Bigpower

Just after setting off at 05.30 this morning I got a phone call from Alan saying that he and Wayne were running a bit late and that they would meet me at the motorway services. So I took at a steady drive down and didn't have to long before the Tolley brothers arrived. Due to this little set back we decided to drive straight through to silverstone and arrived at the circuit just after 07.00.

We soon found the Fast Ford stand and after parking the car and chatting to the staff I set about cleaninbg the car again:toetap05:






The morning was spent relaxing and chatting with some of the other drivers. But before we knew it was time to sign on and for Alan to go for his briefing.

Then it was time for his first session out on track in the fastest ford session.


Time to put the kettle on:smilielol5:

We had agreed that I would go out as a passenger in this session, not to evaluate Alan but to evaluate the car and where we needed to go from here. Alan said he was going to beat the car up....and boy did he try....but Damian fought back;)

On the out lap Alan decided to get some heat into the front left as that was the tyre that was going to carry the most stress, only he never told me beforehand:boxing_smiley:. As soon as he got on the olod pit staright he violently flicked the car to the right and he kept doing this on the out lap. At one point he was doing this 90 mph.....How he could have so much confidence in the car sticking is beyond me but it did.

In the fastest ford sessions you go out in very small groups of no more than 10 with a maximum of 20 on track. In this session there only 5 in his group and 3 groups in total. In front of Alan was a MK2 Focus RS 449 bhp and behind Alan was the Sitec MK2 Focus RS 458 bhp.

The car went well, seriously well, hitting 140 mph on the hanger straight, the brakes once warmed up, were strong and consistant, then the fighting started. Alan would throw the car into a corner expecting the back end to come out, (i've widened the rear track to stop this). In stead he had understeer, coupled with diffent gear ratios and diff meant that Alan was changing up, down the gears mid corner, power on, power off. In the main the car stuck but as Alan experimented with which gear for which corner and how fast he could attack and how late he could brake meant that we explored a fair bit of the run off areas and grass verges...all this whilst keeping the Focus RS in touch. It was like wild Lions sorting out who is the alfa male:cuss:

I said nothing but just held on. Then it started to rain, slightly, and after a lap of drizzle on the windscreen and heading into becketts he flicked the wipers on................and the windscreen smeared.........in panick i looked over at his side of the windscreen......thank feck...it only smeared on my side. Bollocks i thought i bet is all that polish that i put on the window.

Alan was changing up into 5th going into becketts when i felt he should have been braking, riding kerbs that i would have hesitated to climb in my frontera and putting 1,2,3 and even all 4 wheels off the track...yet he doesn't seem to get fazed by it.

How who i sum the first session.................







Bart well and truely violated that car and held his own in the Fastest ford Session.

Session 2 and Alan went out alone..........i think he needed to have a private word with Damian.

The day did not go without incident. The smearing on the windsceen was caused when the power steering fluid boiled over and came out the bonnet vent, smearing the windscreen. Time to a cooler for the power steering. Also at the end of the second session on his way back to the stand the water in the expansion tank boiled over..........Our first concern was that the headgasket had blown....but after further investigation in now appears that the radiator is fooked and breaking up inside as there is a kind of copper silt in the tank.
Time for an engine flush and an alloy rad.

Looks like a fun day though Paul; was the Ford stand good from an awareness point of view? Do you reckon that it was worthwhile I mean.
Some of those Focus's look really nice.

It has been a lot of hard work but yes I do feel it was worth it. It's a very exclusive club you could say;). After the first session interest and conversation seemed to grow. It's a slow process but definately going in the right direction.

video footage guys wahoo

session 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I6miolHtTg

session 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0suFCL6opM

For you guys thats a fairly uneventful outing
Glad it went well, you guys have done so much work and so many hours, it's about time it started paying off for you!
Rob

Not sure whether the video made it look worse than it was behind the wheel, but the understeer looks like a bit of a restriction on cornering speed (entry and exit speed seems way down on your normal) Have you got any data/lap times yet? I appreciate that these laps were only a bit of a run out by the way.
Nice footage; love the XR2

The XR2 was the guy that came 3rd in the handling section at fight club.

Well spotted there Stu. in session 1 he suffered a lot of understeer, made worst by the power steering fluid boiling over and dripping down through the inner wing directly onto the tyre.

In session 2 he still suffered from understeer. We discussed this on the day and will be changing the front suspension and possibly moving to adjustable tca also at the front.

We have compared his laptimes and vmax (hanger straight) with 2 well known, respected and dyno proven cars, and Alans numbers are equal (on paper) to theirs but with less bhp.

Just imagine what you will do with better handling then? I know this was far from 'flat out' but you could see that Al was waiting and waiting and waiting for the corner to open out before nailing it. All valuable time that can be gained when it's all dailled in properly. Now that will put that cat amongst the pigeons