Another different racecar
Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 8:32 am
Spent my Saturday playing with this:
It's usually driven (quite successfully) by one of the ex-soldiers I used to work with, but he asked me to come along to try and bring a bit of actual engineering to making it go quicker.
It's an interesting challenge - It's my first time in a racecar that only turns one way and has banking to deal with, so the concept of adding "wedge" to the cornerweights and radically asymmetric geometry is all a bit new. But at the heart, a racecar is a racecar and all the same principles apply.
The first slightly shocking thing that I didn't anticipate from the innocuous-sounding series name of "1300 saloons" is that it's FULL CONTACT, meaning it's perfectly acceptable to punt your opponents into the very solid barriers at 60+ mph. That solid steel exoskeleton is very very tough, but it also means all the forces are transferred straight to the driver. Last year, Mikey (the car's regular driver) broke both ankles, 2 ribs and his wrist!
Underneath it's a Corsa, with a 1.4 16v engine. The rules say all the suspensions and pick-up points have to be standard and non-adjustable, but that's interpreted to mean - scrapyard bit and any adjustments have to be cut and welded.
It's actually a lot MORE complicated to set up compared to my Formula Ford because there's a whole extra dimension - 4 different spring rates, cambers, toes instead of 2 matched pairs, and wildly different diagonal crossweights (wedge) - we were running nearly 80%/20% FL-RR/FR-RL!
I'll also add that, culturally, it was a bit of a shock to the system - drivers sitting in the holding area with a tin and a fag in the car! It was also noticeable that, around the paddock, the average number of teeth per person was considerably lower than what I'm used to
Unfortunately, on the day, we suffered a dead damper (that we didn’t discover until the end) that sent us off into a wild goose chase for the latter 2/3s of the day, so progress was less than hoped, and I didn’t get my chance in the hot seat (although I wasn't excessively upset at avoiding giving the others the opportunity to give the new guy a bashing).
On the positive side, I now understand the challenge a lot better and we’re hoping to hit the next test session with a decent starting point and a clear programme of stuff to try.
It's usually driven (quite successfully) by one of the ex-soldiers I used to work with, but he asked me to come along to try and bring a bit of actual engineering to making it go quicker.
It's an interesting challenge - It's my first time in a racecar that only turns one way and has banking to deal with, so the concept of adding "wedge" to the cornerweights and radically asymmetric geometry is all a bit new. But at the heart, a racecar is a racecar and all the same principles apply.
The first slightly shocking thing that I didn't anticipate from the innocuous-sounding series name of "1300 saloons" is that it's FULL CONTACT, meaning it's perfectly acceptable to punt your opponents into the very solid barriers at 60+ mph. That solid steel exoskeleton is very very tough, but it also means all the forces are transferred straight to the driver. Last year, Mikey (the car's regular driver) broke both ankles, 2 ribs and his wrist!
Underneath it's a Corsa, with a 1.4 16v engine. The rules say all the suspensions and pick-up points have to be standard and non-adjustable, but that's interpreted to mean - scrapyard bit and any adjustments have to be cut and welded.
It's actually a lot MORE complicated to set up compared to my Formula Ford because there's a whole extra dimension - 4 different spring rates, cambers, toes instead of 2 matched pairs, and wildly different diagonal crossweights (wedge) - we were running nearly 80%/20% FL-RR/FR-RL!
I'll also add that, culturally, it was a bit of a shock to the system - drivers sitting in the holding area with a tin and a fag in the car! It was also noticeable that, around the paddock, the average number of teeth per person was considerably lower than what I'm used to
Unfortunately, on the day, we suffered a dead damper (that we didn’t discover until the end) that sent us off into a wild goose chase for the latter 2/3s of the day, so progress was less than hoped, and I didn’t get my chance in the hot seat (although I wasn't excessively upset at avoiding giving the others the opportunity to give the new guy a bashing).
On the positive side, I now understand the challenge a lot better and we’re hoping to hit the next test session with a decent starting point and a clear programme of stuff to try.
