Oulton Park Trackday

Tuesday 17th saw us down at Oulton Park on a test day in preparation for Trackday Trophy on the Saturday 28th.
We turned up early and set up shop in our allocated garage where we got VOODOOPA1 ready for some wet testing. The car was tuned for a stock turbo as Saturdays race required a 151 – 175 bhp / ton for us to get in to class B.

With a days worth of testing complete and our new fuel system thoroughly tested Nick set about a 45min session making sure the car would complete it trouble free. With the session over and everyone happy the car was in good shape we called it day and set back to VUDU HQ.

Saturday 28th Race day
30 mins qualifying – We sent Andy out first were he set a fastest lap of 2.01 putting us in a respectable 3rd in class and 6th overall out of a grid of over 37 cars. After 15 mins we brought Andy in and performed a timed pit stop where we swapped over to Nick to finish qualifying. Unfortunately a few laps in Nick started to suffer a mechanical issue, unable to select certain gears this hindered his track times and he was unable to improve on Andy’s time. With the car back in the paddock the guys set about the car where they discovered the gearbox selector cable sheath had melted to the selector cable no longer allowing it to move or select 1st, 3rd and 5th. With a scrapyard challenge fix completed and the gearbox cables installed and the gears all now working we sat tight waiting for our race at 3pm.

The Race
With Andy back in the driver seat and the out lap completed he rolled in his bay on the grid before waiting what seemed ages for the rest of the field to get in to position. ‘Lights out’ and Andy takes off weaving around trying to make up some positions on the 1st lap. As you can see from the video all was going well, he was battling with a civic but over ran the chicane and handing the position back. With Andy setting a good pace holding off the cars behind, The pit crew flagged for Andy to come but on his last lab before pitting he started to have some gearbox issues, Fast forward to 21mins in on the video where you can see Andy unable to get a gear eventually bringing the car to a stop.

With the car unable to finish and the vehicle recovered to the pits the technicians had a quick look and first impressions are the gearbox has failed. There smoke you can see on the video is the gearbox oil burning off the side exhaust exhaust due to it leaking between the bell housing. If we have maintained position we would have finished 2nd would have been a great finish to VOODOOPA1’s first race season.

Now lets see what next year brings.