2001 Caterham Duratec.

 fitted him hwr motorsport

 2300cc all steel cosworth duratec, steel crank/ rods, cosworth roller barrels circa 300bhp.

wet weight 525kg in race trim.

 

After the woes of the busa a switch to car engine seemed to be the answer, I enjoyed driving the Westfield Duratec on track so this car seemed a step forward, Bought from George Swift who I had raced against in the northern saloons, I bought the car and at first was quite intimidated by it  , power delivery was fierce, coming into Cam hard at around 5,000rpm and sending the car sideways in the first 2 gears, was quite a handful on the road, the car was reputed to have 304 bhp running on 102 octane fuel, I sent the car to Dennis Vessey to get remapped on 98octane so would be more economical to run. On Dennis"s rollers as soon as he started mapping there was clearly something not 100% , the fuelling was weak at the bottom end and very rich up top, a full day mapping and according to Dennis the car was closer to 340bhp ! I thought this claim was very optomistic but a road test showed he had transformed it, it was much stronger at the bottom and pulled hard all the way to the cut at 8,500 rpm. Whatever power it was it was ballistically quick !!! I took the car to Mcdonald racing to get a power run but we couldn"t keep the car on the rollers, as soon as it hit 5,000rpm it spun the wheels and tried to jump out the rollers we eventually got 3 power runs but the ranged from 270bhp - 300bbhp so really i"ve no exact idea what power its got!

First drive on track was in the ddmc race , Ive stayed in the road going class so again am running on treaded 1b tyres, im on Kumho tyres. straight away I was disappointed handling was terrible as suspension settings really didn"t suit my driving style resulting in 15 minutes of understeer , I ended up finishing 2nd in class and 4th overall with a quickest lap of 1.31. A trip to Playskool motorsport at Crook and half a day setting the car how I wanted it resulted in some big changes.

Race 2 was again at Croft, straight away I felt at home in the car, understeer only now came when right on the edge follwed by power oversteer. Qualifying went well, I managed to get inside the current lap record and qualified on the front row 2nd out of 32 entrants ahead of everone else in my class and only fractions of a second behind the pole position slick shod Lotus  so was very happy !!! The race went well, I dropped back 2 places to 4th on lap2 as I waited for my tyres to get up to temperature to get some grip,  but quickly got back to 3rd, the next 14 minutes I was Stuck behind a fellow 300bhp Duratec Caterham . Although I was quicker in the corners than this car I was slower down the straights and this is the first time Ive ever had problems passing someone, on trackdays you are just let past, this wasnt going to happen today! on the last lap I managed to get an inside line into the complex and get ahead, resulting in a 1st in class and I had set a new lap record of 1.28.4. video of the race on video page.

 

 

 

Its fairly clear that i"m going to have to learn some race craft so Ive bought a Kart to race over the winter, hopefully this will help me as in the kart race we all have the same power so it will be down to driver ability to pass.Im sharing this with my oldest son Dan and have bought a Cadet kart for my middle lad Ryan, Its quite suprising how quick the kids are picking this up!

 

Well I didnt see this coming, enjoying Karting so much Ive sold the Caterham and now racing my World Formula kart, My oldest lad Dan and Ryan have now both passed their  Msa race licence Dan  is racing a junior tkm and Ryan is racing a Honda cadet!

me racing at Warden Law

Dan in his  TKM

Ryan in his Honda Cadet

now sold the world formula and moved to race a birel Rotax max

 

 

replacement for the caterham race car..

Caterham Csr 260

powered by a 2.3 260bhp Cosworth duratec

 

 

 

If you would like to exchange links... just email!