Due to the cancellation of the Donnington meeting, our first day back at school was at Brands Hatch. I had been testing earlier in the week, and I have to say I had a great time. As always the Sabre was working well dynamically, but unfortunately I was nowhere near the pace, however I was having fun. I love Brands and have done more laps here than anywhere else… and I needed to have some fun in this car after the forced engine change earlier in the month.
I was getting quicker, and quicker and I tweaked the suspension to accommodate the surface changes at Brands. Generally the car ran well, and I felt I was working the kinks out of it, and out of the systems around our running it. Simple things like calibrating the fuel tank and base lining the suspension settings, working out the fuel consumption and so on. Not having these things done, really brought home to me that we really haven’t had enough trouble free running yet.
The only issue I had was that in the last session of the day she developed a high speed lack of power. I couldn’t get her to rev above 11K rpm. discussion with various paddock mates suggested that perhaps it was the fuel map or power commander… none the less I couldn’t replicate it after the test day and only had three days before the race. So I was a bit stuck from a troubleshooting perspective and simply had to take it to Brands, with my fingers crossed.
The other nagging problem was that the DL1 data logger was refusing to log for more than 30 seconds or so. I spent some time with them on the phone and they suggested that I log the supply voltage as the logger was suggesting that the battery voltage was dropping too low. This was to set a pattern, for the next few outings, where I never managed to get any useful data.
So on to the first RGB race of the year. RGB did itself proud, with a massive entry that at one stage resulted in I think 5 reserves for the races. Consequently the club re-jigged the timetable, and split the classes into separate races for Classes R and F.
Qualifying at Brands was a busy affair, but the high speed lack of power was getting troublingly worse. I was faster than many around me in the bends, but simply getting mugged on the straights, by everyone. Eventually I qualified third last in a time of 58.86… which is frankly crap.
During the gap between races we did some further troubleshooting, and decided to remove the power commander from the system and race on the original Kwaka map. most of the day was spent in glorious sunshine, but just before the race the heavens opened.
I managed to get some video of the race. The conditions having changed dramatically from practice we were given a green flag lap… Of course RGB cars and specifically the A048R tyres are pretty poor in the wet so two people promptly fell off on the first lap, causing a red flag. Then uniquely in my experience we were given a second green flag lap to have another long hard look at the conditions, before the race restarted again. And when it did one or two of us promptly fell off again on the first lap. The conditions were totally treacherous, and I had a bit of graceful spin myself.
I’ve managed to get some video… shown below… but it really doesn’t show how bad it was… I couldn’t see the nose of the car let alone the car in front or indeed the track. Andy Grimm in the white BDN in front of me had a big moment at the second restart… apparently all he did was select second gear.
Also the engine wouldn’t now rev above 7.5K and would barely pull third gear… so the problem definitely wasn’t the power commander as it was now out of the circuit. So with conditions amongst the worst I’ve ever raced in, and engine problems meaning that I can’t compete, I elected not to risk te car any further and retired to ponder the engine management problems.
Race 2 was due on the Sunday, and when we came to test the poor running problems, we couldn’t even get the car to start. We spent four or five hours, swapping power commanders and ECUs, even installing new sensors and trying my ECU on Tony’s car, and testing various different combinations… but to no avail. After a frustrating day troubleshooting, when the guys got called to the race, we loaded the car onto the trailer and headed home as soon as the race finished. So a weekend of 1 DNF and 1DNS…. not the best start to a season I’ve ever had.
Frustrating… but at least I bought the car home in 1 bit… which was lucky considering the Saturday conditions. It seems we still haven’t worked the bugs out of this system yet.