I went into the April 2023 Gurston event not knowing if the problem was carburation. But it didn’t take much of the meeting to establish what it was. Oil. When I was warming the car up it had to be kept at above 2000 RPM or it would die. And anything behind the car had its own oil film after a while. I suggested that Becky rev it on the way to the line and see what happened. Well what happened was that a reasonably large black cloud came out of the exhaust and it started running OK.
My first practice run was straight into the 39’s and my second was sub 39. I was just a little bit happy about that, not least because I said that I’d enter the BHC round at Prescott when I managed to go sub 39. Meanwhile Becky was putting in solid 41’s.
I managed a 39.13 on run 1, but when Becky bought the car back for my second run the throttle wouldn’t return properly and I had to scrap the run. Tony Wilshire pretty much instantly came up with the reason – the chassis bracket at the pedal end had rotated, stopping the throttle return process. Easily sorted but not instantly. Not 100% which run it was, but Becky did take to the grass.
Day 2 started like day 1. The engine had returned to its oily poor running, which was sorted out over the first run. This couldn’t be a long term mode of operation but it would do for the day. Highlights of the day were Becky’s off at Karousel, and me getting to within 6/100’s of Les Buck.
Some scratched bodywork, a bent ally bracket and some mud which needed clearing were all that resulted from the off!
Steve Lister took lots of great pictures, one of which is the Karousel off shot. 2 of the others are shown below.
As soon as we got back to Bicester the decision to remove the engine was made. No sense in pushing it until it blew. Currently it’s being refreshed prior to a dyno run and its return to the engine bay. A bit of luck Prescott isn’t until the 10th June. Can’t wait.
First an update on the Reynard. Basically not much progress. There were some horror stories under the ally sections of the chassis and after lots of measuring on the jig I discovered it was 4mm out of straight. So I removed the additional, non-Reynard bits from the space frame. And bang (literally) it straightened out. So as soon as the welding is done it can all go back together. When that happens it will be superb – did I mention the new callipers? Probably not – its great to be buying AP parts after all those years when they were a customer. It’ll have a lot of other new parts, too many to list really. I can’t wait to get it done.
So with the Reynard still some way from completion, its another season running the RF84. People have suffered worse problems. The first time out was the Gurston practice day. Optimistically run on the 19th March. Which against the recent form book turned out to be near perfect in terms of meteorology. Apart from some issues with the car dying on tickover, which at the time of writing seem to be unresolved, the car ran really well. Giving us lots of time to concentrate on driving.
After a simulator heavy winter (thanks go out, as usual, to Jay at JWRS https://www.jw-rs.co.uk/index.php/simulator for the excellent technology and tutoring) It was great to actually get behind the wheel of a real car. We got lots of runs and I managed to get a couple in the 39’s which I thought was good given the layoff, temperature, and other gems from the Racing Driver’s Book of Excuses. Becky did great things on the sim over the winter, and continues to push me hard in the car. She’s obviously learning a lot, but I’m learning a lot from having Becky in the car too. I’d kind of given up using the data from the AIM datalogger because I’d got nothing to compare it with. But now I have and the results have been super useful. I’m a little slow through Hollow. And I’ve got to work on it.
A couple of weekends later and we were at the Prescott practice day. Moderate turn out, but one which included some top runners. And it was wet. Certainly first thing. And in true Prescott style it dried up as the day progressed, eventually leaving the first section dry, whilst a river ran across the track at the end of the Esses.
Image by Stephen Hurrel
We got a lot of runs. And in common with quite a few people we weren’t as sharp with the number changes as we should have been. But when you decode the numbers I went reasonably well. In fact, unusually for me I did all the runs I could get in, resulting in me being the last person up the hill. And on that run I went 3s faster than the last one. Happy to take that, along with the improvements in running as a dual driver setup.
The first real event lined up is Gurston at the end of April. Lets hope we get the carburation sorted. It won’t be for the lack of effort if we don’t.
Last time I posted about the Reynard I thought that it needed a few minor things sorting out and we’d be off in 22. The fact that all my 22 posts featured the RF84 might go some way towards highlighting what happened. Essentially, and this might say more about me than it, every time I took something off and looked at it, I decided to either replace or restore it.
Which got me where we are now. A bare chassis. Which has seen some action. So area by area a bit of an update, with apologies for repeated content from previous posts:
Chassis: Some tubes are quite distorted, one was cracked quite badly. I suspect it was cracked for a very long time, looking at it. So, just like with the RF84 some of tubes are being replaced, and the whole thing is being jigged properly. (Which meant making some form of jig and some reference/measurement sections.) I’ve bought a new eagle plate (the old one was very distorted) and a new engine/gearbox adapter.
Suspension: Even on day one I was going to replace the shocks. The RF84 has a set of Quantums, and these have been faultless since I bought the car. So there is a set waiting to go into the Reynard. One thing that I’m not 100% happy with on the RF84 is that much of the replating of suspension components has ended up quite compromised – basically the small rust pits have put in a reappearance. As much of the Reynard’s suspension components are quite heavily pitted too there is only one way forwards. New parts all round, with the old ones to be replated and used as spares. The new one’s are in transit from URS as I write this.
Brakes: The calipers look a bit of a mess. You are possibly ahead of me here. The only issue is the availability of new ones. The low cost calipers I bought from Ed Moore previously seem to be unavailable now. So that means getting the pukka ones from my old friends at AP Racing. Which are listed on their website as “inactive” and apparently won’t be produced any longer. So I’m going to have to get on and source some whilst you still can. Odd when you think how many FF’s are running (ref: Walter Hayes 2022), that you won’t be able to source a brake caliper soon. But hopefully I’ll have a new set in a week or two.
Bodywork: This is a problem. The bodywork was in a pretty sorry state. The nose used a novel eco friendly composite system which was mainly grass, mud and duct tape. The main panel was heavily cracked and distorted. After some initial attempts to restore these by Matt Manderson the only way forwards was to get new ones on order. Repaired ones would be too much effort and just too heavy. The problem is that URS who have the mould have something of a backlog on new panels. Absolutely no criticism from me, but I’ve even started thinking of taking a mould from the original panels. Watch this space.
Gearbox: This was where, arguably, the biggest offence against engineering has occurred. The gearbox casing had been rewelded. Not unusual. But less commonplace was that the mounting flange had distorted a lot and the car had been assembled using a series of washers to achieve some primitive form of alignment. And it still had huge cracks in it. Luckily I managed to get Mark Bailey to rebuild it into a new casing before he decided to start taking life a bit more easily. From Mark I learned that the box is an ADA modified unit – the same people who made the attractive little C2 car that Tiff Needel drove and that I photographed at Brands in the 80s..
Engine: Peter Sneller makes the best engines in Formula Ford. End of. The plan is to have a Sneller engine in the car for March. I’m hopeful. But there is always the original engine. I’ve stripped it and it can be made into a decent runner – not PS standard, but it would be OK to get the car moving. The exhaust has been refinished by Matt Kelly at Coast Racing and looks superb, as do the bits of the new engine that he’s done.
So you might think that I’m not happy about how much of this I’ve had to redo, remake, and purchase. But that is a long way from the truth. When it’s together this is going to be an amazing car, and there seem to be very few of them about. And there is the whole Bicester, Oxford Poly history thing. Here are some pictures of the car running a few years back, which really help keep this project going.
It’s starting to go back together. March 2023 then.
After filling the system with the new super expensive super coolant I rang my Mum. “I bet when I get back next week half the coolant will be on the floor” I said. A few days later when I walked back into the workshop I had to ring her.. “Remember what I told you last week…. ” Luckily only about 2 litres of the mixture had leaked out. The action of the water wetter in reducing the surface tension certainly makes the water slippery. But it also seems to work. 40 degrees ambients were consigned to the past (for now) but the cooling system did seem to be working much better at the season closing Gurston Down event over the August bank holiday.
Having done 39.08 at the Formula Ford event I was aiming for a sub 39 (and I think I said to myself that I’d consider doing some BHC rounds if I beat that benchmark.) On the Saturday I got down to 39.17 leaving me to try to go sub 39 on Sunday. It looked good, 2nd practice run was 39.15. Time to go for it on the first official. I went for it and couldn’t believe the time that came up on the display.
Great start line picture by Nick Woods
39.00 39.00: as near to a 38 that I could have run, without actually getting there. I needed to try harder on the final run. But probably not as hard as I did. It ended up with an excursion onto the grass bank at the exit of Carousel, and a series of missed gears (I’m 100% convinced that the grass bank trip knocked the gear shift out of alignment) resulting in a 41s. At least I could take some solace in the fact that my fastest S3 time in run 3 would have resulted in a sub 39. And that I was fastest Formula Ford at Gurston that weekend (if Carol hadn’t been put in to the HSA class rather than FF I’d have had a trophy.) The 38 something will have to wait until the 2023 season. When I’ll be running the Reynard.
Me running out of talent on the way to the grass bank
I thought it would be a good idea to plot my best times of each day I’ve run at Gurston. Glad I did because it shows a steady improvement. And I don’t believe the early 39.15 – at the time it didn’t show on the screen at the startline and I had to get it from the timekeepers spreadsheet.
After Gurston I did a Curborough to prepare for the FF meeting there in October. Turned out to be the first meeting I’ve done on the single lap format in the Formula Ford. So a PB. And a reasonable result, 2nd out of 3, before the heavens opened and the event was abandoned after one official run. David paid me back for beating him at Prescott.
On the hottest day the UK has ever experienced I was doing a hillclimb. This isn’t a huge surprise as most of the July Gurston meetings I’ve done have been punishingly hot – I remember the Panda dash showing 38 degrees one year. But this was hotter. I’ve never been to an event where sparks from a car ignited the grass. But this happened every time my batch went up the hill.
Previously in this blog I mentioned that I would have a co-driver for the July event, but didn’t mention why or how. Well the story goes like this. Earlier in the year Mark Aley invited me to a simulator session he’d arranged at Classic Simulators in Farnborough. And to liven thing up he said “if Becky beats your time you let her have a drive in your Formula Ford”. No problem I thought. And then got beaten; only by a little bit, but beaten I was. (Even though I sneaked back and went a tiny bit faster..) And as I’m a man of my word, the drive was Becky’s. A bit of work on calendars and we settled on the July Gurston, which happened to be round 1 of the Pre 94 Formula Ford Championship. A shared drive was something I’d never done before. We did a bit of a shakedown test the week before Gurston at Bicester, which showed me that I had little to worry about – Becky drove well and started to show some pace towards the end. And I enjoyed my time as a sort of low rent Ken Tyrrell.
I did the usual thing and arrived at Gurston on the Friday evening and set up in the farmyard. We kicked off the day with a hill walk with Russ Haynes and prepared for the runs up the hill. I can’t remember a time when this has happened before, but on the Saturday we only got two runs because of a couple of reasonably serious “offs”. With the heat and the off’s it must have been a tough one for the marshalls. For me the main thing was perfecting the driver change over, which had to be done pretty quickly because of the running order. And on the Saturday we kind of got there.
By Sunday we were running the car without assistance and got quite slick with the change overs. In the end we ever remembered to change the numbers. Becky became increasingly rapid, convincing me and anyone who cared to watch that she’s going to make a decent hillclimb driver. And I did a PB, 39.08, though I did miss my target time by 9/100’s. If I can make it into the 38’s in August I’ll be pretty happy.
Dual driving was great fun, though it did highlight a problem with the RF84. It was pretty much on the verge of boiling over most of the time. Mark Haynes suggested that the rad might be blocked, and the fact that the fan did almost nothing to cool the engine backed that theory up. A few years ago, when I thought the rad was leaking, but wasn’t, I commissioned a new rad. But didn’t fit it. Seemed like a good idea now. Another clue to the overheating showed itself when I drained the system. The water was far from crystal clear. In fact it took about 15 gallons of water being flushed through it before it was an acceptable colour.
At the time of writing the rad is in and almost everything is connected. The super expensive coolant that promises to make engines run 20 degrees cooler is also in after I ran the engine with plain water and then drained to complete another cleaning cycle. Soon we’ll see if it has worked.
Latest on the list of improvements made to the RF84 is a much slicker gear shift. Yet again never having driven another single seater I didn’t have any idea that the gear shift wasn’t as good as it should be. Though having read comments from people saying that the MK9 Hewland was the best gearbox in the world should have flagged something up. Mine wasn’t. After lots of work, mainly by Peter Sneller, the shift was positive and slick. Well, it was in the garage. The first practice run at Prescott would be the first opportunity to try it in motion.
The weather forecast I saw suggested rain early on, clearing for a dry day. As the first runs started the rain started too, but it stayed wet all day. As I didn’t know that, I left the rear anti-roll bar connected (for the dry runs in the afternoon). The amazing thing about the newly reconfigured gearshift was just how easily the gears just dropped into place.
Allan Rhodes, Motorsport and event photographer. For further information or bookings please email: info@allanrhodes.co.uk or telephone 01242 231096
My experience at Curborough where I kept the car in a lower gear around the first corner and found the whole thing more composed, and a conversation with another competitor a few years back, got me thinking about doing the whole run in 2nd. I tried it and miraculously I wasn’t slowest in the first run. (It was a mixed handicap class for single seaters, with 4 Formula Ford drivers.)
The second practice run was even better. I managed 2nd fastest of the 11 in class. Which is up there with the time I got a trophy. Oddly in a field with a Gould Cosworth in it the 2 fastest cars were FF’s. After the first competetive run I wasn’t 2nd any more but was still quite competetive. A little improvement would get me a few places so I went for it and removed the rear ARB. It looked like the rain was stopping, but luckily it started again before my run. And I managed to go 2 seconds faster! 2nd of the Formula Fords. Happy with that!
Allan Rhodes, Motorsport and event photographer. For further information or bookings please email: info@allanrhodes.co.uk or telephone 01242 231096
A minor medical intervention planned for late 2021, but actually happening in March 2022 meant that my first event of the year was shakedown, test and first event all rolled into one. But on the plus side the weather was perfect at Gurston.
Although it’s fair to say that my preparation wasn’t what it could have been, and that I wasn’t 100% fit (I haven’t done any exercise in over 3 weeks) I didn’t do too badly. I set myself the target of running sub 40s, and managed it on my first official run. Still plenty to sort out, though the engine miss-fire issues of last season seem to have been cured, and the handling was still as good as I remembered. My target for the July meeting is to go sub 39.
Picture by Alex Thake
The observant may have noticed that I’m still running the Van-Diemen.
Picture by Alex Thake
It took some time to get the new sandwich plate and gearbox adapter for the Reynard, but I’ve got them now. Once I’ve sorted a couple of things on the RF84 I’ll get back on putting it all back together. With the newly re-cased Hewland Mk9 and the Quantum shocks the rear end is going to be quite something. I also now have 4 newly powder-coated Wellers, ready for a set of ACB9’s.
The weekend at Gurston also saw my dual driver for the July Formula Ford Festival try the car for size for the first time. (Long story for another time!!) It should be fun getting Becky through a test and the event.
When I was a motorsport obsessed student at Oxford Poly I wrote to every racing car manufacturer I could think of to see if any of them had something, in fact anything, that would make an interesting final year project. I somewhat optimistically informed the British Motorsport Industry that I could make and run finite element models. After a delay due to some issues with the Oxfordshire postal service (the more that things change the more etc.) I received a reply from Malcom Oastler at Reynard, which was great as my room in halls was plastered with posters of Reynard’s. I ended up making a pretty poor finite element model of the 1988 F3000 car for him, but possibly more importantly, visited the Factory in Bicester a few times. You don’t forget things like that.
I have mentioned here before how much better to drive a 70’s Crossle felt than my 1984 Van-Diemen, which got me thinking that another Formula Ford might be the answer to going a bit faster. I vaguely remembered hearing that Reynards from the early 80’s were a pleasure to compete in, and this view was confirmed by a friend (on the pitwall at Silverstone at a test session). He said that an 82 Reynard was the best car he’d ever driven. So, why not I thought, try and get one.
The issue, however, was that early 80’s Reynard FF1600’s aren’t exactly easily come by. (I had actually considered getting one a few years earlier, though I spent so long umming and ahing that it had gone by the time I rang up about it.) There was an 84 in Germany and another in Ireland without engine, gearbox and most of its chassis paintwork.
There was a UK based, decent looking, 83 advertised on a website though. (It took Barbara a lot of searching to find it, but find it she did.) How long it took to actually meet up with its owner, Graham, is part of a long story, and is possibly not one for me to tell. But a couple of weekends ago I found myself in a windswept, rain soaked field in Malvern looking at Reynard #123. Having decided to buy it the small matter of getting out of its trailer, into my trailer and then out of the muddy field presented itself. Which with the help of numerous people we managed to achieve. My car, trailer, trainers and a lot of my clothes ended up caked in mud, some of which is yet to be cleaned off.
The car hasn’t run for a few years so I immediately started work checking everything and making it perfect for the 2022 season. Or as near to that as I can. There are a few cracks in the bodywork that need attention, as well as a reasonably sized hole in the original nose. An unused, more aerodynamic, front end came with the car, which I’m sure I’ll run as soon as I can. The engine is coming out on Wednesday, so I can have a good look at the internals, and lots of bits of the car are already being repainted.. 123 will be as near perfect as I can make it, by March. I can’t wait to actually drive a Reynard after all this time.
There hasn’t been much time to blog recently. Aside from the festival of over commitment that is the rest of my life, hillclimbing activity went up a level. Now the season has ended I’ve got time to sum things up.
In the last blog I mentioned that I was going to Anglesey to try out another Formula Ford on another circuit. Anglesey circuit is astounding, although I was only going to drive a small section of it, thankfully including what has now become one of my favourite corners. Things didn’t start too positively because the car I was down to drive looked a bit, well, like a typical school car. It was a 1976 Crossle, and not as neat as my Van-Diemen. And it was raining. So after a session in a hatchback I took the Crossle out. In the rain; generally I hate driving in the rain. So.. out of the pits and into a reasonably sharp left hander. I turned the wheel in what I thought was about the right way and something really odd happened. The car turned in positively and I felt, well, in control. No feeling that the ancient Irish machine wanted to head straight towards the barrier, spin, or actually do anything other than go round the corner tidily. This was a total contrast to the RF84. And it was pretty wet remember. In fact the Crossle felt grippier, more responsive and safer in the wet than my RF84 in the dry. Something, people, of a revelation. After 10 laps I went back to the pits. And there I had a bit of a de-brief with the instructors, who it turned out all raced Formula Fords. Without going into too much detail we talked about what the issues with my car could be, and I went out a few more times and had a some more really useful discussions. Up until that point I’ve never felt like I was being run by a team, but this felt like it. As you can probably imagine I’ve got nothing but good things to say about the Anglesey Racing School. A proper racing school in an age of “Racing Experiences” and “3 lap supercar blasts”. And I learned to do clutchless upshifts.
Great Chris Coope Image from the August Gurston meeting
It was plain that the geometry/spring/damper setup on the RF84 was somewhat wide of the mark. I had just put the suspension back together pretty much as I’d found it during the rebuild. With the same springs and new Quantum dampers. For my level of driving that would be fine right? That viewpoint was starting to look pretty misguided. I actually walked out of a Bicester garage and said “I didn’t think springs and dampers would be that important”. A monumentally stupid statement, especially from somebody with my background. But it’s less stupid if you add “for somebody of my limited driving ability”. The big change of direction was that I could tell a decent set-up from frankly no set-up. What happened next is why I had no time to blog.
I’m hugely indebted to my friends at Field Farm for their efforts in defining the new RF84 set-up, based on the concept of getting the corner frequency in the right range and going from there. We measured and calculated wheel rates, corner weighted the car and made the wheels point in the right direction. And a stack of other less important things. It has to be said that sitting in a Formula Ford with your hands on the wheel for over an hour is a form of cruel and unusual punishment. But as we will see, worth it for the rewards.
First time out with the new setup, and recently updated gearing, was the Bank Holiday meeting at Gurston. My first run was an OKish 40.7. But after it I texted Mrs Marks and said “it feels like a racing car now”. Over the weekend I managed to put in consistent sub 40 times, but with a miss-fire above 6000rpm that the new gearing and set-up had forced to the top of the issues list. Before I hadn’t noticed it. It also helped having Pete and Jo around whilst I learned the new set-up and approach to racing. If this was serious you could call it driver coaching. When I was at the Gurston and Loton Pre 94 FF rounds I couldn’t work out how I could go any faster. But now I was going faster and could see how I could go faster still. (Fix the missfire for one thing.) The midfield looked like a distinct possibility in the fullness of time. So it turns out car setup is important, even for a driver with distinctly limited reserves of talent. Who knew?
Gurston, August Bank Holiday, Picture by Guy Poole
After Gurston we went testing at Curborough, and I helped out at a Classic F3 test session at Silverstone. Its fair to say that I’m learning the rudiments of car setup and how you approach it. The importance of it all was highlighted at the next Curborough round I did, where my first run was 0.3s inside my previous PB. (Then it rained.) And this was followed up on day one of the HSA season closing event at Curborough in October where I took 1.8s off the time I did on the 2 lap configuration at the same meeting in 2019. That’s a good day at the track.
Curborough, September, Picture by “Through the Eye of Oli”
Needless to say I’m really looking forward to the 2022 season, and the considerable to-do list on the car is going to keep me occupied until the fun starts again.
The last time I blogged, which I see was a little while ago, I was hopeful of getting back to the sort of times I was doing in 2019. I’ve kind of done it, and learned a lot along the way.
Since the first 2 Curborough rounds I’ve done a Prescott; mixed conditions and not fast enough, Gurston; pretty much on the pace of 2019, and a Loton. Which was very wet at times but more of that later.
There’s not much to say about the Prescott event, which was notable mainly for the fence between the somewhat sparse spectators and competitors. Wet but drying through the day, resulting in a best time 1.2s slower than my best in 2018. I’ll blame the conditions.
Gurston was an altogether different matter. I’ve been to some really hot Gurston events, but this was the hottest. When I put the ignition on the temperature went up to 40C. Without running the engine. The marshalls were running the event so that the queue for the hill was kept to 2 or 3 cars – so it was a matter of firing up the engine and driving to the line and going. Ironically I was running the engine colder than ever before and it liked it; seemed happier revving, and I was quick across the line. Quite quick and still in 3rd. I managed to match my second best time and it got me thinking about gearing.
The other competitors in Pre 94 FF were super helpful with advice on ratios, and when I checked the gearing I was running it was somewhat longer than anyone else was using. If ever they run a sprint at Indianapolis I’ll have some ideal cogs. Armed with the info from Charlie, Les and Peter, I purchased some new ratios from Mark Bailey who was also super helpful. Essentially 3rd became 4th and 2rd and 3rd filled the gap above 1st which I kept. Jo White gave me a masterclass in changing ratio’s in a Hewland MK9.
The first opportunity to try the new gearing was at the Pre 94 FF round at Loton at the weekend. (Beware the book of excuses is in play from now on.) Conditions couldn’t have been more different from Gurston. I don’t think I could have overheated the engine had I wanted to. And at times it was very wet. Difficult to believe it was August. On the first run I couldn’t believe the difference the new gearing had made. Even though the run was dry every time I touched the throttle on the way out of a corner the back started to slide. Different driving style required and almost certainly some adjustment to ARB or dampers.
Photo by Rob Mcdonald
I last ran at Loton in 2017 in the Panda. I was pretty sure I remembered it. But one corner repeatedly threw me a curved ball. Fallow at the top of the hill is a lot further away than I remembered.. That doesn’t make sense so I’ll try again. When you approach Fallow it looks like the corner starts about 50 metres before it actually does. And on the first couple of runs I braked crazily too early. Which was a surprise given that when I was driving the Panda I used to be pretty aggressive here. 4 years is a reasonable amount of time I guess.
And finally the last issue that I had to sort out was a lack of speed on the Cedar Straight. Which isn’t straight. Thanks go to Charlie Reilly who told me that I needed to be in 3rd through the section before the straight, which increased my speed on the straight a lot. I didn’t set the world on fire at Loton (whereas Tom Weaver did with the times he was putting in) but it is still my favourite hill.
So next up I’ve got a session at Anglesey in one of their Formula Fords, simply to get some more seat time and to see what a different car feels like, another Gurston where I hope the new gearing pays dividends, and hopefully the MAC meeting at Curborough in September if my entry has been accepted.
Laurence Marks 