Brighton Speed Trials – 7th Sept 2019

Steve: 2nd in Top6, 1st in Class – 10.87s

Zoe: Ladies FTD, 5th in Top 6, 2nd in Class – 11.18s

Report: We have made huge improvements to the 1.6L EcoBoost Westfield this year, Steve hadn’t driven it since Abingdon so wasn’t sure what to expect. Zoe went first, the car snaked a bit of the start line, being early in the day and the start line being very green. She still managed a good time at 12.20s. On Steve’s run, he was careful to line the car up in order to reduce the chance of the car moving sideways. Steve decided to tyre-warm as it was still a very cold start to the day, the car hooked up nicely and went really straight. The new suspension set up, which Zoe had used for a couple of meetings worked really well at absorbing all the bumps and he managed an 11.26s run for his practice. On the timed runs, it had begun to warm up and we managed to persuade Zoe to do tyre-warming, which is something that she has never done before since it is not allowed at most sprints nowadays. She got a much better start this time and did an 11.25s. She was really happy with this as she hoped to get in the 11s. Then for Steve’s run, it was warmer again, he did a bit of extra tyre-warming, got a perfect start with no movement off the startline achieving a 10.87s. They were now 1st and 2nd in class, Steve was 3rd overall and Zoe was 6th overall so at that point, they had both qualified for the Top6 Run-offs with a second timed run to go. We looked at the data logging from the runs and made a few changes to see if we could get any improvements. Zoe got an even better start and managed to go a tiny bit faster with an 11.18s. When it came to Steve’s run, he had to wait for Zoe’s group to return by which time they had started running all the motorbikes, there were only 2 drivers left to go, which was Steve and Amanda George. Amanda was the only person that could knock Zoe out of the Top6 and beat her to the Ladies Trophy. We decided to make a few simple adjustments to the launch to see if we could improve. Unfortunately, it began to get cooler quite quickly due to being late in the day. Steve had a good start and it felt quite good, but the time was slower. 

Steve was then brought back with the motorbikes and it was immediately into the Top6, which gave us just enough time to refuel by the start line, then get Zoe in and ready. We decided to take a risk and increase the boost to maximum, we weren’t sure that the car could grip with the amount of torque (350lbft), Zoe didn’t even have enough time to do tyre-warming, but even so the start was good, unfortunately in the rush we had forgotten to move the head restraint forwards, this meant she had to hold her head up for the whole of the run. She said it felt good, but difficult to concentrate when holding her head, she managed a 11.69s and was happy with her run. They returned her straight away so Steve could drive, because we were turning around immediately, we had to make the decision whether to keep running on maximum boost or return it down to boost Level 2 quickly, so Steve decided to take the risk and maintain the higher boost level, the start felt good and the traction felt good further up the straight. He managed to achieve a 10.98s. This was slower than his qualifying run, but enough to get 2nd in the Top6. We looked at the data later and we could see that the extra boost combined with a bumpy surface meant the car was wheel spinning to just under 100mph, so we are going to do some work on the suspension and damping to if we can put more of the power to the ground. All in all, a great day, lots of fun and so many people were keen to see the SBD Westfield including the rabbit that ran across just after the finishing line on Steve’s final run!!