Track car project - season 3

[Naf]

Vix have you heard anything about the Tockwith malarky yet? In our shop there's a letter from some berk on the council asking people to report ANY issues they have with ANYTHING related to the motorsports site (be it noise, traffic, unsightly stuff etc.)

It seems their planning permission ran out 3 years after it was granted...in 1970!

I haven't been to our shop much so haven't had chance to speak to any of the team when they come in, but I wouldn't mind finding out from them first hand what is happening - the general consencus within the village is that the people whose housing estate is closest to the track are just a bunch of whinging snobs!

 

[Vix]

Sounds delightful! Haven't heard anything but might contact our TDO to see if they are aware.

I was talking to the guy who bought my Mini, he does rallycross and says they can't do it at Tockwith any more because of the noise, so I gathered something was going on :/

 

[bledd]

I love that white MR2

 

[Naf]

Sounds delightful! Haven't heard anything but might contact our TDO to see if they are aware.

I was talking to the guy who bought my Mini, he does rallycross and says they can't do it at Tockwith any more because of the noise, so I gathered something was going on :/

I'm unsure of any decisive action, however it doesn't look good

The letter was dated a month or two ago (April iirc) but I don't know anything more - I've told my parents and all our staff to keep an eye out for anything being announced though.

The people of Tockwith don't half like a moan! They're very much of the 'not on my doorstep' type - the last thing was an incinerator (sp?) which they wanted rid of but they couldn't explain where to move it to, so long as it wasn't near them I had to be restrained from shouting at the woman who started the campaign every time she came into the shop asking for us to put up posters on the doors. (sorry for the rant!)

 

[ZG002]

I was at Tockwith start of April for Rallycross practice, They were moaning about the noise then, Also about cars being parked on the grass just off the road in (we all had to move them onto site) Not great.

 

[Vix]

Although we're keeping this quiet before the sprint on Saturday - we couldn't resist showing you all this now,

I bring you the SuperHumph:

He is now rust free, and as you can see, flourescent orange with black, and a chrome stripe. Most graphics have been custom made to fit with the scheme by Nik (Cybershot on here!).

so, let's have a look around:

Work in progress, nearly finished fitting the MR2 Only Magazine sticker.

And Mr2 Only sticker fitted - black with chrome bits!

Blitz sticker made with chrome vinyl on black - also showing the chrome stripe which divides the black from the orange all around the car:

Nik fitting his sticker:

The complete side door - Super-Pro bushes sticker from the supplier, AEW Graphics custom made by the supplier. Door square in black and chrome completed by Nik, as well as Boat Drinks and Niks company; Net-Central.

Rear URL sticker made by Nik in chrome vinyl:

Millers Oils and TG Bodyshop sticker, made expertly by Nik:

Close up of TG sticker:

Chrome Cutlers, bling!

Sunstrip custom made by Nik:

Ok so he still don't go fast but he looks goooood!!!

 

[Vix]

Oh and update on Tockwith - it's been cancelled, we've moved to Blyton Park in Lincolnshire.

 

[Vix]

Round 4 - Barkston Heath - 24th July 2010

Having kept the above new paint job as secret as we could, we were met with a lot of attention in the paddock! I took advantage of our early arrival to take some scenic pics of our new livery:

But, it's one thing looking good, our performance this year hasn't really warranted a flashy paint job, so we were trying really hard at this round.

Barkston Heath is a purpose built sprint track for the RAF, and also one of our favourites. It was a great sunny warm day (too warm to be cooped up in race suit and helmet but never mind!) - perfect for our nice sticky tyres which were coming to the end of their life, so nice and grippy!

Phil's first run of the day got him a 58.24, pretty good in the class, especially if you ignore the overpowered Starlet that wins everything! A few more runs had Phil overcooking a lot and ending up on the grass, but no scratched paintwork yet!

I was improving steadily and managed to improve my last year time by the third run - and still feeling like I could go faster.

I was waiting in the queue for a long time for run 4 and felt the car bog down at the start, and not really improve for a few corners! I was stopped by the clerk after my run and told I hadb een dripping water at the start line. When I returned to the paddock and got out, it was clear that our old coolant issue was still there, and the expansion bottle had filled with boiling coolant again! As it was lunchtime, we let it cool before opening it up. Not too much of a problem really, it only happens on incredibly hot days when idling for a long time, I had just not thought to turn the engine off whilst waiting as we hadn't had this issue for a while.

Lunchtime over and time for traditionally my worst run of the day. It felt smooth but nothing special so I was surprised that it had knocked another second off my time and ended up being my fastest run of the day. Phil was still inable to beat his run 1 time, but this was still bagging him runner up in class.

Run 6 was good for Phil, getting him a 57.42, beating his first time and becoming his fastest time of the day - his last two runs involving grass in some way! I was never able to beat my run 5 time, which was ok!

Still some power issues to be sorted out as Phil never beat his last year time of 56.72 - a time which would have put him 8th overall and very close to the No1 Starlet (who apparently had a paddy and left early!)

We were happy to take home our first trophies of the season however, yes I said both, as I was able to bag the 'fastest lady' trophy - although this is mainly due to the pregnancy of the No1 lady driver in a GT4! Still, it's my first TSS trohpy!

 

[danza]

Awesome stuff!

Well done on the trophies, and I'm digging Humphrey's new colour scheme. Looks very good . I hope you guys manage to sort out the issues you've been having as you've clearly put in so much effort - you deserve the car to be running at 100%!

 

[Vix]

Official photos are up:

http://www.racingexposure.com/tss/2010/r4/index.html

 

[Naf]

Oh and update on Tockwith - it's been cancelled, we've moved to Blyton Park in Lincolnshire.

Only just seen this gutted!

Though I'm not surprised, we've just been told by the council that there has been a complaint about the number of signs outside our shop and we have to take a few down...even though they have been there for years (most before my parents even bought the business!) Stupid flipping nimbys!

The new paintjob is looking superb though I must say! I'm probably going to be getting a track car with my friend in the near future and quite fancy a swish paint job (after learning to drive it properly )

 

[kaiowas]

Doesn't seem to have been a lot of interest in this thread this year, don't know if it's because we've not really done much to the car (having the car in the body shop for so long stopped me getting on with much else) or whether you're all just just bored of it. Most of the updates seem to have moved to facebook too. (http://www.facebook.com/TeamCutler if anyone wants to keep up with what we're up to)

Anyway, had the last round of the season at the weekend. Was a tighter course than normal, coupled with a rather slippery surface and damp conditions. I went into the weekend with the aim of beating my main rival by 3 places in order to take an overall 2nd in class from him. Given that he has significantly more power than me, delivered in typical turbo fashion and is front wheel drive, the slippery conditions would hopefully work in my favour. My secondary aim was to sneak into the top 10 overall.

1st practice was downright scary. It was wet, muddy, rough and there were things to hit if you got it wrong. Rather then my usual "Balls out from the start" style I had to take things a lot more carefully trying to work out how to get the most out of the course. The second run was still pretty cautious although it was obvious the track was improving already.

By run 1 I had the confidence to push a bit harder and had a largely uneventful run, coming back with a 1:14.27 I was most surprised to see that this had put me second overall, although it was a slightly false position as the 2 quickest guys in the series had both voided their runs. Run 2 saw me go in to the first corner (A long tightening left hander) a little too quickly and the back stepped out immediately. I ended up spending the whole corner hanging on to a massive drift. The rest of the run was spent regaining my composure and resulted in a slight improvement to 1:14.16. My rival was way off the pace at this point and struggling with wheelspin every time he came on boost although I wasn't counting my chickens yet as I felt he'd soon close the gap as the grip improved.

Run 3 was most odd. The track was drying quickly by now and despite a massive moment in the slalom section where I scrubbed off loads of speed trying to avoid having an accident after running wide I somehow managed a 1:12.80 although by this time I'd dropped to 6th. Buoyed by this time I was confident that there was a 1:10 in the car and the next run proved me right, having concentrated on getting a clean error free run i did a 1:10.33 which was good enough to put me 5th although with the continually improving track I was expecting the more powerful cars to soon start knocking me further down the order.

We then stopped for lunch during which time my rain dance paid off and a nice big dark grey cloud came over and deposited it's contents over the track. Lunch went on for longer than I'd have liked though and by the time we resumed the sky was blue and were things starting to dry again, I reckoned we'd have 2 more greasy runs before the times started to tumble. Run 5 was a cautious feeler to see how slippy things had got, a time of 1:13.15 confirming my fears that the track would soon be faster than in the morning. Then, much to my surprise it rained again and i suddenly felt confident that my highest ever finish as well as the championship runner up trophy could be on the cards. Run 6 was a cruise. Even sitting on the line I was telling myself that I didn't need to be doing this, I'd just seen one of the other MR2s come back into the paddock with damage and opted to have a sensible drive around and not do anything stupid. By run 7 things had barely improved and I sat the run out altogether. Although there was also an element of strategy in this. The fewer cars that ran, the sooner the runs would finish and the less time there would be for the track to dry before the final run. Run 8 was not looking quite as dry as the run before lunch but with the added experience that everyone had gained in the afternoon there was a risk of improvements so I decided I'd go out as a precaution against the track suddenly drying. I managed a 1:11.35 suggesting that the track wasn't quite as good as it had been earlier in the day, others did manage to improve on this run although my position was not threatened.

So, I ended up finishing 5th on the day (winning my class) and taking the 'Hard Charger' award which is a great accolade within the series and is given to the driver who is judged to have really made an impression on the day. The result was also enough to take 8th overall and runner up in class in the end of season standings which considering how things were going earlier in the year is quite a result.

I'f you've managed to read through that lot, you can now be rewarded with a few pics to highlight just how grubby conditions were out there:

...and one of 2 time british rally champion Jonny Milner using a dap of oppo, some of you may have seen this car at Goodwood earlier in the year although it had less stickers then.