The 2010 PCGB Club Championship

[paulf968]

Here are the dates for 2010 - get them in your diary. Each event is two x 25min races except for the last round which is a triple header.

10th April Brands Hatch (Indy), Kent
[29th / 30th May Zolder, Belgium] --- cancelled on 6th April
5th June Cadwell Park, Lincs - added/confirmed 29th April
26th / 27th June Silverstone (Nat), Northants.
24th / 25th July Snetterton, Norfolk
14th August Oulton Park, Cheshire
30th August Castle Combe, Wiltshire
1st / 2nd October Silverstone (GP), Northants. NB Triple header & the Britcar 24hr event as well

 

[paulf968]

Few pictures of the car after it's winter refresh:

head after new valve guides and re-cut seats

 

[paulf968]

new instrument console

 

[paulf968]

engine back together and coated camcover

 

[paulf968]

new grp wings with fake headlight decal!

 

[Andy97]

Daft as it may sound, the fake headlights do look better than the plain blanking plates.

 

[paulf968]

First races are up at Brands on Saturday 10th April.

There will be 2 Club races with 968/964/993's and then the first 2 races for the new GT3 Cup Challenge also organised by PCGB. So plenty to watch and enable you to feed your appetite for Porsche cars.

NB The event is run by the MG Car Club so plenty of MG's racing as well.

 

[Super_Marv]

ORIGINAL: paulf968

new grp wings with fake headlight decal!

I missed that the headlights are fake the first time round - fantastic, they look really realistic!! []

 

[eastendr]

Wonder where they came from ... []

 

[paulf968]

Answer: a really helpful guy called Rick at Highgate House.................. you might have heard of him!!

 

[frogisland]

Paul, any updates on car and driver? Car in tip top condition fighting to get out of the garage and onto the track, driver totally and singularly focused? It's getting light outside, sun is shining and the excitement of the season (in whatever form it appears) is gathering pace.

Dave and i may not be able to 'attend' (couldn't really describe ourselves as mechanics since i think we did more socialising than working) as many races this year (fancy doing some mechanicing for us []....we'll teach you a thing or two about BM's []). Last year was huge fun, met some great people and would encourage as many to support Paul through his season. Was good to see people who called over to say hello, its great to go to a race meeting with lots of like minded people, and especially when there is someone there you know racing.

I am sure myself and Dave will be there for Silverstone in June. You may not find us on track at the same time though Paul (trackdays) - the speed differential will be quite substantial....we don't want to embarass you in your '68....only joking! We're quite worried these BM's might be a little 'lacking' in the speed department.

Looking forward to a new season.

JP

 

[paulf968]

hi - jp a quick update:

But first, can't wait to see the E30's in action - you are keeping us on the edge of our seats!

My car going very well, I declare that there is little further I can do to it to make it go quicker or stop better in a straight line-- so I am fresh out of excuses, it all now rests with the space between the drivers' ears!

Today I have been at Brands at a proper test day -- wow! BTCC cars, Porsche Carrera Cup cars and loads of Ginetta G50's. This truly was the 'top table' of race car testing and I was fretting a bit how it all would go. (turning in at the wrong time onto a £200,000 touring car would not go down well!)

As it happened I did not need to worry too much, keep an eye on your mirrors, commit to your lines if clear ahead of a car and just drive as fast as you can.

Ben D came along with his datalogger. He helped set up the car and put down about 20 laps, fastest was a 54.8 which actually beat his own best 2009 time! So nothing wrong with the car. Good news is I shaved 1.3 seconds off my best laptime from 2009, I did a 55.8, which is still 1 second slower than Ben. NB last year at this circuit I was almost 2 seconds adrift, so some incremental improvement is being dragged out of me.

Next stop Snetterton on Mon 15th March for an MSV trackday.

 

[eastendr]

Well done Paul!
Andy reckoned you'd do well today.
Sorry I couldn't get there but too much to do before Friday RS day and next week's press days.

 

[Neil Haughey]

ORIGINAL: paulf968

Ben D came along with his datalogger.  He helped set up the car and put down about 20 laps, fastest was a 54.8 which actually beat his own best 2009 time!  So nothing wrong with the car.   Good news is I shaved 1.3 seconds off my best laptime from 2009, I did a 55.8, which is still 1 second slower than Ben.  NB last year at this circuit I was almost 2 seconds adrift, so some incremental improvement is being dragged out of me.

Great stuff Paul, that is actually a pretty big improvement if you think about it, more then halved the gap. Interesting about the data logging, this is something I intend to invest in and use for my own development purposes. Some I have talked to can't see the point but ultimately the data doesn't lie, every top level motorsport team does extensive data logging and performance modelling.

Can we expect to see some top 1/2 dozen finishes this year then Paul?

 

[paulf968]

Neil - thx

As ever your comments are highly relevant.

First thing to say is that we now believe Brands is up to 1 second a lap faster after the resurfacing work, so we need to proceed with caution about the progress! (reached this conclusion after chatting to others today who were circulating with us yesterday)

Some useful things came out of it all, even though we have not looked at the data in great detail thus far. Generally speaking I was actually faster than Ben at various points just before a corner, he was consistently faster after the apex and going away from the corner. So I was more likely to get a bit of understeer which I now know is more damaging to laptimes than I had realised. This had particular effect at Surtees where my later breaking and faster entry speed stopped me from powering through the corner - changed to an earlier dab of the brake and much more power through the curve and immediately felt the benefit.

Ben of course was 'new' to my car so the fact that I got within a second of his best time might be another false dawn -- so lots of hard work still required.

Finally, your suggestion of top 6 finishes is a good one and something I hope to achieve. In fact my specific target is a number of top 5 finishes, which would be an amazing achievement as I struggled to get top 10's in 2009. I think I identify with Jensen Button in his last year with Honda before that amazing Brawn year!

 

[Neil Haughey]

ORIGINAL: paulf968
Neil - thx

As ever your comments are highly relevant. 

Some useful things came out of it all, even though we have not looked at the data in great detail thus far.  Generally speaking I was actually faster than Ben at various points just before a corner, he was consistently faster after the apex and going away from the corner.  So I was more likely to get a bit of understeer which I now know is more damaging to laptimes than I had realised.  This had particular effect at Surtees where my later breaking and faster entry speed stopped me from powering through the corner - changed to an earlier dab of the brake and much more power through the curve and immediately felt the benefit.

Cheers Paul. Very interesting point about the power through corners. As you know I have been studying the circuit guides and everything else I can to prepare, it is really amazing how often this crops up, especially if one compares videos or comments from track dayers compared to experienced racers and racing advise. It takes me back to the 944 track day at Bedford some 3 years ago. I talked to Andrew S about lines and corner approach as I noted many where taking different lines or catching me into corners, as I was dropping the same ppl within another 2 corners I felt I was right but this was my first proper track day so I wanted confirmation. Talking to Andrew confirmed this. Looking back now at Bedford west in the circuit guides I was pretty well spot on in my assessment apart from 2 corners that day. What is it Clarkson says, Power Power Power []

Karts just the same. Our region goes into a charity endurance race each year that I got my brother down for a couple of years back, he always said he was flat through the last corner (clay pigeon) which many seemed to disbelieve, but he explained to me latter how to do it as its all to do with corner approach. Personally I always had to dab a little left foot on turn in (Power brake), but he said if I was a bit more aggresive with the turn in it would cancel the understeer mid corner. This needs big balls after watching one guy go straight on there (we thought he was dead, but managed to scramble into the pit lane).

 

[paulf968]

Quick update as the last few days approach to the first event at Brands on April 10th -- two 25 min races plus two more for the GT3 Challenge Series. Come along if you can.

Currently 12 people entered for Class 1 of the PCGB Championship -- and it is believed that Jez will be entering as well in a County Classics 968, so that makes at least 13.

CAR No & NAME
3 Peter Morris
10 Richard Ellis
14 Mark McAleer
33 Malcolm Jones
46 Miles Maserati
64 Kevin Harrisom
65 Mike Clapham
68 Richard Higgins
77 Mark Sumpter
87 Ed Hayes
90 Paul Follett
99 Marcus Carniel
TBC Jez Clark

Two or three missing from 2009 but an amazingly competitive bunch nevertheless -- I now know what size the mountain I have to climb is !!

.

 

[paulf968]

4 days to go until the first race -- been visualising Brands Indy so much feel I have already done a 24hr race! say hi if you come along.

Car is having a high level brake light fitted and a neat little OMEX shift light - this has 4 led's which I'll set at 6200,6300,6400 & 6500.

NB See in the first post that the Zolder event has now been cancelled -- hopefully a substitute can be arranged. (this could be very good news for me as I was not able to attend at Zolder and would have missed out on a bundle of points)

 

[Big Dave]

Paul.
I hope you have a good opening weekend . Good results + damage free..

PS whats with the "shift light", Does it make you go faster.??? [A mental thing],,Or is it just extra weight.???[][][][][].

Good news for you about the Zolder race. Wonder why it was cancelled.?? Hope the replacement is a good date for you.??

 

[paulf968]

Dave - hi

now that I have had the engine mapped this has defined when I should shift -- so am not leaving anything to driver guesswork!!

Zolder is apparently off because Britcar did not have enough entries to front the event - suspect our entries would have been poor in anycase. I blame Gordon Brown! As long as the substitute event is not on May 29th I will be ecstatic (ie the little matter of my daughters wedding on that day!)