Pete and Ben's Rotary Racer

[Ben]

Well, we’re a bit behind with the updates and the season’s over, so time to bring everything up to present.

We had a good 6-7 weeks between the penultimate (Kendrew) and final (Cadwell) rounds of the series – plenty of time to do the last few necessary jobs and make sure everything was in tip top condition for the last sprint of the season. Naturally, we ended up just doing other stuff for the majority of the time – in approximate order:

I bought a thoroughly foolish, high-mileage bahnstormer:

2017-11-06_12-24-47

Pete bought the trusty Subaru from me:

2017-11-06_12-25-05

I spent a week driving this little treasure around an island in the Med - a 1.3S with 35,000km on the clock from new. Owned by my grandfather for the last 25 years, it’s totally original and remarkably un-rusty – I’m seriously considering importing it if it’s ever sold!

2017-11-06_12-25-29

The ever-trusty Subaru spat out its head gasket a few weeks later. Yes, we’re still friends…

So, what actually needed doing? First up was to rip out the Sparco Sprint seat we’d fitted before Kendrew – it was a cheap steel-framed seat with no lumbar support, and as a result was cripplingly uncomfortable for Pete during the long drive up from Kent. I had taken over possession of the RX8 in the meantime, and managed to find another Sparco to go in (seeing as we already had the base and sliders) – this time an earlier fibreglass unit which was much more comfortable. So far so good.

We also had a get together weekend with a certain Mr Beans who has been itching to get their hands on it in an attempt to strip some additional weight. We only had two rules:

1) Nothing sharp near the driver
2) Everything that currently works, has to keep working

2017-11-06_01-39-32

You can see where this is going, right?

Fettling done we took the car out for a quick run to check all was in order. Cue the check engine light! Now this has come on before (you may remember my spin at Kendrew? I think I spun the engine backwards which kicked up a cam position sensor error which we were able to clear). We didn’t think too much of it at the time – it was broad daylight, nothing else seemed broken so we threw it in the garage (unlocked and with a window open to keep some air circulating), everyone went home and I ordered an OBD reader from Amazon. Without thinking too much of it, we also booked a trackday at Bedford for the day after the sprint, as a ‘last hurrah’ before winter set in.

A couple of days before race day I decided to drive it to work to give it a decent (50 mile) run and make sure all was well. Pulling it out of the garage is always a bit of a rigmarole with my driveway – there’s always at least one car that needs shuffling around to make room. While I had the RX8 out I plugged in the new OBD11 reader to see what the engine code was, and…. nothing. Not just no codes, the reader didn’t even register the car! I tried it in another car, and all was good, so the OBD11 port was mysteriously dead. Hmm. I locked the car and went back inside.


…except I didn’t, because the remote locking didn’t work either. And (it was dark, so I noticed these things) neither did the few remaining interior lights, nor did the dash light which registers an open door. Curious.

Still, on the basis that it still started, ran and stopped I drove it to work the following morning, where some more curious faults manifested themselves. The radio wouldn’t turn on – neither would the centre console screen which shows temp, fan speed etc. Trying to work out which was the demister took a while! On top of that, the trip-meter would reset every time the ignition was turned on. Really weird.

With two days to go before Cadwell, I gave Pete a call and ran him through the ever growing list of faults I’d found. The following conversation went pretty much like this:

“Does it start?”
“Yes”
“Does it stop?”
“Yes”
“Do the lights work?”
“Yes”
“Excellent. We’re going racing.”

He’s very wise, is Pete.

So we drove to Cadwell, where it rained.

IMG_6488

Now I’m not very good at Cadwell – I’ve driven it once, two years ago, in the rain, in a Westfield on semi slicks. So when it rained overnight, and continued to rain most of the morning, I wasn’t too impressed. You may be thinking this sounds like a long list of excuses, and you’d be exactly right

The morning was pretty eventful, with a packed paddock, a couple of dozen new competitors and plenty of slippery leaves through the woodland meaning several competitors had spun and a few had bounced off the barriers. Now if you’ve been paying attention (here comes another of those excuses) you’ll know that I’ve managed to spin the RX8 at least once at every round. It’s safe to say I was a little nervous! Still the times were coming down as the track conditions stabilised, Pete and I were running 3rd and 4th respectively in our class of 14, with a couple of tenths separating us. Despite our initial nervousness the car was running well, bar a hastily replaced coil and HT lead which had come unseated and disintegrated.

Then, as is the way with motorsport, things were shaken up a tad. It stopped raining at lunch, so the track started to dry, and – due to the frequent stoppages – it was announced that we’d only be running 5 runs instead of six. The first run after lunch saw me a whole five seconds quicker (and 3 secs in front of Pete), and I was starting to feel pretty confident. The track was still pretty damp but definitely getting faster, and I was confident I could improve on the last run.

Then something else happened – one of the high-powered Evos running in the top class managed to throw a rod through its block (and rad!) crossing the finish line, and during the 40 minutes it took to recover the car and clear up the resulting oil slick, the track dried more. A lot more, in fact.

IMG_4208

So, the deciding run was to be my first ever dry run at Cadwell. I managed to improve my time by another three seconds, but could immediately tell that I could have done much better. Pete, a veteran of Project Cars, knew the track better than me and drove an absolute blinder – so much so, he caught up with a previous runner and was awarded a re-run. So, basically, he had a free practice run in the dry

Still, his final lap was just fantastic – knocking almost nine (nine!) seconds off his time, finishing first in a class of 14 (including a well-driven Exige which is usually considerably faster), and knocking my sorry effort down into fifth place. I think he was pretty pleased with this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5-dttmaKtw&t=

2017-11-06_12-26-23

Still, I managed my own little piece of glassware for 3rd overall in a much faster class championship – don’t forget I started the year in the Westfield, so all my points counted towards that class.

With that done, we headed back down South to Bedford, to give the car a last hurrah before winter. It was actually pretty interesting being on track with other cars, and being able to see each other’s driving first hand over a few laps. As expected the little RX8 didn’t have a lot of pace down the straights (particularly noticeable with a couple of McLarens tearing round!) but certainly held its own in the corners. Of particular note (and quite satisfying after my previous day’s efforts) was pushing a GT3RS round for a couple of laps, before bailing when it became clear he had no intention of moving over for us…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06-5eBVxz5k

The car ran very well all morning, although our brakes were limiting us to three lap stints (no warm up laps for the sprint car though!!). We started suffering with heat issues in the afternoon so called it a day early, but still managed to chew through an entire tank of fuel and had a lot of fun haring around with each other, and giving a few passenger rides too.

So, that’s it for now. First job is to move the car back down to Pete next week – we’re going to scratch our heads with the weird electrical problems, although a bit of investigation at Cadwell showed a couple of cut wires in the boot which looked to have shorted against the bodywork… It looked like someone wasn’t paying attention to the rules! Suffice to say, all touching rights have been revoked Our initial thoughts are that the CAN BUS system has taken a whack, or the immobiliser side of the ECU has blown, but who knows. Job for winter! We’re also planning a few other constructive additions, in particular a roll-cage and harnesses, along with some stiffer ARBs and a complete brake refresh. More on that little lot as it happens

2017-11-06_12-26-46

IMG_0308

[Magic Beans]

It was all part of an elaborate scheme to net Pete his first win. I did my job well

[pistol pete]

“Does it start?”
“Yes”
“Does it stop?”
“Yes”
“Do the lights work?”
“Yes”
“Excellent. We’re going racing.”

awesome write up sir!!!!

[pistol pete]

Passed it MOT yesterday.. another year of thrashing it ahead

p.s. i also fixed what someone broke

[Ben]

Passed it MOT yesterday.. another year of thrashing it ahead

p.s. i also fixed what someone broke

[craig]

Passed it MOT yesterday.. another year of thrashing it ahead

p.s. i also fixed what someone broke

MOT high five!

[Ben]

The winter lull is well and truly upon us, but things have been happening slowly. The most important of these is that Pete has organised a cage to go in, which should be fitted late December/early Jan. There’ll be more on that as it happens, but of course there’s a certain amount of prep that’ll need to be done first.

I managed to get a free weekend before Christmas to head daahn saahf and get cracking. I’d like to say we focussed on the important things and got loads done, but – well, it was bloody freezing this weekend!

We did manage to get a couple of bits done before we so bravely gave up – the RX8 is now residing on its ramp, we’ve drained the fuel tank (which will have to come out before the cage goes in) and removed the aircon pulley in preparation for the aircon condenser and rad coming out. Then (because it was still really bloody cold, as demonstrated by the frost on the Volvo of Doom below) I decided to take on something I could do in the semi-heated shed instead :hehe:




So, what was this critical piece of race-car prep to be? Yep, that’s it – paint the other set of wheels a garish colour

In truth, I did have an ulterior motive for this – the wheels on my M5 need doing and I’m loathe to spend a small fortune paying someone to refurbish them if I can do a half decent job myself, but if it’s going to turn out xxxx I’d much rather find out on the RX8 first

Anyway, here are my efforts – this is after a light sanding, two coats of primer, 6 or seven (I lost count) coats if finest Amazon-supplied green, and three coats of lacquer. It’s a pretty quick and dirty job – the inside of the shed was somewhere below 5*C most of the time, and I didn’t do any of that wet’n’dry sanding between coats I read about, but for a first effort I thought they turned out pretty well…











One thing’s for sure, we won’t lose them!

It sounds like sprint season will start up again at the end of March, so we’ve got a while to get the rest of the car sorted out (service, cage, harnesses, another driver’s seat as we’re still not happy with the current Sparco unit, new brakes, etc etc) but I suspect it’ll creep up on us a tad. The car will likely come up to mine once the cage is in so we can work on it indoors.

[Ben]

January came and went without much to report, although we did manage to nab a weekend at Autosport. We had a very nice chat with the chaps from Corbeau seats, who managed to sort us out with an ex-demo bucket seat and two sets of brand new Luke harnesses for a very healthy discount.

2018-02-09_10-12-55 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr

2018-02-09_10-12-45 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr

More to the point, and to make best use of these lovely shiny new things, we needed some sort of rollover protection (I'm not a big fan of running harnesses without!). Options for RX8s seem remarkably thin on the ground without spending comfortably in excess of the car's value, but we finally came up trumps through the RX8 owners club. So, a couple of weeks ago, I headed down to the valleys with a fellow 8 owner Ed to pick this up:

2018-02-09_10-11-03 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr

I would have preferred a full cage in all honesty, but this is a beautifully made thing and will at least give us the protection we were previously lacking if we manage to tip it over. Plus, we can run the new harnesses. It subsequently spent a couple of weeks living in the back of the Volvo, which earnt me one or two funny looks!

2018-02-09_10-13-44 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr

Meanwhile, Pete was doing some actual useful stuff and managed to get the braided lines we've had kicking around for months fitted

2018-02-09_10-11-54 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr

2018-02-09_10-12-08 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr

2018-02-09_10-11-45 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr



And so, finally, we've managed to have a productive weekend on the RX8 – now known as the ‘Racecat’ after bowing to the superior being that is autocorrect.

2018-02-14_10-38-30 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr

We’ve had a bit of a list to get through, and it didn’t help that Saturday started off freezing, and then ended up blimmin horrible and rainy. Still, needs must, and we at least managed to get the new EBC discs and Yellowstuff pads fitted all round. We also ran some fresh 5.1 fluid through and gave the new braided lines a good check over for leaks. The discs have an anti-corrosion coating – aside from being useful on a car that won’t move for another few weeks, they look pretty badass as well

2018-02-14_10-38-41 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr

Fortunately Sunday turned out to be lovely and sunny, so we made an early start and got cracking. Prior to my arrival, Pete had spent some time prepping to drop the fuel tank ready for the cage to go in. It’s safe to say this isn’t a fun job (particularly due to the awkwardly-placed cross-braces on the ramp), but before we got too far we went for a test-fit of the cage. Fortunately it slid in fairly easily (fnar), and sat in situ it’s clear that the welding won’t be taking place anywhere near the tank. So that saves us a job!

Other things ticked off the list:

- Engine oil
- Gearbox oil
- Diff oil
- Removal of a few more odds and sods
- Get it back on the floor!

2018-02-14_10-40-03 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr

2018-02-14_10-39-32 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr

2018-02-14_10-39-50 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr

2018-02-14_10-39-06 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr

For a bit of fun we also set up the Go Pro on timelapse mode. If you’ve 3 and a half minutes to kill you can watch us variously faffing around with things, scratching our heads, drinking tea, arguing about where the camera goes and driving the ever-faithful old Volvo to the tip to get rid of all the crap we’d accumulated during the weekend. Oh, and occasionally working on the car

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMQ27OyCfYc


Not much left to go now. I’ve ordered a new set of coils and leads which didn’t turn up in time, and we need to get the cage mounts welded so we can get it bolted in and add the new seats and harnesses. With any luck it’ll still work afterwards!

[Ben]

Well it appears I've neglected this somewhat...

Best rectify that, huh. Buckle up, you're about to get almost an entire season of sprinting in one hit

[Ben]

Originally posted 12th March:

With race day fast approaching it still felt like we had a lot to do. Aside from anything else, we had to get the track wheels from mine down to Pete (he's going to be support car for the first few rounds) and the RX8 back up to me once it was back together. Pete's been a busy boy over the last couple of weeks while I was off on holiday!

His main task was to get the new Corbeau driver's seat fitted so the car could be driven up to get the cage welded in. I was a little nervous, I have to say, given that the RX8 hasn't run since it was deposited down in Kent several months ago, but I needn't have worried. It started first flick of the key



That done, he got bored and started hitting things with an axe



There goes the rest of the sound deadening :hehe: . It's pretty hefty stuff all told!

Now it was time to get the car back together, running, and up to mine. There was no easy way to do this, so Pete gamely made a 250-mile round trip to collect me and the wheels (turns out you can get 4 18" wheels in a Mini Clubman – just!), and come Saturday morning we cued the music…

First up, back on the ramp so we could give it a final spanner check, refit the arch liners and get the sexy new Ryan Rotary Performance coil packs installed! Out with the old…





…and in with the new! We also managed to remove the (dead) aircon compressor while we were there. It's a hefty old thing!




We have to run with a passenger seat in this year's sprint series, so we re-purposed the original Sparco Sprint and bolted it straight to a base. Passengers don't get the luxury of being able to move
That sorted we were able to fit the new Luke harnesses and spend a bit of time faffing around getting a fitting we were both happy with.



We got to experience a pretty weird feeling at this point – I believe it's called ‘being finished' . We took it out for a drive, just to make sure…



Yep, it works!

We celebrated that evening with beer, and spent the next day mooching around the car, scratching our heads, seeing what else might need attention. I'm sure there will be plenty to keep us busy this year, but failing to come up with anything tangible it was time to hit the road home. Two hours in a car with no interior, no sound deadening and in a four-point harness was actually less unpleasant than I was expecting, but I was still pleased to be back. The car was pleased to have a run, too – it felt great through the back roads after a hundred miles or so



And here we go. The first round of the Javelin Sprint Series is on the 1st April (less than three weeks away!) at Snetterton, and the following weekend we have round 1 of the sister series, the Japanese Sprint Series, at Cadwell Park. I'm nervous about both of these actually – Snet has historically been my best circuit, so I feel I'm due a fall, and Cadwell is my weakest! It's likely we'll do the full JapSS championship this year and dip into the Javelin events as and when diaries allow. Who knows what the year will bring, though…!

Thanks must go here to the guys at Corbeau, who – after sorting out an ex-demo seat for a decent price – not only made us a custom seat base but happily handed over a handful of spreader plates so we could get the harnesses fitted in time.

[Ben]

28th March:

T minus 4 days to round 1. Pretty nervous now, I've got to admit!

Thought I'd give the old girl the first clean since last summer...





....and then couldn't resist attacking the rest of the fleet

[Ben]

3rd April:


Well now, that didn't go to plan!



Having put the car through scrutineering the evening before, we had ample time the morning of the sprint to set up cameras, check the car over etc. as well as spend a bit of time catching up with friends we'd made last year. The track day the previous day was very wet, and this morning was no exception – the practice runs were spent mostly sideways, and any attempt to put power down ended up requiring armfuls of opposite lock to keep things facing the right way! Added to this, a VX220 suffered a bout of incontinence and managed to drop oil all the way round the track which caused a bit of a delay, so by the time lunch rolled around we'd only managed one timed run each. Bearing in mind I'd managed a 2:13 lap last year in the Westfield, a 2:56.48 was pretty disappointing even if it did put me third in class at the time!

The rain finally stopped at lunch, but a lack of wind or sun meant the track was drying out very slowly. Conditions were tricky and a fair few competitors had offs of some description – often you'd find yourself heading into an apex on a bone dry track, only to find the exit was still soaking wet

Run two was better for me – 9 seconds quicker at 2:47.8 and up to second in class. Run three was void after I spun off over the grass before Coram, and then we were told that run 4 would be the last run of the day.

The sun came out, the wind picked up, and we'd had a couple more stoppages giving the track more time to dry out. Pete, all credit to him, pulled a blinder and managed to get down to a 2:31.9, before handing me the car.

My last lap started well – I like Snetterton a lot (and still do!), I was finding grip where I needed and it felt like I had a quick time coming up. Unfortunately not all of the track had dried still, and as I braked from ~120mph before the left-hander Brundle, and then transitioned right to Nelson, the back came round on me and I was a passenger from there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-d19kqiNA

(Skip to about 1:45 if you're impatient. Also NSFW with the volume up – I got a bit sweary)

Gutted is an understatement – the first impact pulled off the front bumper and undertray, destroyed the front wing and headlight, and bent the track-rod end almost in half. When the rear hit it took out the rear light, subjected the wing to some nasty barrier rash and pushed the corner of the bumper in far enough to put the bootlid out of kilter and leave a nice crease in the boot floor. I was mightily pi$$ed off but fortunately unhurt – the new Corbeau seats, harnesses and my HANS device were extremely welcome and, bar a bit of aching that afternoon, I've been otherwise fine. Pete has mostly recovered from the heart-attack I gave him when two recovery trucks and an ambulance went tearing off down the track

The RX8 has been recovered down to Pete's (getting it off a recovery truck at 1.30am was an experience I'd like to not repeat) where it'll stay for the foreseeable. At present we're unsure to what extent the car is damaged – job number one will be to fit a new track-rod end so we can move it around, and take some measurements of the important bits to see if the chassis is twisted or if there's anything else sinister lurking. While the boot-lid is a bit on the P***, the door and bonnet shut lines seem fine, so there's hope still. If the worst comes to the worst we'll either re-shell or break it and get something different. We're supposed to be at Cadwell for the first round of the Japanese Sprint Series on Saturday but it'll take a miracle for us to find something track-worthy in the next four days!

After that, we have 6-7 weeks until the next planned round at Three Sisters. I'm hopeful that's enough time to get something together and sorted

So, not the update I'd hoped to give. Kudos must go to the marshalling team, circuit staff, recovery guys and the Javelin team for getting the car recovered quickly and making sure I was ok. It was a tricky recovery, and finding myself wandering the grass picking up bits of my own car was pretty surreal. Pete, also, was bloody brilliant - I was quickly dispatched to have a cup of tea and a sit down while he packed up the tools, got the car jacked up and basically organised my entire life until he dropped me home the next morning.

Few more quick snaps of the damage…

[Ben]

....and 4 days later!

Well we almost (almost!) got it back together in time for Cadwell today. The good news is we know the important bits are all straight - unfortunately the steering rack itself is bent, and despite working on it all day yesterday we were never going to source and fit a new one in time [emoji53]

Still - check out the rack end we pulled off! [emoji23]

[Ben]

May 1st:


As predicted, it was a b***** of a job - so much so that I completely forgot to take any 'in progress' shots

Still, the weekend was a success, eventually. The new steering rack was kindly provided with a snapped bolt in the steering UJ, which gave us lots of fun trying to drill out. We also spent ages painstakingly working out the centre of the new rack – if you get it one tooth out you end up with light steering one way, and heavy steering the other, and (presumably) a TC system that doesn't know its ar$e from its elbow.

The steering rack and column have been apart before it seems, and not put back together properly. We've always had a mildly worrying amount of side-to-side play in the steering wheel, and this seemed the best opportunity to fix it once and for all. This added a nice couple of hours to proceedings as, while I fought with hard-to-access bolts refitting the rack, Pete removed the whole steering column to see what was what…



We eventually worked out that the top part of the column had been refitted badly in the past, and hadn't been inserted (fnar) far enough to meet the bearings. A certain amount of ‘persuasion' later and we had everything hooked up, the new rack installed, and an equal number of turns lock to lock – the first time around!

We also took the opportunity of removing the rest of the air-con components while we were there:




We got a few funny looks as we test drove the new Limited Edition Harlequin RX8, but test it we did

Fortunately, all seems well. It starts, stops, and turns much as it did before, and the new steering rack (now play-free in any direction) is much more direct than the old one which was clearly tired even before I rearranged it with a piece of Armco. We're getting a little of what sounds like wheel-bearing noise from the rear end, which is new and exciting, but are a little unsure exactly where it's coming from. Either way, we'll be trailering it to and from sprints from now in, so if it manifests itself we won't be stranded

So, Three Sisters in three weeks! Pete will take it up for a four-wheel alignment in the meantime, but otherwise, we're good to go

[Ben]

May 29th:


Bit late with the update but we are now, literally (!) back on track

Pete had sorted a few bits since my last visit as final preparation for our next track outing. Job number one was to finally get it up on the ramps and have the alignment checked. We were expecting things to be a bit out of kilter – Pete had commented that the rear end felt a bit wayward – and we were not disappointed. Check out that rear toe-out





A bit of jiggery-pokery had the settings looking a bit more acceptable…



Pete had also taken the opportunity to buy a suitable RX8-sized trailer. It's almost like he doesn't trust me not to do a repeat performance



With that, there was nothing else for it but to head up to sunny Wigan for the second (and our first) round of the Japanese Sprint Series. I really wasn't sure what to expect from Three Sisters – not only was it to be my first track outing since meeting the barrier at Snet, but it is, effectively, ‘just' a go-kart track. Homework options were pretty limited as well – there's a few YouTube vids from recent trackdays, but only one video I could find of the sprint course, driven in a kit car. Slightly different kettle of fish compared to the lardy old RX8!

Even from the outset we were expecting to be very uncompetitive – misgivings that were not reduced at all watching a handful of karts go round the evening before the race. It's really not a big track! Still, we'd come all this way, and the next morning we were greeted with bright sunshine and a dry track, which was a good start. Scrutineering and sign on was passed without issue, and then we could finally get out on track during the sighting laps. We pretty quickly worked out there would only be two gearchanges during the lap – shift to second on the first corner, do the whole lap in second (!), then up to third on the back straight. Fortunately it turned out the RX8 gearing was pretty well suited, with lots of other competitors constantly shifting 2-3-2 on the twisty circuit.

Lining up for the practice runs I was still expecting it to be disappointing, but how wrong I was. It's incredibly technical – there's no set line as such, as demonstrated by the array of lines used by people during the day – but it's enormous fun. Given that most laps were over in sub-50 seconds it really is an intense track, with very little time to think forwards and set up for the next corner. Even more unbelievably, we were competitive – after the first run we were sitting 3rd and 4th in a class of 50 cars!

My other worry was that I'd psych myself out after Snet, particularly as there's very little run-off at 3S. Fortunately this also turned out not to be the case, with Pete and I typically close and swapping places between us during the day. At one point there was a mere 2 hundredths between us! Eventually, though Pete pulled it out of the bag on the final run of the day and pipped my by two tenths. We still managed to hold onto 4th and 7th overall, which – given the relative lack of power and heavy weight of the RX8 – we were both massively impressed with.

As ever, the day was run like clockwork by the Javelin crew, so much so we had time for some fun runs in the afternoon – a good opportunity to go and passenger with other people. I had a bit of fun putting together the usual video as well – this includes Pete and my fastest runs, along with a couple of outtakes (void runs!) and some general cocking around…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_JV_KF8Ajo&t

It's frustrating to watch back, as I can see where I'm losing time heading into the final tight right-hander. Next time…!
And a few pics by Darren at Piston Broke Photography (mostly of the bits I cocked up )

[Ben]

July 6th:


Well I missed the last round due to holiday, but Pete's given an update on another forum so thought I'd post it here

Sorry for the thread hijack but
before i start.. this is me and ben at a recent friends wedding
FB_IMG_1523885345780 by peteandkel, on Flickr
Unfortunatly Ben could not make Blyton Park in June
So i have made my own little video of the day enjoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzJkursYn6k&t

couple of pictures taken by one of my mates on the day
item (9) by peteandkel, on Flickr
item (7) by peteandkel, on Flickr
item (6) by peteandkel, on Flickr
item (5) by peteandkel, on Flickr
item (4) by peteandkel, on Flickr


I ran at blyton a fresh set of r888r's which won't be used this weekend as Kendrew will kill them,
So we will be using up the last of our current set of r888r's and Ben purchased and painted another set of wheels and track r888 used tyres to kill

Also had to change the wheel breaking as it was getting increasingly noisy after its small touch with the armo.. That was a nightmare as one of the bolts for the toe arm had rusted to the bush, ended up cutting it all out and fitting a jap speed adjustable arms.
took the car up to get aligned again, slightly more camber now and a little more toe in on the rear with 0deg on the front. see how it goes

Also had an issue at the end off the day at blyton during the fun runs. I could not get the car to restart and we had to push it onto the trailer (don't worry not normal rx8 hot start issues) this was more around i could not here the fuel pump running, but as all runs of the day were completed, i took it home to inspect
FB_IMG_1530745386064 by peteandkel, on Flickr

Got home the RX8 home, guess what?? It ran perfect, bu88er!. and has been running perfect since. Until I was sat outside the alignment centre.. grr Stopped working just turning over
After stealing some tools from the garage found there was no power to the fuel pump.. so swapped and played with the relays.. got it running. We had this problem last year too!
So yesterday a trip to the local breakers and got some used ones.. swapped them all over.. and lets see what happens!!

Also the pajero tow car.. full overhaul this week.
replaced:- front diff oil, transfer box oil, rear diff oil, ATF fluid, Engine oil filter, engine oil, Air filter, All brake fluid, Radiator, Water pump, Thermostat, new coolant and diesel filter..

Now runs loverly!!!!
DSC_1806 by peteandkel, on Flickr
DSC_1808 by peteandkel, on Flickr

that is it for now, i am sure normal updates will resume as Ben is back out with me at Kendrew on sunday.. Wish us luck

[Ben]

July 16th:


Well then, on to Kendrew!

They have a bit of a bad reputation, but I love airfield circuits. There's so much variation in surface, lines, speed…. And there's loads of space to have a bit of fun. We had a great weekend all planned out – I was to head down to Pete's after work on Friday to help with loading up, last minute checks etc, then we'd pootle off to Mazda UK on Saturday morning for their Rotary Day meet. There'd be all sorts of interesting, historic rotary cars there and I was very much looking forward to seeing the reaction our multicoloured, battered heap would get

We set off nice and early and made it all of ten miles. Unfortunately Pete's beloved Shogun decided that hauling the car and trailer up the hill out of Romney Marsh was the last straw, whereupon it overheated spectacularly. So, bonnet up, cool down and we gently coaxed it back to the house and immediately started phoning round the local hire companies. We found a van easily enough (hooray!) but it was only available at 4pm that day (boo), so alas the Mazda meet wasn't to be. Later investigation unearthed a blocked overflow pipe to the expansion tank, and an almost-certain diagnosis of a cracked head. New tow-car shopping is ongoing…

Still, after a pleasant afternoon feeling like a pair of loose ends (and doing our best to avoid the football) we collected the van, headed up to Lincolnshire and had a pleasant walk down to a local pub for dinner, before wandering over to the track the following morning.



Kendrew has a pretty abrasive surface so we'd held onto our R888Rs from last season especially – this was to be their last hurrah, particularly if we got a bit of play time at the end. There was a good crowd of around 60 runners, and (shock!) an interloper in our class – a very well-prepped (and, as it turned out, well-driven) breadvan Civic Type R.

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I'm not good at learning tracks, and it was a sweltering day (especially in a dark RX8 with no interior and no AC!) but we both had a lot of fun chasing each other throughout the morning. As ever, Pete was comfortably ahead as we came into the lunchbreak after a blinding 1:50.00 run put him almost a second quicker than me. Grip levels were pretty inconsistent – usually being the second driver on a run gives you an advantage, but everything was so sun-baked the tyres were overheating! The first run after lunch is usually slower, however the tyres had a chance to cool down and we both came out of the blocks with what turned out to be our fastest time of the day. Pete started off by knocking a further second-and-a-bit off his time (now 1:48.87) which did not help my nerves heading into my run! It started off a bit shakey, with more wheelspin than I was expecting heading off the line (the tyres were pretty knackered by this point) but I managed to pull everything together and knocked over 2 secs off for a fastest time of 1:48.34. I was pretty pleased with this, as I imagine you'll tell when Pete uploads the video

The final run was terrible for us both in the end – I managed to miss 3rd gear a total of three times during the first half of the lap, then overcooked it on the final chicane and ended up scattering cones and plastic barriers everywhere. Pete's was tidier, but no faster – the tyres really were toast by that point.

End results were really pleasing – we were first and second in the Mazda series (and a full 7 seconds clear of the MX5 in third place!), but couldn't quite catch that pesky Civic in our Japanese Series class. Still, we gave it a good shot! Fortunately we'd also finished early, which gave us a free track for fun runs and passenger rides….

…and a set of tyres to kill…

…you can see where this is going, right?



There's a vid to follow… suffice to say we both had a lot of fun on an empty airfield with dead tyres

And a few pics from the day:









Oh, one last thing. Everybody spent last weekend bleating about something-or-other that was 'coming home.' I'm not entirely sure what all that fuss was about, but they were right in one sense at least. After almost 9 months residing in deepest darkest Kent, the Wankel Cup is, finally, coming home

[Ben]

And the aforementioned vid: 5 minutes of actual trying to be fast, followed by many tyre deaths

https://youtu.be/0nn9WXkPCHU

This car is bloody awesome

[Ben]

28th August (nearly there!!)



The summer break is well and truly over – after a six week break we're treated to two of the best (not to mention furthest away!) tracks of the calendar: Anglesey and Croft.

There wasn't much in the way of prep to do after Kendrew, but getting the new set of tyres on was a must. Here's what we pulled off



Likewise, a quick bit of cabletie engineering to re-secure the undertray after a quick trip into the grass…



Anglesey was first up, and god is it a trek! Pete had to split the journey in two – after taking 5 hours to get from Kent to Oxfordshire after a very broken M25 I think he was very glad to have a break! First up, given that we've SORNed the RX8 now, was to find something suitable to replace the rear numberplate…



That'll do the trick :hehe:

We were both very grateful for Pete's shiny new tow car (a 2007 Shogun, which is an absolute beast of a thing), particularly as it took a further 5.5 hours to meander our way up to Anglesey the following day. A combination of TomTom and Waze managed to get us round various bits of traffic around the M6, while managing to avoid taking the trailer down too many single track lanes.





You never quite know what you're going to get at Anglesey, and when we arrived the previous day's sprint (the all-marques Javelin series) was in full swing. It wasn't raining per se, but the wind was up and there was a fine mist of sea spray being blown sideways across the track which seemed to be making things a tad tricky for the competitors! Still, we had a wander round the track, caught up with a few friends and managed to get the car through scrutineering before abandoning it in a garage for the night. The ground in the paddock was salty and slippery, and rain was forecast for the next day.



Come the next morning, fuelled by a hearty breakfast at our nearby B&B, we headed out into the inevitable rain. The track was greasy, but luckily the rain stopped pretty early on and the wind stayed strong which dried things off nicely – by the time the practice runs were over it was largely a dry track and had the decency to stay that way all day. Our main target was to beat our time set last year, which we both managed to do after the second lap, which meant we could just concentrate on having a good day. I somehow managed to set a quick time on my second run, which I spent most of the day chasing, and Pete was feeling a little out of sorts which put him about a second off the pace. I, meanwhile, had a couple of frustrating runs including a trip across the (still wet!) grass at 90-odd mph and an overcooked hairpin after an otherwise good lap (both of which are captured on YouTube forever).

Somewhat unusually we both managed our quickest times on the final run of the day – Pete's put together an overlay which is pretty interesting to watch . These two runs finished about half a second apart, but it's tricky to spot exactly where the time was made up (although Pete had a bit of a fuel starvation issue). Watch to the end to see my trip across the grass and a couple of other outtakes. It's worth having the sound on for the reaction at the end of the times run

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5lkhkrBwDI&t=

And a quick drive-by of Pete, taken from the pit wall:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVOT3apk8Po

An excellent weekend all in all. The towcar was comfortable and didn't put a foot wrong, the RX8 performed beautifully all day, and I finally managed to collect my first piece of hardware from this season
I was pleased to see we were also the fastest naturally-aspirated car of the day by a solid second-and-a-half, which given our relative weight and lack of power I was very pleased with indeed!





Not much of a break before Croft – on Sunday! The last time either of us were there we were sharing an increasingly sick Fiesta Zetec S, so it'll be interesting to see how we fare in the RX8

[Ben]

Aaaaaaaaaaand 10th Sept!


So, Croft! As said, first time we'd driven it in the RX8 and I wasn't sure what to expect. It's another fast circuit with lots of time to be made (and lost!) in the bravery stakes.

I'd managed to mix up my weekends somehow, but through some serendipitous events was due to be visiting in-law family in Middlesbrough. So, I duly trekked up on Friday evening, spent the day on the beach on Saturday and got a taxi over to the circuit on Sunday morning, where Pete was patiently waiting with the RX8 and trailer. Cue many jokes about having ‘my man' bring the car up for me, which he managed to take in good humour :lool:

Gratuitous pic of the old M5 on a driveway in Middlesbrough:



Croft is up there as one of my favourite tracks. The whole section from the undulating braking zone into Tower through to Sunny Out is incredibly rewarding and huge fun – and yet I didn't hit it spot on all day! I started with a good time first thing and managed to gently chip away the odd tenth here and there, eventually trimming off half a second or so on the penultimate run. I think my actual driving improved a lot during the day but heat was proving to be a real issue – double-driving the car meant thy tyres weren't getting a chance to cool down, and it was a hot day on track that generates a lot of tyre heat through a sequence of fast corners and heavy braking zones. We tried fiddling with tyre pressures before the last run which gave us both better launch times but slower laps overall.

Still, a very successful day in all. Again we managed to be the quickest atmospheric car of the day (placed 14th and 16th overall) with barely half a second between us. Judging by the pics I've had back we were both pushing pretty hard





Pete's done another excellent job with the video (note the new camera position, it's worth watching with the volume up!). Watching this back (and with the split timing available from Javelin) it seems the difference in time was made up under brakes into Tower. It's frustrating to watch back knowing I could have been quicker, but as ever I'll gladly take any driving critique!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMoWV9mOU-w

Since then Pete has been busy with the diet (the car, that is) – doors have been gutted, glass has come out and perspex has gone in. There'll be more to come over winter, so watch this space!