Bigpower

How did it go.....Good & Bad
How do we feel..Happy & Pissed off

The biggest high (for me).....My best mate was unhurt:nod:


We arrived at Anglesey early saturday morning in anticipation of the weekend ahead of us. The weather was sunny and hot the coastal view awesome. We unloaded the car and set up in the garage.
The warm up session came around quickly and before we knew it Alan was getting readt to go out. We had discussed how he was going to run and the plan was I would hold him in the garage until the last car had left the pit lane. We wanted to give Alan a clear track so he could just focus on getting use to the car and circuit and generally give the car a bit of a shake down.




The session went well with no mishaps or signs of things to come.

Practice session:
Plan was again to follow the format of the warm up session.
Alan was sitting the car ready to go but when he went to start it...nothing..it wouldn't fire up and no matter what we tried it wouldn't start even with a push. In desparation we tried to jump start it off the spare battery we had and still nothing. So we pushed it out into the paddock to jump start it with the Frontera but still nothing. As a last ditched effort we swapped the batteries and tried jump starting it with the Frontera and YES it started.
Alan flew out the garage down the pitlane and out on track, by this time he onbly had enough time to get in 2 or 3 laps. Alan was piissed as hell at this point and we (Me and Wayne) could see this from the pit wall. He managed to get in 2 timed laps and took 2 secs off his time.




Qualifying..

Again we had trouble getting the car started but this time we got it started for the start of the session. However this time Alan only managed to get in an out lap. As started his first flying lap all looked well then he didn't come back around again but finally came into the pit lane slowly.

He had had a Big off at the top of the back straight....At about 120mph approaching the 2nd gear left hand bend, as he got on the brakes the backend stepped out straight on to the grass, throwing him into a 720 degree spin and hurtling straight for the marshalls tower.......(on video)

The video footage is both scarey and unbelievable.




Once he was back in the garage we started to check over the...... The only damage is a broken wing mirror caused by flying rocks. The bumper is stone chipped to feck, the paint has been stripped off the underside of the petrol tank and as we were to find out at our cost on sunday minor damage had been caused to a pipe in the engine bay.



The result of the off meant that this is how Alan finished qualifiying on sunday.

A cloud of smoke and...


Sundays report to follow.

Sunday - R5

Once the busacon and egg sandwichs were consumed with several cups of tea we were ready for the day ahead of us. We got he car started and Alan headed out, this time they were running the shorter Coastal circuit. After 2 laps me and Wayne jumped into the Frontera to head off to Bangor to get some spark plugs from Halfords as the ones in the car were black.

It took a bit longer than we thought and inspite of Alan completing warm up and then taking out the old plugs by the time we got back and fitted the new plugs we had missed the practice session.

We decided to test the car prior to Qualifying so started it up and left it to idle for about 10 mins. Switched it off and tried to start it again but no luck it wouldn't start.
At this point the guys from Sitec jumped in to give us a hand to trace the fault on the car. This got the car started but after 10 mins it died again. At this point it looked like it was te coil pack that was at fault as we were getting a very weak spark on No.2&3.

We needed a coil pack or we were going home, so i set off for a walk around the paddock. After all it was a modified live show so someone had to be running a coil pack we could nick.......Yep sure enough not only did i manage to find a Fiesta running a 2.0 zetec but the owner (Conrad - TA staff) was by his car. He was only to happy to help us out and drove his car down to our garage were he took off his coil pack and then Wayne fitted to our car.
We started the up and it sounded a lot smoother but again after 10 minutes it cut out.
Simon from Sitec suggersted that we needed to look in the omex to see what was going on. So again I was off down the pit lane. I wanted to speak to MidlandPerformance (Walter Morris) as they are based not far from us. To my surprise Paul from Zen asked what ecu were we using and when i said omex he said 'show me'.
Paul came back to our garage had a quick look then went back to their garage, other end of the pitlane, to get his laptop.

Time was now getting close to the start of the session but finally not only did the car start but it didn't cut out after 10mins and when we switch it off it started right up again....

We were good to go....

Look forward to the next bit, any vid of the crash ?

Oh yes

One of the guys from Sitec Racing, he was up till midnight working on their car yet he was still willing to jump in and help us.....Top bloke:thumbs:

The Sitec Focus RS 500bhp


The start of the weekend



So, after all the work and help the car was finally running sweet an just in time for qualiyfing. This time Alan wanted to go straight out so as soon as he was ready off he went. The car was running and sounding sweet. He was building up pace lap to lap and there was no smoke at all from the exhaust, things were finally starting to go well.
Alan came onto the pit straight lights on as he going for a hot lap but never came back into sight. Wayne finally spotted him parked by the marshalls hut at turn 2, bonnet up and marshalls standing by it with fire extinguishers in hand.
As the recovery truck towed him past the pit wall Alan signalled to me thumbs down:mad:




When we finally got to Alan he said,

"I've blown the engine".
"As I turned into the first corner the car felt strange and the steering went. I looked in the mirror as saw a mass of smoke behind me so i headed straight for the marshalls and when i stopped the smoke was pouring out from under the bonnet".


The end of the weekend





Ater we pushed the car back to the pits and started checking things over we quickly realised that the engine was fine. One of the power steering pipes had split and the entire contents of the power steering system had sprayed all over the engine causing the smoking and nearly a fire.

As 2 of our competitors were also not going to be in the final I wanted to get all cleaned and fixed and for Alan to do 3 easy laps just to pick up the points. Wayne and the guy from Sitec got staright onto it cleaning all the brake fluid off. Whilst this was being done mw and Alan argued about running the car. I wanted the points and Alan was saying no it's too dangerous as the power steering fluid had gone all over the cam belt and would be risking the belt slipping and taking out the engine. In the end Alan was right so we didn't go out in the final.

Another difficult weekend for you guys. I suppose that you don't get the time or opportunity to do any kind of testing in between TA events? I know you've paid for entry to the series, but even dropping a round so that you can do some proper testing would surely pay dividends?

here you go guys this is my little spin:willy_nilly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mqvebIj ... e=youtu.be

Stuart wrote:Another difficult weekend for you guys. I suppose that you don't get the time or opportunity to do any kind of testing in between TA events? I know you've paid for entry to the series, but even dropping a round so that you can do some proper testing would surely pay dividends?

That's not our main issue.........but i'm not going to go into that now. Let's just say i'm now way past my tolerance point.

Bloody hell! How close was that Marshall's hut?! Very lucky not to have collected a fluorescent orange Welshman!

it was a very close call mate.
i dont know if what i did had any effect on the spin but i was
coming on and off the brakes and turning the wheel hoping
not to hit it the hut.