A weekend of Drag Racing at grass roots level. And why I love the VWDRC..

[DaveDorson]

So, it was round 6 of the VWDRC Championship at Shakespeare County Raceway this weekend.

For those not aware, for the last three seasons, I've been on crew duty with Team Relentless

I arrived mid day Saturday after an eventful journey up.

While I was stopped off at Waitrose in Stratford, I received a message from Zaykk, our crew chief telling me that the clutch had gone in the Ibiza, Minion One.  I chucked by tent up, threw my stuff in, and myself and Nat, our driver ran off to GSF in Leamington to grab the clutch.

Got back, and Zaykk with the assistance of people we're competing against, had already got the gearbox off the car, using tools lent from another competitor, Adrian of L8 Goose Racing

Then the rain came... the rain came hard and because of where the car was, the engine and box were now in a small river.

Once the rain let off, Nat managed to bail out most of the pool, and we used some tarp and matts to make a dry working area.

I set about cleaning up the old clutch to see why it'd failed after two meetings, it had got really hot, but it still had loads of friction material, and it was clamping still! it wasn't a cheap clutch either, a Valeo item with an organic friction disc.  Then Rob "Judgie" Judge, from RNJ Motorsportnoticed some scoring on the fingers.

The clutch had been hitting the inside of the 02J gearbox and not properly disengaging.

We've had some issues since the clutch was fitted, but always managed to iron them out.. but this was wrong.. either the flywheel was too fat, or the clutch was too big, and although we were fitting a Sachs' item this time round, it may well have fouled the same way.

Dave Crowhurst from Black Wanger Racing noticed that we didn't have the the crud plate installed and suggested that although it's only a few mm, that's all it takes.. in the absence of a missing plate, we had to shim the box out.  Ross Chisholm Brown, of 4130 Motorclub came through with the goods we needed, some copper washers from his massive spares pile, and with the assistance of pretty much everyone at some stage in the club, we got the box back in, nothing fouling and a new clutch.

In the end we only missed q2 on the Saturday before the rain came, and then we were out for Q1-3 on Sunday.

Nat managed to qualify 10th for the weekend from a field of 15, but given she's had to re-learn the car for the better clutch adjustment, and that it's behaving better and "goes like fuck" now it hooks up, that's not bad.

Unfortunately for us, we got eliminated in a double breakout against the club chair, Luke Stevenson of Predict Racing in the Sechs Bug in E1 who went on to take runner up for the event.. it was a damn close race though.

We've also managed the best 60 foot and the best terminal in the car last weekend, but we're still hunting out that 13 second pass.

Not had for a car that's still running a stock ECU with a stock map, and is basically a standard 20vT with a K03S turbo, down pipe and Honda S2K air filter, and a rookie driver.


Huge thanks to everyone in the club who helped out, loaned tools, or gave advice and encouragement.

As a friend keeps reminding me, clubs like this, racers, and the staff at events, become an extended family, but you don't realise just how much until the chips are down and they all come good.

[Tickman]

That last picture is brilliant with everyone getting in on the action.

[DaveDorson]

We were all helping someone do a subframe swap at the last meeting.

 

Off the track, we are best of friends, but you want to beat someone at thier best.