Abingdon, 12^th June. My first sprint with the new suspension set up, including some extra negative camber all round. From bitter experience in the Alfa Romeo racing car, almost 2 years ago, I knew this was going to make a difference. The Abingdon sprint was the first opportunity to run the car at high speed through some proper corners and really assess the new geometry. The tyres would be used differently, probably needing new pressures, and the dampers would need adjusting to optimise the balance of the whole car.

I arrived in the paddock at around 7:45 to find a very full paddock and a HUGE scrutineering queue. Unusually at this event, scrutineering is first, followed by signing-on, briefing, and convoy run, then practice. Also, for those of you who don't know, this event is effectively 2 sprints in one day, the entry being split between 2 courses with a swap-over after lunch. Because I arrived late it was all a bit rushed. When I went to sign on and attend the briefing I made sure I had my helmet and gloves etc ready for the convoy run and practice. I hadn't even checked my tyre pressures when we got under way. As I was in an "early" class in the entry, I was to tackle the long sweeping "Abingdon Course" for the morning.

The convoy run lead almost straight into first practice so there was no time for messing about. First practice was ok, the speeds I reached were rather concerning as I had no idea where the limits of adhesion were! After first practice I checked and corrected my tyre pressures to the previous best and began 2^nd practice. From there on in I would also be checking my tyre tread temperature to help pick pressures that would enable full use of the available grip. Another adjustment made behind the wheel was my start technique. Up until this event I'd only ever spun the wheels in wet conditions way back at Lydden. All my dry starts had been quite steady. This time I gave it death every time… and it worked well. I am now able to get away very quickly with no clutch slip and just a small amount of wheel spin. Very satisfying. It's a shame there is no 64ft time recorded at Abingdon because it would be very interesting to compare the two different techniques in this car.

Back to set up. As I mentioned earlier I have adjusted the camber to negative all round. This is good for cornering. A standard car will often use only a proportion of the outside of the tread width if cornered hard, due to roll angles and suspension geometry (in this case, struts at every corner). By applying negative camber it's possible to increase the proportion of the tread width actually used to generate grip. I demonstrated a good example of the difference it can make at Donnington, back in 2002. We'd realised that the Alfa Sprint was only utilising about an inch to and inch and a half of the tread width of its huge slicks at the rear. Whilst other parts of the car were undergoing changes, we also stripped the rear axle and spaced the bottom two bolts of each stub axle (and brake back plate) to achieve a couple of degrees of negative camber. On arrival at Donnington it was quite apparent that the grip level had improved but as soon as I tried to put in a quick lap the rear of the car began to bunny-hop, eventually spitting me off into the gravel. This behaviour was caused by the increased loading on the rear springs, which was now not being correctly damped. Of course, a quick change to the damper settings cured the problem at a stroke.

So, the MR2 now had some extra negative camber all-round. After a couple of runs I began to measure the tyre tread temperatures. Each tyre was measured at the inner edge, centre and outer edge of the tread width. Before the changes the outside edge would always be significantly hotter than the inner edge and the trick to optimised performance is to make the gradient between inner and outer edge as flat as possible. Now, with negative camber, both the inner and outer edges of the tread were getting significantly warmer than the centre, so the tyre pressures needed to be raised. I did this in steps over several runs until I was getting near even tread temperatures across each tyre. Next was the damping.

The new dampers are adjustable, which means I can tailor the car’s behaviour to my liking. This takes time and exposure to many different scenarios to get right. A sprint is not the best place to be undertaking this development work, but it's safer than tearing around on the roads! Once the tyre temperatures and pressures were to my liking I set about tinkering with the damper settings. Basically I started to firm things up throughout the afternoon but my less than satisfactory level of commitment to the corners, combined with their very nature, meant a full assessment was not really possible. The development continues!

Sunday 20^th June was supposed to be wet, or at least showery according to the reports I had seen and heard. The morning was beautifully fresh and bright, some overnight rain having cooled and cleansed the countryside. A fairly brisk breeze kept the temperature down at North Weald despite some pretty strong sunshine. I arrived at the venue as early as I could manage, with the intention to help set-up. No sooner had I decided to join in with the cone arranging, my Marquis Motorsport racing team-mate, Darren Carter, appeared to double drive the MR2. Whilst he familiarised himself with the facilities I helped Chin and Chris Scudder with some of the course setup.

Scrutineering and the noise test was dispatched early and quickly, followed by signing-on. We then made use of the catering facilities and set-off to walk the course, bacon roll in hand. I explained the start procedure and formalities of sprinting to Darren, who specialises mainly in circuit racing. After returning to our paddock spot I then set about adjusting tyre pressures and checking damper settings, which I finished just in time for the driver’s briefing.

First practice began almost straight after the completion of the briefing and was delayed by the first two cars spinning at the chicane. Black marks for David Balderson and Andy Webber! I joined the queue fairly early to allow plenty of time for Darren to feed back into the system. My first practice was pretty average. My start was poor, with too much wheel spin, the rest of the run was reasonable with no silly mistakes, just a bit of early braking and I was clearly cornering nowhere near the car's capability. The driver change was fairly simple since Darren is the same height as me and nothing is adjustable anyway! Just change the numbers and get him strapped in ready. Darren's start was neat and simple and he set about learning what the car could do… or in this case, more what it couldn't do. Darren was trying to carry too much speed into the tighter turns and the resulting understeer caused nothing but frustration. Having never driven the car before, his first practice time was a realistic 2.39 seconds slower than mine.

After some brief analysis we were ready for our second practice runs. These came up fairly quick due to the relatively small entry. I managed to knock 1.83s off my previous time and Darren managed to reduce his time by 2.18s despite a big series of brake lock-ups whilst slowing for "the banjo". Further analysis and a review of the in-car video footage gave us a bit of an insight in the differences in our driving and some opportunities for improvements. We finally agreed on a small change to the rear dampers to try to reduce the understeer being generated in the tighter turns.

First timed runs would occur before lunch and now things had to get serious as the sky began to look threatening! My start was no better than average but the run was all going well until I reached the last hairpin where I managed to slightly out brake myself and totally ruin my line, this cost me 1.31s vs. my fastest practice time at 70.42s. Crucially, Darren managed to get a cleaner run in at 69.62s, having finally mastered the turn in speeds. Lunch was taken after this run and there was a very light shower of rain. Thankfully the breeze helped to dry the track significantly before our second timed runs.

I had it all to do – Darren had beaten my first time and the clouds were ever darkening. It was now or never. I managed probably the best start so far in that car, and I just went for it. Standing on the brakes as late as I dare into "the banjo" I still slowed to the right speed and balanced the car through the turn. Concentration got me around a very clean and tidy run to record a time of 69.58s… just 0.04s faster than Darren's first run! Luckily for my pride he couldn't better his time and actually went a bit slower in his second run, stopping the clock at 70.34s. Shortly after finishing our 2^nd runs the heavens opened. It rained very hard and the paddock was awash in a matter of minutes. After making sure my video camera was protected we took refuge in Darren's car and discussed the day so far. He'd gone from obvious scepticism to real enjoyment, finally understanding and rising to the challenge.

There was no point cowering from the elements and missing the opportunity for some slippery fun… we decided to take our third runs for fun, the only change made was a slight reduction in tyre pressures. My start was terrible again, with way too much wheel spin. I was much slower before the chicane thanks to that, never reaching 3^rd gear! Caution through the chicane was preparation for cautious braking before "the banjo". Oh dear! I braked early and gently but just locked right up and slid for what seemed like an eternity, struggling to get the wheels turning again. At one point I felt like I was going to leave the sprint area altogether but I somehow managed to slow enough to double-back and make the correct route around the cone and back onto the straight. More cautious braking was followed by a gentle slide though the first gate and some fishtailing towards the second gate. From that point it was fairly composed and safe. I recorded a time of 82.17s. Darren's run was even more eventful, he was a little concerned to see some warning lights flickering on the dash (another alternator failure – my fault this time!) but got on with it anyway. His braking for "the banjo" began at a similar point to mine but, rather than stay on the tarmac he managed to slide off to the grass on the right and back onto the tarmac in time to round the cone. After rejoining the warning lights were more prevalent and he was a little more cautious under both acceleration and braking. A little bit of a wobble into the first gate was followed by a sedate run to the finish to record a time of 86.84s. These wet times were largely irrelevant for several reasons and we were just happy to have kept the car under control for the majority of our runs!

My final position was 4^th in class, just 8 hundredths of a second behind Steve Thompson in his Civic Type-R. The CRX of John Wright was well driven to second. Ross Saville had borrowed his Dad's all-conquering Metro GTi and he didn't disappoint, taking the Class A1 top spot by a cracking 2.56s. David Balderson took second in A3, Andy Webber took a popular B5 win with Chris Fulke-Greville in second. John Milligan took the B6 win. Other 7oaks honours went to Bob Gibson, Jon Baltrop, Colin Billings, Bill Oliver, Ritchie Gatt and, for FTD, Matt Oliver.

Many thanks, of course, to all those who helped run the event.

Post event analysis is still ongoing and hopefully this may lead to further improvements in the suspension setup. The rear of the car is critical in that it carries the majority of the weight and the way this is controlled goes a long way to influencing the build-up of understeer, or otherwise. The front calipers require inspection to ensure they are not sticking because the wheels were very difficult to unlock, once stopped. That may be just a symptom of the surface at that venue, which is notoriously slippery when wet. The clutch master cylinder was found to be leaking slightly before the event and, although this is a very small leak, and hasn't got any worse, I will be changing the part as soon as possible. The alternator failure was due to the sleeve in the bracket becoming seized and not allowing the bolt to tighten correctly, thus allowing the alternator to rattle on it's mounting, causing damage to the voltage regulator. Luckily I had another spare in the garage and this has been robbed of its electrical pack.

I was planning to compete in the Porlock hillclimb on 27^th June, but since there are some repairs to be completed and I am in need of some rest, I've sadly had to withdraw my entry.