2011

Helen broke cover for the season in time for the Brands Hatch trackday, rumbling to life about 24 hours beforehand, having sat out much of the winter shivering in the truck, or heedlessly cast to sit out in the snow.

The one thing in her favour is she ended the year without a problem. Since she’s running in class D form, or rather the new class F, she had to gain back all the weight she lost for Donington. It’s not big work, take off the extra lights, refit the bonnet, boot, passenger seat, door trim, and some of the ballast. At all fits, because it all came off. It did, admittedly, take some time to find all the bits.

I left 80kg of ballast out, because we’re running hot laps for Terry, strap in the average Jaguar enthusiast and the car would otherwise be coming in at 1700kg, and there’s no way the tyres will stand it, so factor this in when reassembling her. Takes about a day to put her back to class D/F trim.

We’re taking 3 cars, and Helen’s the prettiest, plus I have taken the liberty of putting her number 1 on the doors, so she’s our best advert, she goes on the trailer for the adoring public to see.

Only as I peer at the car on the trailer and spot three loose wheelnuts do I remember that her front shocker is in the garage, it had been sent away for duplication, and never refitted. That could have been interesting. This is a hot lap sir, so long as we only turn right…

The trackday went well, until she broke. It’s bizarre, but having not looked at anything at all, just thrown her into service, she performed beautifully, sweeping round Brands at speed without a hint of malice, absolutely on rails, no understeer, no oversteer, just turn in, plant foot and sweep majestically round the corner with a big silly grin.

The rear hub nuts prove to be a little loose, not that I noticed. Dermott clouts me rather unceremoniously in the parsnips with his torque wrench for this. Rear bearings clearly on the way out. I do seem to be having issues with anything rear end-related, must do my homework.

Passenger rides are going well, something happened to Helen’s exhaust at Donington and she now sounds glorious. No more go, but it sounds lusty, and the punters strapped in are being treated to a superb soundtrack even as she astounds them with her abilities.

The majority of the chaps and chapesses I took out were Jag people, of course, a good few with roadgoing XJS, and they had a natural curiosity as to what one would do when pressed. Helen’s as close as you’re going to get to a road car at Kutuka, she’s built to pass an MOT, though I did forget to refit the handbrake after Donington. Still, it’s an XJS with a few tweaks, nothing major, and to be fair, little of it that wouldn’t suit a road car. If you didn’t mind a serious tyre bill.

Universally the response to that first time down Paddock was jaw-unhinging shock. It’s the sheer grip that gets them, that and the heavy braking. To a man the first reaction was a small squeak, then silence, followed either by happy screaming sounds, or in one case, applause.

Narrating a fast lap of Brands, talking your way through speeds, gearchanges, lines etc, whilst maintaining a pace that would win you the class on race day, with an attentive passenger, whilst not squealing the tyres and obeying trackday rules, I thought it would be tough, but it’s not. Class winning pace is 90%, if that, and at that speed the car is so planted that there’s time to point at the scenery, it gives your brain something to do to stop you going faster, and in fact it worked out very well indeed.

We're only meant to be doing 4 hot laps, but that idea went out of the window immediately, I was doing more like a dozen. It was worse if I could see someone, the Bear chasing me became a proper race, seeing Skeletor ahead meant I wasn’t coming in til we’d blown past him, and chasing Philip down was really just a desire to see what his newly-Kutukarised car was doing. Helen had him covered, but his car was moving much faster.

A trail of coolant from Merrett’s exploding supercharged XJS made life interesting at Clearways, but the customers aren’t to know that the understeer is there, I could feel it with some dismay as the front slid on his antifreeze for the first few laps, but I doubt the punters could tell.

Into the paddock again, and excited faces, all big pupils and smiles, which is what they paid for. Those with Jags demand to know more about the car. What shocks, what brakes, what engine? Those without just want to know what the hell? It was a curious thing, a quiet early morning coffee, and by lunch we’re being mobbed as if we’d formed a rather disturbing boyband.

A distressed-looking Crossley, signed up to drive Merrett’s car before it went kaboom, is only too pleased to take Helen for a go. Well, he’d paid his money, might was well get to play in something. The look on his face when I offered her though, talk about a kid at Christmas! That he came back in looking quite so stunned was a bit surprising, took him a few minutes to articulate that he’d just discovered a championship winning car to be a jet fighter to his biplane, and that there would have to be some changes made back at camp Crossley.

My mind did flash back to the 2008 trackday and the then-infamous Lock car being spun into the gravel by Dave Robbie. Helen treats her pilots more gently than that. Mind you, Richard is also a more analytical driver I know full well would have been assessing every nuance of the car, rather than hanging it on the doorhandles. Which is, in fact, the smart way to play, nothing is guaranteed to make you look like a fool faster than binning someone else’s car at a trackday, and you learn more at a comfortable pace anyway.

The Skelton demands a photoshoot at lunchtime, which was pure comedy. Parked on Paddock hill, no handbrake, fine, but then he demands the drivers get out. In gear, and she won’t hold, it’s really steep here, so we end up with Ray Ingman hiding in the car to hold it on the brakes whilst the drivers pose and preen. It does, however, rather rubbish rumours of a super-high compression engine in the old girl.

During the second bout of manoeuvring, engine off so no power assist, and there’s a bang from the steering column, and the wheel goes very funny, there’s a half turn delay before it does anything. A quick peek in the pits and it’s game over. Steering column UJ has broken down in the footwell, completely sheered. Immediately tear the car to bits and get the piece out, a small crowd gathers to watch as pieces of XJS clatter onto the tarmac, and a spare column produced. Wrong fracking year, it doesn’t fit! Later car has the oblong column, not the big round one. That’s that then, game over.

I really don’t do so well at Brands with mechanical breakages then do I? Fuel tank 2007 qualifying, engine 2008 race, crashed 2009 race, rear hub 2010 test day, steering column 2011 trackday, which makes this my worst track!

The chance to get out and play in the Comer Chameleon did, however, mean I wasn’t bored, but see the Comer Project for that tale…

Helen is back out again at the end of next month, and I have a list of repairs and upgrades. Which is why we call it a shakedown. She has been shaken. Repairs, and Cadwell next!