I'll have a look at them. Where did you mount yours Damien?

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Where did you put the oil lines in to?

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Makes sense, cheers Damo

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Cheers Damo, exactly what I needed

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Rallye Race Car

How is the pedal now with that clutch?

Considering one myself - did you do pressure plate or just the plate?

Nice what days you at Silverstone? Might pop along and watch if not working as only just up the road from home

what power you at now? you still in class B?

Bugger if it was sat id definately pop along but dont think ill make Sunday

And Dans selling his MX5 and going to race the 306 again

Look forward to seeing the progress

After the highs of Silverstone and Oulton the rest of the season was pretty disastrous.

Next race was Cadwell that I went to feeling optimistic as I really enjoy the circuit and have had good results there in the past. I qualified well but the race went wrong a few laps in when I was pushed wide on the exit of a corner, then the next one I slid in to the barriers due to the wet grass on my tyres. I got going again after a quick pit check but was last and a long way down the field. Through the rest of the race I managed to come back through the field to 4th in class, taking the class lap record along the way as well. Unfortunately the video didn't capture the crash so it starts after I've come in the pits to get the damage checked out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZe4dRKVN94

Some photos of the damage:





After that was Rockingham, another less successful race. Qualifying was ok, I think in the top 5. In the race I was running 3rd ready for a podium and then the car shut off on the main straight. At the point this happened the car in front of me also had a big spin so I wondered if something was on the track or another issue so bailed out of the car fairly quickly. As it turns out it was just the coilpack plug that had fallen off! Bit of a waste of an entry fee really...

Quick video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUqMzidxzBI

Then on to Brands for the last race of the year. Again, feeling confident for this one as it's my local circuit and wanted a good result. Unfortunately it all went wrong again, this time I hit the barriers head on with 3 laps to go. Easiest just to watch the video to understand what happened. The two white cars in front I was racing for position, I went to get past a back marker and ended up on the damp track and was a passenger from there all the way to the wall.

https://youtu.be/opBXXwq-9Ls?t=2475

Damage was pretty bad:











That wraps up the end of 2018, not the best! The car did get fixed, I'll post about that shortly

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Hello stranger !!!!
Where have you been ?

Fantastic write up and highs and Lows Dan ..that’s racing sadly ...I love your lorry flooring setup m8 ...hopefully your all sorted now and up for 2021

Thanks for putting this up Dan. Entertaining!

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Matt

For 2019 I bought a MX5 mk1 to race instead of the 306. I'd actually bought it in March 2018 and it came in handy now the 306 was a bit shorter!

My dad, brother, and family friend all had mk1 MX5s as well so we went off to race in the 750mc 5club series together which is very different racing. Spec series and shorter races is the opposite of what I've been racing in the 306 so I was looking forward to a bit of a change, even if the MX5 was nowhere near as interesting to race. Photo of 3 of the cars in the pre-season:



Pre-season trackday at Snet with my brother:



Bought a new road car to replace the DC5:



First race was at Castle Combe which I've not driven before so that was cool. Testing went well on Friday, although this happened:

https://i.imgur.com/eQGpnus.mp4

Luckily scrutineers weren't that fussed so was able to race and I replaced the bonnet for the next race weekend anyway.

Photo of all 4 cars:



Qualifying was good, I came P6 out of 25 which I was pretty happy with considering everyone else had raced an MX5 before! Unfortunately the race weekend itself didn't go so well. Race 1 I finished in the top 10 but the car started getting hot near the end of the race. Afterward I noticed there was no water in the expansion tank so topped it up and went out for race 2 where the engine temp kept climbing so I retired half way through and missed out on race 3 altogether. Disappointing start but things got even worse for the rest of the team!

In race 2 my dad was run off the circuit and he ended up in the wall quite hard, bending the front of the chassis. A couple of laps later our friend lost control of his car being a bit optimistic in an overtake and slammed in to Dad's parked car. Handily a spectator recorded it all on video for your enjoyment! Dad's is the blue car first in (you can just see me fly through at the start):

https://youtu.be/q1ppWXtt_e8?t=320

Damage to the cars was pretty significant. Dad's car was destroyed front and rear but most of the running gear was intact and the cage was ok. Running gear in our friend's car was also ok (I drove it on to the trailer) but the cage was destroyed on the passenger side so had to be replaced.





So we started the weekend with 4 cars and ended with 1!

After Combe we decided to reshell the 2 destroyed cars and also had to fix mine. Took the head off and had is skimmed then re-assembled it and it wouldn't start. After much trial and error one of the other race teams suggested that oil may have leaked out of the lifters meaning it doesn't have good enough compression so won't fire. To test this out we towed it behind the van round the block while in gear and she started up! However it was not the progress we'd hoped and the car smoked a lot while on power, particularly at constant revs. Decided to take it to Anglesey as it was anyway and it ran ok but the oil pressure was pretty low and still smoked a lot.

Head off:



At Anglesey:



Anglesey was another track I'd not done before and really enjoyed it, well worth the 7 hour drive to get there! After the race we pulled the engine out and put the engine in from Dad's car as he wasn't using it while he was building his new one up. That cured the issues, unsurprisingly!

Rest of the season went ok, couple of 4th places which I was happy about and the car made it to the end of the year intact, although with some other colour paint (rubbin's racing).

Photo of the 3 cars at the final race weekend including our friends new build:



And that was that! I sold the car early 2020 to fund a house I'm attempting to buy and so we're back to the 306....

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