North Weald Activity Day – 16th October 2008

On the 16th of October 2008, Sinclaire Motorsport and Car Limits (www.carlimits.com) held an activity day/publicity day at North Weald airfield for friends and customers of Sinclaire Motorsport. Both our Camel Honda and Katana Toyota demonstrator cars were available for people to drive and proved very popular with all who attended.

The day consisted of a number of high speed handling activities, the morning session being the high speed bend, and the afternoon being three different handling tracks. After a quiet and controlled start on the high speed bend, the spinning action started to hot up with many people wildly overcooking the bend in the name of amusement – particularly the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, which out of nine runs around the corner only managed three where the car exited the bend in the right direction – but hey, thats all part of the fun.

The afternoon saw some friendly competition on the handling tracks, with top times being exchanged back and forth quite a bit during the sessions. The day passed very well and all in attendance seemed to have a good time!

Thanks to Andrew and the Staff at North Weald, and thanks to all who attended!

Silverstone Grand Prix 2008

A bonus round on the Elise Trophy calender saw the teams arrive at the full Silverstone Grand Prix circuit to support the Britcar 24hr event – a great weekend for the Lotus On Track crew to gain some publicity in front of a good crowd and some important onlookers.

The weekend promised to be a busy one for the Sinclaire crew, with our own driver Andrew Walsh to look after, along with our supported driver Vitthal Chauhan and Sinclaire customer Stuart Kirkbride. We arrived late on Thursday evening (18th) for a one hour test session to shake the car down, only to discover upon adjusting the rear wing to suit the high-speed straights, that the mount had a hairline crack between its supports, meaning a fully-floating rear wing assembly – sudden and hasty rear wing repair needed! Some emergency repairs soon took care of the wing issue and Andrew headed out for an hour of testing. A few suspension tweaks and some tyre pressure adjustments were the sum total of the setup changes so with everyone happy we tidied up for the evening.

As we were about to pack up our final items for the evening, a new competitor to the series, Greg Noble, came over to ask for some help – fitting a transponder, and rewiring an incorrectly installed Cartek Isolator system. Being the Lotus enthusiasts we are, we gladly set about putting things right for him, despite light drawing in, and the overall desire to sit down and eat! A few hours later and the car was restored to fully working configuration, along with a race-legal and fully functioning isolator.

Friday morning dawned, and we were blessed with a beautifully clear and sunny morning. Qualify came around soon enough and our driver Andrew Walsh set a blistering pole time almost straight off of the bat with consistent 2:08’s, leading on lap six to a full-bore 2:07.261 – making him as fast as the slick-equipped Exige Britcar of Martin Roos – interesting stuff… Sinclaire class A driver Vitthal Chauhan had never driven Silverstone, so his times were understandably down, clocking himself onto the back of the grid with a 2:28.850, just behind Phil Hatswell with a 2:25.039 – Vitthal could only get faster as the day progressed – so it was a good baseline for him to work with. Padding out the front of the grid behind Andrew was Chris Headlam and Sean Bicknell, along with Gavin Kirby in his 211 in Forth place, another star performance from Ben Pitch put him in fifth slot in his B Class car. Sinclaire customer Stuart Kirkbride flew the flag admirably in 21st overall, making him forth in the class A field – great work by Stuart once again!

Being on a large international circuit meant that the racing was a mixed grid, with all classes heading out together, A/B/C/211 all in one 47 car grid – quite an impressive sight. The first race kicked off on the Friday afternoon, and from Andrew Walsh’s point of view was a fairly straightforward affair, taking a lights to flag victory from the front of the grid with little involvement of any other cars for the duration of the race. Further down the grid Vitthal found some pace and started to bring his lap times down into line with the rest of the back field runners, eventually getting a useable 2:24.006, bringing some four seconds off of his qualify time as his confidence grew – had he got this time in qualify he would have moved himself up some four places on the grid. Come race end, Vitthal found himself in 34th, ahead of Hans Baumhardt and Mark Wilson (who was suffering VVC problems). Stuart Kirkbrides race mostly involved tangles with the mid-field crew, eventually finishing in a respectable 17th overall and 7th in class, but never quite meeting his pace from qualifying. A high number of retirements from Race one spoke volumes for how hard the cars were working, with Chris Headlam, Chris Baker, Sean Bicknell (exploded gearbox) and Andrew Kell (broken front splitter) all retiring – leaving only our class C car in the running!

The following morning dawned as beautifully as the first, and race two was for Andrew Walsh, somewhat of a repeat of Race one. In order to mix things up a little the front ten places on the grid were reversed, meaning Andrew started from tenth place. He scorched from the line in his trademark style, and some two minutes later as he came past the pits on lap one, he was already up to first place and pulling out a four second lead over a hard charging Chris Headlam. This lead remained constant and unchallenged for Andrew, and as with the first race he won without so much as even a glance at anything other than back markers. Down the field however, action was to be found with Stuart Kirkbride battling his was up to 14th place, giving him a 4th place in class. Vitthal struggled to find his pace for race two, and although his fastest lap of the race was a slight improvement from the day before, his initially promising start was not set to continue and he dropped down to some twelve seconds behind the rest of the field by race end, following a “near-spin” moment. Learning all the time however, we are sure Vitthal is improving! Also rather like Race one there were retirements from the C class, with Chris Headlam spinning off and Chris Bakers Audi-powered S1 Elise retiring after only a few laps. Only Andrew Walsh and Andrew Kell (Sinclaire tuned) finished class C for race two, making the poor C class look somewhat sparse.

All around an excellent weekend, with a double first place for Andrew Walsh, and some great testing and setup experience for Vitthal. Next for the series is the long drive up north to the Croft circuit…

The team – after another great win at Silverstone GP

The official Sinclaire/Andrew Walsh class C racer…

The Sinclaire Motorsport camp, setup for business as usual. Stuart Kirkbrides car rests after another hard track session.

Andrew Walsh claiming his trophies!

Cadwell Park 2008

Cadwell Park, a beautiful and challenging circuit – with a beautiful and challenging paddock area, known locally as … a field. We arrived at Cadwell Park on the Saturday evening (16th) ready for an evening test session, the journey had been fairly clear and we were all looking forward to another great weekend of racing. Evening testing passed pretty quickly and without any major incidents to report.

The following morning met us with rain. Lots of rain, and big northern rain drops at that. With a good soaking issued all around, Qualifying for A class was deemed a little risky with the sheer volume of surface water on the circuit, so the A grid went out behind the safety car to perform a sighting session as opposed to a fully qualifying round. Actual race starting positions were instead determined by the previous rounds finishing places – by the end of the A qualifying the rain had pretty much stopped and the sky was starting to clear. By the time B/C and 211’s rolled out to qualify, the circuit was starting to clear of excess standing water. The session went well and ended with traction-control equipped Martin Donnelly on pole, a truly stonking Ben Pitch (Class B!) in second place just ahead of our driver Andrew Walsh sitting third, with Chris Headlam and Steve Willams in forth and fifth respectively.

The first race to deal with was the class A, our man Vitthal was starting from the back of the grid (only his second round of racing!) and appeared to have an enjoyable race darting around at the back of the field with the other A class regulars, showing some real promise Vitthal set a fastest lap a good few tenths quicker than many of those ahead of him – just that consistency to work on now! This was the debut round for his new datalogging systems and just as with our own class C car, much learning came from the data gathered.

With the first class A race out of the way it was onto B/C/211 class. The meat of the day for us. With a mostly dried track, our interests in this race turned to a two-way battle between our own driver Andrew Walsh and Martin Donnelly, near constantly battling and exchanging places between first and second. A superb overtaking move by Andrew saw us into first at about the mid-point of the race, but a few laps later Martin regained the lead after a little tangle with back markers left Andrew lagging for a few moments. Martin never gave up the lead again, and despite some serious charging from Andrew to catch up, Martin took the flag in well deserved style. Congratulations that man! Ben Pitch bought in a superb third place with fastest lap times only a tenth or so clear of the C class cars. Man of the match that time around for sure.

Two races down, and two to go. We moved on to the second A class race with Vitthal starting one row clear of the back with Gary Broad and Hans Baumhardt bringing up the rear of the field for various technical reasons. Green lights on and Vitthal immediately transfers himself to the back of the pack so he can use the race as his own test session – a wise move as he would be the first to admit he is on a learning exercise at every round! Sadly in this second race Vitthal was unable to repeat the pace of his first, but still managed to be on the pace with the other back field runners, just a matter of confidence and consistency to keep the improvements coming and get him moving up the field. Another Sinclaire customer, Stuart Kirkbride put in a truly sterling performance and finished 2nd overall with an inspired and consistent drive – excellent work Stuart – and some silverware to show for it!

Time soon came around for the second B/C/211 race. Andrew was fired up to try and claim a victory after his second place in the first race of the day. Starting from the front row, next to arch nemesis Martin Donnelly, the first few seconds of the race promised to be pretty nervous for the Sinclaire crew as we watched on wondering who’d make the first corner, in first place. Logically Martin’s launch control should see him pulling ahead, but this system had given him a few issues earlier in the day and so it was in the hands of the racing gods… Green light came and Andrew tore out a magnificent start, back rotating the planet on its axis as he left the line with only a minor chirp of the rear wheels, and stormed off into the first corner a good car length of Martins 211. Phew. It wasnt long before Martin pulled that gap back and was starting to give Andrew some work to do, the two cars swapped places a good few times during the race, and it would be fair to say that a little BTCC style body contact took place, resulting in a slightly bent rear diffuser for us, and a burnt nose for Martin’s car. The battle raged for almost the entire race with places going back and forth between the two – eventually the finish came with Andrew crossing the line just under a second ahead of Martin to take the first place! Ben Pitch yet again put in a class defying performance in his B class car to finish a brilliant third place, with Rob Beves and Andrew Waters padding out the top five places.

All in all a good weekend, great data gathering exercise as always, and an interesting (if quirky) circuit to be at!