Here are the Donny results�
Seems like a good days racing, congrats to everyone evolved, particularly to Gav, 14th to 8th (3rd in Class, if I�m not mistaken) and in such a big grid that seems pretty special, also commiserations to Russ and the VVR guys, top job in Quali though .
David
well done Gav
what happened to VVR?
Russ’s car had a wheel bearing collapse.
Chris’s car was taken up the rear by an Aston.
Outstanding effort Gavin. Heaven help the rest of us in the LoT series next year with that sort of pace. Well done.
Where do i start ?? Fantastic day i cant believe how much of a buzz racing actually is
Massive thanks to Martin and Steve Edwards, Russ, Graham, Sean,B, Pesky and all the rest of the crowd for showing me the ropes and all the help prepping the car for today, i couldnt have done it without them.
I will definately be back for more
I qualified 10th which i was very happy with but unfortunately i was then taken out on the first corner with the mother of all sideswipes by an aston db5 which became airborne (video to follow hopefully)
Luckily damage to my car appears superficial although the aston was quite heavily damaged.
At the end of the day though all that matters is everyone walked away. Thanks again chaps
Sorry to hear that Chris - I hope the car is soon shipshape. What an intro to racing!
I wonder what would have happened if the accident had happened the other way around - ie lotus hit AM. The AMOC blokes seem annoyed enough that people in little plastic cars seem to be destroying them on the track.
Anyone know what engines / setup they were running in the sunbeam tigers - that really does seem very quick for an old car design.
The accident happened right in front of us at Redgate. Im suprised they did not stop the race. To leave the 2 drivers sitting in the gravel whilst the race went on yards behind then was IMO wrong. At least they moved the Lotus first. The chap attaching the tow line was like a cat on a hot tin roof, needless to say. Glad everyone escaped ok though.
Andrew it was my only fear an accident on the first corner and with 35 cars on the grid there was always a strong chance of it, Im not bothered about the car i can easily fix that but i really wanted to gain the experience and was hoping to finish in a good position.
Martin did you manage to get any good pics ?? there was a chap from nyloc (sorry not sure of his name) had a cracking video of the whole incident i will see if i can get someone to upload it
unfortunately i was taken out on the first corner with the mother of all sideswipes by an aston db5 which became airborne
Dont I just know it!! I thought the Aston was going to come back down on me for a split second. He basically went into the first corner far too hot, lost the back end and hit your rear quarter with his and launched himself tail first into the air and nearly flipped over his nose. Had someone given me a set of spanners I could have easily changed his drive shafts for him… Real bad luck for your first race Chris, but at least you have the right outlook in getting back on the horse and riding it again. Would you believe it, no sooner had I cleared that incident I was having to take more evasive action to avoid Rex and the big Camaro that had a coming together on the exit of Redgate… Carnage everywhere!! I was also expecting to see a red flag!!
I had a great race though mind, and got a fantastic start off the lights slipping myself between the two big astons sitting on the row infront with inches to spare each side :crazy. I then had a good few laps ding dong with Steve Hibbert for the first half of the race who also managed to avoid all the mess but unfortunately my pitstop really crippled me having to wait 30 seconds standing on the concrete (nothing short of a lifetime I’ll tell you) while Steve had a second driver and got back out much quicker. We pretty much had an identical race with Steve jumpng from 13th to finish 7th. And me from 14th to 8th. Well done guys. Mind, I did get the faster lap (had to get that one in, sorry )
I would like to say a big thanks everyone for the support they have shown over the last few months and the for all the kind words of encouragement that have been spoken.
I would also like to thank Graham, John and all the boys at Plans for the sterling job they have done on the car to get it working as good as it has been. It has been a total transformation from earlier in the year.
Roll on next years racing is all I can say!!
Gav.
p.s Martin, you should have come over and said hello, would have been great to see you again mate.
Unfortunatly no pics Gavin this is going to get confusing. There appears to be 2 Martin R,s Ive just noticed the other one on LOT who has entered the race series next year. He is obviously going to be the famous one You can tell the difference im the grey haired old Brummie, i presume he is not. I could have stepped over the fence and said hello to Chris yesterday mind but he appeared to be busy.
What a good day! Just like to thank the following. Jon R for driving like a true wingman anytime Jak R and Dave Sutton for providing the ridiculously quick pitstops and to Nick Howe the Pearce’s the Rotheram’ s and the Hibbert’s for the unending support and cake.
Qualifying was just so busy on track, I don’t think many people got a clear lap, but it was the same for everyone.
The race was difficult from the off, firstly because the Aston in front of me was so damn tall I couldn’t see the bloody start lights. Gavin well and truly mugged me off the line…again, so I was straight down to 14th by the first corner which accounted for three cars including Chris P and Rex (bad luck chaps). Then spent a couple of laps staring at the back of Gav’s car until the front end finally started to bite and I got my head together and chased down a few others and as I handed the car over to Jon in, I believe we were somewhere around 4th place!!!
Jak and Dave were awesome at the pitstop and I literally got out of the car and as I took my helmet off and turned around it was off again with Jon putting some serious distance between us and the next car until about 10 minutes from the end it came past sounding like what Dave described as a ‘bloody air cooled VW!’ and backed off to save the car.
Guttingly it was only in the last 2 or 3 laps that the next cars got up to the back of us(we were so far in front because of the pitstop) and Jon just had to give 3 places away to the M400 Noble, the Lanzante/Horgan Elise and that awesome turbo’d Golf. To finish 7th overall and 2nd in class with an ailing car in front of some of the machinery out there was incredible. To have finished at all considering that one of header pipes had a 2 inch (50mm ) hole blasted out of it was even more impressive and a real testament to the toughness of the engine,the car and Jon’s ability to back off as much as he had to and not lose a huge amount of speed.
Thanks to everyone who came and said hello just because it’s a Lotus and I hope to see you all again next season at the latest.
Steven H.
Did an Erland engined car show up ?
Bernard
Was indeed a cracking day out, & a big well done to all those of you who finished
Superb camaraderie, hospitality, & assistance where needed, from everybody involved. Was particulary great to see Azreal & Jon having a good race with Gav, & real credit must go to Evosal who was chomping Immodium all day (metaphorically speaking!), but did a fantastic job in the qualifying session.
Dave (Nyloc) is arranging to get the video of the first corner incident, hosted somewhere, & no doubt the link will be posted as soon as.
Finally, big thanks to all the “supporters” who turned up yesterday - all the boys really appreciate your efforts.
PS The “Apres Donny” social was rather good too!
Well done chaps, I think we all had a great day and thanks to everyone who wandered over to see us in the pits. We had a brilliant night (I think!) and again the Lotus enthusiasts showed what a great following the cars have.
If I may, I would just like to say the biggest thanks for this year to all the guys and gals who helped VVR - The Edwardz, Pesky, SeanB, Tony, Mark Hill and Azreals Catering for filling me up at every race.
What a brilliant season!!!
Unfortunatly no pics Gavin this is going to get confusing. There appears to be 2 Martin R,s Ive just noticed the other one on LOT who has entered the race series next year. He is obviously going to be the famous one You can tell the difference im the grey haired old Brummie, i presume he is not. I could have stepped over the fence and said hello to Chris yesterday mind but he appeared to be busy.
He is also grey haired, not a brummie iirc and drives a 135R. A very decent driver he is too, so you are in good company.
The race was difficult from the off, firstly because the Aston in front of me was so damn tall I couldn’t see the bloody start lights…
Tell me about it… When we lined up on the grid for the green flag lap I couldn’t see bugger all of the lights, time remaining boards or anything execpt for two dirty great exhausts from that behemoth Aston in front of me. As we came back around for the start I just managed to position myself so that I could see straight through the Astons rear window , but only if I just about had my chin on the steering wheel… Not really that good tbh, they should sort that out so that everyone gets the same advantage of the line!!
Viewing from the pit wall the way the cars were lined up on the grid looked ridiculous - a bit like the queue at a McDonalds drive thru on a Friday night!
Blimey must be a posh Maccy D you use
Well done Gav, great result and congratulations one and all on a great season. I walked past the pits a couple of times but I think once again my timing was crap…having arrived just at the end of practice and having to leave just before the endurance race!
well done again.
Did an Erland engined car show up ?
Bernard
In short no.
In long, after Oulton Park where my crank broke on my stock VHPD and the car went up in flames, I had a big job to do and only three weeks to do it.
The car sat in my garage till about half way through week 1. Simon Erland called me and said he would like to throw a bit of an engine together for me for the race at Donnington. He said he was sick of getting loads of stick for his engines taking forever when it wasn’t directly his fault. He said he would build the engine and loan it to me free of charge until my 2 litre engine was ready.
So I hauled out my standard lump and took it down to Simon, as he would be using my throttle bodies and exhaust and a few other bits and bobs. He then ported me a brand new head, with some big valves and ended up putting together quite a tasty engine in 10 days. It would of actually been 5 days, but Simon wanted to use a steel oil pump and we waited and waited for it to show from the machine shop and in the end it didn’t so we had to go with a standard one. The 5 days included getting all of the bottom end balanced and when I picked it up it really did look supurb.
We were booked in for mapping on Friday (only day available at such short notice). Big thanks to Wayne and Tony who helped me get the new engine in and replace all of the burned wiring.
So I was up bright and early on Friday to take my car to be mapped. I had left the rear clam off to make access easier. Then the first calamity of the day, about 100 miles into my journey, I look in the rear view mirror and thought, my car looks different, then it dawned on me that my bloody roof had blown off!!! lol. I couldn’t believe it!!!
A quick call to Russ, saw a spare roof on its way to Donno for me, cheers mate.
Got the car to the rolling road and strapped it down. To run the engine in they let it run at around 3,000rpm for about half an hour and then started to map from the bottom up, in order to run the engine as much as possible before the revs got crazy (Simon had advised a rev limit of 9,500rpm) At 4,000 rpm in 6th gear the car was actually wheel spinning on the rollers, which I thought was pretty cool. A quick spray of some sticky stuff put that right.
Then at 5,000 rpm while going up through the gears there was a clank and a bang and the gear box bust!! It happened going from 4th to 5th. To say I was gutted was an understatement. I have tried to keep my chin up all year with my little niggles, but this really p1ssed me off.
I love Donno, and this engine looked to be doing really well and I really wanted to finish the year on a high. But hey ho, it wasn’t to be.
A HUGE thanks to Simon Erland, who did the business and turned up with the goods on time. I believe this proves that when events are in his control he can deliver on time. (by the way that is not a cue for all of the haters to start)
A big thanks to all of the guys and girls who have made my first rather sh1tty years racing a real laugh. Roll on next year and some good luck!!!
Sean…
