Mullers First Outing Phakisa 26th August 2006

I have been messing around with 7’s now for over 2 years and when I bought the Birkin in March this year it was with the aim of racing it. Everything finally came together and I did my first Lotus Challenge race at Phakisa.

Background Lotus challenge class B:
Lotus challenge class B is the road going class, i.e. cars must be road legal (windscreen, lights, tyres etc) and engines are limited to in-line 4 cylinders up to 2000cc. There was 4 class B entries for Phakisa, myself in a Birkin with a 20v 1600cc silvertop engine, Brad in a LocostSA with a 1600cc Rocam engine, a Caterham with a 1800cc RXI engine and another Caterham with a 2000cc Zetec. From a dyno run I knew I had about 10kw over Brad, and guess the 2 Caterhams had between 20 and 30kw more power than me. Because there is no power limits, each track has break out times. The Zetec has broken out before so we knew it was a fast car.


Run up:
We (myself and Brad - Thanks again for the invite and show me the ropes, I really appreciate it) went down to Phakisa on the Thursday to get some extra practice. Leaving home in the rain should have been a sign of things to come, but we pushed on arriving at the track at 11:30 with dark clouds but the track was still dry.

We wasted no time getting unloaded and heading out. I have been studying the track layout, but nothing beats going round a new track for the first time. Obviously I was taking things very easy just getting a feel for the flow of the corners. Beforehand everybody was talking about the fast sweeps after the back straight, and it immediately became clear why - definitely the fastest corner I have every experienced. By the end of my first run I was taking the sweeps at half throttle, not trusting the tyres just yet.

My lap timer wasn’t working so I popped back into the pits after about 10 laps to fiddle with it. After fiddling for 10mins I gave up and headed back out just as the first drops started coming down, by Turn 2 it was pouring down and I struggled to keep the car on the track, so popped back into the pits. Brad set a new personal best and broke through 2mins in the session, so the was NO pressure on me.

The next 3 hours was spent fiddling with the car whilst the rain poured down. By 3pm I got my lap timer working again and decided to go out regardless reasoning that wet running is better than no running on a new track. Driving a light car with a high power/weight ratio on semi’s on a flooded track is definitely scary. It was almost impossible to avoid locking up the fronts in most corners, and I dared not touch the accelerator until the car was straightened.

Even with all the caution I spun coming out of turn 3, and nearly lost it again coming onto the back straight where the banked oval circuit caused a little river of water to flow across the circuit. I did about 7 laps of slow running, again just concentrating on the flow of the corners whilst keeping the car on the track. By then I was completely wet and freezing cold so called it a day.

Friday morning started very early to make sure we got decent running. With very few cars there the marshals did not stick to the practice schedule but split the day into 3 sessions: Porches, Singles, tin tops + 7’s. This meant lots of track time for everybody. First session out my lap timer was on the fritz again, so I just concentrated on braking points, turn-in points and picking gears for each corner.

For the 2nd session I got the lap timer working again and set about pushing the lap times. Dealing with traffic was a new experience for me coming from track days where overtaking in the corners was not allowed. For most cars I did not have the straight-line speed to make clean passes, so quickly learned the art of dive-bombing slow saloons in the corners. I also started taking the first sweep flat, but was still braking for the 2nd sweep. At the end of the session I was doing 2minflat, but could just not get below 2mins.

During the break in the sessions I replayed my laps in my mind and realised that I had picked up a few bad habits from Z and that I was not nearly aggressive enough getting on the brakes. For the 3rd session I started getting very aggressive on the brakes, getting the car sideways a couple of times, but the lap times started tumbling and I was in the low 59’s by then of the session. I was also not braking for the 2nd sweep anymore, just lifting a bit - I could take the 2nd sweep flat, but then would not be able to brake in time for the hairpin. Words cant explain the feeling turning into a corner at 170km/h with your foot flat on the gas!

For the rest of the day the lap timer refused to work, but I was sure my times were improving as I was hitting my braking points better. The car was running great except for 2 problems. First the brake pedal start jamming and not releasing the brakes after hard braking - some liberal Q20 on balance bar sorted that. Secondly the steering started getting progressively heavier - one of the steering bushes was running dry but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Despite my 10kw advantage things were very even between myself and Brad, partly due to his quaife diff vs. my open diff, but mainly due to the fact that he can drive.

Qualifying
Qualifying was early on Sat morning in the freezing cold. On my way out Super Stu warned me to be careful on the cold tyres, so I did the F1 style weaving all the way round the track. On the 1st flying lap nerves took over and I promptly forgot Stu’s advice and piled into turn 1 hitting my usual 50m braking point and the back end stepped out big time! With more luck than anything else I managed to catch the slide and treated the rest of the lap with more respect, I then did about 3 laps banker laps before starting to push hard again, but the cold track with low grip and the extra power meant I was all over the show and did not feel very quick.

Pulling back into the pits with all 4 wheels attached felt great, it might not have felt very fast, but at least I did not embarrass myself on my 1st outing. When we got the results I was very surprised to see I got pole by 3 hundreds, doing a personal best time of 1:58.736. Brad was 2nd followed by the Zetec Caterham and then the other Caterham.

Heat 1
The run up to the race was nerve wracking and Brad started playing mind games on me, all is fair in love and war. My personal game plan was to keep my nose clean and have nice run and not get too stressed about beating him.

On the out lap I was really aggressive with the tyres accelerating and braking hard to try and get more heat into them and not repeat my qualifying mistakes. On the grid I got caught watching the cars in front of me and missed the lights, so by the time I got going Brad was next to me, then I hit the rev limiter in 1st, allowing him to get ahead of me. 2 Class A cars got bad starts and Brad stuck his nose inside of them into turn 1. All thoughts of having a easy race disappeared - I knew if Brad got away from me I have trouble catching him so I stuck my nose behind him and muscled the 2 class A cars struggling for grip on the outside of turn 1 out of the way.

Coming into turn 2 Brad was cautious on cold tyres, my tyres was that bit warmer so I could be more aggressive out of the corner and managed to get a run on him up the inside of 3. We went into the corner side by side and I made sure to leave him room on the outside, but I got the better drive out of the corner and took my line for turn 4. I suspect the slow starting Class A cars caught up with Brad at that point because by the end of the back straight I had opened up a reasonable gap.

I settled in behind on of the slower class A cars matching his pace for the next 2 laps until he suddenly slowed drastically in turn 1. I had to take avoiding action and it allowed another car to slip past me (I was sure it was another class B runner). Over the next 2 laps I had a ding dong “battle” with the class A car - he had fuel starvation problems in the left handers, so I would pass him coming on to the pit straight, but as soon as the engine cleared he’d repass me, then into turn 1 I’d squeeze pass again, but he would take me into turn 3, then in turn 4 I’d pass again, and he would pass me on the back straight and so on it went until his car slowed down even more and I got clear of him.

These 2 slow laps allowed the Zetec Caterham to close up a bit, but I had enough pace to keep him far enough behind me. Crossing the flag everybody went nuts, but I was convinced I only got 2nd. Only when I saw the time sheets did I realise that the car passing me a recovering class A car and I did get the win. 1st race, 1st pole, 1st win - what a morning!

Heat 2
For heat 2 I had the Zetec next to me, I know the car has massive straight-line speed, but the driver cant/wont carry that speed through the corners. This time I got a monster start and covered the inside line. By turn 2 the Zetec was right behind me so I took the inside line very early for turn 3, at the braking point we were side by side, but he did not try go round the outside. For turn 4 I had to be defensive again but got a better drive out of the corner than him and carried more speed onto the back straight, however once on the straight he just breezed past me with his extra power, but backed off for the 1st sweep so I got right back on his tail. He then braked for the 2nd sweep catching me by surprise but I managed to avoid running into him. For the hairpin he was on the brakes very early so I dove him on the inside and kept my line for the pit corner, but on the pit straight he just breezed past me again. Through the corners I was all over him, and passed him again into turn 3 but again he just powered past me on the back straight. Into the hairpin on lap 2 I got him again, but got passed on the pit straight. In a strange way it was great racing, but extremely frustrating because I could not do anything to stop him coming past me on the straights. On lap 3 I wanted to dive him in the hairpin again, but I carried too much speed through the 2nd sweep and could not stop the car in time - If I dove him I knew we would make contact, so I went to the outside nearly loosing the car the on the marbles. By the time I got the car under control and pointing in the right direction the Zetec had opened up a gap on me.

The rest of the race was spent chasing him down. In the process I set a new personal best of 1:58.629 beating my qualifying lap by 0.1s, but there wasn’t enough laps left to make up the time lost and I finished 0.8secs behind him. Close enough to give me the overall win for the day!