Woodbridge Stages 2015

After last weekend’s sprint I went into the Woodbridge Stages feeling confident in both the car and my driving.

We were seeded at Car 35 and third in class, which given the strength in quality and numbers in our class I thought we would do well to match by the end of the day.

The day started off dry, but the well forecast rain came in just before leaving for the first stage. The Yoko A048R’s worked surprisingly well on the front in the now heavy rain. However the Yoko A038’s (a more cut version of the 048’s) were rubbish! This led to most corners being a drift-fest, good fun but not fast and not good for the confidence. It also led to a high speed spin, however some dropped oil was probably the main cause of this….

(c) M&H Photography

For the next stage (and the rest of the event) we continued with the Yoko A048’s on the front and some free-be wet’s I have been given on the rear. Though these were very well worn, these worked well in the wet conditions.

The next few stages were a little less eventful, although one moment of aqua-planning at high speed at the end of a long straight caused a bit of scare with cars off all over the place trying to slow down.

The weather throughout the day changed from very heavy wind and rain to quite dry (but still windy), which meant the airfield surface was always different even from lap to lap on the same stage.

By lunchtime we were 5th in class and just outside the top 20, so a good overall position if not amazing in class. Given our class included both Turner brothers in quick cars and bot of whom can pedal very well and the other cars around us were much more powerful single venue rally specials. Our road rally spec car, was doing well – in fact beating many more powerful cars outside of Class A. By now we were working our way up through the field and now chasing down a 2.5 ltr BMW compact I was slowly catching him up through the corners which was encouraging but also led to a spin as i tried to push a bit too hard! Though by the end of the day we beat him by nearly a minute 🙂

The first stage after lunch I was rather ragged, no major moments but certainly not a ‘tidy’ stage either…. It was then on to the final stage of the day, we were in the top 20 overall and now 4th in class, and only 8 seconds of 3rd in class… So the target was set! The last stage went very well with us setting 16th overall fastest stage time beating Owen Turner, Tony Michael in his 1600 Civic, a 2Ltr Escort MkII and even a 4WD Delta!

In the end we were tied on time for 3rd in class and 17th overall, with the Corsa taking the honors due his second stage time being quicker on the count back…. Just one second, looking back through the on-board videos I can see many moments where I could have made up this and much more but that’s rallying!.

A big thanks has to go out to all the organisers and marshals for their cold & wet work for us to have a play.

The final thanks is to Lizzie Pope for keeping me calm throughout the event, and telling me where to go.

Here is the final stage of the day – probably my best stage of the day, if you want to see a more ragged me then view my YouTube Channel and watch stage 4….

Currently we don’t have our next event planned. I hope to wash, check over the car over the Easter weekend. The only worked needed that I know of so far is a new set of brake pads, change the oil / filter and a general check over the car. Once again this has cost about £20 in tyres, £16 for a set of pads and some fuel (and a few doughnuts and burgers… 😉 ), I got to drive the rally car there and back in once piece – true clubman rallying.

Sprint Results

The full results are out now from last weekends sprint, you can see on the final run I was 16th fastest on that run 🙂

Results

Sprint report

My first driving event of 2015, was to be a sprint at a new venue for sprinting and myself – Hullavington Airfield.

The course looked good from the map’s provided, and on the convoy run you could tell it was going to be fast.

On the first couple of practice runs I had the class lead (Class A3), on reflection the sprint regulars were at lot more conservative on their practice runs, where as us Rally & Autotest/solo types are used to having to be ‘on it’ from the beginning.

After my first run I stiffened up the front shocks two more clicks in order to reduce the amount of rear wheel lifting in mid-corner. Once I had done this the new rear suspension was working well, not too stiff but it helps lower the car and keep it all planted on the ground.

There was to be one timed run before lunch and three after lunch. My first timed run, was a bit of a banker run to get a good’ish time in. Then after lunch I was all over the shot, a very messy run, feeling ‘cold’ after lunch and cold tyres didn’t help with this.

My third run was a lot better smoother and faster, and I didn’t think there was much more to be gained time-wise.

At this point I was second in the class behind the 180bhp Fiesta, and I thought that this was fair enough and would be a good result. Then I heard a time of someone else in my class, which was faster… all this just before I got in the car before my final run…

This was just enough to get me really wound up enough to really push on my final run. I found 1.48 seconds (on a 1.5 mile course) with a mixture of increased driving agression, bravery and thinking more about a very tricky set of corners which needed to be slow in and fast out. (See video in previous blog post)

At the end of the run I knew it had been fast and had left very little more that I could have pushed, I was very pleased to come in second in class and a good overall position beating many ‘faster’ cars.

The event proved to be very useful as a shakedown and test of the new suspension and to remind me of how to drive on tarmac as the last event I drove on was the Power Stage of WRGB on very wet gravel – very different to dry sticky tarmac!

Here is the video of that ‘messy’ run :-

Now it is all about the final prep for Woodbridge stages this weekend, with Lizzie Pope on the maps.

Last night saw the usual pre / post event prep work being done :-

• Oil & Filter change
• Bleed front brakes
• Full bolt check
• Removed air filter (to be cleaned at work)
• Re-fit sump guard

All done in less than 2 hours 🙂

Now to review some videos of Woodbridge last year to prep for the weekend.

Hullavinton Sprint

Finished 2nd in class, only beaten by a 180bhp ex. race car Fiesta, beating many faster cars (911’s, VX220 on ITB’s TVR’s etc…) and father in law who was in his Clio 197 Cup Car.

Good day

Full blog report to follow later in the week, got to get ready for Woodbridge Stages next Sunday.

Ready to sprint

This weekend’s work has been about getting the rally car ready for next weekend’s sprint, which will be a good shakedown for Woodbridge Stages the following weekend.

To get ready for the sprint the following jobs were done :-

• Oil & filter change
• Fixed the dip beam wiring issues (feed from the alternator had broken)
• Replace the blown fuse which feeds the trip meter, clock and intercom
• Full bolt check (none loose for once!)
• Fitted new front pads and bedding them in
• Bled the front brakes (see below)
• Sealed up the bulkhead/heater vents as per scrutineer feedback on the last event
• Removed the sump guard
• Fitted the new -80mm Progressive (+20lb) Tarmac rear springs
• Fitted back in the rear trim
• Fitted a new heavy duty (12v / 50A) fuel pump switch.

A quick road test showed that the rear is now a lot lower than before, so a couple aborted runs were needed before i sussed that the splash guard in front of the exhaust (where it goes across the car) was touching the road. This needed removing as well as the rear mud flaps pinning back to stop the grounding out. Then I got to do a test run of the new suspension and bed in the new front pads. The new springs aren’t too stiff and help reduce a lot of rear body roll. I think the sprint will be a good chance to fine tune the suspension.

Here you can see gravity helping out with the bledding of the brakes

Spring is here….

Since the next few events planned are on tarmac, I thought I would look at the suspension settings. Keeping the Micra road rally legal means we can’t fit coil over shocks to the rear, at the front we can change the ride height easily, but on the rear it means changing springs.

At the moment we use forest spec springs, adding a +15mm alloy spacer for rough forestry work. However on tarmac this leads to the front being lower than the front. Speaking to Matt Humphris I now have these brand new tarmac spec progressive springs, these will lower the rear by 80mm and stiffen the rear by 20lb which should help improve handling.

Looks like it will be a busy weekend ahead sorting things out for the Sprint & then Woodbridge Stages.

Bedding Swtiches

Starting the post Bovington stages prep work is now in full swing, and needs to be sorted soon as we have now also entered the Hullavington sprint the weekend before Woodbridge stages. This should be a good new event, and also a good shakedown and pre-event test for Woodbridge stages.

Today I sorted out a few more tyres at the Rover Centre, at Bovington we used a grand total of £20 of tyres (fronts) and one set of front pads (£18) who says motorsport has to be expensive!

We did use our spare set of pads as well (which were well worn), so tonight I swapped around the car to run on road tyres and then fitted a set of new front pads. Then I bedded these in with some runs around the lanes, with some heavy braking the new pads were soon smoking and bedded in. These I will change for another new set (which again will need bedding in…) but it is important to have a set of already bedded in pads ready to use in the rally spares kit as I don’t want to be trying to bed the pads in mid-stage…!

However another job has crept up, which is replacing the fuel pump switch. Annoyingly this was only fitted recently, i think it is either an issue with the switch or the rocker cover sitting on the toggle and making contact harder. At least I have spotted the issue outside of an event, and should be easy to fix.

One good thing is that so far the newly tightened and lock-tighted front ball joints are still up tight, with the added witness marks it is easy to check to see if the nuts have moved now during events.

I think these may be worn out….

Post Bovington Stages – Pre Woodbridge Stages Prep Work

It wouldn’t be rallying without a list of post/pre event work to be done, the next event for me and the car is Woodbridge Stage at the end of the month This will be with Lizzie Pope on the maps as Suze will be organising the event acting as Assistant CofC working her way to being a licenced CofC.

Work to be done :-

• Check / tighten NSF lower ball joint, using LOADS of tread lock.
• Check dip beam wiring, as the lights we a bit intermittent on the way home
• Trim NSF brake cooling ducting, to stop it catching on the wheel
• Find the fuse to the trip meter, clock, and intercom (blew during the event) – replace fuse
• Full bolt check
• Oil and filter change
• Fit new front pads, and bed in (plus bed in new spare set of pads)
• Seal up bulkhead/heater in-take (scrutineers note)
• Bleed front brakes

Bovington Stages

Our first event of the year has been and gone now, and it was a great weekend of rallying. With it being a two day rally in Dorset we shared a holiday lodge with another crew out in a BWM – so lots of rallying banter and fun was had.

We had been to Bovington once before to marshal on the Bournmouth Endurance rally last summer, so we knew what the venue would offer. It offers a different venue to your standard MoD base, it has a lot of gradient changes and some very high speed sections.

The rally started on Saturday afternoon with four stages and then another six stages on the Sunday.

Saturday started off wet, so we went with inters on the front and wet (well worn) on the rear, this tyre combination worked well through the event and is what we used for the full event as although it was dry at times, there was still standing water and it was cold!

The first few stages started off well, with Suze getting used back to driving with it being her first stage event for 11 months. Although it wasn’t so good for our fellow crew in the BMW who went off on SS1, with no real damage, but it required a tow out of the stage, so they were out until the trophy rally on the Sunday 😦

At the end of the first day we were clear in 3rd in class, with  healthy lead over the modified 205, but a bit of a way off the other two ahead of us in class.

Sunday dawned wet again, so it was more of the same with more confidence in the car, conditions and the venue we pushed on harder which lead to to odd ‘brush’ with the cones/tyres/course markers.

Overall we had a great event, enjoying the high speed challenge of the event. Thankfully the car was spot on throughout the event, only requiring fuel and a set of brake pads and small bit oil.

Couple of pics from the event :-

Here you can see how hot the brakes got, using a IR Camera

And one of us out on the stages :-