Engine drama for Lydden
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="218" caption="Subaru Impreza race engine"][/caption] Apologies to all who where expecting us at lydden this weekend. Unfortunatelly we had a issue with the new engine late on saturday afternoon before loading and had no choice but to pull out of the event. The engine came out yesterday and we have identified the problem. "After all the work in the last few weeks to finish the rebuild of the engine bay after the fire at mallory and to have a new engine built, i can tell you no one was more gutted than me not to make the lydden event." commented ...
Post mallory damage – update
[caption id="attachment_590" align="alignleft" width="180" caption="subaru at mallory"][/caption] Following further investigation into the engine bay fire at mallory, the source of the fire was originally wrongly identified as the oilcooler lines. The cause of the fire was found to be caused by the camshaft oil seal been blown out after blowing a hole in the piston and the block becoming pressurised, forcing a oil seal out and the engine pumping oil onto the manifold. As a result the engine has had to be repaired and replacement parts sourced. Thanks to all our suppliers for being able to turn around the parts quickly for ...
Round 5 – Mallory Park
[caption id="attachment_463" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Mallory Park Logo"][/caption] Unfortunately there isn't too much news to report from round 5 at Mallory park due to a terminal engine bay fire in the first practice session. The source of the fire has been identified as a failed fitting as oilcooler lines return to the block. This then sprayed onto the red hot manifold and ignited, destroying various components in the process. The engine will now be removed for inspection and a solution to the oil cooler issue will be resolved. As a parting positive note, Simon commented that the car was performing perfectly in practise and was ...
Round 4 Report – maasmechelen (belgium)
[caption id="attachment_568" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="horton in belgium"][/caption] Round 4 of the BRDA championship so the hortonracing team travel to maasmechelen in Belgium for what was a hot and tricky event. The team travelled through friday and saturday to arrive at the track at 6pm saturday evening, but arrived too late to use the free practise session and set up the car. Thanks to David Binks team for you use of facilities at the track and also providing shelter from the blistering heat (42 degrees trackside) and cover from a huge thunderstorm. Sunday was slow starting with only free practise and timed practise ...
Continental Challange
This weekend for round 4 of the British rallycross championship, the Hortonracing team is travelling to the " devils hill circuit" at Maasmechelen, Belgium. This is a totally new challange for the team, who have never raced on the contininent before and never seen the circuit before. "Everyone involved with the team and the event are very excited and looking forward to something new" commented Simon. "The more I drive the impreza, the happier I am with it's performance and able to make adjustments to the setup to push it even further". The base setup for the car is similar to what ...
Round 3 report – Night Fight at blyton
[caption id="attachment_570" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="night scooby"][/caption] After a mixed start to the season and with the teams previous history at Blyton, there was a edge of caution for the first ever night race in the british rallycross championship at Blyton (lincs) "I was told to keep it tidy, don't do anything silly and keep out the barriers" commented Simon " We spent quite a lot of time in the practise sessions adjusting the suspension and brake setups to get the optimum feeling from the car for this event" The first 2 heats where competative and Simon enjoyed a close race with Steve Mundy ...
Special night race modification :-)
The hortonracing team has been busy developing the Subaru Impreza ready for the first every night race in the british rallycross championship. "Racing in the dark brings it's own set of challanges to the driver and spectators alike. I hope to shine in these conditions with my previous experiance of night time rallying" commented Simon The event will take place at the Blyton Circuit in lincolnshire on the 12th June with live coverage on MotorsTV from 3pm. Have a quick look at the video for more info on the preperation work to the car. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lTDjC-6rB8
Ready for round 3 – Blyton night race
Blyton in Lincolnshire will play host to a new aspect of rallycross on Saturday June 11th with the first rallycross championship "night" race. The event will start at approx 4pm running through till 11.30pm under floodlights. This will bring a totally new dimension to the sport and add to the unique element to the british rallycross championship, and it will all be broadcast LIVE on Motors TV. The hortonracing team has made a few small revisions to the Subaru with a evolution of the fueling system with new pumps and swirl pot fitted after fuel surge was causing issues at the last ...
Brand New Video -Tech2.0
Just a quick announcement that we have just uploaded a brand new technical video about the Hortonracing Subaru Impreza http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daesMMSX9Lg
Knockhill Rallycross Pre Round 2 News
After the numerous problems in round 1 at Lydden Hill, the team has undertaken a massive amount of work to solve the transmission problems. The gearbox has had the selector rods replaced with uprated units thanks to Zen performance for supplying the parts at short notice and technical assistance. The gearbox has also had internal components modified to help with the speed and accuracy of the shifts in race conditions. The lose of drive in the Finals at Lydden was traced back to a broken drive shaft and damaged propshaft, which have now both been replaced and the transmission is ...
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Subaru Impreza race engine
Apologies to all who where expecting us at lydden this weekend.
Unfortunatelly we had a issue with the new engine late on saturday afternoon before loading and had no choice but to pull out of the event. The engine came out yesterday and we have identified the problem.
“After all the work in the last few weeks to finish the rebuild of the engine bay after the fire at mallory and to have a new engine built, i can tell you no one was more gutted than me not to make the lydden event.” commented Simon
However, the hortonracing team can 100% gaurentee we will be back for the next round and will be pushing hard for the last 2 rounds of this season to salvage some pride
Garage Talk by .
subaru at mallory
Following further investigation into the engine bay fire at mallory, the source of the fire was originally wrongly identified as the oilcooler lines.
The cause of the fire was found to be caused by the camshaft oil seal been blown out after blowing a hole in the piston and the block becoming pressurised, forcing a oil seal out and the engine pumping oil onto the manifold. As a result the engine has had to be repaired and replacement parts sourced. Thanks to all our suppliers for being able to turn around the parts quickly for us and special mention to Michael Spark who is the teams engine builder for dropping everything and rebuilding the engine as a priority for the subaru.
The engine is now back in the Subaru and will be ready for the next race at Lydden Hill in kent on the August bank holiday.
Mallory Park Logo
Unfortunately there isn’t too much news to report from round 5 at Mallory park due to a terminal engine bay fire in the first practice session.
The source of the fire has been identified as a failed fitting as oilcooler lines return to the block. This then sprayed onto the red hot manifold and ignited, destroying various components in the process. The engine will now be removed for inspection and a solution to the oil cooler issue will be resolved.
As a parting positive note, Simon commented that the car was performing perfectly in practise and was on the pace with the front running cars, so this is promising for the remaining events of 2010.
The team will be back out in 3 weeks time at Lydden hill in Kent.
Watch this space for updates
Garage Talk by .
horton in belgium
Round 4 of the BRDA championship so the hortonracing team travel to maasmechelen in Belgium for what was a hot and tricky event. The team travelled through friday and saturday to arrive at the track at 6pm saturday evening, but arrived too late to use the free practise session and set up the car. Thanks to David Binks team for you use of facilities at the track and also providing shelter from the blistering heat (42 degrees trackside) and cover from a huge thunderstorm.
Sunday was slow starting with only free practise and timed practise taking place before 2pm, and putting pressure on the event schedule and the teams getting back to the uk. The team knew we had to leave the circuit by 6.30pm to make it back to the port to get the ferry back to the UK. Heat 1 wasn’t the best run with a slow start away from the line and a small incident with david binks fiesta a the first corner (sorry again) which left both drivers way down the time sheets after the first run. Heat2 didn’t go much better for Simon as he ran wide on the first loose section and sliding sideways into the tyre bail and then hitting the barriers. This badly damaged the drivers side and all the front end of the subaru, but he completed the run to post a time. By the time Simon got to heat3, the car was battered and bruised, so he went for bust and pushed the subaru to the limit and used a few new lines. Heat 3 was certainly the best start of the day with simon setting off with the pack and holding 3rd position into the first corner, but after a scruffy joker lap and also missing a gear on the first lap, simon had to settle for 5th position.
As the event was run to belgium reg, the cars ran using 6 car finals rather than the usual british 8 car finals so unfortunatelly simon didn’t qualify for the A or B final.
“Today was a massive learning curve for me, both in the terms of a new track and competitors and also the fact that the racing style over here is totally different” commented Simon. ” We have gained the experiance now and we will be back next year and be more awaire of what we need to do in terms of setup and racing style”
The car will now be stripped and repaired ready for round 5 at mallory park in august.
Rallycross News by .
night scooby
After a mixed start to the season and with the teams previous history at Blyton, there was a edge of caution for the first ever night race in the british rallycross championship at Blyton (lincs)
“I was told to keep it tidy, don’t do anything silly and keep out the barriers” commented Simon ” We spent quite a lot of time in the practise sessions adjusting the suspension and brake setups to get the optimum feeling from the car for this event”
The first 2 heats where competative and Simon enjoyed a close race with Steve Mundy in heat 2 which so the pair seperated by only a single car length at the end of the race. But it was when the light faded and the TV coverage went live that Simon showed his true race skill behind the wheel of the 550bhp Subaru Impreza. As the cars launched through the first series of bends Simon was initially slow off the line, but picked a perfect inside line onto the first loose section and steered up the inside of 2 other cars to claim 3rd place by the end of the first lap. As the race developed Simon caught and applied massive pressure to David Binks in his Fiesta supercar, pushing him all the way to the chequed flag, and the time was quick enough to claim a “b” final front row.
Simon took his front row B final start along side the similar speced Subaru Impreza of Gareth Wood and Chris Langley in his Escort Cosworth (Steve Hill was due, but retired the car with a technical failure)
As the B final got underway, Simon was again unfortunatelly slow away from the line with a massive amount of wheel spin and tooked into 3rd place. The turning point was at the start of lap 2 when Gareth and Chris tangled and the Newcastle driver came off the worse and was spun out (or so Simon thought). Simon then set about chasing down Langleys Escort, but the race came to him when a headgasket failure down the back straight forced Chris to retire. At this point Simon totally backed off to save the engine and was cruising the final laps to the final, until…. Gareth Wood reappeared in the mirrors. “I was totally caught napping” Commented Simon “I thought Gareth was out of the race, so I got the shock of my life when I so him in my mirrors making a move round the out side of me! At this point I knew I had a race on my hands.” Simon made a move up the inside of the white impreza into the final corner and held onto the lead for the final lap, soaking up massive pressure from a charging Gareth Wood.
From winning the B Final, Simon took his place on the back of the 8 car grid and followed the pack into the first corner. “There was dust and cars everywhere” said Simon “but all i knew is that i had to chase the leaders down as the recovering cars would be hunting me down, so it was a pure race to the flag” For the 3rd time of the day Simon found himself chasing Steve mundy and on the final lap, at the final corner, he made a ambitious lunge down the outside to try and steal 5th place from the Ford focus driver. The car was broad sideway into the corner and Impreza ended up coming over the line backwards, but still claiming 6th and progressing to the Superfinal.
The superfinal was slightly less eventful and Simon again claimed his best result in the supercar class in 6th postion after a fun few laps playing with Jamie Lea from the supercar class and again chasing Steve mundy and Mad Mark watson.
Simon would like to thank all the friends / family and team / sponsors for there support and this result is for them.
Rallycross News by .