Blackcat racing news

2010 would see us team up with midland classic restorations for a visit to the famous Spa Francorchamps circuit. We entered a one hour 2 driver race in MCR’s 1959 Austin Healey Sprite. This is a very succssful class B MG midget Challenge car with 2 championship wins to its name.

On a circuit covered heavy rain and very poor visability the little frogeye was in a class of its own, overtaking almost 10 cars on one lap from one-off Aston Martins to E-types. In his first ever time in the car Graham was flying, and once regular driver Dominic Mooney got on Board a top 10 finish from the 75 starters was on the cars.  Sadly a failure in the brand new gearbox would see the car sidelined before the end of the race. Although the final result was a disapointment, a marker has certainly been put down and the combined Black Cat Racing / Midland Classic Restorations team will be back next year with more cars.

We missed out on rounds 5&6 at Brands Hatch, It clashed with Le Mans and we had already agreed to go there with some friends.

SO our next outing would be Mallory Park.

mallory park is our local circuit, although I was surprised to see that I hadnt raced there since 2007.

In qualifying I got straight down to business blasting past everyone on the out lap to get some clear track, at the end of the first lap it started raining, but i kept pressing on hard, and a lap later was into teh back of the pack. Another lap and the car once again coasted to a halt in the pits.

I sat in the pits watching the qualifying, hoping the rain would stay. unfortunetly the rain stopped and the circuit dried up, We managed to keep pole position right up until the last lap of the session when a couple of cars went faaster than our 2nd lap in the rain!

Out final grid position would see us in 4th place on the second row. Pole was taken by a Chevy LS1 powered Marcos Mantis GT car entered in the invitation class.

The problem with the car was a failed crank sensor, a brand new solid state ford part, that simply stopped working. Thankfully i had an old spare and that was quickly pressed back into service

A good start would see me in second behind the marcos with the pair of us pulling away from the rest of the pack, with the exception of Dean Cook in his class A tuscan.

With the extra power of its chevy engine, The marcos was slowing me into the corners, but could pull away out of them. This allowed Dean to catchup behind the pair of us. I decided to let Dean through, in the hope that he would then slow up the marcos, as in a straight fight with Dean’s class A car we would almost certainly lose and I would risk falling too far behind the marcos to take it.

Dean quickly dispatched the marcos, but Doug in the marcos then concentrated on me allowing Dean to get away. I had just about worked out a way to get passed Doug for 2nd on the road, again well ahead of any class B competition, when a major engine problem would see me having to turn it off and once again coast to a halt, with just a few laps remaining.

Back inthe paddock the diagnosis wasnt good. A core plug had come out of the engine allowing all of the coolant to escape, under tha car with no sign in the cockpit. I did get a high temp warning but this quickly went back down. Unfortunetly it went back down as there was no coolant around the sensor. This left the car on oil cooling only. when the oil got so hot it stopped working I got a zero oil pressure warning which was when i shut the engine down.

This is a big problem to our season, as a major engine rebuild is expensive. possibly up to around £6000 depending on what is damaged internally. The engine is now back with out engine builder and we wait the diagnosis.

Its a real pity as up to that point we had had a fantastic race, but thats racing if it was easy there would be no challenge.

We missed Rounds 1&2 at Cadwell Park as we were busy with other things, but we were ready to go for rounds 3&4 which were to be Held at Snetterton in Norfolk.

With no testing since the last round at Oulton Park in 2009 things were going to be interesting, but with rebuilt dampers and a new set of slicks bolted on we felt we could mix it with the others.

This proved True in qualifying when we put the car on overall TVR Pole ahead of the Class A cars as well. This was unexpected but we didnt expect to keep them behind for long in the race.

This would prove correct with Dean and Hugh in the Class A cars making it past on the long back straight, carrying 10+ MPH more than us, but we were still well ahead of the other class A cars and all the Class B runners.

Towards the end of the race we were gaining on Hugh for 2nd Place, and then Dean went off with a Jammed throttle from the lead, promoting us to that second poistion. An overall win looked on the cards, but a slight smell of oil made me back off for a comfortable 2nd place and class win.

The second race was much of the same, despite a spin avoiding a Class A car and a spin on my own Catching too much Kerb at the esses. 3rd on the Road and a class win was looking on the cards untill the car cut out and rolled to a halt with 2 laps to go. A failed electrical connector providing power to the ecu proved to be the probem and after 10 mins work the car was back up and running again.

So on balance a good weekend despite the DBF in race 2