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Aintree Set-Up Day Aintree 31st May 2008. Earlier in the year Bob Ross brought his Rally Clan down from Scotland with a list of jobs followed by a suspension set-up by Gerry Richards, who is gradually doing more and more work on people’s suspension setup, using the equipment and experience he has gathered through 15 years of motorsport. Bob originally had the car built for stage rallying but in Scotland the forest stages are too rough for the Clan so he decided to change the set-up for sprints and hill climbs. The car came back to have a new dog box fitted as the close ratio box jumped out of gear. My least favourite job in the world is putting an engine and box into a Clan – even with the new engine cradle it was hard work. He also wanted us to sort out new springs. We eventually decided that husky springs on the rear and 8” 140 lbs springs on the front with new AVO shocks would give the right combination of control of body roll, with enough suppleness for twisty Scottish hillclimbs.
Gerry had organised a track day at Aintree to set the car up, unfortunately Bob couldn’t be there for the test day, so it was down to Gerry and myself to take and test the car. It was a beautiful sunny day at the brilliant Aintree club circuit. Gerry did the driving and downloaded the collected information onto the laptop (very F1) while I assisted in the information gathering and checked the car over. This is one of the bonuses of my job, we got loads of information from the Clan and proved that the modifications had all gone in the right direction.
Without stressing the car or completing any unnecessary laps, we set the car up so we were both very happy with it. Most of the people of the track had just come to give their road cars a good thrashing and were very curious when we came back in and Gerry downloaded the information onto the laptop. As well as logging g forces (from which speed and power can be derived), we also checked to see what affect our changes to damper settings were having on cornering power, plus taking temperatures and pressures (to see how much the camber was affecting the temperature across the tyre tread). Then to finish off we set up the scales and re-checked the weight of the car and the corner weights.
The Clan is very low geared for Aintree with two very long straights and sweeping corners, so it lost out until the corners. It was interesting to watch the front wheel drive cars pitching and lurching round corners and lifting wheels with the Clan just going round corners, no body roll, no squealing tyres and any car that came into a corner behind the Clan was miles behind it when they exited the corner. We didn’t use the last session, we had all the information we needed and hopefully plenty of photos, we loaded the car up and set off home. On the way, Gerry pointed out that it was 9 years since we last did this at 3 Sisters with Dick Berger’s coupe. It is hard to believe how much has changed since then.
Clwydian Cars Stage Rally, 17th May 2008 Another new experience, we have missed rallies on the ranges at the Ranges Motor Sport Centre, Trawsfynydd and some of the other competitors we’ve met at various rallies said we should try it. So we entered the rally on the 17th May, organised by Clwyd Vale Motor club. Jimmy and Keith, our intrepid service crew, set up camp on a site on the Friday. We joined them Friday night. After a wet evening in a very nice spot followed by a BBQ and a couple of lubricating lagers, it was bed in Van Cramton’s new tent, which he brought when I announced that I would not sleep in anything where I could not get out of bed and stand straight up without crawling out on my hands and knees. Too old was the excuse. Saturday morning was dull and wet. We got up a bit late and had to set off without breakfast. The map or instructions to the rally was …………………….crap. We ended up on top of a mountain, after a two mile climb on welsh country roads. The Cruiser that towed an imp up a hill and came down knackered, but what a view (make a mental note – keep eyes closed during stage). We were a little pushed for time because we were late and the first stage started with us a little unprepared. We had been told at the briefing not to take any notice of the stage map, as it too was useless! Good start for a crew who had not been there before. Alans quest for the weekend was to have all four wheels off the floor and get photos of it, we got the wheels off the floor but havn’t seen any photos yet. A real co-driver would have had a trip master on board and have made pace notes to direct the driver properly, but as we finished 24th overall and first in class – are we bothered? No, but I will take it on board for the future. It was a really good, interesting rally and I’m sure we will do it again. I can’t do justice to it trying to describe it, without scaring myself, but the DVD is excellent. The organisation by Clwyd Vale Motor Club was first class and the car, as usual, didn’t miss a beat.
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