Caterham Academy 2004, Round 1 – Aintree Sprint
Apr 24th, 2004 by Tim Skipper
Round 1 of the 2004 EVO Caterham Academy championships was held on Saturday 24th April in glorious sunshine at the historic Aintree motor racing circuit, near Liverpool. Hosted by the Liverpool Motor Club as part of their Aintree Sprint Series 2004, both groups of the Academy were present.
The length of the course was 1,847 metres and consisted of the motor racing circuit from the start to a point 325 metres after the exit from Bechers Bend. From a standing start, a short straight leads to County Corner, a 90-degree left, followed by another short straight and into a decreasing radius right-hander, Village Corner. A longer straight now and the very fast and opening Bechers Bend turns right onto Railway Straight and over the finish line.
The format of the day was for each competitor to run in numerical order within their class, with each class also running in programme order. We were Class 9 so would be running last, and with myself being in group 2 and with race number 152 I was the penultimate competitor to run in each session. There was a lot of sitting about waiting for the 1.8 km burst of action!
After arriving at 7am the first job was to unload and then get signed-on. Then we waited for the scrutineer to visit and issue a scrutineering ticket to be fixed to the car. I had to deal with a track control rod arm lock nut that had come loose, and be interrogated about the legality of my in-car video set-up (I had obtained prior permission from the Clerk of the Course so it was not a problem).
We were then given the opportunity to walk the course, with one of the organisers giving a commentary on suggested lines, braking points etc before returning to the pavillion for the drivers briefing where the format and running times etc were explained.
We each had two practice runs and then three timed runs, but they were not consecutive, you had to wait for everyone else to do their run before you got to do your next one. This was frustrating because with 134 competitors there was a good 40-45 minutes to wait between runs.
It was far too hot to sit around in Nomex underwear and race suit between runs – although I didn’t go quite as far as my good friend Peter who decided to lounge around in his pants! – So once group 2 within our class was called it was time to suit up and get strapped into the car, then form up in the assembly area in numerical order.
Prior to the start line there was an area designated for tyre warming, where you are invited to dump the clutch and spin the wheels to get some heat into the tyres. On our Avon CR322 control tyres this is pretty much a pointless exercise as it would take a direct nuclear strike to get any heat into them, but all the same most people seemed to do it just for fun if nothing else. At the start were four marshals who manually line you up between the two timing beams and then chock the rear of your rear wheels so you don’t roll backwards. Then you wait for the starting lights to turn green and in your own time away you go. Just under a minute later you’re coasting back to the paddock and it’s time to reflect and wait for the next go.
My first practice run was 56.85 seconds – I was encouraged by this as I knew I was far too slow around all three corners.
The second and final practice run was 56.02 seconds. Way too much wheelspin off the line and instead of grabbing fourth gear for the final corner I opted to let it rev out in third, bumped the rev limiter too soon, had to back off and lost a load of time.
First timed run was 55.09 seconds. I’m still having problems with the last corner, scrubbing off too much speed on the entry and bogging down for the long drag out and up to the finish line.
Second timed run was 55.11 seconds. This time I opted for a banzai effort into the last corner but it got a bit out of shape through the compression in the early part of the corner, and again time was lost sorting out the resulting mess. Damn this was frustrating!
The final run of the day was 55.35 seconds. A terrible start, fluffed the gear change into second and although a tidier effort through Bechers, still not good enough to improve on my first run.
So the final results for round 1 were:
1st Place Jeremy Ellis with an astoundingly good 53.84 seconds – well done Jeremy!
2nd Place Guy Harrington with 54.17 seconds
3rd Place Keith Chanter with 54.19 seconds
4th Place Kevin Dodd with 54.97 seconds
5th Place Tim Skipper with 55.09 seconds
6th place Peter Earnshaw with 55.28 seconds
I’m disappointed with 5th, but given that I didn’t manage a clean run it’s still a reasonable result. And I finished ahead of my friend Peter, which was some further consolation.
Another aspect of the day that disappointed me greatly was the issue of car legality. The regulations quite clearly state that our cars must weigh at least 525 kg at all times without driver, and 615 kg with driver. Once it was apparent that there were no scales at Aintree a number of Academy competitors were seen to be removing their ballast.
As far as I am concerned at all times means just that – and not just when there are scales around. This hadn’t gone un-noticed by the scrutineer as it happened, but with no scales present there was nothing that could be done about it for this round. I really hope those that decided to give themselves unfair advantages, however small it might have been, don’t repeat it at further rounds.
Anyway, for your viewing pleasure here is the in-car video from my fastest run at Aintree. It’s approx 7mb and in MPEG-4 format, so you will probably need the latest Quicktime to view it.
