A Great Race Until Heat Related DNF :-(

So after the fun at Anglesey the next RGB outing, was at Brands Hatch, As our sister series BIkesports is struggling for numbers at the moment, we’d been invited to join their races to so I was expecting 2 x Bike sports + RGB and 2x practice for 5 outings in one day. It was going to be hectic, so we tried to ensure that the car was perfectly ready so we had no tweaking to do between sessions. Bike sports allows slicks and wings, but it is a testament to the skill of the RGB boys that we can mix it with all but the most powerful of these chaps. The leader lapped the entire field, but elsewhere RGB and Bikesports often competed equally. However I’m mindful that this is not an all comers race, but their championship round so I’m careful not to impede them if they are obviously faster or trying to get to the next BS in front.

The only things we’d done to car since Anglesey was change the oil, and put a restrictor into the water system to try and increase the cooling efficiency of the laminova cooler by forcing more water through the cooler’s oil cooling channels rather than the large central bore, This has the effect of improving oil cooling at the expense of main coolant flow rate., In testing on the drive it had struggled to hold temperature at idle, but it seemed ok once we had some airflow, and we were hopeful of getting some more heat out of the oil. But at Brands I had nothing but temperature problems.

The other thing that was new for this weekend was I had bought as Defnder HANS device, indeed several of the field had bought one since the fairly hefty shunt at our last outing, At Anglesey Rob Grant came back to the paddock (once extracted from the tyrewall) singing the praise of his so most of the field mind was focussed on them for the last few weeks.

I’d bought a Defnder from Nicky Grist Motorsport (whom I heartily recommend).

The Defender is a 2nd Generation Head and Neck restraint system (HANS is the trade name of the original product by a competitor) and I particularly wanted it as it also has secondary tethers that help protect you in a side impact. You can see that the steel component on the right, is attached by both a rear and side tether.

Unfortunately it only arrivee 2 hours before we left for Brands so I had to adjust it, and fit it once we were there.

It’s adjustable in many ways and has much simpler tether mounts that the hans, so I was very pleased it had arrived in time for this weekend, and was looking forward to trying it out.

However that was the least of my worries, as the main problem of the day was an overheating engine, which Marred the entire day

First thing in the morning, after bike sports qualifying, the oil temp was 120+ degrees. l managed a 53.77 which is a full 0.7 inside my previous best time so I was pretty happy, and I was second of the RGB contingent as well. So I was very happy with that result and my driving. In fact I was chuffed with my driving all day, the problems were with my Kit and my Car.

I was struggling with the new Defnder Hans Device, It has side bars for lateral protection, but because I’m a big lad these sit too high ( I think its because of my large shoulder muscles and flabby man boobs) and force my helmet to an odd angle particularly when looking right as for some reason my right shoulder sits higher than my left. IT is somewhat uncomfortable, as you’re forced to cock your head a bit and push against it… very fatiguing.

My neck is still sore today, so that can’t be good.

In fact I plonked it and my GP5K helmet on my 18 year old son today, and you can clearly see the problem.

Chris is about 2″ taller than me and made of spaghetti without an extra spare ounce of lard or indeed any shoulder muscles, that extra 2 inches seems to all be in his neck vertebrae, Here you can see, that even with the tether adjusted for me the device has good clearance between the shoulder bars (with the Defnder logo) and the bottom of the helmet. As a result he can turn his head without issue.

By contrast in my picture (Blue shirt) the helmet is virtually sitting on the Defender.

Chris can clearly move his head without hitting it, I unfortunately cannot. Such a shame as I like it a lot.

Anyway, back to the racing, the car was showing signs of over heating. coolant at 55-90 degrees but oil at 130. So we persevered on to RGB qualifying. Here again I did a 53.56 so a further .2 again off my PB, but The car was showing 155 oil temp and I really wasn’t happy with that.

So before the bike sports race we whipped out the restrictor and re bled the cooling system. which is always problematic on a CBR100rr. eventually we got it sorted just as we were called to assembly.

I was only on row five, and it’s quite fun being up the front of the grid . Except that bit of the grid at Brands slopes, and with my none existent handbrake I was concerned about rolling forward at the start, as a result I got a poor one, and ended up in a gaggle of RGB cars with Me , Austin and Bob Mortimer.

There then followed 8 laps of great racing between me Austin, and Bob, most memorable was Austin getting me up the inside at Druids, me switching back on him, then taking him on the inside at Graeme Hill, but when the oil temp touched 170, and the pressure hinted at dropping off I called it a day, and let Austin and Bob through, as I retired.

Worst still the restrictor and ultra hot Laminova oil>water heat exchanger now worked against me, and back in the garage she boiled over instantly the airflow stopped moving across the radiators.

So I reversed previous procedure, refitted the restricter, refilled and re bleed coolant system. and tried again in the RGB race . This meant that I couldn’t help Tim as much as I would have liked. He was busily changing an engine, but his willing band of happy Elves from the rest of the RGB paddock seemed to be doing a good job.

A few minutes later , while waiting in assembly it was really glorious to see Tim arrive, to much clapping and horn tooting from the rest of the paddock, but I wasn’t actually hopeful that I’d finish the race due to the overheating.

Anyway we got going, (again a bad start due to holding on the brakes against the slope), and I made up a couple of places that I’d lost on the grid, getting Bob M, Paul Rickers and Austin to be 2nd (I think) in Class B. But oil temps rapidly went skywards again, so I backed off and started short shifting to see how long it would take to cool down, the answer is ages. The oil was now heating the water and there’s lots of thermal mass in the system, so it never really got below 150. My times dropped from 54s to 57 & 58 & 59ss and I tumbled down the field.

Tim got me in a great move where we drove half the top end of the circuit side by side with a whisker between us. He knew I wouldn’t squeeze him off and I knew he wouldn’t turn in on me. So we were locked side by side from the end of the Cooper straight all the way through Macleans, Surtees and Clearways. Great racing…. but of course I couldn’t hold him. It was a really fantastic display of skillful driving in the face of engine swap adversity.

So I just used the time as a bit of test, speeding up where I could because the temps had dropped. I almost faced being caught by Judy on the Line, bit I managed to hold her off by half a cars length, to avoid being last.

I skipped the last bike sports race… no point.

So the pluses are.

2x new PBs and my times are competitive with Tim except for the one or two he banged in in the 52s, and I was generally happy with my driving. Again I went a second quicker, and yet again so did Tim and the other front runners, but I’m properly in the game now

My expensive new safety gear seems to have given me neck/backache and is uncomfortable, so that it may get offered for sale , which is such a shame

And what the hell an I going to do about keeping this beast cool? I really have no idea,

It did occur to me today that the laminova may have been air locked, but when we were handling it it did seem to be uniformly hot.

So driving home was all a bit despondent really, and I’m somewhat at a loss today after 2 xPBs, but one DNS, one DNF, and one limped home hurt.

Fair play to Tim though… he drove a fantastic RGB race, fully deserved driver of the day award , and his 2nd place pot, as Andy Bates commented “Who switched the Hoverd on?”

The really good news is that in the Bikesports race Bob Mortimer’s camera worked well and he got some great footage of the battle with Me, Him and Austin. So at least you can share that (I’m the shiny blue car that starts in the mirrors and ends up in front until I retire after swapping places with Austin (in yellow) a few times