First test day - 5th April 2007

How did it go?!

Shorts and T-shirt in April, what’s going on?! Although I was hoping for dry weather for the first run in the car I could hardly have dreamt of the un-seasonal like treat that we were presented with. Travelling to the circuit through the morning mist in a tow car bought and a rather OTT trailer hired but only the day previously I found myself beginning to wonder if this weather might be an omen for a successful test and perhaps even, dare I say it a successful first race meeting! Well part of my thinking was right anyway…

After months of graft we finally finished the car at 10pm on the Wednesday night. With not nearly enough quality shuteye my Dad and myself were up bright and early on Thursday morning ready to load the car on the trailer and the tools into the tow car. This supposidly simple task turned into a minor pantomime for a little while as, due to a combination of a frosted windscreen and (one can only presume) early morningitus an unknown gentleman proceeded to drive into the side of the trailer whilst we were loading the race car! Apart from that the loading and travelling to the circuit passed without a hitch, once that is we had woken chief mechanic Granville from his slumber in our pre-arranged meeting point just off the M4.

Once at the circuit we unloaded the car and gave it a little clean and check over, still no new bodywork that was promised, so a rather tatty red and white car it was that was to be given it’s legs for the first time. The team’s chassis engineer (Matt Rivett) had his own dramas en route, his van refusing to do what was asked of it so he was a little late. Once Matt was on the scene the car’s ride height was set and a base setup was applied.

The car took to the track for the first time with Pat Buss (that’s me) behind the wheel at approximately 10.30am for just a few laps to check everything was ok and to bed the new brake pads in. Once this short session of 6 laps was completed the car was then taken back into the paddock for a “once over”. All of our hard work, it seemed had paid off as the car showed no signs of anything leaking or components trying to make a bid for freedom!

The rest of the morning was taken up by myself running in the car for another 30 minutes to become familiar with the car and to get a “feel” for driving a race car again (boy it’s been a long time). By the end of the mornings running I felt confident in the car and ready to play about with the setup a little so that I could push for some lap times in the afternoon. But before any “pushing” was going to be done it was time for a much deserved lunch break for all, complete with plenty of caffeine in an attempt to make up for the sleep depravation brought about by all the late nights spent preparing the car.

Before I had my afternoon runs in the car Matt Rivett, who just happens to be defending Castle Combe FF1600 champion took the car out for a few laps to see how it felt. His verdict (thankfully) was pretty similar to mine, nice to drive with progressive handling but perhaps a little nervous on the front end through the high speed stuff. A few adjustments to the front roll bar and I was sent out to see how it felt. That little adjustment certainly seemed to work as the car was definately behaving itself better through Castle Combe’s notorious fast, bumpy sweepers. The lap times were beginning to come down now. I was now setting times below my target time on tyres that had been stood in a garage somewhere for some unknown length of time.

Now that I was happy with the car the plan for the last session of the day was to go out on the new set of wheels and tyres that I had purchased, scrub them in and then see what sort of lap times I could achieve. That plan however fell apart just as soon as I spun the car on the exit of Tower corner in the session before that planned “last hoorah” and lost the engine. Now under normal circumstances I would have just fired up the engine, checked that the track was clear and rejoined. I soon found there was one rather large problem however, that was that the small race battery fitted to the car was totally and utterly flat! After sitting on the racing line on the exit of the corner watching a number of rather rapid cars missing the nose of my beloved race car by what seemed like millimetres! I decided upon returning to the pits (a slightly lighter shade than when leaving) that we should return home and fit a new battery prior to the first race!

So that was the end of what turned out to be a rather successful first test day. It’s a shame the first race day wouldn’t go quite as well…

Pat Buss