Steve & Matt will be competing in the SBD 2.0L XE Dallara

Carole will be competing in her Hayabusa powered SBD OMS CF08

Steve:
Saturday, National Circuit – 2nd in BSC R25: 47.48s, 12th in BSC R26: 53.51s (a spin at Peel)
Sunday, International Circuit – 3rd in BSC R27: 77.33s, 3rd in BSC R28: 77.60s
Matt:
Saturday, National Circuit – 1st in BSC R25: 47.00s, 1st in BSC R26: 45.81s
Sunday, International Circuit – 3rd in BSC R27: 75.99s, 1st in BSC R28: 75.79s
Carole:
Saturday, National Circuit – 2nd in Class: 52.41s
Sunday, International Circuit – 11th in BSC R27: 86.30s, 12th in BSC R28: 86.65s

Saturday Report:
It was the fastest journey to Anglesey that we have ever had, not even too slow on the M25! As usual Steve was fastest in practice by quite some way, Matt thought there was a little bit of oversteer followed by understeer, as usual Steve mostly noticed the oversteer but with a tiny hint of understeer at one corner. Matt qualified fastest for the 1st Top12, Steve was slightly further back because the oversteer was getting worse for him. Steve had been working on the traction control and wanted to make a change to it, which the current software wouldn’t allow, so after working out a way of tricking the code, was ready to go for the Top12. On his run the car wouldn’t change down gear properly to the point at the final hairpin before the finish was completed in 5th gear. On getting back to the pit lane, Matt said Steve was the fastest and only Matt was left to run. Steve worked out what the issue was and was then in a quandary as to whether he should fix it for Matt’s run, but did so and as expected after fixing the problem Matt then managed to go 0.3s faster to take the win. Steve was expecting it to be much further away than that so elation and disappointment all at the same time.

As the day warmed up, the grip improved but the oversteer got worse and it was becoming a real fight to keep control of the back. Steve managed to qualify fastest for the 2nd Top12 so Matt had to drive really hard to make sure he was fastest. Steve decided to take a different line into Church so see if he could reduce the oversteer, unfortunately this was worse and span on entry, stayed on the tarmac but finished 12th. Matt took the win and was just outside the record, so 2 wins to his name. Unfortunately finishing 12th meant that Steve could no longer score enough points to win the championship. Although we didn’t find out until analysing the data until after the weekend, we have now found the cause of the oversteer which is due to weight transfer. Matt doesn’t notice it as much due to weighing over 20kg less than Steve.

Sunday Report:
Sunday morning and a brighter day than we had expected, which is extremely good for Anglesey in October. We had made some small adjustments to the car overnight to help to reduce the weight transfer that we had been suffering on Saturday. Matt was first again as usual, thought the car wasn’t too bad but it always takes it fairly easy on the first go. Steve felt that the changes hadn’t improved the car from the day before and felt more uncomfortable today, he thought the car was understeering and the rear of the car wasn’t any better, if anything felt worse. After the practice, Steve second fastest, we decided not to make any changes to see how things went on and even though the temperatures were warming slightly, Steve was definitely uncomfortable with the car. Matt qualified fastest and Steve qualified 3rd, which was a reasonably good time for the fact he still didn’t feel comfortable in the car. Because it was the Top12 next, we left the car alone, Matt won the 1st Top12 of the day and Steve managed 3rd. Over lunch we made some changes to try and help the weight transfer, Matt went out first and seemed to think the car was better but when Steve drove it, he now had understeer on the high speed parts of the circuit and the oversteer on turn in was just as bad. Matt qualified fastest and Steve managed to qualify 2nd fastest despite haring down the edge of the rumble strips and the car balancing on the kerbing on the edge of the circuit around Church with no lift. Come the Top12, Matt already had a comfortable gap between everyone else and won the 2nd Top12, Steve had lost all confidence in the car so wasn’t taking any of the corners as fast as he would have like and a big lift through Church which resulted in 3rd, which was still a pretty good result and shows exactly how well the car is going even when you are not completely at one with the car. The Dallara being built around a Formula 3 car normally means it doesn’t lots of testing when used in its standard form and the car is very fast but is more fussy to set up because of this fact. We have been working on trying to make the car less temperamental but if we go too far, it will simply slow the car down. Unfortunately to a degree, the faster you want to go, the closer to get to the limit as to what is possible.

After the event, Steve and Matt studied the data more carefully and we can see that the initial weight transfer, particularly when Steve brakes is higher because of his additional weight and he is able to brake harder than Matt. Steve will be making changes to the set up on Friday afternoon, unfortunately we will only get to prove them on the circuit at Castle Combe and hope we have got them correct, otherwise it will be a bad day!