SRA Kyalami 17032007

SRA Endurance Race

Kyalami 24th March 2007

Well rather a pathetic weekend for me at Kyalami, the last few weeks have been busy so betting the cars ready was very much last minute and a decision to try and get both set up with Toyota throttle bodies was probably a stupid one with so little time, at least for the Locost anyway.

We got a new manifold, supposed to be the same as the old one, on the Monday afternoon, worked well into the night on Monday to get it on and all the ‘little’ things which went with the change, headed for the Dyno Tuesday morning, despite a lot of playing it was obvious the new setup just wasn’t working, we’d lost around 10kw on standard. Getting the car home and taking a proper look at the manifold showed it was shorter than the original and also the diameter tubes used were bigger, leaving some serious ‘’steps’ in the airflow, standard manifold was refitted, with Wednesday being a holiday the Dyno had to wait for Thursday.

Time amongst other things influenced me to try and squeeze another race out of the semi-slicks that were on the car, having run the Piper day, a couple of trax days and the ZOC Superpole I knew they were past their best but thought we could squeeze some more out of them, with the lack of time I didn’t get chance to do any testing, this decision was the biggest mistake of the weekend.

Friday morning came, knowing there was going to be problems with pit allocations, or rather lack of them, we got up at 4:30 am, only to find it raining, with the Locost on the trailer and Gavin driving the Westie we got away around 5:30, fortunately the rain wasn’t too bad so Gavin didn’t get too wet.

Arriving at the Kyalami gate office to do documentation gave us a preview of the organisation to come, we picked up our stuff but were told they wouldn’t have Pit Access stickers for the service vehicles till Friday afternoon, and they didn’t have the stamp for our log books, at least our entries were there. Arriving at our allocated pit area, under the shade cloths behind the pits, we squeezed into the last couple of spots, this was at 6:15 !, most of the area was taken up by non-competitive cars, which security said they were going to get moved, never happened !.

We got settled in, and got the cars ready for our 8:00am first session, at 7:55 we made our way through to the pit lane to be stopped by the start line marshal who informed us the medics hadn’t arrived so the track couldn’t be opened, eventually at around 8:30, by which time the Porsches were also queuing up for their 8:15 session we were told the medics had arrived, the marshal then proceeded to send us all out together, not ideal on a damp track.

As we set off through turn 1 the DigiDash went blank, no instruments, shift lights, tacho nothing, I tried switching the ignition off and on a couple of times but each time the dash went off after a few seconds, I could only assume some water had got in somewhere so carried on blind. A very slippy track meant a very cautious start, on the second lap with the tyres starting to warm up I went a little faster, it still felt very slippery but knowing a wet race would be a possibility I had to try and find some grip, coming round 11 onto the pit straight the back end let go and I did a full 180, as I spun round I saw a black Ferrari had obviously done the same his nose was very close to the wall, as my 180 stopped I was left back to front facing about 5 oncoming cars, Gavin missed my nose by the smallest of margins and luckily everyone else managed to get around me, I spun it round and carried on thanking someone up there who must have been watching over me. The rest of the session was very cautious, even though the track seemed to be drying I still was struggling with the rear end being very loose. I had no idea of my lap times as the DigiDash does the timing but they were very slow. Getting back to the pits I had a good look around the car trying to find any water, no signs of any, so I left the bonnet off hoping things would dry out.

The scrutineers arrived before our next session so we got the cars in there while it was quiet, no problems at all from the scrutineers, but when I jumped back in to pull away the car was dead, no electrics at all, ended up pushing back to our pits, luckily not far, a quick check over revealed a blown fuse, replaced that and things were working again, also the dash now seemed OK, obviously the same problem,

Next session was delayed again but at least this time we got out on our own, the track was now dry and the dash was working but I was still having major problems with rear end grip, drifting through clubhouse on every lap, a best of 2:22 was pathetic so we came back in very disappointed. Checking the car out everything seemed as it should so I dropped the rear tyre pressures a little to see if things would improve next time out.

As instructed, just after 1 pm, we went to get our stickers, stamps and transponders, still no stickers, they didn’t know where the stamp was and they had run out of transponders !!!. The pit situation was getting worse, lots of guys arriving and nowhere to pit and with the clouds building up again we decided to move to the first floor section above the main pits, at least there we would be dry if the rain came back, we just managed to squeeze the cars over the access bridge and settled in upstairs, quite a nice area but a considerable drive though the car park to get back round to the track. The third session came around and although the rear end did feel a little better it was still terrible, a best of 2:12 was an improvement but still a lot worse than I wanted. On coming in we were informed that our qualifying had been moved back to Saturday morning, and that our last Friday afternoon session/qualifying had been dropped because someone had booked the track !, How could Kyalami allow this when there is an event on !. Anyhow after some discussions by Roy, the SRA chairman we were given a session back, so we got out again at 16:15, which was delayed to around 16:30, not that it did me any good I was still drifting round most of the corners and getting more and more annoyed, playing with the tyre pressures was having no effect and I was resigned to the fact that the tyres were finished. We finished the day off by setting up the lights and checking the alignment. We also after two more visits managed to get our books stamped and get transponders.

Saturday came and we got their around 7:30 we weren’t due out till 10:15, I’d decided to add some more negative camber to the rear end and lower the car all round to see if that would help things out. Being upstairs we didn’t really see many guys, but we were hearing stories of guys having to pit in the car park, running out of transponders and general confusions about who was qualifying etc..

As we went down to go out for qualifying it started raining again, as had become the norm for the weekend we were again delayed, so by the time we went the rain had gone, not really enough to wet the track but still some damp patches, changing the camber had improved things but with the damp track the field bunched up and I didn’t manage a clear lap the whole session, then a red flag called an early end to the session, an abysmal qualifying of 2:17 and still not happy with the car made me feel pretty much hacked off, when the grid came out I wasn’t surprised to see me right at the back.

We were due to go out at 18:00 but by lunch time the day was already well over an hour behind schedule, the day was spent with one eye watching the racing and the other watching the clouds, several times during the day it tried raining but held off, with only a few brief showers making the racing interesting. Various announcements over the loudspeakers gave confusing reports about classes being combined and races shortened to try and catch up, in the end the Formula Ford and Vees ran together and they put all the VW Challenge guys out in one race Class A B C and the Polos all out together must have really annoyed the competitors, with a grid of 50 cars it was fortunate there was no major incidents but I felt really sorry for the championship points leaders as it must have had an effect on them.

We got ready around 6:30 despite there being two races on the schedule still to go out, as no one seemed to know what was going on, as we sat in the pit lane as the light faded the historics went out over an hour late, most of the guys didn’t have lights so it was obvious there would be problems, I think they only managed a couple of laps before the red flag went out and the race was canned, The Porsche 924s race was also canned much to the dismay of the Porsche guys, Altech being the major sponsors for the Pro Series would not be happy losing a televised race.

We were then summoned from our cars for an impromptu drivers briefing in the pit lane, we were told that unfortunately the light signals at the marshals posts weren’t working and that it was unlikely we would be able to see any flag signals as the posts are also not lit, it was obvious that they were hoping we’d say we didn’t want to go out, but we had arrived expecting a day/night race we were all keen to go.

We fired up and set off following the pace car, as we left the lights of the pit lane I realised my first cock up, I had adjusted the ride height but hadn’t readjusted my lights, I had a great view of the track for around 70 metres ahead but nothing beyond that, as we went into turn one and the pack speeded up I realised my second mistake, I hadn’t adjusted the brightness of the Digidash as the revs rose and the shift lights came on they were so bright I was completely dazzled, not a lot I could do about that as you can’t get into the configuration when the car is moving. We came round and eventually got started with the rolling start, the first lap wasn’t too bad as I followed the guys in front but with the rear end still sliding around I soon lost them, then the alternator light came on, obviously the thing was struggling to keep up with the main, dip and spotlights all on together, so after two laps I came in for my compulsory 3 minute stop, removed the spot light relay, turned the brightness down and tried to adjust the light, I had tightened these pretty good so there was nothing I could do.

After my 3 minutes I came out, unfortunately right in front of the leaders, so the first lap was spent watching my mirrors and trying to keep out of the way, one the front guys had gone through I settled down a little, as my lights were pointing very low I noticed that the single black line I’d noticed on the track had become two, and then on the next lap three, then I felt the oil, someone was dropping a thin trail of oil and as the laps built up the increasing number of trails become a major problem, then the other Locost guys caught and passed me, as Tony went past into Sunset he completely lost the back end and did two or three 360s right in front of me, I ended up taking to the grass to avoid contact, and luckily he managed to stop without hitting anything else. That was when I decided it was too much, and at the end of that lap I pulled in to the pits having completed only about 11 laps.

As I got into the pits I saw the safety car heading out and by the time I’d got to the end of the pit lane the marshals were arguing between a red or a chequered flag, I pulled off and headed back to my pits, by the time I got there most of the guys had pitted whilst the safety car was out, and race control decided on the chequered flag ending the race after less than 30 minutes, as most had pitted only 4 cars took the chequered flag.

From where we pitted I checked to see all the guys where in safely and started packing up very disappointed in my performance over the weekend and disgusted at such bad organisation of the whole event.

On reflection I’ve was reminded of a few things I should have already known, I mustn’t try major changes so close to an event without chance to test, I must spend more time on preparation, and I must not use tyres which I know are past their best, especially when the forecast had warned of possible rain.

I can’t make the Lotus Challenge at Lichtenburg so our next racing is the 14^th April, I’ve three weeks to sort a few things out, although there is both Lotus and Superhatch racing on that event so I’m likely to be very busy, in fact I’m seriously considering only running one of the classes as swapping from FWD to RWD on the same event might be a little too much.

Brad