Apr
14
Round 1 2010 – Lydden Hill report
Simon Horton - top of hairy hill
I have to be honest, round one was not exactly the result we where hoping for.
I knew it was going to be “one of them” when i drove the car out the garage on saturday morning to load it on the trailer. We had repaired a selector rod after breaking one at the previous weekends test at Bill Gwynnes rally school, but unfortunatelly the repair hadn’t been strong enough and it broke almost as soon as i selected the gear. So it was a case of getting the box out, finding the fault, repairing the selector again (but stronger) and refit the box, before loading up and travelling over 300 miles to kent! We did make it but everyone in the team was knackered after working flat out all day and I really appreciate all the help from everyone that chipped in.
Anyway, we went for first practice on sunday morning to shake down the engine and check the gearbox, which all went fine.. Till we ran in the second timed practice. At the first corner of the second lap we lost gears again and we feared the worst. I limped round the whole lap to set a time and to ensure we at least could take to the grid for the heats. It would have been so easy to just load up the car on the trailer at this point and go home, but we pressed on with the weekend.
It was decided skip the first heat to give us time to strip the box down after practise and make sure that it was fixed for heat 2 & 3.
Much to our suprise, it was the selector for gear 1&2 that had failed and ment the car was stuck in second gear as it wouldn’t disengage from the 2nd gear.
Just as we set too with stripping the box, we lost all power at the circuit till late (what are the chances of that, really!!), meaning we couldn’t use a welder to fix the box till later in the day when the power was sorted. We finally got a bodge trackside repair done to allow us to select neutral again about 11pm. The repair wasn’t perfect as with limited tools we had available and ment we couldn’t fully engage 2nd or 4th, but at least we could have 1st to get of the line and 3rd to run the circuit.
We limped through heats 2&3 with just the 2 gears and we weren’t even the slowest supercar on track
I scrapped into a C-final somehow after all the drama of the day and had the car on 3rd position on the front row, but the unlucky day wasn’t finished with me just yet! I took my spot on the grid, flicked on the antilag, engaged the launch control and waited for the lights to change. The light changed, i dropped the clutch and something in the transmission went bang (and it sounded like a very expensive big bang too at the time) and the car lost all drive.
I haven’t got the box out the car yet as i just pushed it in the garage on tuesday when we got home and i fell out with it lol, but it will be out this weekend to investigate.
It needs turning round within the next 2 weeks to be out at knockhill as i have some unfinished business and something to prove