Double duty (again)

After the disappointment of last weekend in the Micra, this weekend was all about the MGZR.

The first event was a targa rally at Debden airfield. The tests are Debden are all quite short, but the mixture of surfaces makes for a good fun day. The lead up to the event had been a bit wet, so in places there was a lot of standing water, and a few muddy sections. The ZR is now fully guarded under the car, so this would allow me to attack a little harder on the rougher sections of the venue.

For once I was the second driver, which allowed me to see the tests as I was navving for Antons in his 206. The tests were the same as last year, which made my navving a bit easier. By the end of the first set of tests I was leading overall., the positions were still the same at lunch after a second attempt at the tests, but with a reduced lead.

After lunch the tests were changed, and the running order changed meaning I was first out this time. The tests were similar but a few sneaky changes made the running order advantage in the morning a bit more even. By the end of the 3rd run of tests we had dropped to second overall, by just 8 seconds. Going into the final run of tests, I probably got too worked up and tried a bit too hard. Moving a cone on the first test wasn’t a good start, and I over drove the car a few points. In the end I finished up 13 seconds off the win. This was still a pleasing result in what is essentially still a pretty standard car on an event where having an LSD would be a real advantage..

Then it was off to Brands Hatch in a rather muddy car for an autosolo. I had seen before that they run one of their tests in the rally school part of the venue which looked good fun.

However the day didn’t start well with me getting a wrong route on the first paddock test. This meant the next two runs had to be a bit conservative to ensure I went the right way, but this did mean I dropped some time.

After this I was back into the sort of times I would hope to be achieving in the car. The tests were fun (especially) the rally school test, which you can see below. By the end of the day I finished up 12th overall and 5th in class.

 

Wethersfield Stages

It had been quite a while since the last stage rally in Micra, during this time. A fair bit of work had been done on improving the front brakes.  All parts of the front braking system were replaced, and new custom made new Mintex (F4R) pads were fitted in the hope that it would solve the issues from previous events.

As a bit of fun and a pre-event shakedown we did a track day at Castle Combe the weekend before. This was good fun, running on some List 1A tyres it was good to experience some proper high speed running and a good test of the brakes which worked fine. It was also good fun to ‘beat’ many other faster cars including Clio’s, Elise’s and even an Evo 7 which I kept behind me for a whole session 🙂

One issue did occur during the track day which was the lamda sensor failing, so in between events I fitted a new sensor.

Driving the rally car to scrutineering it became clear that there was still a sensor issue as the car was drinking fuel and running very rich. Scurtineering was fine, but the rich running proved to be an issue at the noise check. Luckily we setup service next to Ian Mepham and the Newton’s who swung into action and with a SuperTrapp fitted we got through noise. Oddly the car was no louder when flat out, but at 4k revs and part throttle it wasn’t so good.

On to the event, it was a very hot day so it would be a good test of the brakes. Luckily all the new parts and improved ducting worked and the brakes worked fine all during our running. The Supertrapp on the back of the exhaust clearly was sapping some power and make the engine harder to rev. So we were running around mid table overall and 4th in class.

During the middle of stage 4 is where it all went wrong during the first lap of the stage the clutch started slipping. Luckily we were able to limp the car back to service, but it was clear when back in service there was a lot of oil coming out of somewhere and it was likely that this oil leak was the cause of the clutch slipping. This now means a fair bit of work….

There is no video allowed on the venue so on-boards from this event, but here is some from the track day.