SLS David's report
Posted: Wed May 28, 2014 11:44 am
Round 2 & 3 of the SLS were once again upon me and I felt totally unprepared. A busy week of night shifts left me feeling drained and, although I had Friday off, it was a case of resetting my body clock rather than doing any work on the car. I suppose the experience of the last round had lowered my expectations and I was more relaxed about the point scoring. But I was looking forward to the good quality track time that the SLS provides.
There were a few changes to the car for this round. Biggest was the new Titan diff - this is a hybrid plate diff and replaced the torque biased diff (Quaife ATB). I hoped it would solve some traction issues I'd experienced with the Quaife. New tyres too for this one - some soft compound Kumho V70 - a sprint tyre, but this was a sprint event.
Saturday Round 2 (reverse direction)
The new engine has required a bit of a rethink to my driving technique. Basically I was rattling through the gears so quickly that I had little time to do anything else. So for this round, I decided try missing out 4th gear on the railway straight to give me a little more thinking time at the tricky run up to Clarks. I also wanted to try missing fifth on the main straight to avoid a gear changes at 100 mph + as drag is like putting the brakes on at that speed.
Morning practice went to plan - sandbagging a bit on the brakes to save the soft tyres for the point scoring bits, but putting in a 58s and seeing the highest speed I have ever recorded at 127 MPH - so that missed fifth worked
.
The first video is qually 1 - an out lap and two flying laps. The first flying lap gave me the confidence I needed about the tyres - traction and braking of the Kumhos from cold was phenomenal so I pushed hard for the second lap and they just got better - a 57.313. I was hopping that the tyres would cool for qually 2 & 3 but that was not to be the case and I was not able to repeat that time. But still happy and learning rapidly about soft compounds tyres.
The final went to plan but with only one flying lap, the tyres did not quite reach their optimum so a few tenths down, but again happy that things were moving in the right direction. I finished second to Fee Kindness but she was disqualified after fitting a non 'E' marked tyre. It was a 1B tyre but the compound too soft to get a 'E' mark - a MSA requirement. That put me first in class and gave me some welcome point for the championship. Although, I did feel sorry for her and Steve.
Full Results: http://www.mylaps.com/en/events/1020521
Round 3 (normal direction)
The weather was appalling when we headed out for practice. I decided to try the Kumhos in the wet - the plan B was to fit the AO21 'full wets' if they were struggling but they proved to be very good and soon I was putting in laps 4 or 5 second better than my previous best in the wet. Practice 2 to was even wetter, but I settled into the groove and stayed out for the full session to try and heat the tyres and finally managed to bring my times down to the 1.02's.
Over lunch the rain cleared and the Time Attack guys dried the track for our Qually. I knew from the previous day that it would be the first session that would matter. With no dry running that day, it was going to be a shot in the dark, but I was relaxed and just went for it. As I crossed the line on my first lap, I saw a 56.9 on the vbox, but what struck me most was that the car felt glued to the track. So it was a concious decision to shorten braking points for lap 2. It all felt rather smooth until I got to Clarks - just a little too late on the brakes meant I missed my normal apex, but the deep entry gave a good drive out. I left the brakes even later for the hairpin. That too was a little deep, but again the deeper line helped the exit. I knew it was a good lap, but when I saw 55.6 on the Vbox I knew that lap was a bit special. By the time I parked up and walked back to the pits qualifying was almost over and, to my surprise, I was on pole position - only the double entered car of Adam Kindness still to run . He crossed the line on his last lap to take a tenth out of my time. Then true to form, Charlie Shaw rolled up in the last few second (having just changed the clutch) and show us all what a 1000BHP car can do
http://www.mylaps.com/en/events/1021509
The heavens opened for the final and it was clear that the odds were beginning to stack up against me with the light weight Caterham. I knew that the soft Kumhos would struggle to heat up over the one lap. I thought of switching to the AO21 but really wanted conformation of standing water before making that call - conformation came from Gordon just a little too late to change them. In hindsight, I needed to do something a little different to beat Fee, and even if the AO21 had been the wrong, I would have been no worse off. But with a 1.06, it was still a reasonable time for a Caterham in the wet, and less than a second off Fee's time.
With Fee's illegal tyres, I moved up to third equal in the championship [EDIT: after a successful protest by David Herd, I moved down to 4th] . A GOOD weekend.
Round 3 results: http://www.mylaps.com/en/events/1025219
Championship : http://superlapscotland.co.uk/championship.htm
There were a few changes to the car for this round. Biggest was the new Titan diff - this is a hybrid plate diff and replaced the torque biased diff (Quaife ATB). I hoped it would solve some traction issues I'd experienced with the Quaife. New tyres too for this one - some soft compound Kumho V70 - a sprint tyre, but this was a sprint event.
Saturday Round 2 (reverse direction)
The new engine has required a bit of a rethink to my driving technique. Basically I was rattling through the gears so quickly that I had little time to do anything else. So for this round, I decided try missing out 4th gear on the railway straight to give me a little more thinking time at the tricky run up to Clarks. I also wanted to try missing fifth on the main straight to avoid a gear changes at 100 mph + as drag is like putting the brakes on at that speed.
Morning practice went to plan - sandbagging a bit on the brakes to save the soft tyres for the point scoring bits, but putting in a 58s and seeing the highest speed I have ever recorded at 127 MPH - so that missed fifth worked
. The first video is qually 1 - an out lap and two flying laps. The first flying lap gave me the confidence I needed about the tyres - traction and braking of the Kumhos from cold was phenomenal so I pushed hard for the second lap and they just got better - a 57.313. I was hopping that the tyres would cool for qually 2 & 3 but that was not to be the case and I was not able to repeat that time. But still happy and learning rapidly about soft compounds tyres.
The final went to plan but with only one flying lap, the tyres did not quite reach their optimum so a few tenths down, but again happy that things were moving in the right direction. I finished second to Fee Kindness but she was disqualified after fitting a non 'E' marked tyre. It was a 1B tyre but the compound too soft to get a 'E' mark - a MSA requirement. That put me first in class and gave me some welcome point for the championship. Although, I did feel sorry for her and Steve.
Full Results: http://www.mylaps.com/en/events/1020521
Round 3 (normal direction)
The weather was appalling when we headed out for practice. I decided to try the Kumhos in the wet - the plan B was to fit the AO21 'full wets' if they were struggling but they proved to be very good and soon I was putting in laps 4 or 5 second better than my previous best in the wet. Practice 2 to was even wetter, but I settled into the groove and stayed out for the full session to try and heat the tyres and finally managed to bring my times down to the 1.02's.
Over lunch the rain cleared and the Time Attack guys dried the track for our Qually. I knew from the previous day that it would be the first session that would matter. With no dry running that day, it was going to be a shot in the dark, but I was relaxed and just went for it. As I crossed the line on my first lap, I saw a 56.9 on the vbox, but what struck me most was that the car felt glued to the track. So it was a concious decision to shorten braking points for lap 2. It all felt rather smooth until I got to Clarks - just a little too late on the brakes meant I missed my normal apex, but the deep entry gave a good drive out. I left the brakes even later for the hairpin. That too was a little deep, but again the deeper line helped the exit. I knew it was a good lap, but when I saw 55.6 on the Vbox I knew that lap was a bit special. By the time I parked up and walked back to the pits qualifying was almost over and, to my surprise, I was on pole position - only the double entered car of Adam Kindness still to run . He crossed the line on his last lap to take a tenth out of my time. Then true to form, Charlie Shaw rolled up in the last few second (having just changed the clutch) and show us all what a 1000BHP car can do
http://www.mylaps.com/en/events/1021509
The heavens opened for the final and it was clear that the odds were beginning to stack up against me with the light weight Caterham. I knew that the soft Kumhos would struggle to heat up over the one lap. I thought of switching to the AO21 but really wanted conformation of standing water before making that call - conformation came from Gordon just a little too late to change them. In hindsight, I needed to do something a little different to beat Fee, and even if the AO21 had been the wrong, I would have been no worse off. But with a 1.06, it was still a reasonable time for a Caterham in the wet, and less than a second off Fee's time.
With Fee's illegal tyres, I moved up to third equal in the championship [EDIT: after a successful protest by David Herd, I moved down to 4th] . A GOOD weekend.
Round 3 results: http://www.mylaps.com/en/events/1025219
Championship : http://superlapscotland.co.uk/championship.htm
Car and driver both going well.