After the limited running at Castle Combe, I was eager to get my fuel tank leak fixed and give it a good go at the iconic Brands Hatch circuit in Kent. Being my local circuit – it would be criminal to miss the event; the fuel tank issues were resolved and I was a last minute payment and entry for Brands Hatch.
The weather for the race weekend was simply gorgeous, the kind of weather you just want to sit in the garden and have some beers along with a tasty BBQ. Slightly too warm for optimum Formula Vee engine running (the engines being air cooled in nature), and also not so nice when sitting in the collecting area with a full race suit on, helmet and gloves.
But hey, we suffer such minor inconveniences for the thrill of racing.
Qualifying
My plan for practice / qualifying was to ease myself into it seeing as this would be the first opportunity to really stretch the car’s legs since I last drove at Cadwell Park last year.
A series of red flags meant that the Vee pilots didn’t manage many laps at all, just 5 in my case; going harder and earlier was the correct strategy in this case!
I was off the pace, and quite a few seconds off my usual times around Brands.
I ended up qualifying 25th for race 1 and 26th for race 2 out of 29 cars.
The changes that were made to the car made a huge difference to the way it felt, I actually had working front and rear suspension which was a novelty! Also the car turned in more sharply, and didn’t have the tendency to under steer as it did before.
A huge thank you to Steve Glasswell and Graham Kiddy for helping me out with that.
Now the dampers actually had a job to do, I realised that the bump and rebound settings equated to a very soft setup after the weekend was over, something I’ll be looking to rectify for Croft in pre-race testing.
Race 1
A good start for race 1 saw me make take a few places up on the inside of Paddock Hill bend, things were going well until I managed to outbreak myself on the second trip to Paddock, taking a trip to the beach as they call it! The gravel ride put me in last place as I tried to recover the car back on the race track. As the tyres were covered in dust, they had zero grip. I quickly discovered this coming out of Druids – a huge correction was needed at low speed to keep the car on the track.
By this time, the pack had long gone and I was completely out of the race. The strategy then was to just finish and look after the engine. An oily track caused a spin later on at Clearways, luckily no-one was close to me at the time, so an easy recovery and I was able to continue.
All in all I was quite off the pace, but at least I finished which is an improvement on Castle Combe!
Race 2
The only change made for race 2 was an adjustment of the rear brakes, which meant more bite in the braking zones – something I was thankful for after race 1! I had another good start, and once again gained a couple of places – however by lap 3 I was back to my original grid position.
In retrospect the car felt soft, and I wasn’t getting much feel out of the rear of the car, as I alluded to earlier this was due to the super duper ‘Andrex’ soft damper settings.
Red flags after about 6 laps would mean a restart of the race, however due to the amount of work required to make the circuit safe to race again, we were sat on the grid for a full 18 minutes before the race would be underway again. A good time to think about what to have for dinner, but also to reflect on my performance so far.
Not such a good start this time! I fluffed the change into second gear, which is the most important one to be in for a good getaway, the first gear is quite short in a Formula Vee.
Wheel spin ahoy, but luckily no places were lost which was good news.
Nearing the end of lap 2, Jamie Harrison made a good move on inside of Surtees to nip past me into Clearways; we were just a few seconds behind a fresh tangle between John Hartin and Mark Egan on the exit of Clearways. I decided to raise my hand to alert other drivers behind me – the incident had literally just occurred so no yellow flags were being waved at the time. Taking my eye off the ball for a second, Rik Lanyi noticed the chequered flag being waved at the end of the straight and simply accelerated past me to pip a finishing place.
So all in all a few lessons to be learnt from this weekend! (A testing session to set up the dampers is required, adjust rear brakes before every meeting, keep reviewing the lines I am taking and try to improve, don’t assume a yellow/red flags unless waved!). Generally things were moving in the correct direction though – namely 2 finishes and dropping lap times.
Looking forward to the next outing at Croft, see you there!
Francis (slightly sloth like this time) Twyman.