Race one was one of the worst starts I have ever made! The new clutch is a bit brutal in the wet and requires a careful touch. I had far too many revs and just sat there with the wheels spinning and not moving forwards. It cost me dear and I dropped well down the order. The group of cars I was with (6th to 12th) were almost identical for speed, and it’s such a shame I was towards the back of them. I made a few places back but ultimately couldn’t get myself back to where I started and had to accept 10th. Still, thats the top ten again which was this years aim.

Before race two I did several practice starts on the way to the assembly area and thankfully got a much better start this time. It was by no means perfect as the car in front of me missed a gear and I got a bit held up but it was much better than race one. The safety car was deployed on lap three after an incident, and at the restart I stayed close to the car in front. After a few laps of close battling the last lap board was shown. I had a good run out of one of the corners and got up the inside to take 4th and made it stick. Coming into the next corner and running side by side, I completely outbraked myself and ran wide onto the mud. I dropped back to 6th. Whilst it was a shame to see the 4th place trophy disappear from my grasp due to a bit of an amateurish error, I was really pleased to be venturing into the top five, and hope that can continue in the coming rounds.

The only photos I have of the car is from when we turned up on Monday night and claimed the last of the unreserved garages :) if I can track down some more photos i’ll upload them. My new onboard camera got it’s first test, and despite the noise from the wind being a bit high the footage is a lot better than before.

By the end of the day I felt the car was much stronger and we’ll have to wait until the weekend to see if it’s made a difference, because despite their being other MX5′s there it’s impossible to tell how the car is being run (underweight, etc). Unfortunately on the last session I had to pull over as steam was pouring from the bonnet. It smelt like coolant, and luckily it tuned out to just be a split water hose and nothing more serious/expensive! We’ll get one ordered during the week and then we’ll be heading back to Snetterton for race day.

Qualifying was wet, and I went out at the back of the grid which was not ideal. I tried to find myself some clear space early on. With hindsight this was not too clever because the track dried up towards the end of the session when I caught traffic. I qualified 10th in my group, which by the time the grid system was worked out meant that I would start 9th and 10th respectively for my two races.

Race One was by far the most enjoyable of the weekend. I was in a very tight battle for 7th place. As we entered the last lap I managed to get myself into 7th and needed to hold off the two cars beind to keep the position. The Silverstone National circuit has three very long straights and it seemed that either as a result of setup or engine performance, straight line speed was not one of my strengths. I was unable to hold onto the position, losing 7th on the back straight and then 8th on the line by 0.012 seconds. Bit unlucky I guess, but still not a bad result.

Race Two was again wet and whilst I did a lot of overtaking, I didn’t really end up moving forwards. A mistake on lap two saw me slide very wide and lose a handful of places, which I later gained back only to lose again later. The video camera runs out of battery at about halfway so didn’t capture me collecting a spinning car.  Fortunately for me it was a bit of a glancing blow so I was able to continue with just a scrape on the front bumper. I came home in 10th, which later apparantly would be 9th as a penalty was applied to someone further up the order. I did have to visit race control later though to be told off for running all four wheels off the track when there was a yellow flag. It is on the video so I can’t deny it!

Having a video camera with a wide angle lense would really help because you can’t always see when I’m side-by-side with someone. Thanks to Kimberly Latcham for her photos of the weekend.

Finding the best data logger is down to your needs and mainly your budget. I also am aware that the data logger is only as good as the person who is analysing the data. For me, I did a lot of searching because the Race Technology systems which start at around £500 were just too expensive. The Qstarz unit cost me £125 delivered; this was perfect for me because I found the main inputs I used to analyse with the kart was GPS speed and G-Force.

Qstarz has a vibration sensor that goes to power saving mode if you’ve turned it and not moved anywhere. It will start again as soon as you move. Ideal for red flags, delayed starts, and also means that you can start it in the pits and not worry about it until you finish your race. Other similar GPS lap timers like the MyTach Watch from MyChron require you to drive/walk the circuit before you race and press a button to tell it where the start line is. Qstarz records all the data and then you create the start line after your race using the QRacing software included. It can do this because it does not have a display on the unit itself to show live lap times – it’s all done on the PC afterwards.

I tested the Qstarz GPS Data Logger in the car on the way to uni and it’s pretty good quality. Images above are from my data. It records speed and g-forces and can therefore do track mapping, and other data analysis and comparison features lap by lap. You can export to Google Maps and get an overlay of your route to a pretty accurate level as shown. The data can also be exported from QRacing to video editing tool RaceRender which allows you to overlay the data to your onboard videos (export as an NMEA file). Battery life is quoted at 42 hours and I used 25% of the memory in my 90 minute round trip.

The lmitations of the Qstarz BT-Q1000eX are that it doesn’t record the cars data – so no revs, throttle and brake inputs for example. However you offset that functionality with the cost, it’s ease of use, the fact that it’s only the size of a mobile phone and has no wires. Transfer from one car to another can be done in seconds. I’ll be testing this on track for the first time at the Silverstone Launch Day. So far it seems like the right tool for me but that’s not to say it’s right for everyone or is better than any of the other data loggers metioned above.

For Cadwell Park, the day was in two halves. The morning gave me an opportunity to test the changes and make some alterations, whilst the afternoon was all about taking people out in the passenger seat. The car handles spot on, very balanced and is very comfortable to push hard. The new racing clutch takes some getting used to, it’s great on track but is hard work driving around the pits.

So whats next? The engine will be stripped down and the cylinder head is having some more work to correct the smoking issue – worn valve guides. We got through 2 litres of oil at Cadwell Park and it’s a bit excessive. The worry is that the car is dragging air past the valve guides and affecting performance, as well as having to burn off the oil that’s dragged into the cylinder. So K-Line valve guides are being put in to try and solve this. Then I think it’s a trip to the dyno to try and correct the air fuel ratio with some air flow meter adjustments and find the ideal ignition timing again for this engine. Then it’s off to Silverstone for Round 1 in April.

The point of the day was to have a bit of fun to end the year. I fitted a passenger seat in order to take passengers round with me and also to sit alongside Dad and give him some pointers on how to get speed out of the car. It also gave me an opportunity to feel the effect of the changes I had made and I can confidently say it’s a huge improvement! Cosmetically, the car has had the interior tidied up with carbon fibre, a re-spray to remove the horrible bobbly paint and a freshly painted white roll cage and door mirrors. Mechanically, the suspension has been serviced and bought up to spec, wiring loom completely stripped to minimums, suspension bushes have been replaced again, and finally a full alignment including ride height. I’m not prepared to give more details for obvious reasons!

The car handles very very well, it’s extremely predictable and the changes to the setup that I made since the last round of the championship have removed it’s bad traits – which were mainly understeer and twitchiness under braking. It still needs fine tuning as the suspension is much firmer since it was serviced and the corner weights have not been set.

As hinted at earlier, the purpose of the day was to take passengers out and show what it’s like at full race speed. For me, it was brilliant, everybody got the full experience and there was no “taking it easy”. This meant that there was a mixed reaction to being a passenger alongside me! In a straight line the Mazda is not fast, we still got to 115mph at the end of the straight but it couldn’t keep with the faster cars until we got to the corners where it would catch very quickly the Porche’s and BMW M3′s. Two reasons; they are probaby aren’t race prepared cars and also not driven by somebody with as much track experience, however they are twice as powerful and cost £40,000+ more than the little Mx5 which is always great to remember as you hunt down the next car owned by somebody with all the gear but no idea.

Main photo found on Flickr by jrw1982, and others were purchased from Xtreme Sports Photography or taken myself.

The top eight of the thirty drivers on the day go through to the A Final based on points scored during the heats. With two wins and a second amongst some of my results from the five heats I started 6th in the A Final, with none other than Rhys alongside in 7th (we were tied on points). An extremely close and physical race saw me move up to third and claim myself a step on the podium. It was a really enjoyable evening and I met some great people who I am sure i’ll see again in the future. Video below (i’m wearing my blue and white karting suit and ususal white crash helmet).

We arrived on Thursday night with the car unchanged since the last meeting at Croft, besides straightening some panels and replacing the faulty fuel pump. Qualifying was a case of learning the track again as it was six months since I was last at Silverstone and back then the car was very different! The car still felt very balanced and I qualified 19th, which I was happy with given the grid size.

Race 1, like all the races felt more like karting as it was all about pushing people down the straight to gain places using the slipstream. Whilst driving it was hard to work out exactly how things had panned out because the positions were changing lap by lap. I ended the race in 17th.

The Autumn Championship has a reverse grid for Race 2 and 18th place was drawn to start on pole, which meant I would start 2nd. A great launch off the line put me into the lead for the first corner, and I managed to hold on until half way round the lap until the backward descent begun. This was not a Disney film where I suddenly could go ten times quicker than ever before and I simply didn’t have the pace to maintain my position at the front so I knew it was just a matter of time before I was passed. The race was very close and as enjoyable as the battles were, it meant that the lap times were slow and cars were able to catch our group of cars easily as we continued to swap places. As a consequence, losing 13th place to Rhys by 0.021 seconds on the line was difficult to accept when he started from the back.

It was business as usual in Race 3 with no reverse grids. Looking at the timing sheets you’d see I started 14th and finished 14th, however the racing in between was some of the best I’ve experienced all year. The battles continued right up until the last corner and I’ve never worked so hard for a top 15 finish.

My consistancy throughout the meeting meant that overall we finished quite high up in the points in 12th. I’ve got a lot of things I want to develop over the winter which i’ll document on the website as we progress. It was nice to end the season on a positive note with plenty of ideas that will see us come back with a much stronger car next year. Sadly, despite being scheduled, the TV coverage fell through at the last minute and so the event won’t be televised which is a huge shame as the racing was brilliant.