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Silverstone 3rd June

Group: Time Attack Series
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StevenDarley
North

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Jun 04

Silverstone 3rd June

Well, another round, another disaster and a great way to spend your 7th wedding anniversary!

Having rebuilt the engine after Donnington, and curing a few problems, i broke my gearbox at Scooby Shoot Out last sunday. So on friday i went down to Zen to get the car ready with their help, and also assist them to get their car ready.

The new gearbox was built up by friday night at 7pm, and a foolish mistake caused another 14 hours work. I left the spanner on the crank bolt when i started the engine!!!!! This stripped the thread on the crank for the pully bolt!

To the day itself! Superb, and just as i started to get to grips with the changes made to the car, 3rd lap of the 2nd session i did a low 1.08 with bob moore pushing me along in his skyline. The next lap i was going far quicker through copse, and into maggots. Bob told me i was leaving him behind, and then on the national straight, there was suddenly a ploom of smoke!

Freewheeled to pits and just as i entered pits, oil pressure went to zero! As i came to a standstill, the car was decended upon with fire extinguishers to ensure the fire was out. Once the moment had passed, and the extinguishent was out, everyone started washing the corrosive stuff off.

10 minutes later i decided to strip the car and see what the problem was. With everyone helping out, we quickly found a blown oil cooler hose to be the cause of the problem. We had 1 hour to get it sorted.

Off with the oil cooler, and try and run without one. 40 minutes later, we start the engine again, and it all sounds good, with good oil pressure, and good temps. We left it running for 10 minutes or so, to burn off the crap, whilst the underneath was cleaned. Then reversing out, we noticed a drip from the oil filter, so a quick stop to fix that, and try and go back out.

2 minutes left to close of TACC final, and just as i was reversing out, the engine dropped on to 2 cylinders :(

Gutted, totally gutted, all the effort, to be pipped at the post!

Thanks to David Wallis, Pat Herborn, Moray Mackenzie, Paul Blamire, Liz Blamire, Mark Aigin, John Felstead, and everyone else who helped out throughout the last week. Cheers guys, my bad luck will stop one day!

Steven