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Everything happened in just the one day this race weekend. Scrutineering, qualifying and two races had to be fitted into one day so it was an early start for everyone.
At Goblin Racing we started at 6:30am. The day started overcast and there had been rain during the night, so we did wonder if it was going to be a day of wet or slick tyres decisions.
Ready for qualifying we were all in the collecting area on slick tyres waiting for the British GTs to finish their warm up session when some teams started rushing around with wet tyres.
It was said that the GT cars were lifting water and the track was still wet from the night’s rain. As there is only Martyn and I we stayed with our decision to go out on slicks and hoped
a dry line would appear during qualifying. We were both bedding in new brakes pads and would need a good out and a good in lap to get a lot of heat into the new pads without stressing
them too much before allowing them to cool. Hopefully by the time they were bedded in the dry line would appear. As it turned out the whole session remained slippery. With hindsight
we should have gone out with wet tyres at the rear to keep the back under control and slicks on the front, controlling the front end sliding with the throttle. Martyn parked his car
up during qualifying with a shredded fan belt without getting a good time in, this put him to the back of the grid. I finished the session in 15th although on the last couple of laps
I had difficulty in getting gears. This I felt was quite good and supported our decision over the winter period to change from a Quaife ATB LSD to a Gripper plate differential improving
the cars handling in corners and the power drive out of corners.
During the break before the first race, we checked and adjusted the pulley alignment on Martyn’s Beetle, fitting a new belt ready for the race. There was also some oil on the bottom
of the engine but no sign of where it came from, the block is a shiny black colour and oil runs could not be detected. We cleaned what we could reach and sealed around the dipstick
entry point in case oil was coming out from the forward surge under heavy engine breaking.
Martyn stripped and checked the Vento gear change, checked the gearbox settings then he took it around the paddock before announcing it was working well.
At the start of the 1st race I noticed the gear change on the Vento getting stiffer and more difficult to use during the gridding up and green flag laps culminating in me trying
to start the race in what turned out to be 3rd gear. Another car had clutch problems behind me but the cars behind us both saw what was happening and luckily missed us. As it turned
out there were several accidents at the first corner and I had to break hard to avoid a Golf sliding sideways across the front of me. The red flags soon came out and we had to return
back to the start line to be gridded up again in our original positions, less a few cars. This time I made sure I was in 1st gear by creeping to my grid position just before the start
and holding it on the clutch for a while. The race started well but within a couple of laps I found it very difficult to select any gears and pulled into the pits. Being stationary
allowed me to select gears and things seemed better so I decided to continue to see how things went. Bad idea, within half a lap I could not get gears and ended up parking the Vento
off the circuit at the Knickerbrook chicane. Blow me down within a few minutes Martyn parked his Beetle behind the Vento giving rise in the pits to the jibe about the Culleys starting a car park.
The Beetle had shredded another fan belt and had started to overheat.
Back in the pits Martyn readjusted the Vento gearbox settings and then drove around the pits. Coming back he said it started out ok but progressively got worse as the box warmed up.
It was terminal for the Vento as everything that could be adjusted and checked had been and there was nothing else we could do.
On the Beetle we again checked the pulleys and fitted a replacement power steering pump pulley with one with a slightly different offset to try and get the best possible alignment.
As it turned out this effort was wasted as we were unable to get a fan belt in time that was long enough and with correct number of ribs.
Before the next race we need to investigate the pulley issue and where the oil came from on the Beetle. The front of the Beetle will need to be removed to do this and hopefully
repaint as much of the block as possible with a different colour that might show any oil runs. The Vento will have the gearbox removed and sent to the gearbox builders for checking.
Hopefully it will be a selector problem that is easily identified.
The big problem is that racing shows weaknesses that even what you feel is hard testing does not or at least that’s what we find.
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