MEP, ITBs, hillclimbs and trackdays

Castle Combe Sprint

First round of the HSA Championship and my first sprint event this weekend. The Great Western Sprint.

Not attended a sprint before in any capacity, competitor or spectator, so it was a step into the unknown!

I learned a lot, not just about the car (which I still crave lots more seat time in) but also about myself and how I prepare and cope with the pressures of competing!

Firstly, tyres, cold tyres and pushing hard are an eye opener! Not knowing 100% how much speed you can carry through a 70mph+ corner after launching out of a pit lane which appeared to be some type of ice rink focuses the mind! Or does it? My first shot at a lap and 3/4 of Combe (in anger) was delayed about an hour from leaving my parking slot to lining up at the timing beams. Not great for maintaining focus and I have to say I was appalled by launching immediately into miss shifts and a fairly horrific over-rev. Damn. Not what I expected of myself.

Delays due to binned cars and reliability problems seems to be usual for sprints and compared to hillclimbing meant the day didn't really flow.

Lesson learned for the first timed run and I tried to relax into it more. This resulted in a tidier but ultimately not particularly quick lap. Just over a second knocked off my time I still had a lot to do to make myself competitive in a class dominated by a particularly quick looking Elise.

So I was left with it all to do in the afternoon. You can watch the video to find out how that went!

All in all pleased to get my first event under my belt.

The car felt pretty mighty even with the grip levels and I know I can make time everywhere so hopefully as the season develops so do I. I had to laugh at the amount of attention MEP got - not something I was expecting at all!

But I did find some hesitation which I'm not sure the source of. I've been chasing a misfire and have replaced all sorts in the mission to solve. It seemed better but not 100% solved.

Final mention is about Jon (Apextwin) who had a monster of a day, winning his class in his turbo '5 despite the upset of not knowing if he was going to run or not... Well done that man!

Roll on Gurston!

Yes, good to put a face to a name! Think you're being harsh and don't let her hear you, there will be trouble at the next event! These cars have can become temperamental if they hear you dissing them!!

Good pic! What tyres are you on?

Gurston Down Hillclimb

Overdue update time.

The 22nd/23rd of April saw my first competitive hillclimb event. Gurston Down was one of our (me and Apextwin) 'local' events growing up so we were both pretty excited to be competing there together. I'd previously done the school there, albeit in my road car whilst MEP was being put back together, so I sort-of knew what I was letting myself in for. Gurston is very much a power hill so I wasn't expecting big things as MEP is fairly comprehensively out gunned in that department, however I was aiming for improvements in my time each run and to not finish last in my class!

First practice on Sunday was mind focusing with a slightly cautious blat thru Hollow followed by a LOL 4 wheel lockup snap oversteer moment into Karousel! (I'll grab the moment off the gopro and update this post soon)

After building up some confidence in practice 2 my first timed run was another decent improvement to hit a 42.49. The benchmark was set, now I had to beat this 'pb' each following run to satisfy my goal of improving each run.

Timed run 2 was another pb with a fairly respectable (for my 4th ever run up the hill in MEP) at 42.30 and 9th (of 10) in class, narrowly beaten by a margin of 0.05s by a Gurston veteran in a proton coupe. 87th of 116 competitors and 3rd fastest N/A mx5.

Overall very satisfied and ambition for Sunday was high, firm in the knowledge that there was loads of time left in the car.

On Sunday I set a new pb of 42.23 in practice 2. Small improvement but hampered by the lack of balls through Hollow and lots of inside wheel spin out of Ashes. I needed to get my canoe together for the timed runs!

41.53. New pb. Flat thru Hollow. Mega. 7th in class, narrowly beaten (0.07s) by a rapid little MG Midget and 79th of 113.

That was as fast as I was going to go that day, Timed 2 the track cooled as the weather closed in a bit and few managed to beat their T1 runs (with the notable exception of Apextwin who pulled out all the stops to beat a well driven 440hp Imprezza!). My next run was just marginally slower.

Theoretical best of 41.21... So close to being in the 40s!!!

Now for pictures and a vid (I had a fail to record the fastest, but this was my next best run)













Development update:

In my effort to bring an improvement in the car to each event I've invested in a Torsen LSD courtesy of Junk Yard Dog. Looking forwards to taming the inside wheel spin

Thanks!

All the blanking plates, seat mounts etc are my work, nice to hear they look the part! All in all the objective is function, but that said it is important to me that the car looks 'well prepped', I hope, at least to some extent, I've achieved that!

Cracking times, well done, thinking of trying to get a school in before the next Gurston HSA event so I can get some practice and confidence in as I have only had one run in the dry there.