Before I begin, Jonesey has probably covered most of this already using his superb and superior literary talent. Incidentally, I think his website is one of the many diversion tactics Jonesey uses to avoid doing any work on his car. So I won’t bore you too much hopefully and will try and concentrate on areas of interest to group C.

Group C looks set to be uber competitive this year, with us three reprobates, Dan Ludlow, Rob Spencer, Barry Holmes and Nigel Pratt signed up so far.

Dan’s weapon of choice this time around is one of those modern MG ZR’s, you know, like the ones in the MGCC Throphy championship that lap about 3 seconds faster than anything else We got our first glimpse of it at Castle Coombe followed by a days testing at Silverstone. The car looks immaculate, Vulcan racing have done a stunning job on it. However, as yet, it doesn’t look as fast as it could be on paper, something those enterprising Vulcan boys will be working hard on (geddit? Sorry Jonesey I’m stealing your lines). Let’s see if the sandbags come out for Brands!

The ever present Rob Spencer has always been the man to watch according the V8 boys. Rob regularly mixed it at the front last year and looks set to continue doing the same this year. The addition of a Team Neaves Racing Pedal Box (shameless plug) could make the difference. After testing at Silverstone and a booking for Brands, Rob is clearly fired up this year and probably fancies it.

Of course many will remember Blaine and Rob locking horns at Brands last year, which made for some cracking video. I imagine both will not want to repeat last years’ tit-for-tat banger racing, until they are fighting for position again…

Barry Holmes completes the list of usual suspects in Group C and had some good runs last year. The most memorable perhaps was at Oulton when he gave us a great insight in to what it is like to be stuck behind Blaine. Let’s face it, we’ve all been there, maybe after a problem in qualifying or a bad start. Barry’s real talent lies in swearing while he drives, something we can all appreciate in the Oulton Park 2010 video. Barry will no doubt be looking forward to me overtaking him in all the yellow flag zones around the circuits this year.

Nigel Pratt is a new face with the PBIC, but a seasoned veteran of the Midget Challenge championship. As I understand it Nigel is a regular nemesis of Dominic Moon, who regularly wins the championship from Group B in the midgets. To give you an idea how fast he is, last year at Brands his overall race time was less than a second different to Ollie. Yes I worked it out, and no I don’t take it too seriously… Nigel will clearly be a tough competitor this year and I hope that Brands is not just a one off, and that he joins us for a full season.

Talking of quick Midgets, many are asking; where is Simon Hutchinson? The last I heard Simon was taking a year out to do some decorating and work on building his wife a Ford Zetec Midget… Could it be a diversion tactic? Probably not, I think he is actually doing that.

Another notable absence is Terry Holmes. Terry will be out at various intervals throughout the year but at present, I am reliably informed that he is taking a break to concentrate on his ganster rapping career. Peace Holmie.

Alan Brooke is part way through rebuilding the Metro for another assault on Group C. But, as so often happens, reality has taken over and other commitments have to take precedent. I hope to see him back with us soon as I’m sure he will be.

Some of you may have heard that Team Neaves are once again at full strength as I enter back in to the fray, having taken a break in 2010. Of course the in house banter is in full flow as some sort of physiological battle for pole position is taking place. Currently, of course, I am winning!

Obviously this year, in a Ferrari vs McLarren fashion and to Ollie’s annoyance, Blaine and I are copying his exact setup, something which was not possible last year for Blaine. So I expect us to be of the same relative pace this year. Of course this shouldn’t detract from Ollie’s lucky performance last year, which has caused absolutely no bitter resentment at all within the Team.

For Ollie’s benefit, I’ve included a Video of what happened at Cadwell in 2009 – my second race…

And so I start on Group B, which is looking pretty low in numbers this year. I thought the BCV8 punters would come on a mission to show us up, but it appears they are struggling even to register for their own championship at the moment!

Ollie’s main rival from last year, Crippo, has entered his 4 pot roadster this year, which by all accounts is just as fast as the V8 was! Talking of which, the V8 has been given some new breathing equipment and will make an appearance in the Thoroughbred Championship this year. The 4 pot however should be capable of mixing it at the front, so I look forward to some close battles as the season progresses. My only hope is that Simon finds someone to share his biscuits with this year.

Pete Burchill is our surprise pick for the year. Over the last few seasons he’s been going quicker and quicker. With Vulcan backing this year, if Pete hooks it all up he could cling-on to Simon and fight for the Group B championship. Having improved his result season on season, winning the championship would really be the final-frontier for Pete.

Dave Brooke will surely grace us with his presence on the entry list when he is good and ready. In recent testing at Silverstone he was seen to be trying various new setups on his car. As ever, Dave will be looking to regain his recent title and can never be ruled out.

So there you have it folks, that’s my thoughts on the competition going in to the season opener at Brands. I leave you with the freshly uploaded end of season video from last year to get you in the mood.

Dan

The list of group C reprobates entrants has changed a bit this year, but still looks very well represented when compared with recent years. It seems the usual suspects will be there for the season opener, the V8 clan and Simon in the mighty midget followed by 2/3rds of Team Neaves. (which is incidentally usually the order on the track…) Dan will be MIA for most of this year while he concentrates on his web design business – shamelessplug.com.

After the brilliantly close battles at Snetterton the V8 clan have been busy adding superchargers over the winter months in order to overcome the -5bhp deficit to the Team Neaves cars. This year they are also opting for pictures of half-naked men on the sides of their cars instead of women – a change maybe designed to intimidate the opposition?

Hutch is rabbit-ing (somebody stop me!) away trying to weld fibreglass and metal together after the Midget was eaten by a blind BMW racer at the back end of last year. Lets hope the famous Midget makes it for Brands!

The list of modifications for the Team Neaves cars is literally to long to list here. Suffice to say the major changes are; Carbon Fibre Chassis, Hyabussa Engine Conversion, Dual Steering Wheels and an ex-Formula 1 quick lift jack. Early testing results are good and the Team have knocked over a minute off the class lap record at Brand Hatch.

Now for the class virgins;

Alan Brooke will be putting the eagerly anticipated 700bhp K-Series powered Metro through its paces for the first time at Brands, while in a surprising change of events brother Dave is opting to change absolutely nothing on his car.

Paul Luti will be piloting the 1000bhp lightened MG ZS of Ewart Kitson again after a good run at Cadwell. Rumour has it the underpowered ZS has spent the winter in a stable gorging itself on hay, so should be one to watch – especially when given to Paul, the not-so-tamed Scottish Race Driver.

Jonathan Wills is new to the series with Team 78 Racing and his 160 MG ZR, which will be the first ever entered in Group C. Isn’t it great to see some variety!

Dan Ludlow isn’t really a class C virgin, nor is he actually in Group C but is now sharing the helm of the Lunar Racing powered MG ZS, which after a winter in the stable with Ewarts ZS is now 200bhp up on last year and 3 tonnes lighter. Anthony Reid recently tested the car at Brands and got a very respectable lap time of 0.244 seconds, making it another one to watch.

Rockingham

Joking aside, Ollie’s pre-season testing at Rockingham was a nightmare. The weather was awful and half the BTCC grid were there to hold him up on the straights. But we did notice a great deal of diff oil coming out of the diff casing, which turned out to be a tiny pin hole in the axle. At £200 for the days testing, it was worth it just to find that out.

Further more, Ollie learned that the rain is scary, and to respect it…

In closing, we’re looking forward to the season opener at Brands as I’m sure you are. Hopefully it won’t be a copy of the processional F1 first race and we’ll get some good close racing…

It’ll be great to see all the faces again and we’ll see you soon.

Team Neaves

PS. Anyone who’s down for testing on the Friday is welcome to join us at the local boozer in the evening.

The scene was set for a great day’s racing at Brands Hatch, the early morning sun was heating the track up nicely, and the Maverick and Cougar were up bright (maybe not…) and early for their first experience in the danger zone. All three well polished Team Neaves cars lined up in the paddock and ready for action next to the immaculately prepared cars of Simon Cripps, Barry Holmes, Rob Spencer and Brian Radcliffe. With scruteneering passed and the briefing for the rookies out of the way the cars headed out for what was hoped to be an exciting qualifying session…

Jonesey was especially excited and was heard saying “I feel the need… the need for speed!”

Qualifying

The Team headed out onto the track, line astern, the plan being for the junior Team Neavesers to keep up with Viper, the more experienced Squadron Leader. As Viper and Cougar were winding up to full speed it was clear Maverick had a problem. If any of you have read the previous post you’ll recognise this problem… Yes, it was the clutch again. After completing the mandatory three laps Maverick headed for the pits, and was unfortunately never to return to the track.

The tow rope that Cougar had attached to the Viper car was paying dividends as, on lap 5 he put in a time quick enough for the 7th grid slot. That was as high as he’d get though as on lap 10 the session was stopped for Rob Beasley, who had made a bid to escape the circuit at Druids. Fortunately the gravel trap put a stop to his valiant attempt. The experience of Viper shone through as he managed 3rd on the grid for race 1. Unfortunately for Cougar, the car only wanted to do the 10 laps, inheriting the same clutch problem as Maverick, with the same result. Check out the video below kindly posted by reigning champ David Brooke.

Race 1

With grid slots 7 and 31(not last!) empty, and true to form the commentators none the wiser, the lights went out for race 1. Barry Holmes had a great start from 4th seeing off Viper in the drag race to the first corner. On lap 2 the safety car was brought out for an incident at Paddock in which Rob Beasley and John Yea discovered it was impossible for two cars to inhabit the same piece of track! Viper then fell asleep. As the safety car peeled off into the pits it seemed that Viper was informed of the situation by a hand delivered postcard, clearly much slower than the other drivers, who had been watching…

The positions remained static for the rest of the race, despite Viper closing Barry Holmes down towards the end. You can see the race 1 video from Barry below. The vid from Viper will follow shortly…

Race 2

It was much of the same for race 2, with the commentators that is. Perhaps we should fill out those commentator information forms! Again Holmes powered clear of Viper but this time also claimed 2nd from Dan ‘Sandbag’ Ludlow at the first corner. Viper couldn’t keep pace with the hard charging trio in front for long however, his tyres were pretty shot by this point as you’ll see from the in car footage below (to be added later). A bit of excitement came later though when Simon Cripps, possibly suffering some of the same, had an off on the exit of Druids. It has to be said at this point that Simon’s car was remarkably well hooked up, as he then came around the outside at Paddock to take 3rd.

All in all a good days racing for Viper, but a disappointing start to the Team Neaves campaign!

We have now taken the engine out of Car 4 to have a better look at the clutch. Have a look at the picture below… it seems the friction surface on the flywheel side of the friction plate is missing! I’d invite comments from anyone who has any idea how this could happen with only an hour of running?!

We hope to have the team back out soon, but realistically it’s looking like Cadwell before we can all get out together with transport etc.

Team Neaves

As always there were a few problems. The first of which was getting both cars to the track with one trailer! But that was soon overcome with help from Frank Thompson, who kindly stored one car overnight for us. This still meant that it was a double-run on the way back… which is not much fun. Somehow I don’t think I will be able to persuade my Dad to do the same when we go to Cadwell.

Once there we headed out into the unknown with full tanks of fuel and slightly over-inflated tyres – we later discovered they were 32psi cold! But nevertheless the cars felt good, never mind the cockpit full of oil smoke I suffered 25minutes in. Yes that’s right, another problem, the front pulley had bored / melted its way through an oil line, still at least I did most of the session. Cougar had his own problems, session one for him was the beginning of the phantom-lengthening-clutch problem. He could hardly change gear by the end of the session…

After the great start we suffered we then had to do some fixing, which we did just in time for session 2. Session 2 was great, getting ever more familiar with the cars we were pushing them a bit harder, learning the limits etc. Surprisingly neither of us binned it, but were struck by yet more problems… For me it was a slipping clutch under heavy load, again after about 25minutes. Cougar’s phantom-lengthening-clutch problem returned, to such an extent that it was necessary to discover that the towing eye worked. As if that wasn’t enough Cougar also found out the life of his battery, and that the throttle sensor had come off…

With our work cut out over lunch, we set about trying to fix the cars, unfortunately we couldn’t get Cougar going again, but after adjusting my brakes and setting the tyre pressures I headed out for session 3. By lap 4 I had knocked 1.5seconds off my time from the previous 2 sessions, the car felt very good, I was even starting to be able to keep pace with some of the ZRs that were testing. But what do you know, the clutch began slipping again, accept this time it was so bad that I couldn’t accelerate at all. I then followed the trend set earlier in the day by Cougar and discovered that my towing eye works too.

With both cars unable to be fixed track-side we headed home. It was a shame as I’d have liked to get some more experience with the car and get the lap times down a bit. We believe we know how to fix them up for Sunday, but it’ll be tight! If we make it, I’m sure it will be a day to remember!

Who said racing was easy!

Maverick

Just take a look at the latest photos…

 
That’s right, us Team Neavesers have been working hard on our cars, and they are nearing completion. As you can see the engine, cooling system, fuel system and brakes are pretty much complete. The electrics are almost in, dash sorted, and wheels on the car.

There has however been a terrible side effect of all this progress. Unfortunately, I am now suffering a condition identical to the one Ollie has had for years, and one I believe Jonesey has made reference to before… Yes its ‘short arms & deep pockets syndrome’

To go over a few of the bits for all you tech heads here’s a run down of what’s been done since the last post. The engine has gone in with some gentle re-working of the engine bay (you’ll remember the cut-outs from Blaine’s) and we’ve fabricated our own mounts. The Frontline bell-housing and TranX SCCR gearbox slotted together nicely and fit onto a modified gearbox crossmember that holds it all in place. The running gear is completed with the edition of a TranX slippery clutch diff.

The cooling system is largely courtesy of Brise Engineering; Tim made some really great alloy pots and pipes to link it all together – more from Tim later… The radiator support is a Team Neaves special (ally and rivets) and it’s all joined with some nice blue silicone hoses. Keen eyed readers will notice the oil cooler is mounted upside down to aid the airflow through the car, it does have its drawbacks though, as I’m sure bleeding it will be like trying to get a Montego Estate through scruteneering

You’ll see the masterpiece that is the fuel system in the boot, again our friend Tim made miracles happen with ally and built us some nice swirl pots. Tim also made the tanks which are foam filled, baffled and have collector pots – this should help keep fuel surge at bay.

Wheels and tyres are the latest edition to the car, Rim Stock sorted us out some 15×7s that fit snugly in the B’s ample arches when wrapped in Toyo R888 Super soft rubber.

Well that’s all for now, but keep you eyes peeled for more. With any luck the cars will be started up soon, and believe it or not one keen fan has requested we film it! Of course, this momentous occasion will surely be filmed by the Media arm of Team Neaves racing (that’s my right arm to you and me). We’re looking good for the rolling road on May 8th too, which we will videoed and You Tube’d also.

For any readers that are interested in coming to the first race you can arrange tickets here. You can come and see us on the day too as long as you don’t point at us and laugh at how slow we are!

Maverick

More pictures can be seen in the gallery…

In other news, I went to the NEC Autosport show and spent lots of money that I didn’t have.  You may like to check the gallery for pictures of a traitor that I encountered at the show!  But on the plus side I now have a pile of bits to bolt on the car after the painting has finished, along with all my safety gear. So far I have:

• Roll Cage
• Fuel tank & swirl pot
• Seat
• Harnesses
• Fire Extinguisher
• Dials and dash
• Engine & UCU
• SCCR Type 9 gearbox
• Slip diff
• If fact, all the running gear
• Helmet
• Overalls
• Boots

I think I’ll be much more enthusiastic about the whole thing once I start bolting stuff on, I really can’t wait to get all the painting out of the way!

I’ve begun to realise recently that the self imposed deadline of May is looking slightly threatened at the moment, more by money than time. But with any luck we’ll still make it out for Brands Hatch on 30th and 31st.

In the words of Bugs Bunny; “Stay tuned folks” for more updates!

Maverick

Brands Hatch | Round 7

Blaine got his first ever pole position finished the race in 2nd.

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