7 replies to this topic

[z cars chris]

WOW
what a weekend at croft saturday was dry and bright with myself chris thomas jem snowden and paul woolfit all there to battle this time with both the north west saloons and the local darlington and district sports and saloons
we had two qualifiers and two races on the saturday with one race on the sunday
there was an exciting field of cars in both championships with all the big boys out in force
i qualified 6th for race one and had yet another cv joint failure near the end of the race when lying 4th
paul woolfit had a cracking race long battle with a V8 rover engined capri eventually beating him
Jem snowden was in the thick of it as well and chris thomas was battling all the way with a caterham
everyone had big grins on their faces at the end
second race was very fraught with rob spencer being battered out of the way by a big subaru
everyone had a good race however and we all went home for a well earned rest
sunday morning i spent sorting out these bloody cv joints and ive discovered that they vary quite a bit they are brand new but some of them are "TIGHT" and some more smooth to twist
i stripped one down washed all the grease out of it and bedded it in on the lathe at 2000 rpm with grinding paste in the ball race
after 1 minute on the lathe i pulled it out and cleaned it up now its as sweet as can be and looks like its cured the problem
basically you go out with a tight cv joint and it builds heat very quickly this causes the boot to either split or fall off within 4 lps then the grease escapes and the heat builds up till it welds itself with the friction
we went back to croft for the last race of the weekend
as we formed up on the grid the heavens opened and the marshalls decided to declare a wet race we all changed to wet tyres then lined up again
i was on the 7th row alongside a 450 bhp subaru impretza "game on" wet race / subaru can we dog him into the first bend ?
of course we can its a 180 bhp 1300 cc 2 wd Z Car !!!
came through the first corner 5th then worked my way up to 2nd by the 5th lap
suddenly the race is stopped as theres a car sideways stranded on the fastest part of the circuit
bugger i wanted to win this one
croft marshalls are the best in the world !!
they called a restart and we lined up again
beat the subaru again to the corner and was first through the chicane
chris maries then came past in his lotus seven and opened a gap of around 100 metres, by the third lap my tyres were working properly and i went after him, could take 40 metres out of him at the end of each straight on the brakes not much difference on power hmmm this was going to be interesting
caught him with 1 lap to go and had a stab round the outside at the end of the stasrt straight got past just but hit standing water so slid onto the gravel kept it going and exited right behind him again had another go at the end of the next straight got past but just too deep in the corner so he was back in front
coming out of the hairpin for the last time i was right on his bumper closer than the last lap so we are now on to make it stick..... bugger thats the chequered flag .458 of a second between us so i was second oh well it was a blinding race


then in post race scrutineering the scrutineers took exception to chris maries rear spoiler which he fits for wet races apparently they felt it was an infringement of the rules and excluded him so we now have the first Z Cars overall win
i would much rather the race had gone on another lap as im sure i would have made the pass stick at the end of the straight and my lap times were consistantly 8 to 9 tengths of a second faster than his over the last three laps

the other guys had eventful races as well
jem snowden came into the pits in the first race after his screen fogged up and he couldnt see he rejoined and on the restart was at the back of the grid
he passed a load of cars and was up to 6th then a spinner nearly took him off so he lost them all again however by the finish he was in 5th overall a good solid performance after all the drama
just behind jem was paul woolfitt in 6th place and chris thomas finished 8th
next meeting oulton park on the 27th september hope it rains !!
chris

[Jammy]

Sounds like another fantastic race! A testament to the Z Cars handling that they were able to perform so well in a wet race.

[tid_171]

i whent down on the saturday to see them...loadza good racing on all day long. spoke to the guy with the supercharged vtec...what a car!

[Renessy]

What happend with making the race videos????

They were awesome and we want more!!!!

René

[snooopy]

yeah any chance of race videos?

[z cars chris]

i will try get some from the last round somehow we never got going with them this year too much going on at the actual race day
chris

[koss]

The only meeting in my neck of the woods and I missed it

[crossed thread]

Just found this site with some race reports:thegrid.co.uk