Testing times for Will Disdale at Mallory Park

Page Three of Will Diary - Willspin Racing

Mallory Park - 28th May 2006

Saturday 5.00 pm

Mallory Park is situated about 3 hours from Reading in the leicestershire country side, and quite close to my old university. The journey provided some nostalgia of the good old tax dodging days. :-)

We arrived in the late afternoon of Saturday 27th. With what we thought was a functioning engine. The gasket change had gone ok, and it warmed up nicely, and the fan cut in nicely, and it sounded good. The problem with motorsport is you never know until its under load and out on the track at high rpm whether you've got a problem. The do gooders of health and safety (and admittedly the law) have said the car isn't allowed on the road to test this, so we had to burn more money to find out if the job we'd done was good enough. Madness. (i have been called mad by many people for throwing money at my hobby - if only i had a cheaper addiction - like heroin or something!)

After the car was off the trailer, we warmed up the car up again to give it one more heat cycle before race day. Throttle held at 3,500 rpm for 10 minutes had revealed no problems, so we were hopeful of a finish on the Sunday.

Sunday 9.45 am

Out onto the track for the first time, and i took it really easy for the first couple of laps checking the gauges and making sure everything was normal. All seemed to be fine so after 3 laps i let the revs increase to 5,500 rpm for the first time, and the car seemed to pull well, albeit the handling and braking felt odd. Short shifting for a couple more laps, temperature guages normal, i put my foot all the way to the floor on the back straight and let the revs rise to the 6,000 mark and thought I'd go for it. Coming across the line, the tell tale white steam emanating from the bonnet, and the acrid smell in my nostrils i knew what had happened. The engine hadn't held. We should have spent the time and money getting the head skimmed, and making positively sure the head was 100% flat. Corner cutting and hope (and even a call to god) hadn't been enough.

Upon inspection of the engine, we found a stray coolant hose, so suspected that maybe it was not the head gasket. A glimmer of hope?
After filling the car back up with coolant we started the engine, and we were only on 3 cylinders. After pulling the spark plug out of the 3rd cylinder and seeing all our coolant escaping again, earlier thoughts were confirmed we had most definitely done the head gasket.

Adding insult (or compliment) to injury, the time sheets for qualifying came out and in the 6 laps i completed i had done enough to put the car on pole by 0.084 seconds!!

Sunday 1.30 pm

Watching the race, knowing that you should be in with a shout of winning hurts. And hearing the commentator accuse you of being late for the start makes you laugh - like it'd forget to turn up on pole!

The race itself was typical 924 with a midfield scrap including a train of 6 cars - Paul Pattison, Richard Mowbray, Steve Cheetham, Matt Davies, Paul Bainbridge and Jonathan Ramsey. The race unfolded with Gary Duckman emerging as winner, with Martin Todd taking second place just 2 seconds behind. Paul Pattison completed the podium, some 6 seconds behind Martin.

The car has been trailered to Lodge Sports where the head will be machined properly, and maybe a new radiator fitted, providing more cooling. The next race is scheduled for Snetterton on the 24th June.

Thanks for Reading.

Will

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