So, a long time away for the Team, leaving at 4am on the Wednesday morning to travel out to the Le Mans circuit in France, and arriving in the holding area Wednesday evening. We were allowed into the paddock on the Thursday morning to set up, ready for testing on the Friday and racing on Saturday and Sunday.
For us the format was different, with the standard BTRC schedule being modified to match the European schedule of a shake down session, a qualifying session and two races on each of Saturday and Sunday.
This was a huge weekend for Truck Racing, with races for the British, French, and European (FIA) Championships all at the same venue – 3 qualifying sessions and 6 races each day.
However, with a heavy workload back at C & H Commercials, Simon and “Frankie” were forced to sit this one out at home and keep the wheels in motion in their workshop. So, we only took Archie and his truck to this meeting.
Fridays two test sessions were both disappointing, with boost pipe issues, for the second session this was fixed in the pits. During the Friday evening this pipe was modified and gave us no further issues over the weekend. This “boost pipe” is the “high pressure” air pipe connecting the turbocharger discharge, to the intercooler inlet. In the first session we also had an ECU failure, in the main engine management system, but this was traced to a loose plug, and was easily fixed and “reinforced” with a ty-wrap / cable tie!
Saturday
With Fridays issues behind us, the warmup on Saturday went very well, with Archie being the 2nd fastest Division 2 truck on the track.
The brakes were running hot, and close to catching fire – but who needs brakes?
Qualifying went well, with a respectable 5th on the grid, especially considering that some of the Division 2 trucks are Division 1 specification!
In Race 1 of the weekend, Archie was delighted to be placed 4th in Division 2, ahead of teams with significantly higher budgets than ours.
Race 2 of the weekend started off very well for Archie, and the Truck, making excellent progress, until all the gears were lost and it was better to park up somewhere safe and await collection at the end of the race.
The gear selection is reliant on four hydraulic cylinders below the gear lever generating an oil flow to a selector mechanism located on top of the gear box. Oil, being non-compressible, will create a direct link between the to. However, in this instance, air had entered the system, and the gear box was not getting a positive signal from the gear lever, only allowing certain gears to be selected.
Saturday night was spent bleeding the four lines in an attempt to remove all the air! Along with the customary replacement of the front discs and pads.
Sunday
We put the truck out for the shake down session, in part with our fingers crossed, and, to the delight of the team, all gears were now present and correct!
In the qualifying session we were 4th in class, again an excellent position given the specification of the trucks we were up against.
And the races, what more is there to say ? Two 3rd places in Division 2 on Sunday, a fantastic result for the team, and Archie on the famous Le Mans podium not once, but twice!
So, other than the water tank trying to fall off, and the boost pipe, what a weekend !! A 4th place and not one but two 3rd places.
While at Le Mans, we also invented “Race Team Croquet”, using used brake pads and a sledgehammer; and to top off the weekend Archie won the “TotalKare” “Driver of the weekend” award, with the highest ever proportion of votes!
Roll on “Brands” and the closing event of the season, with fire works on and off the track, I’m sure. We hope to have both trucks at, what is for us, our “home” event too, for the last 5 (or 6) races of the season. Remember that one of the races (at Donnington) was never completed due to a significant accident and “roll-over”, maybe this will be re-run at “Brands”, but with the nights closing in it’s difficult to see this happening, its pretty much dark by 5 pm.
A huge thank you to our supporters, we will be back – great to meet you all.
Check out our “Gallery” page for more pictures from the event!
THANK YOU to ALL our wonderful sponsors, especially LPM and TTP; to the businesses who help us out in kind, or with cash (although we accept cheques too of course!), we could NOT do this without you ALL. No matter how big or small your help – this team of family and friends could not do this without YOU. YOU made it possible for Simon, and Archie, putting father and son on the track. THANK YOU. (but we always need more help of course).
Please check out our “Partners” page to find out more about our sponsors.
See us all, cheer on Archie and Simon and “THINK PINK” at the Circuits if you can – we are always happy to chat and show you our race trucks. Unless we are repairing them of course, in which case best to give us some space to work safely.
If you cannot visit the track, then remember to check out the “BARC” live feed on YouTube – or of course on “catch up” later.
CTS#41 and CTS#40; Archie, John, Colin, Sam, Toby, Zeki and Kev.
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