So here we are start of a new season. Nervous? Yes, just a little bit. After the ups and downs of last season we were all just eager to put a pass down and get back to business.

Qualifying session one took place Saturday morning, it was a very cold track and the conditions were not ideal, most of the cars were struggling and we were definitely one of them. The Stude left strong but hit tireshake almost immediately and went hard towards the right wall but Andy got off the throttle and coasted through with a 9 second pass to take 4th qualifier. Although this wasn’t a good pass for us, the team were fairly happy, first of all they could move the set up in the right direction and secondly I think everyone was glad to have the first run out of the way.

So routine maintenance completed and we’re called for the second pass, by this point its getting fairly late in the day, and just as we’re getting ready to start the engines Tom radios through to Andy to stop him. There’s rain in the air and he can see the cars on the track being told to shut down. While there was a small rain shower we all waited patiently for the track to be dried.
After a brief break we were back on and ready for our second run. This run wasn’t much better unfortunately as Andy without knowing it accidentally shifted into 2nd gear at 0.2 seconds into the run, he then saw the shift light and went into 3rd. This meant the whole run was pretty much a write off as this blew the clutch completely. We were down to 6th qualifier out of 7 cars, not our best performance!

Saturday evening the crew spent they’re time cleaning every part of the engine from clutch dust. It got everywhere! Luke however worked hard at getting the clutch into a reasonable state again for day two of qualifying.
Our 3rd pass came around Sunday morning and this is where we came back into our usual form. After a strong burnout Andy clocked a nice 6.29 to take number one position which considering the track we were all pleased about. Although the car was clearly still suffering from tireshake it was a great starting block to improve on. Unfortunately we suffered a bit of damage from this run and the boys decided that they should check things over very carefully even if this meant the forfeit of our last qualifier. During this time, a number of delays on the track provided more time for the crew to take the engine apart and back together and we successfully made the last session where we improved on our time with a 6.26.

So race day is approaching but the team are concerned that there are a few issues with pistons and with bearings. No major damage however there were early signs, which could lead potentially to massive amounts of breakages. With one of our long standing members of the crew unable to make the event, some of our knowledge was missing and the boys did not want to take any chances so decided to take the engine apart again Sunday night to try and understand what’s not right.
This unfortunately would be the normal practice for the crew on race day, as until the after the semi final pass they did not find the main problem.
 
However first round first and we’re against Henri Joosten, a fellow racer from Holland who Andy has competed against for years. The run wasn’t good, infact it was far from it with tireshake and a cloud of smoke at the top end the crew were fearing the worst (a damaged engine), but it was enough to take the win into the second round where we had a bye run. There was a considerable about of damage on that run and the crew were right up against it to try and get everything back in by round 2, although we didn’t need to worry about winning the race as such, we did need to get the engine back in to at least take the green under the cars own power. The crew worked flat out and its times like this where the team really gel together and are synchronised in what they’re doing. With a little bit of extra time and the other racers trying to stall things, as long as possible we were able to make it to the start line where we…waited. After all that rush, there was an oil down from a bike and we were stuck waiting in the pairing lanes for half and hour!

Either way the crew decided it was to be a testing run and that we would go through first and second gear and shut off which is exactly what Andy did and it looked like a beautiful run, dead straight with a tiny tireshake the pass would have more than likely matched our 6.2’s the day before, however just as Andy lifted another puff of smoke appeared. The boys rushed the car back as we feared we may have another thrash before the next run against Graham Ellis. Graham as the weekend had progressed had his times getting better and better and at that point in time he was going to be a hard competitor to beat.
Initially the crew believed the air to be very good but the track not able to handle the power and due to that the fuel system was too lean and causing damage to the engine, however after much talk within the crew about the runs on race day something wasn’t adding up. Luke suggested to look at changing the leads to see if one of those may have been a problem and when investigated he was right. Its possible to believe that there may well have been other niggling problems which caused some of the damage on previous runs, the crew were finally happy though that they felt they had found the problem, they could now concentrate on getting the engine back together and winning the final. Strategically, the crew in the semi finals when discussing running a shorter pass decided to run in the left lane. The lane of choice over the weekend had been the right, and knowing we wouldn’t have lane choice it was easy to predict Graham would put us in the left lane. After our semi-finals pass we knew we were ‘theoretically’ able to repeat and get down the track.

Unfortunately for both cars the track conditions had changed considerably and both lanes in the final were a lot harder to manage and both cars were well out of shape. Graham stuck in it longer with a 6.60 but Andy nearing the centre line got off the throttle and coasted to the finish. It’s a good thing too as if Andy had stayed on it longer and gone over the centre line he would have lost as Graham by that point had already disqualified himself by leaving before the green, Andy of course had seen this and knew the outcome of the race! The crew were obviously very pleased, happy that we would have a little bit of reward money to help replace some of the damaged parts we had used over the weekend and happy to have had a bit of track time. Although this is nowhere near what we were running towards the end of last season its good to be back into the routine of running the car.

Take a look at the photos from the meeting, in the photo album you’ll be able to find pictures of Kev Slyfields and Graham’s new paint jobs for 2010 and a new French competitor likely to hit the FIA championship this year.

Our next competitive race is The Main Event at the end of May however; Andy, Luke and Bob will be taking the car to Hungary and will be putting in some demonstration runs at the new track there to help promote the FIA dragracing champion.

In the meantime the crew will be stripping down the engine to make sure everything is spot on before the Stude enters the track again. And of course getting out 6.0 tune out to kick some green goblin ass!

Thanks

Many thanks to everyone who supported us over the weekend, visitors and of course the Crew, not forgetting Jerry. (It turns out you do more than we give you credit for!)
See you soon!!