Blackcat racing news

After the Crash(s) at Cadwell Park we had 2 weeks until the biggest TVR Event for 60 years. The 60th Birthday celebrations at Rockingham.

The car was pulled apart, bits were sent off to be fixed or replaced, and the car was ready ( just) for the qualifying  session, although we missed practice.

Qualifying saw us 5th on the Grid 1st in class by almost 1 second, on a 30 car grid.

A great start has us running 3rd overall for the first two laps until the gearbox exploded and we coasted to a halt.

That was the end of our Rockingham weekend, and we also then missed the final two rounds of the season at Oulton Park  and Rockingham. Instead concentrating on  the 2008 season.

The engine was completely rebuilt by  castle race engines and i picked the car up from them on the friday, to take to cadwell for friday night testing ahead of the race on sunday.

Cadwell was a little damp, but I headed out and the car felt fantastic with lots of grip and a very tractable engine.

In the third session pushing on hard, the Throttle pedal jammed open at 135 mph into a 50 mph corner. Despite my best efforts ater killing the engine there was no way i could make the corner.

I hit the tyre wall and went straight through it, ripping the bonnet off and setting fire to the front of the car. The fire was quickly put out using the on board extinguisher, and the car dragged back to the paddock.

The car was a mess but the chassis looked ok and the wheels pointing roughly in the right direction.

We took the car to carzone in louth who lent us their workshop and with the help of Andrew Varrall and parts from many of the other competitiors after about 60 man hours we got the car in good enough shape to race it on Sunday.

We missed qualifying as we were still putting the car back together so started the race from the back of the grid.

As the race started I over took 4 cars off the line and then Andy Race up the inside on the 2nd corner. Another lap saw another car dispatched and we were now on the tail of the class leader!

We were all over the back of the car in front and much quicker. I came out of the hair pin and lined him up for a move out of Barn corner.

Then suddenly the front of the car disappeared in a cloud of oil smoke which quickly turned to flames. Before I had time to think the car spun on its own oil and headed into the barriers again, this time on fire before the impact.

Once again swift action by the marshals put the fire out, but covered the engine bay in dry powder. Dry Powder is good for putting fires out but is also very corrosive, as we would ind out later.

So once again this year another DNF, after what should have been another win.

It took a good few weeks to track the Pembrey problems down. It was an intermittent wiring problem on the crank sensor and a missing lock nut from part of the  throttle linkage between the throttle bodies, very small problems but very difficult to find.

With the car fixed and running like a dream on the Saturday, it was straight down to Snetterton that night.

In qualifying the car felt unablanced and was difficult to drive, putting me across the grass a couple of times, and a spin after the hairpin.

After one reasonably good lap the oil pressure light came on and I coasted to a halt. The handling problem had been oil on the tyres, the Valley gasket had failed dumping engine oil everywhere. We could have risked the engine after replacing the gasket but not wanting to damage the engine we pulled  the car and didnt race.

Very disappointing as I’d made pole position by over 1 seconds on the chasing class B pack.

Disaster After the car ran perfectly at Mallory park, we got to Pembery to discovery the race battery was flat. Then we discovered a leak on the fuel rail. That was quickly fixed with a new ‘O’ Ring. But the car still wouldn’t run on all 8 cylinders.

We put the car out for Qualifying, and did just the 3 laps required to qualify. With the car running on 3 cylinders, I actually managed to out qualify 2 other cars much to my surprise.

With much work before the races We managed to get the car to start up on 8 cylinders but drop down to 5 after about 20 seconds. as there was no way we could risk running the engine like that we had to pull out so 2* DNS was the result for Pembrey.

Any Chance of retaining the Overall Title is long gone now, but with other teams in Class B also having problems, there is a slim chance of retaining the class B title.

Qualified on Class Pole 3rd on the Grid

Race 1 :- 1st in class 5th overall

Race 2 :- 1st in class 5th Overall fastest lap in class

Job done…

Qualified on Class pole 3rd on the grid

Race 1 :- DNF after battery teminal broke.

Race 2:- Started 16th on grid finished 3rd in class 4th overall

For 2007 we are proud to announce the following sponsors

Castle Race Engines : www.castle-race-engines.com : Engine Partner

RK Rose + Krieger : www.rk-online.co.uk : Sponsor

Newlun Performance : www.newlunperformance.com : Body work

ACT Products : www.actproducts.co.uk : Induction systems and Carbon Products

March 31 Oulton Park
April 9 Mallory Park
May 20 Silverstone
June 17 Snetterton
July 15 Cadwell Park
August 5 Rockingham
September 8/9 Pembrey

Well after a long hard seasonwith plenty of ups and downs, we finally clinched the overall and class titles for 2006.

At the last round at oulton park we needed a 3rd in class to take the title. Any thing less and especially a DNF  would hand it to Marc if he won the race.

Dispite only needing third I tried 110%  for the win, taking the lead in the 3rd lap and pulling away for another 4 laps, before missing a braking point into cascades, unsighted for a moment by a car beached in the gravel. A big spin, allowed Marc back through. Again I could have backed off then, but no the racer in me still wanted to fight for the win on the road. i closed right up to the back of Marc after a few more laps, and possibly with another couple of laps i could have got through. In the end though I came second on the road by 0.2 seconds on the line, but that was plenty to take the title.

The whole team have worked fantasticly hard all season, after problems at the start of the year, and a broken wishbone giving us problems at Mallory and Brands. The Involvment of Castle Race Engines was pivotal to our sucess this year and we wouldnt have made it to the title without them

Graham

For snetterton we finally had to buy some new  slicks, a wallet numbing 850 quid, but the original donated set were no longer usable.. I took the opportunity to put larger wheels and tyres on the rear, going from 18*9inch rims to 18*10 allowing a 280 wide rear tyre.

We had also had the engine mapped on the rollin road to eliminate some of the flat spots.

Quallifying was mixed with a reasonable time but a few moments and a spin at russell chicane. but I still managed to put the car on class Pole.

The race saw a good start maintaining the class lead. The class battle quickly evaporated when Marc’s throttle cable snapped and I settled into trying to take the class A tuscan in front of me. With his extra straight line speed it proved futile, although I could maintain the gap by pusing hard through the rest of the circuit he would pull away again on the straight, so I backed off and settled for 3rd overall and 1st in class.

With Marc’s DNF, we are now leading the class and the series overall.

The next round is Rockingham on 9th July.

A deal has been done that will see new driver Mark Freeman race the Tasmin from Rockingham onwards. Dulford automotive and TVR Car Parts will be looking after the car, and we hope for some good results.

The two weeks before Pembrey were very hectic. Castle Race Engines Decided that developing the 4ltr  engine, whilst a viable idea, was going to take too long and hinder us this season. To remedy this it was decided to buid a 5ltr engine. This was completed at 9pm on the friday before the raceing on saturday and sunday, sono time for setup and fine tunng.

First Qualifying went reasonable well, although not as quick as hoped, putting us second on the grid. Investigation in the paddock showed a damaged plug lead had had us running on only 7 cylinders. so with that changed and the fuel mapping increased we set off for the race.

Lap 2 saw us take the lead at the hairpin and a couple of spirited laps before the tyres started to die saw a nice 6 second gap that we maintained to the flag.

The first win of 2006, and about time..

Sunday qualifying saw us on pole, The engine stuttered with our guessed mapping off the line and i dropped back a couple of places, before spining at the second corner into last place. Another spirited drive saw us carve through the pack back into second and closing in on marc before the red flags came out cutting short the race.

2006 so far ( 3 rounds in) has been a bit challenging, the first round at Oulton park saw a gearbox jammed in 4th and a limp round to3rd place.

Silverstone was worse still with an ecu problem leaving me to limp around to claim poins for a finish.

After much work by the guys at castle race engines, Castle combe saw the car back on song to a 2nd place finish, a slightly rusty driver keeping us of the lead pace.

Still Pembrey in a couple of weeks should see normal business resumed

2005 was the first year we ran old faithfull Topless Taz for George Carter an Iain Jones.

George Drove at Croft and quite enjoyed it in the wet. For the mallory round Iain was to race her. We did some upgrades namley changing to a quaiff Diferential, and in testing the car was flying. unfortunetly some of the flying was across the gravel trap and into the tyre wall.

The car was quite heavily damaged, and Iain didnt get to race.

With some fantastic work though the car was back and ready for George to run It at Snetterton. A repaired chassis, new nose, new suspension and radiator and fans etc were all put together in record time.

By the end of the race though the engine was showing signs of being past its best. This was known all season, and there was no budget to refresh, so it was run with that engine.

what lies ahead for Topless, well the teams main push for 2006 is the development of the Tuscan, so the Tasmin will probably be rested for this season, and when we have the time, we’ll put in a new engine ( possibly the 24v 2.9 cosworth) and prepare her to a high standard for shows and special race apperences.

Whilst not directly running a second car this season the team are involved with assisting the running and management of a few other cars in the series.

Well the 2005 Season was an interesting, lots of up and downs, a couple of small mechanical problems that lost a couple of wins ( fuel pressure regulator failure and a distributor problem). But a fantastic year. A good fight with Marc Hockin in the Griff 500 all season culminating in a last race fight for the class win.

Everything seemed to be going to plan for that last race, and having lead the class all season we were in a good position, however we still needed to finish ahead of Marc.

Qualifying went well getting class pole with only the Thorpedo in front of us, and marc behind.
As the light swent out i got a good start and boxed Marc in behind the Thorpedo. Going round Gerrards for the first time i gambled on the grip on the outside and powered around to outright lead. Comming into the hairpin for the first time was a bit hairy as the brake bias adjuster had moved somehow, putting all the brakes on the rear.. I held Steve off only to see the red flags onthe start finish straight.

Cliff Jobson had rolled comming out of Gerrards and they needed to sweep the bits up. Cliff was ok though.

At the Restart I got another great start, straight into the lead. I held Steve of for about 4 laps untill he came thundering past on the straight with the help of a couple of extra 100 bhp .

The hairpin was still difficult but I was nicley holding Marc behind me. Untill 3 laps from the end I started getting a huge miss-fire and had to let marc past and limp home in second. 2 tiny screws in the distributor had come loose letting the ingition timing advance at will.

So we lost the win and the class win and came home second in both.

We did make amends though at an extra round at snetterton, where we managed to beat Marc and get our own back, even after helping him rebuild his suspension after a start line crash in the aborted first race.

On to 2006

At the second race meeting of the year at Pembrey in South Wales, we managed our first Class win of the seson in the New Car.

The Tuscan was performing well all weekend and managed pole position in both races as well as Fastest laps.

In the second race a gearbox problem resulted in doing the majority of the race in 4th gear. Still manging to limp home in second place.

Well we made it to Brands hatch for the First Round, but it was touch and go. We got everything bolted together and the engine running the saturday before. The next job was setup on the rolling road. This didnt go well with running problems, so the week was spent trying to solve them. This ment no setup time and no testing.

We headed for Brands on the Friday night thinking we would at least get the car through scrutineering and maybe a few miles under the wheels in qualifying but probably pull the car from the races to save the engine.

The Rolling road sessions had shown the car running very week.

For the test session i bimbled around keeping out of the way, only pressing the large pedal a few times. Even at slow speed the car felt fantastic.

After qualifying the plugs looked ok, so we fitted a lamba guage for the race and entered race 1. For the first few laps i held back watching the guages. everything was looking fine so i pressed on. The engine was cutting at about 4.5k rpm so as long as i short shifted things were fine.

We made good progress and managed to overtake 7 cars, making 3rd TVR only missing out on 2nd by about 12 inches at the line. We also managed fastest TVR lap.

For the 2nd race we started further up the grid, and gave it large from the start. We managed to overtake another 8 cars getting into 2nd TVR spot closing fast on the lead TVR and a high top 10 finish ( not bad from a starting in 28th). Only for me to make a slight mistake into Paddock Hill bend going slightly wide on the entry, this coupled with some understeer put me on the marbles and i slid gracefully into the gravel trap and retirement. We did manage to post another fastest lap before this happened.

So at the end of the day a much better result than we expected when we headed off down te M40. A 2nd in class and 2 fastest laps. It could have easily bagged a TVR win in the second race but it wasnt to be.

With the engine fault traced, some setup and testing time things are looking encouraging for the season.

Well, things are moving on with the Tuscan. The engine and gear box are firmly in place with the prop, diff and driveshafts all bolted up.

The car had a short holiday in brackley and came back with some nice ( and expensive) and shiney bits of pipe work connecting the Zertec Headers to the Original AJP side exhaust.

Then It Headed off to Pace Products for a new oil pump after we decided our original one was too big to fit!!. Pace also made a custom drive wheel and bracket to get everything in the right place and bolted everything onto the car,

The Remaining Jobs are plumbing in the oil and water pipes with the help of www.motorsport-plumbing.co.uk, which should happen this week.

after that its just the engine bay wiring and its time for testing.

With the first race now Brands Hatch on April 16th we have a little bit more time to play with.

its taken much longer than we had planned to get the car ready but then we hadnt planned to move house in the middle of the Build

Well With some help from Dom at Midland classic restorations. the engine and gearbox mounts are now made and the car is booked in to have the exhaust made up next week.

The diff and drive shafts have all been re mounted and the remaining jobs are

refit rad housing and monut bonnet
Oil Pump Bracket and fit oil pipes
mount alternator
water plumbing
electrical connections and mount ecu.
mount the seat

TEST DRIVE

A little Pic of the Tuscan. Still with its AJP V8 Engine, before the conversion

and with the rover v8 having a trial fit