As the title may seem more like a good title of a book; you could not have written the events both leading up to the weekend, nor the actual day or the way home.

 

Rolling back to Silverstone and Snetterton, mainly Snetterton the car was pulled in scrutineering for its wide track emitting from the wheel arches.  This was definitely a priority on the list to do before Thruxton.

 

When the vehicle was designed the cage and steering was oriented at moving the position of the driver lower, inwards and a whole six inches further rearwards which meant redesigning  the gear lever tower and mounting point, all driver electronics and brackets.

 

Incorporating longer gear cables, which were not quite ready to be installed for Snetterton resulting in Lawerance and Terry using the old seating position, defeating the gains of moving driver position.

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From Snetterton we gained some valuable data from our logger.  We found that our current pedal box setup was working perfectly but the throttle was not achieving 100% throttle position.  Only reaching 67% which meant that out of 300 bhp we were only getting approximately 230bhp.  Resulting in this modification moving up the priority along with extending the wheel arches, then having a pair of custom gear selector cables made.

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To combat our difference in driver sizes, keeping in with safety regulations, we needed an adjustable sliding pedal box, meaning that hoses to the bulkhead fittings needed to be lengthened with the floor for installing the pedal box redesigning.

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With many a late night and long day the car was good to go with the wheels within the wheel arches looking wider than before.  The new driver position, new pedal box installed and the gear cables adjusted, we now need a bit more throw from the clutch master cylinder we were set and on our way with the words of ‘It's going to be a wet one’ ringing in our ears.

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Thruxton racing was to see all three drivers tackle two separate races with Terry and Matt racing in the Verum Builders OPEN class and Lawerance and Matt racing in the New Millennium series.  Matt was finally getting his hands on the Focus for the 1st time.  Nerves were certainly showing with the weather not playing ball, with option for 1B list tires for the weekend we really wanted to see what the drivers can do in the car and what the car could tell the drivers what further development was needed to be competitive.

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With the team briefed and in place in the pits, as our service area was up in the parking area, the car was released into the hands of the drivers

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With no signs of the rain easing our qualifying was the 1st and 3rd sessions, Terry drew the short straw (AGAIN) and paddled out of the pits as Lawrence was in the drivers briefing for the New Millenium series race.

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Times looked good and the sound of the car was a transformation with the new power.  Visibility was becoming an issue even with the heated screen and a branded anti fogging solution.  Terry came in for a quick window wipe and back out.  Finding some grip meant setting a respectable time before coming back in and handing the Focus to Matt, pedal box extended to its longest position; with Matt settled in he rowed on to the saturated circuit.

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As Jon debriefed Terry that the focus is definitely better with more to come we watched and heard the Focus limping into the pit not sounding particularly healthy: bonnet up and it was evident that this was the end of our qualifying with a CV inner thrown.  A quick car taxi back to the service area for the Focus and the team had the car up and on its side stripping the nearside ready for the new driveshaft that two team members had rushed off to get.

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Unfortunately we had to miss qualifying for both races and start from the back of the grid which didn’t phase Matt in the slightest, he was just getting to grips with the Focus (literally like a duck to water).

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Conditions meant a yellow flag for lap one, by lap two and beginning of lap three we had a brief racing period but by the end of lap three the yellows where out again so we brought Matt in on lap Five to give Terry some seat time.  Whittling the gap from third until lap six with a safety car brought in for good measure for the remainder of our race.  Three laps in and we had component failure meaning a premature end to the race on the last lap and to our day.

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The rain did not let up but this did not deter the team, they are a brilliant team that just overcomes everything that comes their way from either the drivers or the car. Very proud of the drivers performance and the Focus’s reports of how well it went with more to come from it. Overall the team came together over what was a very challenging lead to an even more challenging weekend.

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We are looking forward to putting back together our main gearbox for the next race and really sending it.

The drivers wanted to add a little request

Drivers requests for such a race as this once next time are as follows; a Sunseeker, a jetski and a 3 person chaser to tow behind the watercraft.

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Findings of the failure is a small plastic bearing cage on the standard gear kit we had to use for this even due to parts not being available.

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A fan is to be installed along with a front window and collecting spares such as a gearbox, driveshafts and brake pads ready for the 4 x 40 minutes races over the 24 hour period at Anglesey on Saturday the 1st and Sunday the 2nd of July.