TESTING TIMES - BRANDS HATCH TEST DAY APRIL 2011

Essentially we arrived with a kit of parts to finish building a car out of. The front bumper, bonnet and boot needed attaching, it needed a brake pedal, door catch and the door bars bolting in. Little stuff. The door catch is stolen from another door, in my fatigue I lost the ability to remember how to remove it, so I brought the whole door. There is a lot to be said for having a truck, space is not a big issue!

With the combined spannering of four Kutukans she was ready for the track before lunch.

Stew tackles the bonnet pins, it’s the first time he’s actually seen this car and he’s putting a drill through it. David improvises the interior door handle, as I hang the bumper – just a matter of actually fitting the bolts -  and Bear remembers that something ought to strap the battery down. The boot is pinned, and the door bars bolted in. The brake pedal is fitted, and suddenly there is no reason not to send the car out on track.

We’re missing the finishing touches – the grill is tie-wrapped in, the headlight surrounds have no mesh yet, the inner door panels are missing, but the car as a machine is done, we can go.

The moment that you nose any car out of the pitlane at Brands is always one to savour, but this is now the second new car which I have brought out here - Megan in 2008 also did her first ever laps here. There is a lot to answer at this moment, whether the car even rolls freely is unknown, the engine might rebel and throw out all its fluids, the wheels might all fall off, the windows might all shatter and fly off the car, absolutely every component in this thing has been apart.

One lap out and screaming tyres down the straights revealed tracking issues, not surprising given every piece of the front end is refurbed or repaired. Mr David tracks it by eye alone, which was impressive, the more so since a lift back to the paddock – you can get three men in an E class – had lacerated his palm spectacularly on a sharp edge inside the passenger door. Driveable she may have been, but finished she was not.

Back on track and three laps of mounting speed showed the bonnet to need more by way of attachment, the bulging in the centre was alarming, the middle of the bonnet shying away from the airflow rushing through the grill and seeking escape. Clearly she requires all 6 bonnet pins, this experiment with 4 is a failure. A hasty bodge in the paddock and she was again ready for the road just in time for the lunch break. Doh. A spin turn in the paddock at least confirmed from a pair of black lines that the diff was working. I’ve never had a good diff before.

To the track then, and it would appear that drivers lose some of their reserve on three hours’ fitful sleep in a truck, because this rapidly transitioned from gentle shakedown into full hooligan. It does help that it's Brands, and that other than Cadwell there is nowhere I know better. A few sighting laps and all temperatures and pressures seemed acceptable, the brakes worked, the clutch functioned, and there were no heinous noises coming from the car. The pilot, with a Webster and Comer on track with him, couldn’t help but start to lean on the pedal a little more.

The brakes might be a cheap assembly of old junk thrown together as a standby test-only system, but they clearly work well enough, the approach to Paddock was getting as late as anything I’ve ever done, and this was on a set of T1Rs that we’d condemned at the end of 2009. Should've brought some R1Rs. And entered the race...

The healthy wail of T1Rs at speed was soon bringing the memories flooding back, we have lost much in the series by the demise of this tyre, the fun you can have with it, the noise of the tortured thing letting go, the predictable slide of the car on it, I miss it!

Faster she got, and what was amazing was how fast she was immediately. Her settings are all over the shop, the camber and castor are guessed, and no way they are correct, the tracking’s set by eye, and the shocks are set wherever the hell we put them. Indeed a quick check round the car revealed the rear dampers to be completely random, and setting them all the same produced instant rewards.

The lack of power steering takes three laps to adjust to, it's only my second time here in anything that doesn't have it, and last time was a V12 in the rain, so I was unprepared for how much loading of the arms you need to brace the steering against the compression you go through at the bottom of Paddock, it is a fairly muscular car to powerdive through there.

Handling was tail happy, but for once not on the brakes, and not inherent turn-in oversteer, pure power oversteer, and that is something we can deal with using the right foot. Boy did that suddenly make this fun. The front end was working well, the engine singing like a chorus of angry angels, and it’s Brands Hatch in the sunshine, party time!

I had fun out there. I haven’t had a lot of pure hooligan fun on track for a couple of years, but this was a chance to really throw a car, and she loved it. Roger Webster, all sturm und drang in the engine department, on wider, sticky R1Rs, is giving chase, and Vanessa raised a pair of fingers in his general direction and cleared off.

Tail happy she was indeed, but the hurl through Macleans was awesome, same pace here as I’d manage in an R1R-shod F class, just a tiny chicken lift on the way in, gather it all up in Clearways, the tail hanging out from too much entry speed, but yet hanging on so well she could have been front wheel drive. It was quite remarkable how controllable this car was hanging it all out at pretty outrageous angles, Roger proclaimed me afterwards to be utterly bonkers.

Power oversteer in 4^th gear through Clearways brought the memories flooding back, the R1R here is plant it and go, but this girl on stock horsepower wants reigning in. Battle with the beards had Vanessa the victor. Sliding it back past Roger into Macleans made me laugh hysterically, the clear, insane giggle of the sleep-deprived.

Softening the rear off made life a little better, we had rather suspected that she might be light on the rear end. Oil pressure is not what I’d like to see, but it’s hot, the gauge could be wrong, and there are no nasty noises, so frak it.

Day’s end, and final runs cut short by red flags as I went out with the other nutcases to  compare and contrast lines, but instead finding them unable to keep close enough to find out, having to tour for a third of the lap to keep them in range because this car and I have now reached an understanding, that lack of weight lets this thing really shift, it's lighter than anything I've ever driven. This is, after all, a car pulling about 240bhp at best, on D class 2009-spec tyres, with no setup work, doing a reliability and shakedown run, running from some high-spec machinery. Hmm. It seems we might have built something here.

Day over, fun must now cease. Vanessa has a little cry about it, a trickle of water leaks from her underbonnet as the water pump cools and begins leaking for no good reason…

Successful test? Yeah baby! She will now get faster as we play with setup, rubber, and maybe then power. For now though, that's a good start.

PART 6 - DEVELOPMENT. coming soon.

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