Cadwell Park 19th of May 2001

Circuit guide

For an excellent Cadwell guide from Ten Tenths Motorsport click here.

Race diary:

Car number 13 strikes again! :(

So, those of you who follow my build diary will know that Cadwell was to be my first race with my spangly new engine which I had professionally built. More on this later. Ask any racer what they think about Cadwell Park and I think you'll get the same response - "Awesome circuit, not for the fainthearted though!!". Damn right too! An absolute motorcross track of a circuit with loads of track height variation, camber changes and great corners, especially the Gooseneck, which is a real rollercoaster. With this in mind I thought testing was definitely a good idea. So I took a day off work and travelled up to Cadwell on the Friday morning to arrive in plenty of time for the afternoon session. With everything unloaded in the paddock (with plenty of room for a change), my brother and I fuelled up the car, checked the tyre pressures and waited for the session to be called. I won't bore you with the details, although there's an in-car video link below if you'd like to join me for a lap! My times started out around 1:25 which was 5 seconds off of what I was aiming for in order to get up the grid. Cadwell had a good entry of around 40 cars, this, combined with a small grid meant that only the top 7 from the heat would make it to the final so I needed to be up there with the front runners. The car was running really well, much smoother than the old one with a bit more grunt too. Only trouble was a bad misfire between 4 and 5 thousand revs and cronic brake imbalance. Martin had got hold of a pair of re-conditioned calipers and I had some EBC pads but he wasn't due to turn up until the evening. My brother was watching at the hairpin and it was clear that the nearside front would conistently lock up which would make the car pull hard left. No good for setting the car up into the turns I can tell you!

Regarding the misfirem once you got past 5k it ran cleanly through to 6500. Not too sure of the cause of this although carburration seemed likely. I cut short my second session to try and resolve the problem to get some good times in. Out in the last session of the day I put in some consistent 1:23's - two seconds faster, but with the misfire and braking problems I was still 3 seconds off the pace. The misfire was REALLY distracting and came in when I least needed it. Coming into the Gooseneck, twice all power dropped off sending me into oversteer, then the misfire would clear, the drive came back with a bang and the car was a nightmare to balance. Still, I managed to keep it on the track - probably not trying hard enough ;)

Back in the paddock after the last session it was time to do some investigation. The new fuel pump was taking its feed from the coil circuit. Thinking that this might be causing a voltage fluctuation in the coil feed, we re-routed the live to the ignition switch (which is where I should have taken it from in the first place). Other than a blast up and down the road outside the paddock, I couldn't test the car and I couldn't load the engine enough (it was worst flat out in 4th) to reproduce the problem. Bugger. Well, there was nothing more I could do for the moment so we put the car to bed and made our way to the B&B for some grub and a few pints. I wasn't the only one with problems however, Glenn Boyer who was next to me in the paddock (when will you learn Glenn! ;) had a knackered gearbox. He had drive at the engine end, and gears that would turn at the wheel end - just no link in between. Without a spare to hand and not really wanting the hassle of a gearbox change, Glenn had resigned himself to not racing the next day and went off to drown his sorrows. A decision I'm sure he'd later regret - dodgy pie indeed ;)

I made the sensible decision of cutting the festivities of the night before short in order to get a good night's kip. A wise move given the sorry state of my pit crew ;) Stu, Martin and Karl all looked like something the cat had thrown up after a busy night of lager, vodka, red-bull and more lager. So, off we trotted to the paddock in plenty of time to replace the front calipers and pads ready for scrutineering. Well, I say we, Martin had to suffer the excesses of the previous night in order to do the brakes. I just pumped the pedal for the bleed! Mr. Boyer finally surfaced looking VERY green. A bit of ballast dumping (peuking) and he alsmost gained some colour. Glenn explained the problem to Martin who had a look. With the aid of a bloody great bolster and a precision lump hammer, Martin got enough access to the 'box to replace a pin on the lay shaft. With a bit of blood, sweat and a lot of swearing he fixed it! I wasn't personally witness to the very bouyant Mr Boyer who made his was to scrutineering in a car that could race, but I'm assured that the phrase "Cat that got the cream" wouldn't be far off ;). Back to my own programme, scrutineering was a straightforward affair and I got back to our spot in the paddock in plenty of time to prepare for qualifying.

The huge number of entries combined with grid restrictions at Cadwell (Locost racing is taking over the 750MC!) meant that qualifying was split into two sessions based on overall championship position. So I got a bit more time to fiddle about as I wasn't due out until 9:20. Cadwell's pretty narrow, with most overtaking actually taking place under braking for one of the many bends. With this and my previous days testing in mind, I got to the assembly area nice and early in order to get out in front of the traffic and try to put in some good times without being held up by first timers. This proved to be a good move and I got lined up on the front row of the grid with Adam Wilkinson in readiness for the session start. As we sat there waiting for the green lights, Adam's car dumped all it's oil! Adam's the one bloke who seems to have even less luck than me! His car had to be recovered and we sat there whilst they cleaned up the spill. I wouldn't fancy ploughing through it from the back of the grid. Of course, the upshot of this was that I was now in pole position meaning I had a nice clear track - excellent. The usual sequence of boards from the marshall and the session got the green light. Accelerate up through cascades past the hairpin (the nature of the short circuit at Cadwell means that the only time you're on the grid is at the start and from then on, you restart your lap at the hairpin in front of it - weird), short shift for Charlies one which is taken flat and then a slight lift before two to settle the car. Then it's full bore down the back straight, well, full bore and a load of mis-fire in my case, then hard on the brakes (which now worked albeit fairly weakly at first) way past the last marker into Chris Curve, back on the power round there and try and set yourself up for a good line through the Gooseneck which is a right/left then downhill towards Mansfield which is a lot slower than you think, a fact proved by me as I went in too fast (brakes too cold) and launched myself off the track! I slid over the grass and remember feeling strangely relaxed as I came to a halt courtesy of a haybail covered in polythene. The polybail had filled with water and as I twatted it it went off like a water bomb! I got soaked :) Still, no time to fart about and no damage done, back into first and I made my way back onto the circuit. Within about 3 laps I was lapping cars - mint! Even with the misfire the car felt better with the new brakes. The laptimer was doing it's own thing so I ignored it. More cars overtaken, I was on a roll! Then - disaster. Full power down the back straight, I braked for Chris curve and got back on the power, then @QUOTclunk" and the engine died. Damn, damn, damn, I still had oil pressure, the temperature was fine this HAD to be mechanical. I coasted all the way down through the Gooseneck and Mansfield, found a safe place to stop and retired to the edge of the circuit. I'd put in enough laps for qualification, thing was, could we get the car running? So there I sat, despondently watching everyone else until the session was over and I could get a tow back to the paddock.

The usual disppointed faces (my crew) asked what the problem was and I told them. We cranked the engine over and tested for a spark. But, no spark! Great, this was good news. The HT king lead was a bit dodgy on the connection, this was fixed, but still no spark. Weird, so off came the dizzy cap, crank the engine and....... the distributor wasn't rotating. Not good. At first I suspected a sheared dizzy drive shaft, but once removed this wasn't the problem? Hmmm... maybe it's a broken timing chain, gulp, that could mean bent valves :( Timing chain cover was removed but everything was in one piece. Head scratching commenced. Well, until we saw the shrapnell in the sump :( Oh no, this was BAAAADDDDD!!!!

During the partial strip-down I almost missed having a results sheet thrust at me. I'd qualified 21st with a best of 1:22.349 - another second lopped off my time. This put me in fourth place on the second row of the grid for the heat - woohoo! Or rather wooboo, my engine was toast.

At this point in my account of the meeting I have to say that the 'spirit' of motorsport is definitely alive and kicking in the Locost series. As well as being lent all manner of stuff from jacks, to brake fluid, to HT leads, to oil filters, it takes something to lend someone an entire engine! From one of the championship front-runners too. Darryl Beckwith, race winner and bloody top bloke kindly offered his spare engine to me on the basis of 'bend it mend it'. Not only that, but he'd already lent a gearbox to Locost no.16. - what a top geezer. So it was decision time. Given all the preparation and the distance we'd come, I decided to go for it, even though another engine failure could mean a race bill for Cadwell running into thousands :(

So, all hands on-deck for a engine change without a hoist. It wasn't the most coordinated approach, but we got it done in just over an hour. Not bad at all, the crew should be in rallying! Another thank you goes to Graham Walker who kindly lent a hand and sorted a new oil filter for me - cheers mate! The only problem was the clutch. Darryl's engines use a long travel clutch whilst mine is standard. The upshot of this meant that my clutch pedal ended up about 4 inches forward of where it sat normally in relation to the brake, but at least I could engage the gears. A quick blat up and down the road outside the paddock and we were ready. We even had time for a bit of lunch before the race!

So, once again I found myself in the assembly area. It was great to be lined up at the front for a change and I was looking forward to the race. Final 'good-lucks' were given and we made our way down to the start where I lined up on the second row of the grid to the inside of the track. The program, like all 750 meetings, was running along as quickly as possible, so the 5,2 and 1 minute boards appeared in quick succession, then 30, 5 red light - GO!!

I got away cleanly and held position coming into cascades where - whoaaaaaa!!!! The bloody throttle was stuck wide open! Not fun. I kicked the pedal and it came back but I'd already conceded a place or three whilst struggling with the gears, ok, calm down and get into the groove. Safely round Charlies I floored it up the back straight.... and then past it!!! Arse!!! The bloody throttle was jammed on AGAIN! I managed to gather it up and stay on the track but I was driven well wide of the black stuff but stayed off the grass. More cars slipped by as I struggled with the gears which were now getting notchy. Bugger, what else can go wrong? Ok, full throttle is NOT a good idea, let's keep it together and try and make the top seven for the final. Down to the hairpin and I struggled getting second, which delayed me again, damn, damn, DAMN! More places floated by then NOOOOOOOO!!!! the throttle was jammed AGAIN into Charlies. Sod this, no more than 3/4 throttle from here, just go for the signature. I was still holding off cars and using later braking and better lines to gain on cars in front. Then, finally, coming out of the hairpin I went to grab second and got a box full of neutrals, the clutch had heated up and I couldn't get any gears to engage :( I briefly snatched 1st then went for 2nd and couldn't get it, I then couldn't get anything. Totally pissed off I coasted onto the grass on the hill approaching Charlies. Got out of the car, and resigned myself to defeat. A day spent running in, dyno, testing and 2 engines and I still ended up without even a signature. I was, and am, gutted.

Once again I watched the rest of the race from the sidelines, before a tow back to the pits. Game over.

That said, at least I'd got away with no structural damage which was more than could be said for others who were less fortunate. Kevin Broughton in car 81 ended up rolling his Locost whilst Adam Wilkinson and Stuart Lyddel were involved in some carnage earlier in the race. Fortunately, everyone was unhurt. Unfortunately, some of the cars were a mess. We loaded up ready to go and watched some of the other races whilst waiting for my licence to come back with another damn DNF on it. Once back home, we whipped the sump off to check the cam. Sure enough, there it was, fractured on lobe 1 right on the edge of the machining implying that it was a manufacturing defect :(

We took Darryl's engine out on the Sunday and I took my 'mangle' to the builder. A full strip down showed the full extent of the damage. A guess at the sequence of events was that the camshaft snapped bending all 8 valves which twatted the piston crowns and bending some of the pushrods in the process. It then snapped 3 cam followers one of which caught no.2 conrod which picked it up, smashed it through the block and broke the base of the piston before twatting the rod itself. A closer inspection of the camshaft clearly shows a fault where the lobe is ground which caused it to fail.

So that's the end of that engine. Down but not out, it's being rebuilt along with my original engine in time for Mallory on the 3rd of June.

I'll be back!

Qualifying