BRCA 1/8th Circuit - Round 6 Review
1/8th On-road racer Chris Heath brings us a report from the 6th round of the BRCA series.
Round 6 (Brookland) 15th July 2007
Saturday
Our main priority for Saturday was to get the newly returned Xeron R ran in for the Euro A?s, which seem to be the case for a lot of drivers on Saturday. Everyone seems to be in the same boat as us, a big rush to get everything ready for the Euro?s. The running in of this engine went pretty smoothly, considering that it was done on a track day with people belting around at full pelt (2.5 litres through the engine).
At about three in the afternoon we put the C6 back in the car and started prep in the pits to go out and set the car up for Sunday. By the end of the day we did have the car lasting 5 minutes and had a set up that seemed reasonable.
Sunday
We arrived early to the track as we were doing the spares for Ben from Ben Racing this weekend. Just as we arrived at the track it started raining hard and after about 10 minutes lighting forkes across the skies. Then to our horror the lighting struck a power cable about 50ft in front of us, we both ran straight back into the van hoping the rubber tyres would keep us safe.
Practice
Amazingly enough by the time practice came around the track was pretty much dry except the straight that had the sun blocked by trees. But it seemed good enough for going out to scrub the tyres up and check the car before qualifying.
Round 1
By the fourth heat the track was completely dry. The car was handling exceptionally well but the engine had gone much richer than Saturday and of course we could not check this in the morning practice because the track was not up to it. So we leaned it but not enough so had to do the first round with a slightly rich engine. I finished round one with the following:
20/314.04 and Average lap time of 15.70,
I have compared this to Pete Hastings who finished his first run with a 21/310.88 and average of 14.80
Round 2
We manage to get the engine running much better and the tyres where really balanced now, the car felt great. But then we realized that now the engine was running correct and the tyres are now smaller, the two speed was changed on the apex of the corner. Managed to get a good run in but the car bogged terrible out of the corners because of the two speed problem. Still confident that the car would do five minutes I had to stick with it and get a banker in. To my amazement I finished 4th overall with the following:
21/305.48 and average lap time of 14.55 (and an amazing 13.95 fastest lap, Mark Green was the only person to do one quicker all weekend).
Round 3
This third run was going to be my best opportunity of getting my best result as I was first away. Two speed and engine were fine now, working very well in fact, but now my problem was that I had kept my same tyres on but they were very small and of course the car ran out of fuel. For sure this run was in line for my best result all day, but paid the price for not using a new set of tyres. I finished qualifying 5th in the A.
A Final
Our big concern for this final was tyre size as we had incurred massive tyre wear during the day, almost 2.5mm per 7 minute run. We were not the only ones and a decision had to be made. Decided on running very big tyres and bumping up the rid height. To be honest I do not know if this was a good decision or a bad one. As the handling was real bad at the beginning and the engine and two speed were a mile out. But as the final progress the engine and two speed sorted themselves out. The handling did not, in fact it got worse because it kept pulling to the left, and I had an incident earlier in the race and put it down to this. Sure enough at the end of the final could see the cause of the problem. The wing tab had been knocked down on one side of the shell which was coursing the car to pull. Other than that, very happy to finish 5th in the final, as it was just a fight to keep the car on the track.
