medical Staff, but also that each car has been checked by the Scruitineers.

At the start of every race weekend, each car is checked by the team of MSA Scruitineers.   These people are looking for safety critical items – a car that is mechanically fit to race, with working rain lights, fully operational fire extinguisher systems and electrical cut-off systems which kill electrical power and to reduce the possibility of sparks.     Harnesses are checked for integrity and to make sure they are still within date. Helmets and race suits are checked at the same time to make sure they conform to the required standards.   Periodic adjustments and improvements to regulations are issued from time to time – recently one manufacturer of safety clothing had their license suspended, and also a clarification on roll cages was issued.

Chevrolet - normally aspirated

After a race, cars are subject to further scruitineering, usually to make sure that they comply with series regulations – complying with weight limits, ride heights, wing heights, airbox volume, fuel sampling et cetera.

Many people have no qualms with these regulations, some set by the MSA, others by their chosen race series.   Sometimes those caught out, especially in club motorsport, and they haven’t won, are given a slap on the wrist and told to make sure it complies next time, but sometimes the scruitineers are more strict and will exclude drivers whose cars are technically illegal.

Cost related items:   Motorsport is an expensive sport, and sometimes it is necessary to limit spending by introducing regulations which control the levels of expenditure in certain areas – the danger is that whoever has the biggest chequebook wins. Introducing control tyres, limiting the number of fresh sets of tyres per race weekend, control fuel and specifically prohibiting certain modifications are all measures which can be used to limit expenditure.    Some of these fall into the equalisation type of regulation – by making everyone run with the same tyres or the same fuel, this tends to equalise performance to a greater or lesser extent.

Performance Parity:   This is the hot potato, and currently in BTCC there is a huge storm brewing between the turbocharged NGTC cars and the older S2000 cars.    The series is currently in transition between the old regulations and the new regulations.   The main problem is that the series director and administrator, Alan Gow, publically said several times that there will be an overall level of parity for both this year and next, to ensure an even changeover and to ensure that the older cars do not become outmoded and devalued overnight.    The problem is exactly how do you give parity to two different breeds of engine?

As shown so far in the 2011 BTCC championship, in terms of ultimate performance, the turbo cars have had the edge, and the first adjustment to their performance came after the Donington round, where each car was given a 0.1 bar reduction in boost pressure from the peak boost levels logged at Donington by the mandatory data logger systems.   The pace setting Hondas of Team Dynamics were pegged back a further 0.1 bar, a backhanded compliment for engine developers Neil Brown Engineering who have done too good a job building an engine complying with the regulations.   Still not enough, as the turbo cars were once again the quickest cars over a flying lap at Thruxton and through the speed traps.

Organisers TOCA have several weapons in their arsenal to adjust performance.   Reducing boost level will help to reduce the acceleration advantage.   Reducing inlet restrictor will reduce the engines efficiency particularly at higher RPMs, and maybe cars could be reduced further by an electronic rev limit.   That is before any adjustments are made about the weight limits and levels of ballast each car runs with.

Last year, the LPG fuelled, turbocharged Team AON Ford Focus has its peak boost level reduced several times during the season, and the restrictor size reduced in diameter as well.    These measures just affected a 2 car team, and yes, those cars were quick in a straight line, but these cars didn’t dominate the series as much as many feared.   The bigger problem is that just over half the field have switched to an NGTC engine, and the Chevrolet Cruzes of Plato and chums which were the class of the field at the end of last season are now struggling to break into the top 6.    Lets not mention the SEAT turbo diesels from a few years ago.

Diesel engines were permitted into the Le Mans 24 hour race, and the other LMS series endurance races, and since the first year that the diesels have raced in the modern era, the leading petrol cars have not been able to compete on a level playing field.   Series organisers have tried to limit the power of the diesels, by reducing boost and restrictor sizes, but it appears the design engineers are more clever than the engineers who are working as consultants to the race series organisers.     This is often shown in Formula One, where there are repeated attempts to curtail speeds, and very soon afterwards the cars are as quick as they were before.    I’m sure Audi and Peugeot are delighted and have sold a lot of diesel cars on the back of it, helping make performance diesels more acceptable alternative to what was there before.

As there is likely to be an increase in fuelling options – petrol, diesel, alcohol based fuels and the increasing use of hybrid power – either in terms of batteries, or the increasing use of Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) which give performance boosts.  How will this be catered for?

The old formula of a turbo being classed as capacity x 1.4 is long gone!

So, faced with all that, who would want to be series regulator?

Photography: Nick Dungan / Sportstock

Plato and Rouse – The comparison.

At Brands Hatch on the 3r April 2011, 12:21pm. Jason Plato claimed victory in the first race of the 2011 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship and with it, his 61^st career win in the BTCC.   He has since taken two more victories, another at Brands Hatch, and one at Thruxton.

Who he had overtaken was four time Champion Andy Rouse, who set the record back in 1992, having taken victory at Silverstone in the final race of the season.

Plato matched the record at Brands Hatch in 2010, when he took a brace of victories en route to his second Championship.

The records were set in different eras and both drivers have seen big changes during their BTCC career – how do the drivers match up and how would they have fared if they raced in different eras?

Andy Rouse – Four time Champion, 60 wins between 1974 and 1992.

Rouse made his debut in the BTCC during the multi class system, racing a Ford Escort RS 2.0 in 1973, and the following year he secured his first piece of BTCC Silverwear when he finished second overall and won the C Class title in his Triumph Dolomite Sprint.

The first of his outright BTCC Crowns came in 1975, when he took the title in his Dolomite Sprint as well as the Class C crown.

Winning the outright title in a Class C car was an achievement but entirely possible back in the day due to the variety of cars on show.

After winning the crown in 1975, Rouse then moved up to Class B in a works backed Jaguar XJ12C. Much was expected of the cars but after a tough 1977 season, British Leyland withdrew its support.

Rouse then took a break before returning in 1981, running his own team. Further title success came in 1983, 84 and 85 – 1985 was his last outright BTCC crown but he did claim the Class A titles in 1988 and 1989.

The biggest period of change which Rouse saw come in was the switch from the multiclass system to the normal 2.0 litre era – and the start of the Super touring Era.

Rouse would win more races during the start of the Super touring Era, claiming his final career win during the 1992 Silverstone finale. He stopped racing in the BTCC at the end of the 1994 season.

Andy Rouse claimed the 1985 title at the wheel of a turbocharged car – the 2.3 litre Ford Sierra Turbo. This marked the start of a new era for the engines.

Rouse was not a driver who took fools lightly – his body language after an infamous accident with team mate Will Hoy and Brands Hatch in 1993 is a classic example of this.

How would Rouse have fared in today’s S2000/NGTC era? Its’ clear to see that the guy had talent, beating more powerful cars to outright wins and Championships and if he were racing today, he would win races – thanks to the three race format, the success ballast on the leading cars and the closeness of the racing. Would he have ended up as a Champion today, the answer must surely be yes.

Jason Plato – Double Champion, 63 career wins from 1997 to present day.

Plato made his debut in the series three years’ after Rouse retired, driving for the Williams Renault outfit alongside Alain Menu. 1997 was right at the top of the Super Touring era.

He made an immediate impact on the series when he took Pole Position on his debut at Donington Park and then again at Silverstone. His first career win arrived in round eighteen of the season, at Snetterton in Norfolk. Win two came in the season finale of 97, at Silverstone.

1998 and 1999 saw Plato claim one win apiece with the Renault team before he jumped ship to Vauxhall ahead of the 2000 season, where he was joined by Yvan Muller and Vincent Radermacker. Two wins came as he finished fifth overall.

2001 saw the biggest regulations changes Plato has seen during his BTCC career to date. Out went the Super Touring Regulations and in came the cheaper BTC Regulations, the BTC-T category and the BTC-P category – T for Touring, P for Production. This saw one of the smallest grids for a while.

Championship number one for Plato arrived in 2001, with the Vauxhall Astra Coupe. This was a tough time for Plato as inter team problems with team mate Muller threatened to get in the way of his fight. He prevailed at the Brands Hatch finale to take the crown, having won 8 races.

2002 and 2003 saw Plato not race in the BTCC, and he rejoined in 2004 with the SEAT Sport team, in their first season. The series had had its regulations amended slightly to allow cars conforming to the FIA’s S2000 regulations to enter. This meant the end of the Production Class though.

2004 onwards has seen Plato become one of the most successful racers in recent history – his wins record stands at:

2004 – 7 wins, 2005 – 3, 2006  -8, 2007 – 6, 2008 – 8, 2009 – 7, 2010 – 8 (Champion), 2011 – 3 (to date)

The 2009 finale saw Plato become only the second driver to take victory in the days three races – after Dan Eaves in 2005. This propelled him from third to second overall and proved himself as the driver to beat in 2010.

Having finished as the bridesmaid in three out of the last five seasons (2006, 2007 and 2009), Plato took his second crown in 2010 and with it matched Rouse’s win record.

Plato has made himself into a crowd favourite or a guy you love to hate type of character, but that is just his appeal.

How would Plato have fared back in the Multiclass era of the 70’s and 80’s? It’s hard to look past him being successful but how successful – up against 3000cc Class A cars when he could have been in a 1300cc Class D car makes it impossible to predict.

Which driver is better:

Overall, you have to sum up that even though Plato has sixty-two wins compared to Rouses’ sixty, that Rouse is the better driver of the two and that he will be remembered in the future – his sixty wins came during a time where there were numerous different types of cars, single race weekends and where some of the finest drivers were in the BTCC.

Plato, on the other hand has always had a minimum of two races to gain race wins and from 2004, three races per weekend – so thirty races a season. Rouse had 11 or 12 races per season at times. Plato has always faced the 2.0 litre engine era, whether it be 2.0 normally aspirated, 2.0 litre Turbo Diesels or 2.0 litre LPG powered Turbos. He has normally had one of the fastest cars on the grid to secure his race wins in as well, while Rouse may have had one of the slowest.

Both drivers faced the same sort of grid sizes – mid teens to early twenties and both with a mixture of works cars and independently entered cars. Rouse stands out here in a way because he took a crown while in an Independent car, Plato has won his two crowns in works prepared cars – though he was mighty close in 2009 when in the Independent Chevrolet Lacetti.

The only way that Plato can be fully compared to Andy Rouse is when he beats his four British Touring Car Championship titles.

Plato has earned his place on top of the wins category but Rouse did it in better fashion, where the odds were against him more.

Analysis: Matt Auger

Photographs of Jason Plato provided by Nick Dungan / Sportstock.co.uk.   More pictures from BTCC and other race series can be found on the Sportstock website.

Sadly I don’t have any photographs of Andy Rouse in his heyday, if any Racing Exposure readers can oblige, I would be very grateful.

The controversial logo fuelling rumours...

It was confirmed overnight that the speculation below is true, Motorbase Performance are switching from rear wheel drive BMW 3-series, to the front wheel drive Ford Focus, and have purchased three cars from Arena Performance (Team AON) that were used for the 2010 season.

These will be run with a Mountune prepared NGTC engine.

Drivers have not been announced, but Motorbase Boss David Bartram has made no secret of the fact that he wants to keep Mat Jackson, and have been testing various drivers including Ben Collins (known to many as BBC Top Gear’s The Stig)

The Team will compete as Airwaves Racing.

—-

Online speculation suggests that Motorbase Performance, who have been racing under Wrigley’s Airwaves sponsorship could be switching from the BMW 3-series to Ford Focus ST’s for the 2011 season.

The Ford Focus was one of the fastest cars of the 2010 season, Team Aon using a LPG powered version.  Often the fastest car through the speed trap, it was subject to several performance reviews which led to a reduction in restrictor size, and a lowering of peak boost.

There is twitter speculation that Team AON have sold 3 Focus cars to Motorbase.    Team AON, Arena Motorsport, have already tested a NGTC turbocharged petrol engine in the 2010 car, claiming it was an improvement over the innovative LPG system.

Despite the straight line dominance, the Fords didn’t dominate as much as feared, although Silverstone was a particular highlight.   Snetterton, with its long straights was a disappointment.  Part of the battle was the Focus appeared to be harder on its tyres than its rivals.

The rumours are fuelled by the new racing logo which appeared on their website and Facebook page, the word Racing is identical in colour and font to that used by Ford.

Nothing has been formally announced yet, but a number of websites are hinting at an announcement very shortly, so this is purely guesswork.

Meanwhile watch this space!

The rumour comes at a bad time for BMW Touring Car fans, as BMW announced that there would be no works entry for the World Touring Car Championship, although it would support customer cars, prompting the WTCC retirement of Andy Priaulx from Guernsey, three time winner of the WTCC crown with BMW.   However, if rumours are also to be believed, BMW is preparing an entry for DTM, the German Touring Car series.

The new Ford Focus World Touring Car was recently shown at the Los Angeles Motor Show.

More news as and when it becomes available…

The old design...

Previously, Simon Davey explained that to avoid insolvency whilst motor racing the following tips should be followed:

1) Avoid Accidents
2) Collect All The Bits
3) Be Nice And Always Pay On Time
4) Learn To Weld
5) Learn To Use Composite Materials

Let us continue……

6) Save Odd-Shaped Bits Of Stuff

Simon's garden, yesterday

I’ve kept bits of metal and plastic for 25 years before finding a use for them. Very sad maybe, but definitely saves a lot of money, and I’ve had many a happy evening cataloguing them (alright that last bit isn’t true). I do however have three bins that I use to save bits and pieces of materials or broken components: one for steel, one for aluminium & plastic and one for any long rods or tubes. It’s amazing how much time and money you can save by starting to make a vital bracket from something which happens to be roughly the right shape to start with; rather than starting from scratch by going out and buying a largish piece of new material, which is both expensive and needs more work to get it into the final configuration.

For example Van Diemen Formula Fords have flat alloy plate engine mountings that often break, but are then a superb source of material for any number of mounting brackets or lightweight spacers. I’ve converted broken wishbones into engine mountings (and I think once the other way), made exhaust system fixings from six inch nails, and regularly recycled the unworn sections from front aluminium skid plates to make skid plates for the rear etc etc. Saving odd bits of exhaust system is particularly profitable – again with the current Swift I completely rebuilt its badly bent exhaust system with pieces from the metal bin.

My wife thinks this habit of carefully saving bits of old bent metal illustrates that I am completely barking, if mostly harmless – but she does the same thing with embroidery threads!

7) Don’t Buy Flashy Race-Wear

I think this section must be aimed mainly at new-to-racing drivers. I have often seen people in this position going out and spending £1000+ on ace-looking race wear, and then finding they don’t have enough money to actually do much racing.

In my world there are two essential attributes for race wear. It must comply with the regulations and it should be so comfortable that you don’t notice you are wearing it when you are driving the car. Given these two conditions are satisfied, there is an argument that more expensive race wear is safer, because it is better made, or made from superior materials. I personally don’t subscribe to this view. I think the vast majority of expensive race wear will perform its function in exactly the same way as the more modest versions – it just looks flashier. Mark you, this is being written by someone who raced wearing plimsolls as footwear for the first 12 years of my racing career, before my mechanic couldn’t stand it any longer and cadged a pair of worn – out racing boots for me.

So read the regs carefully, buy sensibly, and remember: “when the flag drops the bullshit stops”. (of course this saying comes from the time when races were started with a flag – great days, great days)

8 ) Scavenge

This is my favourite cost-saving section by far. When I’m in the paddock at a race I keep one eye on the ground; it’s amazing what you will find. Most valuable treasure trove items are are Dzus fasters, K Nuts, and R clips, with an additional bounty of nuts and washers of all shapes and sizes. At most meetings I collect £5-£10 worth. Over the season this amounts to about 1% of my racing budget. If you think that isn’t worth bothering about, what I would like you to do is to write me a cheque for 1% of your racing budget, and I’ll bother about it for you!

More pro-active scavenging can be even more cost-effective. At Donington last year Avon were throwing away sets of Duratec slicks with only one practice and race on them. I know several Mono members who collected complete sets of free tyres. When I raced in F3 I regularly used to collect part-worn brake pads that Cellnet had thrown into the skip (probably you shouldn’t try this one at home), and I have certainly acquired several charming nose cones which less impecunious teams have ditched after taking relatively minor damage.

Best-ever (semi) scavenge was once stopping on the slowing down lap at the Bomb Hole at Snetterton to put in an offer on a written-off Van Diemen which was distributed along the banking. Clinched the deal when the wrecker bought the bits and driver back to the paddock, to the frustration of Ken Thorogood who was in the scrutineering bay, hoping to buy the wreckage. Won the Champion of Snetterton title the following year with the rebuilt car.

9) Know Why Things Are The Way They Are

There are three common reasons for why a typical racing car is put together the way it is:

• The regulations say it has to be done that way
• Doing it that way makes the car faster, more reliable or safer
• It’s been prepared by an idiot who had no idea how to do this properly

If you put it together wrong it may break or you may be disqualified, both of which cost or waste money. It will certainly be slow, but that’s a side issue. Vitally, it may kill you and it will probably cost a lot of money to repair or simply put right. The absolute classic example is the number of people who do not understand how the brake balance system on a single seater works, and consequently they assemble and/or adjust it incorrectly, often making the car dangerously unstable under braking. Ask the guy who transposed the front and rear brake master cylinders on my Swift.

Lesson 1 here is to make sure you know what the rules are, and how they are applied in practice. Read the Blue Book and the Championship Technical regs thoroughly. Then go and stand in the scrutineering bay and carefully look at the cars as they come through to see how well or badly people have implemented the rules. Go and ask people about their cars in the paddock (hint: ask nicely).

Lesson 2 is to read as much as possible about the physics and engineering principles which underlie the performance, reliability and safety of a racing car. Do not mindlessly copy what everyone else appears to be doing, and do not simply invent arbitrary solutions, unless you believe you have understood why you choosing this particular way of doing it. A very good place to start is Carroll Smith’s Prepare/Tune to Win books (find out why the Traction Circle is important). Allan Staniforth’s books about the Terrapin single seater are also very good (ever used a String Computer?).

10) Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness

Preparing or repairing a racing car, especially using new bits, is very expensive. Cleaning a racing car is not, and here I’m talking about the mechanical bits: chassis, suspension, engine, gearbox; more than about the bodywork. Apart from the obvious fact that a clean racing car looks better to most people that a dirty one, cleaning the working bits has a number of cost-saving benefits:

• Clean and (if appropriate) lubricated moving parts won’t wear out as fast as ones which are gritty.
• The process of cleaning is the best way of spotting components and structures which are worn, cracked or about to break in some more obscure way, before the worst happens and possibly even more expense is incurred. Just looking at the car is nothing like as effective at spotting damage as picking up a cloth or a paint brush and cleaning it.
• Clean bits are much easier to adjust and replace, saving time and eventually money. I’ve seen more than a few suspension arms with the rod end bearings so comprehensively manked into them that getting them apart undamaged was just about impossible. I once had to flame cut the front rockers off a Van Diemen because of this.
• Especially early on in the season, and if you use an open trailer (like me), then the car suffers terribly from salt pick-up from the road when it’s being taken to and from the race track. Clean it rigorously, and I use copious quantities of WD40 to both restore and protect the exposed metal bits. Otherwise it will corrode and cost you a lot of money to fix.
• I think many people don’t know about the restorative powers of a good wirebrushing (preferably rotary) followed by a vigorous polishing with Solvol Autosol. This process has an amazing effect on metal components and quite often renders them looking like new. If I’m wrong, and everyone knows about this method, then I assume there is some arcane and mysterious reason why it’s never been applied to any of the second hand cars that I have bought over the years!

11) Take Expert Advice Before You Buy A Car

I guess this section is aimed mainly at newbies, but when I see the decisions more experienced people make sometimes (including myself!) I do wonder about that. There are two main ways of falling over when you buy racing car from a technical standpoint.

The first is to buy a car that is never going to be competitive, whatever you do to it. There’s a few horror shows like this in the FF1600 arena, like the ’76 Van Diemen and the ’85 Reynard. They were never any good, the works team couldn’t make them go quick and you won’t be able to either. So when you are thinking of buying a car in a given category, examine the results to see what goes well, then seek out the quick men and ask them what they think about your choice before you even go and look one. Ask more than one person as well!

The second is to buy a car which has the potential to go well, but is such a rubbish example that the cost of fixing it will be very high. This includes the common mistake of buying a rolling chassis, and then discovering that many of the installation bits are missing: engine spiders, exhaust headers, swirl pots, fuel pumps, etc etc all cost a fortune. If you do buy a roller, then if at all possible take the engine out yourself or stand over the seller while he does it!
More generally it’s important to know what costs money and what doesn’t. For example every single suspension arm on the car may have the tattiest finish in the world: the car will look awful – and the cost to fix the lot by shot blasting and oven painting or replating, will be less than £100. Conversely the spherical bearings may look absolutely great, all bright and shiny. Unfortunately if you have run into the one other person in the universe who knows the wire brush/solvol trick (see above) and these bearings are actually worn out then you are looking at around £300 per corner, with no option but to go out and buy new ones.

12) Listen, Watch And Learn

The most general advice I can give to help save anyone a lot of money is to suggest that they constantly listen and watch what other people are doing, for good or ill, and make sure you learn the lessons without spending your own money on them!

So that’s my 12 penneth-worth. As I said, I’m sure I’ve missed a lot, and I’d be very interested to hear other people’s cost-saving advice (see 12 above…) I’m also pretty sure I’ve enraged a few people who will think I an writing a lot of b******s.

That’s fine too – see you on the track guys!

Simon Davey is the Monoposto administrator and paddock co-ordinator. He has, over more than 30 years, had enormous success in single seater racing and rallying, and without going broke.

Simon Davey
originally published in Monoposto’s Startline magazine

Warning: Motor Racing is Expensive

Simon Davey is the Monoposto administrator and paddock co-ordinator. He has, over more than 30 years, had enormous success in single seater racing and rallying, and without going broke.

Despite taking all reasonable precautions unavoidably severe loss of money can occur and in respect of this you are entirely on your own

It took me many years to figure out how to minimise the cost of going racing, and I’m still learning. I’ve tried to distil some of this into the 12 points which follow, but I’m sure I’ve missed a lot. Initially I thought I’d put these in some sort of order of priority, but then I realised that this depends on where you are along the motor racing learning curve, so I gave up and just wrote it down.

Incidentally, none of what follows is about going faster. Properly implemented, this advice won’t necessarily slow you down or speed you up, it will just save you money. Oh – and neither I nor Racing Exposure are in any way liable if you actually do any of this stuff.

Here we go…

1) Avoid Accidents

Accidents are horribly expensive…in three ways. Obviously you have to spend money to fix the car before you can it race again, eg it costs around £500-£1000 per corner ripped off. Less obviously: you lose costly track time you have paid for, and you destabilise the car’s tune-plateau (see Point 10 to understand this one better).

So don’t have them. Be careful out there.

More gratuitous advice on this topic…I think the most common cause of accidents is either you or the guy you are racing with taking a lunge down the inside. The lunger is actually relying on the lungee (got the roles?) to actively change his/her line in some way to prevent an accident. If the lungee doesn’t see the lunger coming, or doesn’t react fast enough, or is bolshy and won’t give way or turns in early; then about 2 seconds later one or both of you are stepping out of the wreckage and it’s pretty much random chance who gets off worst.

And guess what – nobody but you cares very much. The marshals have a bit of excitement dealing with the mess; if you had got past you would be one point better off but no richer, and approx. three people (at best) in the world will have noticed.

My advice? Work at the real skill of motor racing; which is not the same as being able to lap quickly, that’s just the entry ticket to the game. The real skill is getting into positions where you can pass the other guy with minimum risk, and he/she can’t do anything about it. More on this in a later spiel.

"Always collect up the bits" - if the car's not repairable you can always sell them to a collector.

2) Collect All The Bits

So now you’ve had an accident anyway. There are a million ways to have one and some are even really not your fault. When you hop out of the car, get quickly to the safety of a barrier; but when the race is over and the wrecker turns up make sure you collect all the bits. The classic is to be unable to get a broken upright fixed by welding because you left a small but complex (and broken) part of the casting by the track side. Bill for welding £40, bill for new upright £400.

The list is endless. Did you pick up the suspension spring which popped out, the bodywork fixing that got ripped off, the wing mirror that was scythed away etc etc. It never seems important at the time, but later in the workshop a retrieved part can often be repaired, saving ££s. The most vivid example for me was after a major startline shunt at Brands which took out 80% of the grid including me (FF1600s…duh) in the first 200 yards. I harvested 18 loose springs from the field of wreckage before I found any of mine. No-one else was even looking. They were all chasing the guy who had moved over…

3) Be Nice And Always Pay On Time

People who make their living out of motor racing – selling bits, preparing cars, fixing the wreckage, whatever; are human beings who will certainly respond well to being treated well. Be nice! Pay what you owe on time and without hassle. Listen to their advice. If you do this, when you next have a problem it is very likely that you will get good service again. This seems so obvious, but I know from my own experiences on both sides of this fence how varied peoples’ approach to this simple situation can be. Don’t short change, false deadline, bad mouth etc etc – it doesn’t save you money at all: quite the opposite.

Over the years I have very carefully identified and worked with a whole range of expert suppliers who provide a fantastic amount of help to keep my faltering show on the road – specialist welders (Magnesium Mick), precision machinists (Secret Squirrel), rolling roads (Stanley Baldwin), race parts (Simon Says), tyres (Smithy). The list of people who I need to help me is very long and I have been working with most of them for more than 20 years. They are also very nice people. Build yourself a network and make sure you nurture it.

Quality Welding!

4) Learn To Weld

Welding and brazing are key skills to prepare and repair a racing car. If you need to make a bracket to hold an ecu, modify an engine mounting to clear an oil pipe, repair a suspension arm, fix a cracked exhaust etc etc (you get the idea) then you need welding and brazing. Many such jobs are most easily done on the car or next to it. You need to be able to do this yourself, otherwise it’s expensive and time consuming.

There are several types of welding to choose from, the main choices being electric welding such as TIG and MIG, or plain electric Arc; and gas welding/brazing using oxy acetylene equipment. All have pros and cons, but any is invaluable. I’m a gas welding man myself – from years of dealing with brazed space frame chassis. And I reckon there is almost nothing that can defeat you with a gas torch in your hand – worse comes to the worst you can actually cast a new component on the fly with a gas torch and enough rods.

The bad news is that all this stuff is potentially dangerous; whether it’s arc eye from getting careless about looking at arc welding flare or the fire hazard from a garage full of fuelled up racing car and a white hot gas torch. I always reckon that the mark of a good gas welder isn’t speed, or weld-penetration; it’s simply the ability to run down a weld-seam without getting third degree burns. I learned my welding in the most demanding of schools; a back street garage making rally cars from shell weld-ups of road car write offs – and I literally have the scars to prove it. It’s probably better to go to evening classes.

Whatever, I don’t care. You want to prepare a serious racing car at low cost – learn to weld.

5) Learn To Use Composite Materials

Exactly the same is true of using composite materials – and I’m focussing on the polyester-matrix fibre glass most club-spec racing car body work is made of. I don’t have any personal experience of handling advanced composites like carbon fibre/Kevlar, but they look tricky and these comments aren’t directed at them.

I’ve just had a trip down memory lane and I honestly can’t remember a single racing car I have bought (and it’s more than 20 now) where I have come across a bit of repaired bodywork and thought: “my word, what an excellent repair”. Without exception the many “repairs” I have been unfortunate to encounter have apparently been the cruddy output of cack-handed idiots; and are far harder to remedy than it would have been to fix the original damage. Common errors include:

- Hoping fibre glass repairs will adhere to a painted or oil-soaked substrate

- Thinking a molecule-thick layer of resin with no fibre mat has any strength

- Thinking a piece of dirty fibre mat, and virtually no resin, constitutes a “composite material”

- Sticking the glass mat onto the outside of the original gel coat and then sanding it down in a hopeless attempt to get a good finish, destroying any vestige of structural integrity in the process

- Pouring massive quantities of resin and mat into a repair so that the result is probably explosion-proof but also unbelievably heavy

- Attempting to use Plastic Padding “type elastic” as a load-bearing material

The most recent horror I’ve had was with my current Swift. It had minor side panel damage which had been repaired by the above mentioned laminated-oil layer plus dry fibre mat technique, followed by about 5mm of spayed-on body filler, a layer of heat cured vinyl paint, and finally a full vinyl adhesive wrap. The panel was rippled, cracked, weak, heavy and so heat distorted in didn’t fit the chassis. Couldn’t have been a better fix – not.

Done well, and in your own garage, it’s perfectly possible to rebuild large areas of damaged or even missing panels by forming a mould around the outside of the damage, applying a release agent, and rebuilding the damaged panel from the inside with gel coat, resin and mat. The biggest job I’ve ever done like this was to “coke bottle” the voluminous side pods an F3 Ralt when converting it from ground effect to flat bottom spec, which involved making a pair of aluminium “moulds” each about three feet long and two feet high.

Take lessons, read a book, go on a manufacturer’s course; but for heaven’s sake learn to apply a gel coat and the supporting resin and glass mat properly.

Simon Davey

Part II will follow next week…

When setting up this site, I had to choose how to lay out the menus.

Initially I chose to have main menus for the various racing clubs, and then sub-menus for the different race series associated with them, so 750MC has sub-menus for Stock Hatch and others, BRSCC has sub menus for BRSCC F3 and others.

However, some series do not belong to any one particular organising club, Monoposto, for example will race under 4 different organising clubs this season – 5 with MSVR, and 1 each CSCC, Britcar and DDMC.

Should I keep it as is, or should I change it to car type as the main heading, so I can have a heading for single seaters, saloons, sportscars ?    I can see that this may be an easier way of navigation.     Clubs can still have their own menu.

Your thoughts please?   Please leave a comment below, or tick the poll option on the right hand side of the screen.

The view from Clubland
Getting value for Money
William Hornsey – Stock hatch competitor.

The age old issue of club motor racing is cost, or more specifically, getting value for money doing our highly addictive hobby. Even the most miniscule of championships will take £5000+ of your income to complete and even then you would likely be far away from a competitive season.
It has to be said that the main reason in the UK for the high cost of competing isn’t necessarily driven by the competitor’s desire for obtaining the competitive advantage through laying down the cash, on better engines or suspensions, but a lack of entrepreneurship on the parts of both the organising clubs and the circuits.
A couple of seasons ago there was the ill fated ‘Powernights’ race meetings, which were mid week evening races which failed to really work due to the races in question being standalone and not part of a championship season. Understandably driver’s would be loathe to compete in a ‘meaningless’ race due to the risk of accident damage or mechanical breakdown, thus potentially thwarting their championship ambitions. However the fundamental raison d’etre behind this type ofmeeting should be revisited and perhaps tweaked.
Jackie Stewart’s autobiography gives us many pointers to how racing could be today for the club competitor. I’m not suggesting that we go back to straw bales and disused airfields, but the spectators of the time paid to watch the races and the money went into the driver’s pockets as start money or prize money. I don’t need to tell you that this does not happen today.
Ok, so the first point to address is the fact that most club events are very poorly attended by spectators, mostly the people in the stands are driver’s family and friends who probably got in on the tickets dished out with the entries. However, how many club events do you see being advertised?
The clubs won’t risk the cash required to advertise an event as generally they do not get the gate money. Unfortunately, the circuits, as well as charging for the hire of the track, also keep any revenue derived from spectators. However the marketing departments at these circuits won’t invest in promotion as, they possibly conceive the reward not mitigating the risk. And yet they can work, anyone who has ever raced at Castle Combe will attest to the 8000+ crowds that regularly attend their championship days. With the greatest of respect for Castle Combe it is hardly fan friendly in terms of facilities, but still the fans come so it would appear that there is enough latent demand for club level motor racing from the general public.
It would seem that club racing will remain an expensive proposition whilst we have this impass. The circuits and the clubs need to work together to generate spectator revenue, either by allowing the club to keep any gate receipts or by the circuit reducing its track hire charge and funding the reduction through increased spectator attendance. We are not talking ten’s of thousands of spectator’s either – a thousand would do at £10 per head. That’s £10k in total, minus say, £1000 in PR/Advertising spend on things like local radio adverts, local paper promotions etc. This could be used to offset the circuit hire cost, and therefore reduce entry fees, or be used for prize money for the winners and any multitude of other options, not least of which making the venues more child friendly so that families can see it as a cheap day out – ( fairground rides, kids clubs etc).
Club motor racing lacks a distinct amount of entrepreneurship at all levels, and whilst we may not be in the entertainment industry per se, I think all agencies tasked with running and promoting a meeting should look long and hard at how to provide better value for money for the competitor.