Racing - something a little different

[drcarlos]

As some may remember I race lawnmowers and have for quite sometime (about 15 years now). I’ve raced at most events in the uk. Raced on the streets in Belgium (and won). However there’s one place where some of our guys have been going for a few years I’ve never raced (time, money and team organisation have conspired against us) and that’s in Finland. This race isn’t just anywhere though it’s on a huge frozen lake. So prep has started and the weekend after next we’ll be fitting the studs to the ice tyres and making the final adjustments. I feel this is slightly deranged but I hAve always excelled in the wet so feel that going sideways for 12 hours without the issues of mud screwing up the machine might be a good laugh. There again I could hate it and freeze my nuts off. We’ve managed to put the original team back together for a last hurrah on a machine we built for endurance but came out too porky for our racing (the 12 hr in the uk is a full on 12hr sprint now) before it’s retired and we move back to my faster machine for endurance racing.
Anyway this what we are in for



Only a few weeks to go now.

Carl

[Rich B]

Looks rubbish and no fun whatsoever....

Good luck Carlos, bring some silverware home!!! Some photos of your machine would be cool too?

[nuttinnew]

Fantastic

A tad jealous, I'd like to go back again. I hope it's clear and bright so you can enjoy the sights and have an easier roadtrip.

[Mito Man]

I just drove 2 miles on the atv and froze my bollocks off so 12 hours of that must be brutal. Good luck.

[Foz]

cool, how much prep is there in the likes of that and whats the cost of entry and the machine?

[JonMad]

Well that's just awesome. You'll be a drift god after that. And bloody knackered.

[dinny_g]

Nef will be able to use any info you have about not Freezing to death...

Looks like a blast - only ever been to Finland once and I fell in love with the place.

[drcarlos]

cool, how much prep is there in the likes of that and whats the cost of entry and the machine?

Well we already have an endurance machine, but we lent it to our boys last year as a way for them to get out and do some endurance racing as we knew it would finish (and so it did with 18th and 14th at 12 and 6 hour races) so it's some back a bit the worse for wear. I have replaced the bent steering arms that folded after a crash into an immovable object, replaced the damaged bonnet hinges caused by a recovery accident and I'm replacing a load of bearing that are full of mud and ceased.
After that we're into prep for the ice. Fortunately our 3rd team member raced there a couple of years ago on his other mower so know the ropes a bit.
The condition specific prep is to:
Fit extended rear hubs to widen rear track - This is because we run 13 inch tyres all around for this race, firstly because there is a stud number limit that's enforced and on the smaller diameter the studs are closer meaning more grip. Secondly the ice tyres are only available in 13 inch and the snow tyres available in 15 inch wear too rapidly on ice as they are soft compound for snow. So as we lose width as well we have to fit extended hubs to get back the lost width.
Protect the drive system - the belts slip when covered in ice and snow, so we'll fit a cover that covers it more than our lightweight plastic cover.
Set up gearing - because of the smaller rear tyres it royally screws up my calcs and ratios, so i'll need to recalculate it and fit a different intermediate sprocket to up the ratio a bit.
Throttle - Protect the mechanism on the carb, even though it's on top of the cylinder it still freezes up and a sticking throttle is not good.
Throttle 2 - fit a protected hand or foot throttle, again because of icing but also make sure it doesn't foul on lock if it hand and also light so can be operated with a finger.
Mudguards - fit some protection to stop snow build ups.
Footplates - replace ally play with steel mesh, firstly it saves weight, secondly snow falls straight through so buildup doesn't happen.
Engine - Refit our old Honda GX340 engine, torque from the bigger GX390 currently fitted will not help us, but the revvy nature of the GX340 with a free flow exhaust is better suited.
Drive - Well replace with belts and chains too.
Tidy it up - We'll try and make it look smarter for the race (well keep the inbetweeners colours the boys used) it's looking a bit of a mess after 2 endurance races in the hands of novices.

The great thing is with this machine is it loves to drift and is so controllable (a little bit longer wheelbase than mine so is a bit lazier in nature) so should be great fun and easy to drive on the low grip ice.

After we've prepped it I'll take a few pics and get them up.

Carl.

[V8Granite]

Sounds great fun.

A nice write-up of the day would be great to read. I didn’t realise the events were so varied, I always presumed it was a very local kind of race series.

Dave!

[GG.]

Looks ace but sounds like it would be pretty chilly!

[JLv3.0]

Some form of insulative clothing would appear to be in order then - looks ace.

[NotoriousREV]

We're an awesome species. Man invents the wheel -> stuff happens -> racing lawnmowers on ice for 12 hours.

[GG.]

Some form of insulative clothing would appear to be in order then - looks ace.

Carl in the near future

[Matty]

That looks awesome.

[Nefarious]

Some form of insulative clothing would appear to be in order then - looks ace.

I'll see your insulated clothing and raise you *heated* clothing...

When we were looking at running the hovercraft open-topped I investigated all sorts of heating solutions. There's off the shelf plug-in 12v clothing like this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Electric-Ves ... :rk:8:pf:0
I had decided on making bespoke stuff using 20W heater pads, like this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bed-Heating- ... rk:25:pf:0
Hands, neck and feet get cold very quickly, so they'd be my priority, and maybe something for the core as a luxury, depending on what the alternator can cope with.

[JLv3.0]

I think the various winter bikers would very much side with you on that Neil. How's the injuries?

[dinny_g]

You planning a Dry Suit over the lot Nef ??

[Nefarious]

James - feeling much better today. Just sore, like being very very tired and gritty. Yesterday was like a pair of wasp stings. A&E put some anesthetic in and dressed one side, so I could see pretty much nothing all day (made getting back from the hospital interesting - walking into lamp posts, trying to flag things that weren't taxis!)

Dinny - Looks like we're going fully enclosed now, so we'll heat the cabin rather than the people. Still full survival suits (which arrived to the unit a couple of days ago - still got to collect and trial fit!)

[ste]

Some form of insulative clothing would appear to be in order then - looks ace.

I'll see your insulated clothing and raise you *heated* clothing...

I always liked the idea of the heated clothes you could buy as an option when you bought a Lotus 340r. Plugged straight into the cigar lighter.

[Rich B]

Some form of insulative clothing would appear to be in order then - looks ace.

I'll see your insulated clothing and raise you *heated* clothing...

I always liked the idea of the heated clothes you could buy as an option when you bought a Lotus 340r. Plugged straight into the cigar lighter.

im picturing a lotus branded ”slanket” type thing right now.