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SCOR Round 5 : Bilsington Priory - Race Report

 

Pre Race..

In the months prior to the event the Rav had been recommissioned, MOT'd and had over 500 miles of of testing, both on and off road. I was fairly confident in the cars reliability, and that it could finish its first UK comp safari, if we avoided any incidents!

 

Having one last look over the car the day before the event, I was shocked to find a hole in the front guard. It looked like when suspension testing the weekend before a flint had cut its way through the aluminum, and it was still lodged inbetween the ruptured guard and the steel support structure beneath. This was both suprising (that the guard had been punctured at all) and annoying as I now had several hours work ahead of me to take it off and repair it!
 

 
 Luckily had some ali plate in the workshop that was earmarked for another job, so I cut a piece of this to fit across the width of the car and sandwiched it in between the guard and the steel frame, adding some strength and thickness. As the  damage as on the line between the suspend pivots, this is the bit thats sits the lowest and closest to the ground when the suspension is compressed.

 

Eventually the car was reassembled, my check list checked off, a big pile of 'stuff' loaded into the van and the car loaded onto the trailer.

 

Race Day...

A 05:45 start meant we arrived in plenty of time at site, unloaded and headed to be scrutineered. This was passed with no issues and we waited for the driver briefing. The briefing came with a warning - it was slippery in the woods, and that we would need to know how to drive a 4x4 off road to get round without interacting with any trees.

 

After the briefing we assembled for the 'look, see' lap. We set off as a group at 'reduced pace' to get the measure of the course set out for the days event. On the fields the grass was wet and in the woods the track was very slippery. Once back, we lined up for the first lap part way down the field, hoping not to get in any ones way. Then we were off. I took it easy, it was the Ravs first proper outing since being recomissioned after nearly 14 years in storage. The plan was clear - to have fun and finish the event. 

 

The lap opened with a fast 1/2 a mile around and across several fields before entering the 'green hell' of the woods. As soon as we entered the wooded section I immeadiately noticed the lack of grip and turn in. I had to approach many of the corners much slower than I expected. Just over 1/2 way round the first lap and still in the woods, we caught and passed the car that started in front of us. 

 

At the end of the wooded section came the first real problem, I turned in for the last corner and the Rav understeered heading almost straight on. I went to back up but the car and cross rutted in a series of holes in the track. It took a few goes back and forward to get out, losing us time. One back on the track we exited the end of the 2 mile wooded section back onto the fields for about a mile and half of fantastic tracks round the fields and hedges, punctuated about 1/2 way with a pretty decent jump up a bank which I took far too enthusiastically! 

 

With the first lap done we headed straight back out for a second lap. When we completed it and arrived at the finish, we were laughting and chatting and completely forgot to stop at the timing trailer to be counted back in, and headed back to our 'pit' to check over the car. Whilst looking ver the car we got a visit from the one of the club team and a well desereved telling off!

 

Our first mechanical issue came on lap 3. At about 3.7 miles and close to the finish line there was a fairly steep angled transition up from a lower to a higher field - almost a jump - and I hit it really hard. As I crossed the finish I noticed the steering wheel was no longer pointing straight. We headed back to the our pit area and put the front of the Rav up on the trailer to get a look underneath. Nothing was obviously wrong or significantly damaged. We took the decision to reset the tracking and press on, but perhaps take it a bit easier over the jumps.

On the 5th lap we were overtaken by land rover special (number 5) at about 2.6 miles, just before the 'big' jump. We were treated to a front row view of his spectacular 'full send' attack on the jump, getting several feet of air off the top of the bank. I caught it on video but the rear view mirror was in the way so you don't see him in the air or land sadly.

At the end of the lap we headed back to base for a break and a drink and noticed one of the underbody guards 'tabs' that it attaches to on the driver side sill had broken off. After a bit of asking around the team from car 509 offered to weld it back on and 15 minutes later it was repaired and we were back out for the next run.

 

We put in a couple back to back, hovering around the 12 minute mark. By lap 9 I was down to 11 min 45 seconds, picking better lines and carrying momentum where I could, and avoiding mistakes of earlier laps. By this point I could hear a rattle from the front suspension. We checked the car over but all the suspension nuts and bolts were tight, so continued. For laps 10 & 11 my co-driver sat out and took some 'outside' video around the course and I snuck under 11 and a half minutes on both laps. These would be the fastest laps of the day.

And then it was the final lap. About two thirds of the way round I ran wide and kissed the bushes. There really wasn't any impact at all, just a brush with the shrubbery but much later looking at the car I realised we had lost and indicator! On the final part of the track through the woods on the straight approaching the final corner, all day there had been a large puddle. This had been progressively drying out and I decided to take it flat out. This was nearly a bad mistake. The car bottomed in the hole in the track and we ended up exiting facing a different direction that the one I planned, and we were now headed towards a very large tree next to the track! Luckily we stopped just before we made contact.... I backed up.. got back on track and headed for the finish line.....

 

 

After the race...
The main objectives for the day were achieved - we got there and started the race, we had fun (I've not laughed so much in ages), and we finished. And as a bonus, we didn't come last, and we finished first in class A. OK, we were one of only 3 cars in class A and the only one to finish, but as the old adage goes, "to finish first, first you must finish"!

The car held up fairly well. The underside took a beating but the guard did its job. OK, one mount broken (the welding was not the best), we took a dent in the front of the guard due a tree stump on one of the steeper decents, and there was some bending of the guard support rails at the back. I think this modification was collected in the series of deepening holes at the exit of the wooded section. The extended front mud flaps worked pretty well. There was almost no material collected and stored on top of the belly guard, unlike the old design.

The front suspension survived the race, but had some fairly significant issues. On the last couple of laps there was also a rattle apparent from both sides at the front. I thought this was the top mount centre bolts coming lose, but both were tight. During the post race strip down I found play in both of the top mount spherical bearings. At first I couldn't work out why they had failed, but a bit more investigation is looks like that at higher angles of articulation the the 'top hat' insert (that sits under the bearing and centralises it on the shock shaft) was fouling with the outer bearing race. This then in turn meant that a jacking force is applied to the bearing, pulling it apart and causing the premature failure.

Post race, the unscheduled tracking adjustment was traced to a bent near side front shock. This was undoubtedly sustained by enthusiastically tackling the diagonal transition from the lower open field to the final field before the finish and was helped along by my antics at 'the jump' (see my youtube shorts). This has accelerated the need for the 'version 2' struts, and the week following the event a pair of new shock inserts arrived to be fitted to the improved strut casings that are in the works (more to follow on that). Hopefully version 2 will survive better at the next event!

I wanted to get some good video of the race and during the event we tried a few different camera locations. The one that worked the best was definitely the dash mount in the middle of the car, giving the best overall view of the course ahead. We also used an old mobile phone use to log speed and location, and the two brought together in some clever software means I can create a great in-car video showing speed, progress and the shape of the course, like this one from run 1, here.
 

Its been a long road getting the Rav back to race ready, but it was such a great day out it was worth all the struggles! See you at the next event...!