Endurance race at Brands Hatch

I joined an old karting teammate, Lee Whittingham , at brands to compete in the MSVT Trackday Championships last round. Driving a 2004 Mini cooper that had done 160,000 miles and its only modifications were BC coilovers , sports exhaust , air filter and 15" alloys allowing us to run Nankang track day tyres. It's bhp was estimated at 110bhp which hurt us quite a lot down the straights.

We arrived at the track on the 15th with heavy fog settling on the circuit. I was the first out of us to get on circuit in the damp low visibility conditions as Lee had never driven Brands before. Nevertheless i put a couple laps in and got my self acclimatised to the track. In which after i pitted to let Lee get some laps in as we needed to build is confidence. Unfortunately the conditions had gotten worse which lead to the field stuck lapping behind the Safety car as visibility was so poor the upcoming corners had disappeared , making it much more dangerous on track. This meant Lee didn't get much track time at full pace which was unfortunate yet we pressed on.

Due to the nature of our Guest entry we had to have a minute longer pit stop to other competitors and also start the race 10 seconds after the pack. I started the race from 28th as we had to start behind everyone no matter where we qualified. Once i had a few laps under my belt i was able to lap consistently and also manage the overheating issue that we had discovered after qualifying which meant i had to keep an eye on the temperature gage and drive accordingly.

My stint was relatively calm as i started to get lapped a safety car came out which then allowed us to pit and for Lee to get in the car. He was able to lap consistently and as the track began to dry he was able to do a 1:04.119. By keeping our nose clean we were able to finish in 23rd which was a respectable results due to the lack of power compared to other cars.

Battling in the pack

Overall it was a great weekend and a good insight to endurance racing with a few challenges that showed my mechanical sympathy to manage the engine temps without having a working fan. Furthermore i improved my front wheel driving abilities as i could control the understeer and manage the wheel spin when it was damp in the morning.