Okay, Brands.
This probably counts as my home circuit and I’ve done more laps around here than anywhere else – not that I go down Paddock Hill bend the way it should be done…
There were a few jobs to do before race weekend. I’d collected the car the night before Snetterton and hadn’t sat in it let alone driven it. The brakes were terrible so that was task #1 before Brands.
Which meant practice on Friday to bed the new brakes in and get the rear adjustment right (a Vee’s good brakes become poor quickly if the adjustment on the rear becomes too big).
The car felt okay with times immediately the same as the Scarab even if that’s 5 seconds slower than the previous owner. The brakes worked even if the pedal wasn’t as positive as I’d have liked.
And then a wet race day. I slackened everything off but I still couldn’t get any grip. Brands is all about flowing through one corner into the next and keeping momentum. That doesn’t happen if you’re coasting through corners and squirting some speed down the next straight.
I qualified at the back of the grid and the race only saw places made up when people fell off. The track had dried a good deal but I still couldn’t get the grip wanted and with that goes a lack of confidence. It didn’t help that my pre-race routine isn’t settled and I went out with massively over inflated tyres which undid my softer settings and search for grip.
I fitted and removed the anti-roll bar 4 or 5 times between race 1 & 2 as the track dried, got damp, dried…you got the idea.
I left the bar on and was lucky in that we gridded onto a rapidly drying track. The green flag lap showed where the damp spots were and I carefully committed them to memory.
Not a bad start, a few places made up immediately but I gave some ground to make sure that we got around Paddock Hill cleanly. There were places to be made up into Druids and so I kept hard into the pack finding some space to out brake or take a controlling line.
Tyre smoke warned of a problem but there were suddenly a couple of stationary cars. I breathed in tight and almost made the narrowing gap but clumped my left front against another car and smashed the steering rack, bent the beam and buckled a wheel.
Others didn’t get away so lightly but at least everyone is okay.
Just another day in Formula Vee?