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.

 

 

KARTING

2008

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 not sure where this will end 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 2009

Ryan in his Honda Cadet 2009

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

 

 

DEC 2010

well its been a years since i updated this 2010 saw me secure 3rd in the teeside karting championship and 3rd in the karting north east championship results which could have been better but ive run 3 karts on race days and 9 times out of 10 im spending time sorting the kids karts and my own gets left!! so basically  the karting with the kids has ended my racing ,Ive retired and have concentrated on dan first in Tkm and we have just switched him into Prokart and Ryan still in Honda cadet  in 2010 we raced 38 weekends out of 52 in the year getting as far as GYG in Wales, PF in Lincoln ,regular trips to Rowrah in the Lakes and continued to race at Teesside and Warden Law. Along the way my middle son Ryan has pretty much dominated the races locally with a trophy pretty much everytime out, he is 2010 Karting north east cadet club champion, Teesside cadet Club champion and finished second in the Cumbia cadet championship.

 

2011 will see myself and Dan race senior prokart locally but we will see if we can take it a step further with Ryan and compete nationally in the televised Super one against the countries top cadet drivers there will be more sacrifices to finance this so another year without any holidays for my poor long suffering wife .

 

 

 

Ryans trophys from 2009/2010

and the nice car has been replaced with our race van where we spend pretty much most weekends!!

 April 2011  Ryan at Shennington super one missing out on the lap record by  00.01 on his first time at the track 

Dan racing Prokart at teesside.

 

2011

Dan wins karting north east Prokart clubman championship

 

Ryan wins karting north east cadet championship 2nd year running.

im just getting old!

 

 

 

 

 

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