Its got that full race EG in at the moment, haven't been out in it since the washout that was the british champ sprint on easter Monday. Broken thumb has totally killed motorsport this summer, downer. Now rebuilding one of my full race 2L16V's with new 13:1 forged pistons, probably going into the mk1, hoping for 200+ no reason why not as everything else is top notch. Mk2 rally rebuild ongoing, 85% complete. Out xmas stages end dec at croft, as usual Book bought 9.79 amazon, can't wait, the guy is a legend Jon
Next up we entered a Bugatti Owners Club Saloon Car hillclimb at prescott. We had torrential rain early morning leading to a delayed start as the circuit was covered by a damp mist. First run was under yellow flags with a convoy run under a safety car. Which I opted out of and went for a bacon roll. Much better preparation for the day ahead I thought. Julian next door to me in car 32 the Peugeot 106 with a 1600 16v engine on itbs pushing 175nhp with 306 running gear and Fibreglass panels. Really nicely prepared lightweight car. And Steve’s was in his quick lightweight 205 2.0 16v tarmac car number 31 with 185bh, as he left the rapid MK1 escort at home this week. While I had had the most power it is by far the heaviest car out of the three, 100 kilos heavier than the 205 and more over the 106. It’s not often you can call a MK1 golf a heavy car lol down to good quality German metal compared to french tin! Buy 11am conditions had improved so runs were fully timed. The track was still damp but the rain had stopped. I decided to attack the hill as I love wet racing and it certainly was an eventful run, I was on the grass coming out of ettories corner, but kept it pinned and again out of the esses in the wood section. Then sideways though the semi circle, probably far too aggressive but thoroughly enjoyable run up the hill. Those who know Prescott hillclimb would appreciate the little run off there so any venture onto the grass risks a unfriendly meeting with the Armco. But surprisingly still ended up with a good time. Seems following Terry 47s Rally lines at Curborough was paying off. But maybe not the right way up the hill. The Prescott driving school was certainly not promoting these type of lines so after some consideration I decided I should stick to the tarmac. Sense prevailed! The next two runs up the hill in the afternoon were far less eventful. Much smoother lines and a more controlled approach to the hill. Both Improving on each other and a solid performance all round. Even with the bad weather I had a great day chatting and socialising with other competitors. What makes the hillclimb events so good is the amount of time you spend in the paddock chatting to like-minded enthusiasts and camaraderie between everyone. Which can sometimes be lacking from circuit racing. Well it’s much more competitive and direct head to head racing can lead to a more intense relationship between competitors should I say ! Well wasn’t until the next event where I attended as a spectator as the event was over subscribed I realised I had won the class after speaking to a chap who it was in the same event. It had completely passed me by. So I headed down to the paddock office when I collected the trophy which was such a surprise. And quite an honour to have an award from such a prestigious club. Happy days. Another good addition to the trophy cabinet. Only my third ever outright win in all the years. Which makes a change from generally always coming third! The glasses were a nice edition to the collection and much more ususable than a metal trophy and will get some use. I have a nice crystal cut whiskey decanter from coming third in a championship back in 2008 and that gets some use, but only at Christmas. As I’m not whisky drinker unfortunately.
A bit like me then Jon, I broke a toe in July which has put me out for the latter part of the season and have broken another since lol. Hasn’t been a good finish to the year with a terminally ill cat and my wife rushed into hospital this week. I look forward to your report on the Xmas Croft stages. Always a good read. The 2.0 will be a stormer by the sounds of it. The book is a good read. I’ve been on it for the last week and nearly finished it already. I particular liked the chapters on his Indy car exploits and the days at Layton House. The red bull stuff later in the book for me was a bit slow going reading wise. But all in all a good book I thought. This is my next read, then onto some more technical race engineering books for the depths of winter.
So with the mk3 making slow progress my attentions were drawn back to some mods with the mk1 mid season. Its far to heavy for a sprint car and needs to be lighter. The cage is a bit excessive and probably adds another 20-25kgs over what it needs but to start removing sections would spoil a great build. The car was intended for use on circuits hence so much reinforcement. I managed to remove 10kgs last year and there might be a bit more to go but it’s fairly minimal. The weight is around 800kgs but when you consider the 205s are 700kgs in road going class and 600kgs in Pro Modified I don’t stand a chance especially when they have 50% more power. So composite panels are the way. I have been considering going in this direction for some time but the mk1 is so mint it be a shame to put poor rippled Fibreglass panels all over it. Would just look crap. So carbonfibre is the only option but at great expense. So I contacted LWS design or the chap Lewis than ran it, by now the company had stopped and he was just doing a few panels in his spare time, which wasn’t a problem for me and was happy to wait. So an order was placed for a full set. Doors, wings, Bonnet, hatchet and spare wheel cover. I didn’t go for a roof due to it being outlawed for the hillclimb class in and would have put me in Sport Libre. A class RobT knows about and more for space framed one offs and real high end stuff. So pointless. I contacted the guy after a few weeks to check on progress and couldn’t get hold of him, no replies to texts or phone calls so after a month of 2 of chasing him I gave up. My luck with composite panels is just ridiculous. I later heard he sold all the moulds to someone so that was that. End off. It would have been polite just to say so. That’s the thing these days, people don’t care and good manners has been lost on society!
Golf MK2 Owners Club event. While Curborough looks like a simple track it takes some precise driving to pull out the last few tenths and put in really low times as many clubgtiers will know. I have only driven it twice in the last few years, one of which was a complete wash out, so some seat time was needed ready for the Clubgti August event. One we all need to put in the diary! So I decided to head to the mk2 owners club AGM day there. A bit of a carbon copy of the Club GTI days, but still lots of vw enthusiasts out having fun so worth a visit I thought. While the clubgti day is non competitive, we all know how crucial it is to put in some good times with a hope end up with a trophy and to get in the top 10 list of all time fastest VAG cars. Something which has been happening right from the first days of clubgti back in the late 80s and is still carried on today. Nearly 30 years of history. Everyone seems to be upping their game with far more advanced machinery turning up year on year, built to higher and higher standards, so It takes a lot to get a little 1781cc NA car up there at the sharp end. Especially with the majority of cars turbo charged these days with double the power that the 1781cc NA MK1 has. So to the MK2 members day. Again a drive up to the circuit was underway and again a late arrival. We had some light smoke coming into the cabin from the engine bay. So an emergency stop on a slip road of the M5 was called upon only to struggle to find what it was. So after some investigation nothing was obvious so we carried on to the next services cautiously. Where the only possible cause was the breather of the oil catch tank, breathing a bit heavy. So we had a coffee with a fire extinguisher in hand and watched it run for half and hour investigating and driving it about while chatting to a few friends about probable causes. After which we decided to carry on up to curby with caution. But this issue disappeared and didn’t present itself again during the day, very strange. A lot of head scratching and worrying ! So once at the event we were welcomed by the MK2 guys and managed to get in ok. We only booked at 11.30 the night before so all very last minute so no tickets or track passes. My brother decided to come along with the TTRS for some practice as well. Ambient Temps started out at a comfortable 18 degrees rising up to 22 degrees by mid day with dense cloudy sky. Track conditions were near perfect and grip levels were good. Turn in felt sharp and Apexs were being hit spot on. Braking down the straight felt really stable. The brake fluid change to Castrol SRF has made a huge difference to pedal feel. I stuck with Terry47s lines through the mole hill, curb hopping on full throttle. I'm still not sure this is the fastest but delivers a smile factor like no other. The MK1 was running well during the morning session. Laying down the 2nd and 3rd fastest lap times of the session and only 0.03 off the overall fastest time. Against 2 serious competitors. The Ex Carvell MK1 being driven hard and banging in the laps all day and my brother in his TTRS. A dramatically improved driver thanks to attending the clubgti Curborough days over the last 3-4 years allowing him to hone in his car control skills. And now slashing his times with every run. Despite only having 4 competitive runs in the morning, a fraction compared to others, my times were consistent and all within .5 sec. Gradually decreasing from a first run of 28.60 to a 28.07 my fastest time ever at curby. A 27 sec lap on road tyres was easily in the tank, a feat only achieved by 3 other NA cars, one of which was running on the day and setting the leading time to beat. But during the lunch break the skies cleared and sun descended causing ambient temps to rocket to over 30 degrees almost immediately and the track temp went through the roof. Putting a stop to any improvement on the morning sessions times. The tarmac wasn’t producing the grip I needed for a 27sec run and the tyre pressures were rocketing, needing constant tweaking to bring them down and avoid over heating. The front rubber was becoming too soft and moving around too much on the tyre carcass causing the car to under steering coming out of corners when trying to put the power down. Also due to increased pick up on the rears, they were sliding around going into the corners. All really unsettling the chassis balance and proving it tricky to lay down any tight laps. The plan for the afternoon was to start dialling in the new 3 way dampers but as the track started to bake, the tyres went off and times suffered drastically across the board. And wasn’t a good time to develop the set up. Would have just been adjusting it to cope with the conditions and what I needed was a good base point, rather than a compromise for the day. If I felt we could have gone faster then I might have but a 28.07 was already my fastest time ever at curby. I'm pretty sure if I had managed to get a few more laps in during the morning, we would have picked up first place in the Race car category! And a 27 on road tyres. So rather than chasing times which were not there I decided to watch some track action and relax for the afternoon. I tried a few more laps toward the end of the day and got close to my best time, but rather than hammering the mk1 more than needed, I settled for a ice cream. But the best part of the day was my brother picked up fastest road car beating another TTRS by 2 seconds. That had more power, KW competition dampers, R888R track tyres, with chassis mods and a driver with a lot of trackday experience. Which made the day for me. He was down in the low 28s and getting too close for comfort lol The drive home was really hard work, 30 degrees in a mk1 with no blowers, no windows and the cabin gets hot from the exhaust isn’t a great idea. I consumed plenty of fluids but when I got home I was suffering from a bit of heat exhaustion but was met with his sight. A stunning mk1 parked outside my front door. How odd lol. Then the owner arrived and had a good chat with him. He was visiting his brother who lived on the next street. Made for a great end to the day.
Just a small update. I moved the MK1 over to a storage unit for the winter a few weeks ago on a glorious winters day and I must say it was an inspirational drive. I cant explain quite how driving a MK1 on the road still makes me feel. So just as I got to the unit the smoke from behind the dash appeared again and I managed to find out what it was. Basically the exhaust manifold is so close to the steering rack boot it has started melting it and causing it to smoke. Both the boot and manifold have heat shield wrap on it but isn’t. So a super high temp shield is on order. A couple of jobs before she was tucked up for the winter was to change the seat. While the Recaro Racer is one of the best race seats you can buy it was just a bit too much for a mk1 golf, so after months and months of searching I picked up another Recaro seat this time a non winged SPA Kevlar backed seat. Which also is 4kgs lighter than the Racer so all helps. Next up was to fit a Transponder ready for MSA scutineering for the VW Classic Cup. All cars need a transponder so the time keepers can pick up the signal for the timing data. If you buy a new one form the manufactures you now have to buy annual subscriptions which are very expensive so I picked up an older pre owned one which doesn’t require this. I opted for a hard wired versions so you don’t have the worry of replacing batteries. One more thing to worry about and Really easy to install and wire up. Well that’s about it until next year. The only thing will be a new steering wheel as the one that on it is a 350mm various and has 90mm dish. Do to the new seat sitting much lower the wheel is just too high so will be swapping it for a flat wheel and 20mm smaller which will drop the visual height by around 50mm and will also help general driving position. Once it arrives I will post up a photo
mk1, for me its the handling. early mini's are superb, mk1 golfs are great, mk2's ae 'ok', anything later..........................................just understeers Jon
