Report from 5 hours on Sviestad the 26:th of october 1997.

The race was an extra race to see if the track, now opened for cars
for the first time, would work.


Changes in car setup was:
New enging, or rather an old rally engine bought secondhand,
with extractor exhaust, still 1600 but with more bhp.
Catch tank fed from two pickup points in the tank, 
to solve the fuel starvation problem. 
New Öhlins (ohlins) front shock/spring unit.

It was bitterly cold (-4 c) when we started from Stockholm at 5am
to reach track for scrutineering at 7.30. Temperature during raceday
never went over +2 but the sun was shining from a cloudless sky.


Desmo started and our hopes of beeing among the fastest in our class
was put to an end. 
It looked somewhat nonrythmic and it sounded like ignition
problems. Sometimes the acceleration was rather fast and sometimes
it sort of missed. 
At 1015 he came in and said something was wrong with the right front 
suspension. We saw hairline cracks around the hub and changed both 
front wheels. He also reported that the power came above 5000 rpm 
like a kick-in-the-ass, and the rpm regulator cut of at 6200 rpm.
So we had about 1000 rpm to use. Shifting from second at 6200 gave 
4200 on third, and that was clearly below the power band. 
He came in again for a fast checkup and we worked with an oil leak for some time. 
The engine had never been under any strain since we mounted it 
so now the small faults and fixes turned up.
Now with more power she was definitly harder to handle and he made
at least one excursion. He made a 1.23.39 lap as fastest.

10:30. MrBeam had option for the first drive but he left it to Desmo 
but now it was his turn. The other drivers had a chans to interview
Desmo for heis impressions
The track was much trickier than Mantorp with its kilometer straight
and long turns. It took everybody a couple of laps to sort out the 
brake and shift points and the fast lines. No-one can remember having
a chance to cast a glance at the speedometer.
The lap times were creeping down to 1.26.17 Even he was of the track.
He had some problems with rear brakes locking up. 

11.15 Driverchange and tankstop. Reodor went out after filling up 
with about 25 litres. He was going more reclessly than last time and
was doing times at 1.20 (1.19.88 as fastest). 
After half-an-hour he found some rythm and managed to keep tempo 
with some other cars and then the brain faded and made 3 excursions 
on five laps and came in for driverchange. 

12.10 We topped up the oil and Biggles went out. He was doing some 
long nice smokescreens braking at the downhill into the slow area.
Once he missed the braking totally but managed to keep it on the 
escape road and we discussed later if that was 'off the track' or not.
Nothing exceptional happend, he was doing steady 1.21's with a 1.20.66.


13.15 Clapton went out. On one of the first laps he missed the 
entrance to the hairpin on the far end and used a lot of the 
surrounding field and when he came around the next lap a girl were 
sitting on a horse on the very path of grass he had used the
lap before. He was fastest as usual, and were doing regulary 1.19s 
(1.18.88). We could see he was smoking the right front
in the esses after the startline and we were a little confused. 
Suddenly he was missing and we spotted him standing beside the car
at the other side of the track. It was only a puncture but the tyre
was worn through. The spinning of the inner wheel during acceleration
had worn down the tyre to the steel and thats why it lost grip and
smoked during braking. 

14.15 It was very near the end of Claptons run and he was a little 
tired so we sent out MrBeam for an extra stint. The internal 
timekeeping in the team missed the fact that we had actually 
started at 9.45 so it should have been Desmos turn instead but
we will compensate him some way. Now he was making a 1.23.19 but
the second wheelchange at front had left us with 205/55's (illegal)
tyres in stock so that made it somewhat faster. 

Conclusion. Now that we have more power and a hard front end we will 
need one or more of the following to get the front tyres to grip:
Harder rear end (we have a harder torsionbar in the workshop). 
Tyres with better grip.
A limited slip differential.

We also need to widen the powerband. We will check how fast 
the engine can rotate, and then we will adjust the rpm-regulator.
We hope that it is mechanic and not inside the computerbox.

Then we have the engine. We have the old 1600-block sitting in the
workshop complete with a 1900 high compression axle-stake-piston kit. 

And of course she will be lighter,lower and more slippery 
(aerodynamic-wise!!) till next season. They plan 5 races
of ten hours each next season. We will be there. Stay tuned to
this homepage for more reports.