鈥淪aturday was round 7 of Time Attack UK at Knockhill Circuit. Getting here was a real struggle after oil pump failure destroyed the crank and rods, but I knuckled down and made it happen with the help from others.

鈥淭he car went awesome; from the warm-up session trying to do some steady laps to run the engine in, pushed at the end to find I already broke my personal best time.

鈥淎ttack 1: I did a few steady laps, then turned it up a bit and pushed on, and got a personal best of 54.4, sitting 5th in class.

鈥淎ttack 2: turned it right up and pushed hard, trying to drop into the 53-sec laps, but tried too hard and broke a driveshaft, but managed a 54.5 before that, still sitting 5^th.”

鈥淪uper Attack: with the driveshaft sorted but rain pending, I knew I had to push hard as soon as I could. Tyres were shot and the rain came down, a 54.7 was the best I could do before the rain came 鈥撀�4th in the championship but 5th on the day with a single round entry in the mix.

鈥淚 was so happy with how the day went with what I had to do to get there. Just a broken driveshaft was the only problem of the day to contend with.

鈥�2nd fastest front wheel drive of the day, and fastest manual gearbox car overall!鈥�

First Session (Warm-Up)

鈥淭he car kept cutting out on just about every corner; I had to retire to the pits after a couple of laps to investigate.

鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 really find much, just a couple of bare wires to the coilpacks, so I taped them up鈥︹��

Attack 1

鈥淐oming out the pitlane onto the track, I lost drive 鈥� we鈥檇 snapped a driveshaft, so didn’t manage to check if the problem was solved.鈥�

Attack 2

鈥淪till cutting out鈥� Back to the pits, we changed crank sensor and went into the ECU and turned off all protection, in case it was something silly.鈥�

Super Attack (Final)

鈥淗alf-way round the out lap, the battery light came on; the belt must have broken or came off, so it was hammer down until the battery died. I got one hot lap in before it cut out, but I wasn’t the only person having problems that day so managed to secure 3rd place 鈥� woohoo!

鈥淲e studied over the datalogs once home to find the oil pressure was just dropping below what the protection was set at. So, when at low RPMs coming out the corners, it was making it trip for five seconds.聽I had changed the oil and filter before this round and the oil filter must be flowing better as the old one, I plan to adjust the oil pressure ready for the next round at Oulton Park.鈥�

鈥淚 went out on the warm-up but only managed five laps before I had to come in for an increasingly bad misfire. Going over the datalogs, it was clear it was cylinder one, so I tried changing the spark plugs and coil.鈥�

Attack 1

鈥淚 headed out and the misfire was still there, not as bad but after a couple laps it was worse than ever. So, I came in after just three laps and got to work checking the logs again. At least I had a bit of time over lunch. By this point, I was convinced it must be a faulty injector, but I didn鈥檛 have and spare injectors with me at the circuit. Luckily, Colin Dorward had a spare set of the same injectors and was kind enough to let me borrow them.鈥�

Attack 2

鈥淎s soon as I left the pit lane, straight away the car was back to full health. At last, I could finally start pushing for a decent lap time. I managed to set a 51.447 鈥� three seconds off the big boys, unfortunately. This gave me 5^th in class. I was still struggling with handling, but whilst tweaking before the final round I found the rear hub was loose.鈥�

Super Attack (Final)

鈥淭his was my chance to get into the 50s, so I pushed hard but it wasn鈥檛 to be 鈥� 51.035 left me 5^th in class, but the fastest H-pattern car and second-fastest front-wheel drive.

鈥淗appy enough for just two fast sessions to put a decent time down, but I need to work on the handling 鈥� I can’t seem to get away from a problem with the power steering being so heavy. A nice six-week break until round 4 at Snetterton鈥︹��

Round 1 鈥� Cadwell Park

鈥淔irst session was a steep learning curve on the slicks and getting them scrubbed in, it was hard getting the rears scrubbed in and working but I was getting there. I put down a solid 1.36, found a burst CV boot after the session so just changed the shaft.

鈥�2nd session is now the first point-scoring session. I started pushing a bit harder and turned the power up half-way (about 500 to 550bhp). I started having some gear selecting issues but kept pushing on. Towards the end of the session, I had no clutch pedal 鈥� the slave cylinder went (it was just new as well, from when I replaced the clutch plate.

鈥淏ut, on a positive, I had done a 1.33; there were four cars quicker in the championship, all with sequential gearboxes: a K20 turbo Honda NSX won it with a 1.27, then an Evo 7 with billet block engine 鈥� a mega build, an Evo 5 that is 1200kg with driver and running up to 900bhp, and then an Evo 9. Disappointed obviously but not all bad!鈥�

Round 2 鈥� Donington Park

Warm-Up Session

鈥淚t was a bit of a fight from the start with the car. I started the car and the oil temp was way too high: 140掳+, we knew this was a faulty sensor but didn’t have a spare one, went out but only did a couple of laps as it was in limp mode with a 5k rpm limiter.

鈥淭o get around this, I just had to up the limit threshold to 200掳 鈥� there is a 2nd sensor in the oil tank so could still look at it to make sure things were okay.鈥�

Time Attack 1

鈥淭his went pretty well, I managed to set a 1.13 which is 3 seconds faster than my previous best and good enough for 4th place. Bit of a smell of gear oil and an exhaust blow to look at, couldn’t really identify exactly where the blow was but I was thinking manifold gasket, gear oil was just coming out the breather on the box.鈥�

Time Attack 2

鈥淪ettled in after a couple of laps and started pushing to see how late I could brake and then overcooked it on the first corner, running wide into the gravel and the car cut out and wouldn’t start, Towed back to the pits.

鈥淐hecked a few things with nothing obvious, plugged the laptop in to find there was no crank signal 鈥� a stone must of knocked the sensor, luckily another competitor had a spare that I got, stuck it on and it fired up no bother.

Super Attack (Final)

鈥淲ell, it started raining, just lightly, wasn’t really wet enough for the wets so chanced the slicks, some parts of the track were okay and others was just greasy, unfortunately made a mistake at the Old Hairpin and ended up in the tyres. Luckily, by this time, I had already done 3 laps and set a time.

鈥淣o serious damage thankfully: rear bumper, headlight, tail light, splitter and diffuser. We will get it all sorted up and ready for Brands Hatch in mid-June.鈥�