The plan then was to visit Snetterton for a track day to learn which way the new corners go and also to shake the car down after all the winter upgrades a.k.a lets have things fall off on a track day, not during a race.

Snetterton is an incredibly long way away so the plan was to drive down Saturday afternoon, kip in a Travelodge and wipe the sleep from our eyes Sunday morning before heading down some very straight Norfolk roads. Hopefully whilst not being chased by farmers. You can never be too careful. Jon Walton was also heading up to drive the car as part of my continual pushing for him to get a race car. Only Lord will know how, but I managed to convice him! With some new gadgets to play with we were tracking each others progress using Google Latitude, and the finale was very similar to a Top Gear race. Being stuck at 56mph, Jon was closing in on us at an alarming rate, but for the final few miles things were looking good for us to take victory, and bragging rights. We arrived and checked Jon’s location, and discovered something about Latitude - you cannot hide, and everyone knows when you have taken a wrong turn. Oh how we laughed.

Sunday morning we headed up to the track with Jon following the van, showing some great restraint at not overtaking the plodding red beast. He would have achieved some unheard of fuel economy that’s for sure as Jon is a man who can get low 20s MPG out of a Citroen C2.

Once we arrived at the track there was the usual comments from people in the paddock about they wouldn’t have expected to find a car in the van, how did we get it in there, and have we shrunk the car etc. I now have preprepared answers to all these questions thankfully, all tweaked to be highly amusing. Or at least I think so. Once everything was unloaded we went to sign on to find an extra sheet to sign. Because this was only the second track day on the new layout (the first being the day before) they didn’t want people sliding off into the mud where the grass has yet to grow. Apparently it happened a lot yesterday and took 20 minutes to drag each car out, where they then discovered quite a bit of damage to the ground. Basically, if you got stuck you were going home with a bill for some repair work. Best not having any moments then!

Ian came along to the briefing as I’d also managed to convince him to drive the car. I was on a roll! The plan was he would drive the sighting laps and then go out for a run later in the day. He admitted after the briefing he was incredibly nervous, but there is always a element of scare tactics to these things I feel, especially with the muddy run off here. He didn’t need to admit it though as you could see it in his eyes, over his face, and the way he was reacting. Once he was in the car though he calmed down and drove the sighting laps at a suitable pace with some good lines. Considering he’d never driven on track before it was a good start.

As the day progressed I tried to pick up speed on the slippery track without falling off. I failed at this in the esses, which thankfully is an old part of the track with well seeded grass, and thus no bollocking. Out braking myself later on the new section was a different matter though and just managed to escape with two wheels in the mud. Now I know what they were on about. It’s slippier than greased Teflon and quite squelchy. If you went in that, you weren’t getting out. The left side of the car was now splattered in mud that resembled the results of a bull with bowl problems – lovely.

Why does Jon look like he's about to lay a brick? I didn't think my driving was that bad

The track was drying up nicely in the afternoon and we were able to play with tyre pressures, front anti roll bar settings, and ignition timing, and even managed a mini race with the other MR2s that were there but keeping it all within track day rules, gov. Seb Fisher was also joining in the fun in his new MX-5 which was quite amusing to overtake on raw power alone. He wont be letting that one down for a while, although I suspect his car will be much quicker once he’s sorted out a few things.

Jon looking like a Tellytubby

Coming from my Rockingham experience of being in the car with Jon I elected to take photos and set Ian on his way in the passenger seat. In typical fashion he was pushing from the start, but my new pedal positions weren’t helping him, and he doesn’t really fit in the MR2 anyway as the seat position is fixed. He seemed to enjoy it. Now we’ll move on to Ian’s maiden drive. Again I was in the photography booth (the grassy banking at the final corner) and everything seemed to be going well, although his run was sadly cut short by a red flag. When I got back I jokingly asked if he got the back end out, where he became quite sheepish, and Jon piped up ‘you could say that’. It turns out his first corner was one that would have scored highly with the artistic impression judges, with a full spin and plenty of smoke. No damage done, and once Ian stopped beating himself up about it he saw the funny side and would like to have another go some time.

So all in all a good day on a good circuit, and best of all the car didn’t fall apart. Except the brakes, which were overheating with the new fluid we put in. Back to the drawing board on that one…

It was time for a change, so I asked Ian if he would like to put some Take 2 Studios graphics on the car as I do borrow his garage services quite frequently. Initially he produced a few logos to stick on the car, but then he came to me with a full livery he’d like if money were no object. It looked good and suited the car, so I asked Jon Winter from Exit13 if it would be possible. A few tweaks were made here and there and we were on our way to a new livery!

A naked car

The first thing that needed to be done was to strip the car of it’s old livery. Not a difficult job you’d think, but when it’s cold outside the vinyl is a lot less willing to come off, and you also realise there is an awful lot more of it than you ever imagined. Then, removing some of the vinyl removes the paint, so a few more hours were spent repainting the bugger.

Jon Winter had a full head of hair before he started applying all the graphics

Jon ventured up in my direction with a boot full of vinyl, and supplied by gallons of coffee got to work. Normally when you livery cars you try and avoid all the awkward bits, but with a history of painting cars for racing sims where it doesn’t matter, Ian had successfully managed to get loads of vinyl through all the awkward bits. Fuel caps, air vents, you name it, vinyl was going through it. Cue lots of 18 rated words coming from Jon’s mouth, but once the garage went silent the livery was done, and it looks awesome. Really awesome!

An eco-friendly start to the morning

So what’s new, what’s changed and what broke? Thankfully nothing broke, apart from the starter motor. Not exactly an unimportant part to break but that’s sods law for you. The starter motor was still working but was failing to disengage, meaning it was turning over with the engine speed. If you’ve seen the high idle of the MR2 you’ll realise this is more of an issue than it normally would be. It took quite a while to locate the problem as, like any irritating fault, it was intermittent. Once we knew it was the starter motor Ian set about removing it, ignoring the advice of the Haynes manual which suggests dropping the exhaust for easy access and wiggling it out instead. Once on the bench the contacts were cleaned and the whole thing lubricated which fixed the problem, but a starter motor repair kit would probably be a good investment for the future.

Ian removes the sump, at 8 o'clock in the evening when it's dark and cold

A roll cage bolt. Thankfully this looks an awful lot worse than it really was!

During the winter updates Ian asked if he could keep the car in his garage for a week to complete some work. He got a couple of the small jobs done, and late one afternoon declared that later on he would remove and reseal the sump which was leaking. Bearing in mind it would be going dark in a few hours I thought he was referring to tomorrow or something, but I should have known better. Night or day, warm or cold, as to Ian it doesn’t matter, as he set about dropping the sump at night. While he was there he also went round spanner checking everything. A few things were a bit looser than you’d ideally like, but there was one bolt which stood out a mile which was holding the roll cage in. Thankfully it turned out to be nowhere near as bad as first thought. While the bolt looked like it was only half way in, it was in fact very tight, and required a considerable amount of force to fully tighten into position.

Finally, the biggest change was an upgrade in the springage department, although if you look at the stiffness of the car you might well ask if the suspension was simply welded. The springs were supplied from Jon Winter and suit the car much better than the old ones, allowing it to sit much lower, and of course are much stiffer. Combined with some new adjustable anti roll bars I’m expecting great things in the handling department for this season, as long as I can stop fiddling with all the new settings!

In our constant pursuit for improvements we have come up with new race seat which vastly improves upon a number of key areas found in a traditional race seat.

Comfort

Superior comfort for driving

When you were last sitting on the beach how comfy were you? Now you can take the comfort of your beach holiday into your race car. No more sitting on the floor stretching your legs out in front of you to reach the pedals, as you can now sit in a normal seating position which is also slightly reclined for extra comfort. Also, for that added beach feel you can remove all the lead ballast from your car and replace it with sand in the footwell.

Safety

Deformation testing

Safety is a very important consideration these days and was a key factor for us when designing this new seat. The seat supports a full racing harness, and to ensure it meets all the safety criteria we also carried out extensive deformation testing.

Someone's crashed a van into the garage!

At 140,000 miles the van required it’s second timing belt change, a job which is normally quite expensive but a lot cheaper when you have an Ian around. We had a rough idea of what was needed but didn’t really want to take the radiator out which was a step on the making life easier instructions. Ian’s dad suggested going even further and removing the front of the van for better access, but that looked a lot of work so we battled on. We did try to remove the fan which was getting in the way a bit, but this attempt ended with us just removing the fan cover and the realisation the fan would probably be staying put because of how it’s attached.

The biggest bolt I've ever seen in my life against a £1 coin for scale

Everything was going smoothly until it came to removing the crankshaft bolt. I’d joked previously about Ian’s 32mm socket and spanner wondering what an earth would require something that big, unless you were working on a truck. The thing is, the van is actually a truck with a van body, so everything is quite beefy and as such, a 32mm socket was too small. We squeezed a measuring tool down into the depths of the engine, around the fan, making sure not to scratch your arms apart on the blades and measured the bolt at 37mm. We knew it would either be 36mm or 38mm, and we had a 50/50 chance of getting it right. Off we toddled to Halfords and bought the 38mm socket. It was too big. So off we toddled again to Halfords to exchange it for the 36mm version which was slightly more expensive. If anyone can explain this pricing policy I’d love to know.

The socket was now on, but how the buggery were we going to loosen it? The suggestion in the instructions was to shock it off by wedging a bar against the chassis and turning the engine over. I was honestly more nervous sitting in the cab with the key in the ignition doing that than sitting on the starting grid at Brands Hatch. In short, it didn’t work. The fan was getting in the way, and in trying a not so ingenious solution we broke one of Ian’s tools in the process (for the record I did replace it for him!).

When given advice about how to make life easier, no matter how much of a headache it sounds, accept it. Trust me on this one.

Mid afternoon we came to the realisation that Ian’s dad was right, and the front of the van was coming off along with the radiator. Finally this gave us access to the bolt that would let us remove the bloody fan which was causing so many headaches. Once done, a bar was easily wedged into the chassis, crankshaft bolt removed and we could begin 4 hours later than planned. Thankfully everything went much smoother from this point onwards!

Bottling VT Racing Cabernet Sauvignon

Once we had endured the very long process of changing the gearbox oil using the worlds thinnest tube, and then replacing and bleeding the brake fluid in the MR2 it all needed bottling up ready to be taken to the recycling centre. Predictably we filled up the spare bottles and still had some left, so I grabbed the nearest bottle. This being the Stratton household meant that was rather embarrassingly a wine bottle, so we ended up with VT Racing Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine encompasses a rich blend of vintage gearbox oil and DOT 5.1 brake fluid with plant leaf extract. For the sophisticated palate with it’s eggy aftertaste, it is best enjoyed with engine block BBQ’d meats.

Fixing brakes, with a hammer. I'm glad Ian will be the first to press the brake pedal when next out on track.

Apart from general arseing around we, or more accurately Ian, changed the rear brake discs as they had worn down to their minimum thickness in around 18 months. EBC Yellow Stuff pads may be very good, but this is one of their downsides. The old discs were naturally removed using a hammer, and the shiny new ones replaced using a bit more care. I’m just glad for the cars next outing on a track day at Snetterton Ian will be the first to use the brakes when he drives the sighting laps. I might stay in the pits and watch.

Faulty spark plug

The other activity for the day was swapping the spark plugs, a job so simple that even I can do it, although it was Ian doing it as I was in the kitchen making another brew. I know my place. Anyway… a job that’s simple but only when you have four matching spark plugs. When one wouldn’t fit properly, and the problem followed this particular plug we got a bit suspicious, which was then confirmed when removing it the whole thing sheared into two pieces. Putting them side by side this plug was slightly different to the others which is why it wouldn’t fit properly and that probably lead to it snapping. This’ll be an interesting conversation on Monday morning trying to send it back…

The damage from Brands Hatch

Don’t let anyone put you off fixing something with glue, but not Pritt Stick obviously – you’d struggle to fix an origami model with that stuff. The amount of stick I got (if you excuse the pun) about attempting to fix my front bumper after the Brands Hatch argy bargy was quite considerable. Ian thought it was too badly damaged and would need replacing, but I had other ideas and would attempt to glue it back together.

The worlds most sensible solution for keeping everything in place while it dries

First impressions were it would work as nothing had been ripped off, so all the bits were there, just slightly bent and deformed. One of the great things with plastic bumpers is after some abuse with the heat gun you can pretty much mould them into any shape you like. Once I’d got the shape roughly back I needed to find a way of getting it back together. As you might imagine things never go back exactly, so I couldn’t simply glue the bits together as there was a gap of a few millimetres. I needed something thicker, and I found it in the shape of gap filling building adhesive. This stuff is a bit like putty, and as such takes ages to dry, especially when it’s -3°C outside. Cue more heat gun use. Eventually I got it to stick but it wasn’t quite holding in the right shape, so a bodged solution was needed – chocks of wood and a spade pressing against it. Remember, it’s only a bodge if it doesn’t work!

Volia - finished

After a few days of drying, or if I’m honest a week, the adhesive had dried rock solid and was holding everything perfectly. All that now remained was to sand it all down and give it a lick of paint. The results, if I say so myself, are quite good. Don’t ever mock the power of glue again!

It doesn't matter how often they see it, people are still bemused by the car in a van

This year we’d been given the royal treatment and treated to the garages which would hopefully be a bit warmer than standing in the open paddock. We wouldn’t be able to gain access to them until the Saturday crew had left but that wasn’t really a problem. As Brands Hatch is further away than the moon (or at least it feels like that driving the van) we set off Saturday afternoon giving ourselves plenty of time to arrive in the light. This plan was quickly shattered when we discovered the most almighty traffic jam only a mile from leaving Ian’s. About an hour late, bordering on starvation we began heading south in what was a remarkably uneventful journey. On arriving at the track we met up with Jon and proceeded to work out a way of unloading directly into the garages using the lights. Job done, off to the pub.

This is why they'll never build a race track in Liverpool...

The next morning we arrived to a very cold circuit. Those who had braved camping in the garages were dreaming of log fires and mountains of blankets it was that cold. The plan was to do some work on the car last night, but the pub was more inviting which meant we had even more to do this morning. The main job was getting four new tyres as the right side tyres were now a year old, and the left ones balder than Captain Kirk. The tyre truck was a bit busy which meant we sat the car on axle stands for a while, but at least we got the wheels balanced. Shortly after the balancing machine broke so there were probably a lot of drivers driving around feeling they had been given square tyres. We had our own wheel related issues too when the car slipped off one of the axle stands, but thankfully the wheel was on, if not screwed on, which was enough to catch it. Phew!

Heading into qualifying the track was damp, and with four new tyres covered in release agent I’d have to take things easy for a good few laps. Nothing however would prepare you for the small amount of grip as I dawdled down Paddock Hill – sideways. Speaking to Jon Winter after who was behind me he saw me go sideways, laughed to himself, and then had an arm full of opposite lock himself. Haha. The first half of the session was spent tiptoeing around on the greasy track and struggling wtih traffic until we were all given a break when Jeff McCall stuck his car axle deep into the Druids gravel trap and the red flag came out. Luck was on my side as I was now towards the front of the pit lane queue which meant I was able to get a couple of clean laps in when we restarted. After the session had finished I had absolutely no idea how I’d gone. To my disbelief the results sheet had me in 6th place, which soon became 5th when Ross Stoner was given a penalty for passing under yellow flags. There was a note next to my name though – ‘fit working transponder’. Oops… that’ll be one of those jobs we forgot about then.

Holding my own in 5th place

...and this is where it all went wrong. A nudge on the rear was all it took to spin the car around. Facing the wrong way in the middle of the road with a field of MR2s bearing down on you was mildly terrifying.

The first hurdle before the first race was the pre-race pee which I never got because Steve Vince, the series coordinator, started asking me questions about the website I was making for him. This meant I was late to assembly and Ian had to drive the car to the end of the pit lane whilst getting in a bit of a panic wondering if I’d got stuck on the toilet or something. I hopped in and did the belts up in double quick time while Jon stuck camera lenses in my face. Lining up at the dizzy heights on the grid all I could think about was not making a mess of this with a Castle Combe grade start. In fact I did the complete opposite. I felt the extra bite from the new tyres and rocketed forwards, actually being blocked by Johnny White ahead. I ended the first lap where I started in 5th place and was holding my own for the first couple of laps, but I could feel the tyres starting to go off a bit which was hurting me in Clark Curve. I knew I would be under attack and probably drop a few places, but it was still a good position to be in. Unfortunately I came under attack not in the saying sense, but physically, as a tap from Simon Lockey exiting Druids put me into a spin. Facing a stream of oncoming MR2s all bearing down on me it’s safe to say I had a point of focus. Some good fortune came my way again and turned me round, but at the expense of tagging Ross Stoner which did a good job of ripping a hole in the front bumper. On a positive note my car had a lot less damage that Ross’! My next conundrum was getting the car started again. Why don’t cars start easily after you’ve spun? It’s like they’re protesting about something! Once we eventually got going again things were fairly uneventful which was probably for the best.

The damage up close

It was now time to inspect the damage. Oh joys. It was worse than I expected, but thankfully nothing had been ripped off. Everything was still there and just about hanging on which meant it could probably be repaired at a later date. For the time being it was repaired using…? You’ve guessed it – duct tape!

The best way to spice up the action for race 2 would be to order a rain shower 20 mins before the race, which is exactly what Steve Vince did. The track wasn’t wet, but in that horrible greasy stage instead. I made another good start and squeezed between Sebastian Fisher and Sarah Wherry, so I backed out of it and let her have the position, fearing for my body panels . Everyone was wondering how much grip there is as they enter turn 1 at full speed but in a remarkable moment of common sense everyone took it really cautiously, and then tried to up the ante as the track dried with various amounts of success. I remember clearly exiting Clark Curve in a synchronised drift with another car. One of those moments you’ll probably remember for a long time. The race on the whole was a fairly quiet affair. I lost a lot of time trying to get past the McLaren car who really knows how to defend, as I also found out at Cadwell. Once I was past I had a large gap to close but there just weren’t enough laps to challenge for another position. I had to feel sorry for Seb Fisher who lost control on the grass, damaging the car he’d just sold. The owner to be was quite understanding though and didn’t knock anything off his offer other than the repair cost.

So that’s that for another season. A season of riding the learning curve with trips towards the front and back of the grid, but I’ll go into the winter knowing the car can run towards the front which is quite a good feeling for next year.

Half radiator, half chewing gum and gasket paste

During the last outing at Mallory when the engine temperature went off the scale we discovered the problem was a large number of holes in the radiator, which were successfully patched using chewing gum, gasket paste and some more chewing gum. The cause of all the smaller overheating problems previously suddenly explained. Instead of using a scrapheap radiator again I was advised to get a shiny new radiator that wouldn’t suffer a similar fate. After all, this would be the cars third radiator since March.

20 years of gunk in the throttle body

While we had the coolant drained for the fiftieth time this year we took the opportunity to take the throttle body off and clean it to remove twenty years of gunk. It was a somewhat disgusting sight, but after a good clean with Gunk (what a great name for a degreaser) it looked as good as new! Other items on the list were replacing the fuel filter as again there was a good chance it could be full of who knows how many years of gunk. This was a lot more faff than it should have been and of course means your hands smell of V-Power for the next 3 days. Hopefully this will be the secret to an extra 10 bhp. Wishful thinking I suspect .

When this lost was done we reversed the car to load it back into the van and heard this really quite worrying scraping sound. It wasn’t rusty brake discs, and we were at a loss to what it was. In the end the reality we’d been working on the car for too long sank in – it was a washing up bowl stuck underneath the car dragging along. Good night.

Bent wing and a door that wont open

You know you have some damage when you can’t open the passenger door without it fouling the front wing. This was the result of contact through Gerrards at Mallory Park when someone on my outside squeezed me to the inside against the grass, and then tried to squeeze me more. The grass at that speed didn’t look particurarly inviting so I held my place. Cue an almighty bang and a wobble from the other car. It sounded expensive, but in actual fact it was just the sound of the wing mirror folding back and a slight dent on the wing, although there were some almighty impresive tyre marks on my door, wing and front left wheel. It was these tyre marks that had done more damage than I first though. The force had pushed against the wing or door causing it to move and stopped the passenger door from fully opening. It was going to require some high precision tools that’s for sure.

These high precision tools would be:

• A hammer

• Metal bending and pulling things

• A crowbar

Another hole gets added to the MR2 (except this one wasn't caused by rust)

After a good dose of faffing around to see what was needed, we quickly came to the conclusion that whatever had moved was bent on one or more brackets and would be a complete nightmare to sort out. The simplest solution was to bend stuff back so a large amount of force was applied to the wing to bring it outwards so the door cleared, and then a new mounting hole was drilled to keep it there. It was at this point we realised the problem probably lied at the base of the wing as pulling here straightened everything out quite well. We just couldn’t get enough leverage to bend it permanently though, and this was the point where our being arsed factor ran out. It’s a race car, and it’ll do. Plus I now have some smaller panel gaps!

You thought I was kidding about the crowbar - well I wasn't.

The final task was to remove the dent at the front of the wing. I still have no idea how that got there. I’d already had the wheel arch liner out on the other side after Cadwell so I knew exactly what I was letting myself in for – hell. An assortment of rusty bolts and screws all ready to strip their threads on the first turn. The dent was also quite far forward so access was strictly limited to something of similar dimensions to a crowbar. This was quite convenient as that was one of my precision enginneering tools – and you thought I was kidding didn’t you! The end result is a less bent, but slightly wavy wing but you have to get close to really see. Again, it’s good enough for a race car, and you’d struggle to do better without taking the bumper off, something which I really couldn’t be arsed doing!