Modified Live @ Snetterton weekender! (Build up, photos and reportage)

Get to know you and your car's limits on the track.
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A2ON
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Post by A2ON »

I made a brief appearance today walked past the ford garage , someone looked at me but i did not have time to stop and say hi as was in a hurry on an erend lol Then never made it back due to rain :( would have been good to meet some more people but was a but busy today.good day though despite the weather

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blacky
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Post by blacky »

Myself and "Mini" Blacky headed over to a windy and rather chilly Snetterton this morning for a look around and to see Mr Hayward and Danny supporting Steve Peel in his rather nippy 3RS.

Was good wandering about chatting to people and Cameron loved looking at all the noisy racing cars!

Rather taken with the Civic Cup. Cars looked good and affordable. Unfortunetly missed the race as we had to head home as someone was getting tired! And before you say it....it wasn't me!

TA was good and bad, still not sure I get it...well with the cost of entry etc I mean. Some of the cars are rather impressive....but the cost and the politics defo put me off. The pluses are being part of a big day at decent circuits. But the Civic Cup makes TA look silly in IMHO. And costs a heck of a lot less!

Ttfn.

Blacky+ Jnr.

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pablo
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Post by pablo »

First off I would like to say a massive Thank You to Wayne who didn't decide to come to Snetterton until Thursday as he had only a week earlier got out of hospital after being admitted with pneumonia.

Saturday

We arrived at the circuit at 7am to find the paddock filled with vehicles without paddock passes, so not pleased. Once the car was off the trailer Alan went off to sign on whilst me and Wayne sorted out the garage. The morning was fairly relaxed as our first session wasn't until 09.55. Yet underneath we were quitely bricking it, with all the problems we've had this season our confidence was low and as this was our home event we knew that the eyes of the club would be on us.

Warm up

The only plan for this session was to send Alan out with the pack with the intention of feeling the car, checking things over and settling into the day. Oh my god, was i bricking it as from the off cars were coming in pouring out smoke or rattling like sick diesels, but Alan stayed out. Alan came in before the end of the session complaining of smoke coming from the n/s/r wheel under braking. Wayne checked the rear brakes yet could find nothing wrong but Stu (Staples) mentioned that it didn't look as if they were doing much. Whilst checking over the car Alan noticed that some oil had come out the catch can and had dripped onto the downpipe and at that we suspected that that was the cause of the smoke that Alan could see. Wayne fabricated a temporary fix to this by making up a bung.
Alan felt that the car was running well although he wanted to make slight changes to the tyre pressures of 3 of the wheels (fussy git).

We were feeling a lot more relaxed now that the car had gone out and was seeming to be running ok This was also helped by Gary (APT) who had come over to us to offer his assistance if we had ecu related problems again. Cheers Gary, that really put a smile on our faces. Stu. Who had decided to spend the weekend with us and only that but had offered to put us up for the night and feed us in the morning. We really are not used to this level of kindness and support and this just about set the tone for the weekend.
It didn't stop there, Pete, with the Sexy Camaro, had also come for the day. It didn't stop there either Eddy popped his head in to say hello and wish us good luck.

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT.

Practice Session

One the car was all checked over Alan said he was confident he could take 5 secs. off his warm time. We sent him out to play and I joined Stu and Pete on the pitwall. I should really apologise to them as i'm a nervous wreck on the pitwall until Alan comes into sight and i bet they felt like telling me to shut up or take a chill pill.
Alan looked like he was going well and after a couple of laps I ran back to the garage to check our timing screen......damn.......Alan had taken 19secs off his warm up time...ok, so maybe he's not a 'fussy git'
When he came in he had smile on his face but was still complaining about smoke coming off the n/s/r brake. Wheel off and a closer inspection and still nothing obvious so Alan decided that we would change the pads at the end of the day when we did an oil change. So onto the engine and oil was still coming out even past Wayne's fix, so Wayne whipped it off and Alan got his torch out......problem found........DOH. When we had fitted it we had put the oil overflow pipe and filter on the wrong pipes of the catch can.


Time to put the kettle on, back in a bit.
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2015 - MSA Classic & Retro UK Time Attack Champions

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Stuart
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Post by Stuart »

Nice to see you Logan and the wee fella this morning mate :thumbs: Agreed with pretty much everything you said :nod:
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Valeting, detailing and undersealing

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blacky
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Post by blacky »

Stuart wrote:Nice to see you Logan and the wee fella this morning mate :thumbs: Agreed with pretty much everything you said :nod:
And you mate! Been a long time! Was comedy Cameron eyeing up your "bribes"!

You know what I mean, times they were doing and cost basically is un selling TA for me an I'm sure anyone else who can see from the outside what's occurin! Why spend millions when you can go racing for a load less!


Food for thought me thinks!

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pablo
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Post by pablo »

Qualifying.

With the stresses that the 300 circuit was putting on the cars some of our competitors were having problems so we decided to up the anti. Alan was now going to go out in the middle of the pack and stay on it for all his laps. As the session ended and i could see Alan coming in I ran back to the garage to check his time....I had to check it several times before i could fully take it in. Alan had posted a quicker time than Gary Searl and thus putting him level on points with Gary. To say we were happy well,l I was was Alan was still a little upset with an earlier on track incident. Once he had realised what he had done he soon cheered up.
We weren't kidding ourselves we knew Gary's car was vastly more powerful than ours but he was carrying an injury so we had to push and keep the pressure on him..After all no evo wants to get beat by a sierra so he's going to push.
The oil issue was now gone
By this point Wayne was starting to look a little bored and we seriously didn't know what to do with ourselves as nothing need fixing on the car....So we just stood around drinking tea and chatting.


Final

Ok this was it as far as we were concerned, Alan was going to push had to keep the pressure on but as 2 of our competitors hadn't left the garage before Alan was in the pitlane i told him to push for a couple of laps then pit so i could update him and this he did. The issue that Gary had had he had managed to sort and he was flying. He was now 3 secs quicker than Alan. Alan then made a tough decision but what I felt was the right decision for the team. We would call it a day and save the car for Sunday.

Alan drove for the team and I have to thank him for that.


Whilst the boys set about changing the rear pads and doing an oil change on the car i got down to cooking a chicken curry in the pit garage.........man's got to eat


Sunday

After a very relaxing evening and excellent breakfast at Stu's we returned to the circuit ready for another days play. The nerves started to rise as Alan moved in to start the car, but she fired up first time....yes!!! We were ready to go,. Alan got into his romper suit and headed out onto track. Warm up laps done and he started to push but as he exited coram and came onto the start/finish straight and accelerating hard in 2nd the car sounded like it backfired and as he came past the pitwall you could hear the knocking noise coming from the car. Wayne commented that it sounded like the gearbox.

We had to wait till the end of the session, as Alan had parked the car and gone for a cup of tea with the track marshalls. Once they were finally able to drag his sorry ass back to the garage it was time it diagnose the problem.

Again, massive thanks have to go out to Simon Smail (Sytec Racing) and Gary (APT), For their help, advice and use of tools to finally pin point the fault to a broken gearbox

A fantastic weekend with support, banter and company of some seriously nice people. The car works and is finally running right and we as a Team ,can, do this.

There is a lot of work to be done now and some difficult decisions to be made, but, the car works so we don't give a feck, roll on next year......
Tntracing
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2015 - MSA Classic & Retro UK Time Attack Champions

IWANT1
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Post by IWANT1 »

Super reporting Stu saved me
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" Uh Betty you should of seen this car in Ely today!! it had stickers and stripes
all over it, and when it started up, the noise!!!, I could feel my teeth rattling!!!"

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maff
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Post by maff »

Nice reports guys, would have liked to be there but had to retrieve my mother from Heathrow.

Found some pics on bookface:
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https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 653&type=1
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Bart
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Post by Bart »

i would personally like to thank the following people,

stuart for the updates, putting the TnT Team up at his house, great banter and a wounderfull breakfast

Gary (APT) for the friendly banter and helping us out on sunday to diagnose the problem with our car.

both of you are absolute legends and my thanks go out to you

was good to speak to pete with his american muscle, sounded sweet going past the pit wall.
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pablo
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Post by pablo »

There's a lot of negative talk about time attack and yes alot of politics that spoil it for competitors. The class structures do need looking at again but that is down to this being motorsport. (Group B rally cars only came about because those with the money wanted to win).


So onto the Civic Cup, i've heard how much better / cheaper they are than Time Attack. So the facts, these are the costs.

Civic Cup Costs

Arrive and drive.

Car Hire
Tntracing
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2015 - MSA Classic & Retro UK Time Attack Champions

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