Helen: resurrection
Part XV - testing.
Bundled away to Castle Combe for testing, time to find out if this thing works. Combe is a peculiar little place in some ways, it works better than some tracks as a result, but it does have the odd quirk in many other areas that leaves you wondering how they manage to exist at all.
Helen is booked onto a trackday, not a test day, and that means no timing. Not that we’re too bothered about that anyway, the purpose of this is to work out if the car works. She has been completely apart, hasn’t turned a wheel in anger for over a year, and never in this configuration before. We need to check the car works as a basic car before we work out if she works as a racing car, and we need to check she works as a racing car before we really go for it, and then we need to check I can remember how to drive, because I’ve only raced once in the last 18 months.
Noise test was amusing, she pulled 95dB at half a metre at 4500rpm. That’s awfully quiet. Sitting there long enough in the queue proved that the water temperature gauge works.
We sit out the first session of the day, reasoning that this is when the nutters will be at their most accidental.
First lap out of the pits then is session 2 of the morning, and first things first. Do the brakes work? Yes. Right, we can stop, good start. Does the engine pull cleanly in all gears? Oh yes. I had forgotten how fast they accelerate in 2nd gear, but she shifts slickly in all gears, the repaired gear linkage makes the short-throw lever make more sense now, didn’t miss a gear all day long. The engine sounds clean, no coughs, farts, or hiccups. Oil pressure is as it used to be, not good but no worse, she hasn’t died over the winter.
Steering appears to operate, but with the power steering removed she is kicking back over the bumps, and boy is this place bumpy. Tyres, well, they are silent and uncomplaining. I haven’t leaned on them yet.
The brake lights appear to be stuck on, and it’s hot in here. With the windows not wired in, and the air intake sealed shut with foam to prevent engine fumes in the cockpit, there is no ventilation, and on this blisteringly hot day it takes about ten seconds to melt the driver. But that’s OK, these are minor details.
As I’m cruising about, playing with the car, remembering what a Jag feels like, educating myself in the corners, a Drage appears astern. Hustling to get out of the way, because I’m not ready to go quickly, that little demonic horned Helen appears to sit on my epaulettes. Last seen on a wet Cadwell trackday on bald rubber, she stabs me with a tiny pitchfork as a reminder that really there is no reason not to go fast now. It is true, I am putting off the fateful moment, after all that work I’m probably subconsciously afraid of putting the car to the test.
Once stabbed with tiny trident, and forced to confront my own fears, that ridiculous and pathetic part of the brain is bludgeoned to death, and it is quite clear that we should now chase Drage to remember what it’s like to chase people around a race track. Not a bad person to pursue, at the end of 2010 I used to have a couple of seconds per lap on this guy, but I’ve been out of action for a long time now, any driver on the Jaguar grid is, at this point, better than I am, so will my theoretically superior car allow me to keep pace? He was out earlier and should be at full pace by now, if my car is any good it ought to make up for my personal inadequacies.
Throttle applied, fingers tighten on the wheel, and off she goes, we hook onto his rear end and follow for a lap as I remember the corners. It’s all about managing the bumps and relearning those super-wide exits here to get the power on early.
Sitting close astern as a reminder of what racing is like, looking about the cockpit to check the gauges, really a question of getting to know the new interior now that it has become rather more spartan and functional in here. The layout works well. Nothing but the rev counter in front of you, the two gauges to the left dominate an otherwise-blank dash. I am pleased with it, it works out here. No dazzle despite the high and hot sun, everything in easy reach.
Engine temp claims about 75 to 80 degrees, which is less than I had expected, but Bear used to claim that Christine, the monster E class, used to run nice and cool too, and I’ve never had an actual number to work from before.
The bumps are giving more kickback at higher speed, I’m drifting along following Drage, and happily holding station quite comfortably. It was a very fortunate coincidence that I happened across him because it knocked the rust off the driver as much as the car, the bit I need to remember is racing, and you only get that with the proximity of another machine at reasonable speed.
Two laps of this, and it comes back to you quickly, by the second tour my senses have awoken and it occurs that I’m really just cruising here. Drage is pushing on, the rear of his car is wild, sparks from the underside as it grounds out going through the second chicane, and Helen is simply swinging through the same corners without issue, it would seem the handling has certainly not worsened with this rebuild, at least as far as we can tell at this speed.
The brakes initially felt a bit unbalanced, but now don’t. Probably a bleeding issue rather than anything else, though the callipers do both await their reconditioned replacements, scheduled to be fitted after this trackday. We never test the really good stuff at the first shakedown.
Time to press on a bit more, which we do by dropping back a couple of hundred yards and then pushing on again. Easier to do it this way on a trackday than to effect the pass. The other car is plenty fast down the straights, but the new exhaust offers Helen an edge, she is faster, we reel in the gap easily in under a lap. It’s a little cruel to use another car like this as your practice, the other guy has his mirrors full and could throw it off the road if he thinks he’s racing, but I rely on him being experienced enough not to do something daft.
With better tyres, more power, and a lighter car, it really was like clubbing a baby seal as soon as I got my eye in. Drop back, close in, and this time we decide to go past, and then attack a little harder. Progress as measured in the gap backwards is swift. The tyres are amazing, the grip just keeps giving more, no slide, no lockups, no noise, nowhere near the limit.
We call that good enough for session 1, the car has lived, pull it in early. Back to the paddock, and one small issue. I haven’t wired in the fan yet. I have to jam the earth wire behind a bolt to make it work, a very foolish error to add to the snag list.
Problem 2 is that I can’t get out. The inner door handle works perfectly well, but the door has locked itself. Given I took out the lock in the handle, and the inner door lock, there is no way to unlock it. It shouldn’t have been able to lock itself, but it has. The only option is to remove the aluminium door card, by undoing all the little button head bolts, then the door bar, and get a hand in to unlock it. It takes time, and the car is like an oven in here, but it does work. A tie wrap pulls the inner lock into a permanently-unlocked position, good enough for now but long term it wants the mechanism disabling properly.
A proper check round her, and oil, water, and every other fluid appear acceptable. The clutch was over-full and has spat a bit out of the reservoir, but that aside the underbonnet is happy. There was some minor flex on the bonnet at full chat, the centre bows upwards by perhaps an inch as the metal ribs are missing, but it’s still a steel skin, it’s not going to shatter.
Tyres have put on significant pressure and are dropped. Much of today is about getting data on the R888 tyres. It is consistently hot today, which means we get hot weather data, which is helpful in many ways.
She returns to the track immediately after lunch, and now that she’s been shaken, it is time to push a bit more. The first lap out was a very wobbly, slippery affair, the tyres need turning on. It’s my first time with sticky rubber, and having to actually consider cold tyres, it was never a problem with T1Rs, and even the R1R wasn’t that bothered.
Once activated, however, we have some great sport swatting a number of cars, Pizzala’s machine with James Ramm at the helm, Comer now in action is also killed swiftly, but red flags for a broken Caterham interfere after only three laps. Into the pits to a waiting Bear, and he drops the tyres another 6psi. The front brakes are also smoking despite a half-lap cooldown, and I didn’t think I was using them hard. We had expected brake abuse with this rubber, but we’re getting it much easier than I had even feared.
Back into action, and some proper assessment laps now. The tyres have responded to the pressure changes very well, it’s different again. Rear grip is amazing, I didn’t get the tail loose all day long. The front doesn’t seem so good, it’s good, but not as good as the rear. Shades of the old Angelina here, once the nose has confirmed it will consider making the apex, mash the throttle and she simply hangs on and powers all the way through the corner. It is a very easy way of driving the car. I’m not suggesting it is technically proficient, but it means I turn in at the highest speed I dare, and if I make the apex I will be leaving the corner going faster still, it doesn’t need any skill to balance the car on the power. It’s not flat out, foot to the boards, but it’s getting there.
The brakes are inadequate. If you can’t lock the wheels you need better brakes, and this is marginal at best. I wasn’t laying into the pedal as I could, but there was a real sense that this car cannot stop as well as the rubber will let it. Brakes are going to need attention. The challenge is to do so within the confines of a 16” wheel.
Power is better, but not certain it’s quite up there with Megan (Bear's old car) yet. My suspicions fall on the AJ6 Engineering inlet, which we now know actually hinders horsepower, and adds zero torque. The way the car is behaving, it feels as if torque has actually increased, and generally as if the car’s power band is a little broader, the top end has perhaps another 500rpm to give. It might be more, but I didn’t need or have the heart to rev it further. With hindsight I should have maxed it to see just how far she’ll now go.
Kickback over the bumps through the steering is pretty vicious. There is a bump at Folly, right about the moment I want to shift to 5th gear, and doing so one-handed was not far off taking the wheel out of my hand. A change of approach demanded short-shift and both hands on the tiller.
The gearknob is rubbish. Too tall, too flexible, you can feel it bending in your hand. A more precise gearchange will demand a better gearknob, this seven quid nylon job from Halfords five years ago is going to have to make way for something smaller and more shiny.
Pace is much more than before. We have probably three seconds plus over the class F cars, and I am still driving like a big girl. I cut the session a lap short and come in for more pressures, again we take more out of the tyres, they are now running at the lowest cold pressures of anything we’ve ever had fitted, but it’s not by much, comparison with the R1Rs on Comer’s car only shows a 1 psi difference.
Last session of the afternoon, and the gloves are at least partially off, time to give it some more There are 4 other Jags out there, and some super-nutter silver hatchback thing I don’t even recognise. Helen uses the Jags like a cat does a ball of yarn, we’ve three class F cars and a class A saloon, and we’re not playing in the same league here, a sad reminder that we’re no longer welcome in a series to which we committed so much, but the pace gap now is a lot, each car we slice by is a dwindling dot at the end of the lap. Comer is the swiftest of them, but he cannot hope to match the better car and tyre.
We never bothered to time Helen’s best efforts, but Comer was doing mid 1.24s, and we were so much faster that a degree of optimistic assumption suggests we’re moving along at a brisk clip. There was a good gap to my old classmates, and to say that this was just a shakedown, it is enough that there is any gap at all.
The car now tends towards understeer, but here it was only showing it when really provoked at the chicanes. Some of this is my odd approach to them, which is early brake, off the pedal before we even get to the corner, aiming for a fast turn in with the power already on, then relying on the car to grip and change direction with just a lift. I’m not sure why I was doing that. It seemed to work, but I’m not certain what I was playing at. The initial turn in seemed good, but physics is still in charge here. It’s not a lot of slide, but it is there, there is a limit to this tyre.
To be fair, it is the only limit I found all day. Clear to me that I myself have lost a lot of time, that feel and that nerve have backed off in my downtime, I’m very aware that bending this car first time out would be stupid. I will need to strap on a pair and redevelop that tingle in the backside that tells me what the car is saying.
At higher speed I was screwing up Quarry a lot, kept arriving panicking about the brakes not being good enough and discovering I was still in 5th gear, which in turn doesn’t help the brakes, and getting myself into a right old tizz. Ironic that I was too early on the brakes everywhere else really. Still a lot to re-learn. Had this been a test day I do think there were many seconds to find here, we could have really got going, this place has a flow to it that I personally needed to find again. The car, well, can’t really fault it for what it is, it does everything as well as the components it has can achieve.
Enough traffic to remember a little about racing, ignoring the closing gap at Folly and keeping my foot in was a small moment of re-education. Next weekend marks her race debut, and I’m not going to be up to proper combat, the old noodle isn’t ready for it, but we’ve made a start.
For the last session of the day, Bear takes her out for a whirl. It was more about him remembering this circuit and laying a few demons to rest than anything else, but any input is welcomed, and he is unsure about the brakes, which is worthy of note.
On the to-do list then Helen needs brakes, brake cooling, a gearknob, the fan wiring in, the brakelights fixing, and the catch tank wants something neater doing with it. But to all other intents and purposes, she is ready to go.
The declared aim at the start of the rebuild was one second per lap, whilst being more shiny. The rebuild changed partway through, and the gain is significantly more than that. But she is more shiny. Time to go racing.
Look out, you've got a Bear behind!
Loading up for Castle Combe.
Only one of these two is coming home in one piece...
It may appear that I have just parked her in some random driveway, but this is actually the outer paddock at Castle Combe.
Very serene.
It's only from the side that you get the real idea of just how much bonnet there is.
She seems somehow bigger than before. Memory isn't what I remember.
All new gear, but no idea.
Bear called this look "The Gay Smurf."
Which makes me wonder about Smurfs. And my brother.
Popping out to make the pass, time to see what Helen is now made off.
One lap later.
It would appear that the one-lap gap, even in the early stages of the shakedown, is substantial.
And after wrestling with her for 20 minutes, she eventually let me get out again.
Race track, not campsite, honestly.
Prettier than before. But you never stop looking at the stripes you sprayed on and wondering if they are straight, no matter how many times you measure them.
The pictures don't do justice to quite how hot this place was.
Great circuit, cracking breakfasts too!
Minor niggles only, a fun day at the Castle.
Back home, my two ladies keep each other company on the private Kutuka test track.
Handy for brake testing.