It felt like a long time between the final at Teeside and the start of this years rounds, but evidently not long enough as neither Gary's nor Logan's cars were ready for various reasons (ambitious ideas for the APT Evo delayed by parts not arriving on time, and the late arrival of little Blacky number two put paid to Logan's plans). They weren't the only ones, Logan's main rival and fellow APT customer, Barry, rocked-up the day before the sprint with his refreshed VI barely ready for mapping with several minor issues, like a non-charging alternator and no rad fan!
The Stowe circuit, green box being the start, yellow box the finish. This year the MLR has invited the members of 22b.com to host their own series within the MLRSS rounds in order to boost numbers and provide a bit of friendly competition.
So, on the day we were supporting Barry, Ross in his Evo X, and Chris (ex-APT/Gary's bitch
) in his VII, along with a few other customers. I brought the GoPro along to stick in Chris' car, but relied on Ross to bring the roll-cage mount I had left in his silver VI....... which he forgot- but knowing this would probably be the case, I brought the suction pad mount along, although restricted in where it could be attached and having nothing to bolt the camera to it. But where there's cable-ties, there's a way!-
Morning practice over, Ross asked Gary to enable the launch control settings in the MoTeC and after some time on the laptop, they trundled off to check the parameters worked. When they came back, Ross dipped the clutch one last time... and it went to the floor with a pop, along with a cloud of smoke from under the bonnet. The consequences of the Mitsubishi corner-cutting and parts bin-raiding had reared it's head... the clutch master cylinder had sheared in half and emptied it's fluid over the hot exhaust manifold-
Seems the bonding used to stick the two halves together is no match for the pressure of a twin plate clutch! Cue Ross having to dash off to source a new one in time for the competitive runs. 40 minutes later he was back, and 5 minutes after that he was ready to go again.
Seven runs later for all 66 runners (43 MLR drivers), the MLR results were in-
http://www.lancerregister.com/downloads ... titive.pdf
Ross managed 11th overall, and 3rd in class,
Barry could only manage 13th due to a misfire later traced to clogged injectors,
Chris managed 25th overall in his first Sprint, running what is essentially a fast road/track car in the unlimited class.
.... why oh why did I sell my GTR !!!!!