Blimey, it has been a long time. No I have not given up, stopped or anything similar. We have just been frantic and so time for things like this has been non existant!
Anyway, I made it to the Silverstone SPEED race, and overall I had a brilliant time! I decided that as it was my first race I just wanted to finish to get some signatures on my license, which I did!
The weekend started with the track looking more like a raft would be the weapon of choice! But having a roof I was quite dry but still REALLY nervous. The race was on the new arena tack, but still had a really VERY tight chicane juts before the new pit area. there is a slightly different, much more open, chicane here, which I think is part of the new circuit, but we, well certainly I, wasn’t tacking that!
I followed Dad round for a couple of laps so I could try to work out where I was supposed to be going. This was all well and good, but I wanted to start going a little faster. Now with hindsight we should have decided on what to do, but I though if I went past he would speed up a bit and we could circulate for a couple more laps at a little higher speed, but what actually happened was he thought I was OK, so just disappeared off into the distance! Unfortunately for me this didnt actually really matter as all of a sudden the engine got a bit of a misfire, cleared, at which point I thought it must be all ok, and then just stopped. I coasted up the new pit area marshalls who were great and helped me get the car behind some barriers and then watched from there.
It was all fairly strange as there had not been a bang or smoke, it was just as if I had switched it off, but the dash was all still on and it wouldnt fire back up. After the tow truck brought me back in, we set about diagnosing the problem. It all became fairly obvious when I plugged in the computer only to find a plethora of warnings and errors. I have used the MOTEC before and had a fair idea what this all meant, NO SYNC SIGNAL. hmm, all rather strange as we have developed a kit to run the busa using all the standard bits and bobs on motec, had it broken? After so sensor swapping it was, thankfully, an easy fix. The sensor had just decided to stop working. these are the ‘standard’ hall effect sensors that you can buy from RS so I swapped a wheelspeed over and the engine fired straight back up. So, I had lost the free practice session but had plenty of time in qualifying to learn the circuit. I knew I wasnt going to be very competative and so was not too concerned!
The first race came and went, and apart from running out of fuel with 3 laps to go, I didnt really know how much to put in at the pit stop so gambled on a single churn, seemingly not enough, I was really chuffed. The car ran well and I was finally starting to know where the corners went! I hadnt pushed the car as was more interested in a finish, and everything was looking good. the evening was spent checking over both cars where nothing too major jumped out, so we settled down for an evening on the camper.
The second race however was another story! It didnt start well as I couldnt select any gears!! I still am a little confused over this, but it appears the GCU reset itself sometime between the end of the first race and the start of the second. I started from the pitlane with gears so set about just trying to improve on the times from the previous day. After 45mins it was time to come in for fuel. All the other teams at this point were swapping drivers etc, but as Dad was out in the 935 we were doing the whole race ourselves, and boy, you look forward to the chequered flag at the end! Anyway, an uneventful pitstop and I was back out again, but only in 1st. The GCU gremlin had struck again. I tried a few things whilst going round the first few bends but nothing seemed to fix it. I thought I had better just drive round to the pits and see if we could sort it somehow, but all of a sudden there was an almighty BANG and the cockpit was filling up with what looked like white smoke! Suddenly the gear issue didnt matter one iota and I pulled off the the side in front on the marshalls. I leaped from the car and turned to see flame licking out through the louvers in the engine lid. I pressed the fire extinguisher, but I may aswell not have done as all it did was dribble out, and the marshalls ran over and luckily the fire didnt take and the car was saved! I was unharmed and must thank the marshalls for everything! We got the car back onto the flat bed and brought it back to the pits, Oil leaking out from everywhere. It was clear the engine had gone bang in a big way! I quickly washed off as much of the extinguishant as I could, as it eats anything and everything, and then consoled myself, at least I was OK and the car not burnt to a cinder!
I checked the data but couldnt find anything amiss. Oil pressure was perfect, temperatures perfect, no overrev. All rather strange.
Tags: Engine, Silverstone
