Last weekend was simply a hoot. Due to scheduling difficulties I didn’t do the RGB race but rather the Allcomers race instead. This was combined with the KitCar championship round. Now previously when this has happened we all race together, but on this occasion we ran a split grid. Basically we gridded up as normal, but with 1 row gap between the Kits (which were all grouped at the front as it was their championship) and the rest of the allcomers. When the lights went out the Kits stormed off and were given a 30 second start then we were started using the National flag, on a circuit as long as Cadwell this effectively sets up two races, but of course all the RGB boys just took this as a challenge to catch the chaps in the Kits 
I have to say it was very nice to be started by someone waving the Union Flag, sort of reminiscent of Classic Le Mans from the 50s…. at least we didn’t have to run from the pits and jump into our cars before the start. .
I’m pleased to report that all of the mechanical changes to the car worked great. On a massively hot day (we all went home lobstered) , the water temp only rose to 91 degrees c and oil only to 120c. Also the brakes stood up well, with only a little fade, and the Wilwood calipers provide very good feel.
Practice was marred by the engine running poorly, it was down on power, and I could only get up to 98mph on the Park straight, which was only good enough for a 1:46…. very poor. As usual bike engine Wizard Andy Bates of AB performance was around in the paddock, and he promptly diagnosed that it was only running on three cylinders, but also that it was pot no 4 that was down in less than 5 seconds. Awesome.
This fault was fairly quickly resolved, and identified as faulty connector wiring, still close to 100mph on 3 cylinders is interesting. With that we went out to do race 1.
The video (cutting out the dull bits where I’m closing the gaps) is below.
I got baulked on the Line by James in front of me stalling, Cadwell is so narrow I couldn’t get past and so I spent most of the race playing catchup with him, but never quite managed to get to him and pass him. (He’s just in front at the chequered falg
It was however great fun to do loads of over taking…. a lot like the Birkett. And I think I finished 4th overall in the allcomers section of the race. Overall I managed a 1:40 I think
Race 2 was a similar storey, except this time I managed to stall on the grid, and so I played catch up again. I felt I drove much much harder (taking coppice with the merest lift) but was somewhat disappointed to be given a laptime of 1:42, although most people in the paddock where saying that the very high ambient temperatures were adding up to a second and a half to the times. I did however finish second.
However after being consistently out dragged at Brands a couple of weeks ago I’m concerned about the power of the engine. So I dug out some old datalogger files from Cadwell last year for a comparison.
This data should be directly comparable, as I haven’t changed the car substantively in the engine department since last then and last year I set my best lap at Cadwell.
In the DL1 software you can specify the drag coefficient,weight and rolling resistance of the car and it will calculate the engine’s power output….pumping in some reasonable numbers (remember I’m looking for comparisons rather than absolute values) produced the following graphs.
The red verticle line is approximately the apex of Barn corner, and the rising speed and power curves after it are the start finish straight. The black trace is this year, the red is last year. You can clearly see that the red power trace is consistently significantly higher than the black trace. The Apex speed is lower last year, (ie I’m cornering better this year) but that the car accelerates less well this year (the red speed line climbs from below the black line after the corner.)
And all this with the black trace generally at a higher RPM where more power should be produced, but the car is failing to match latch year. All in all it seems that the engine is significantly down on power.
So we’ll be swapping this lump out before the next race I think.
While I had the data to hand I compared temperatures and pressures from this year and last.
Again red is last year and black is this year, You can see the temperature differential in the oil, and how this corresponded to oil pressure drops, not only is the oil pressure lower, but it is significantly more variable once the oil temp reaches 140. deg c.
Sothe summary is… time change the engine methinks.