Pembrey, South Wales is my local track as I live just under 1 hour away.  Saturday afternoon on my way to Pembrey, the weather was dry all the way there until I reached the circuit and it started to rain.  Pembrey circuit is next to the coast so it is known to be windy and rain most of the time.  Luckily that was the only time it rained as the rest of the weekend was dry.  Chris Stubbs was unavailable this weekend as he is on holiday but we got help from Michael Russell who usually helps us in Brands Hatch.

On the timetable it was shown that our qualifying was on Sunday morning and practice was on Saturday afternoon.  We were told it was the opposite prior to going on track on Saturday.

Saturday Qualifying and we were only allowed to do three flying laps as we had radio problems.  Before we completed our first flying lap, the red flags were out and the session stopped as there was an incident involving Julian Arnold (#3) and Tony Mumford (#7).  It happened on the opposite side to the pit-lane and so we couldn’t see what happened.  From what I heard, the #7 truck spun on a corner and the #3 truck couldn’t avoid a collision.  Julian Arnold is ok and he continued to race on Sunday.  Tony Mumford suffered a dislocated shoulder and will not be able to race for six weeks which means he will not be racing at the season’s finale at Brands Hatch in three weeks time.  It took approximately 25 minutes for the marshals to clear the track and the session then continued.  Richard’s fastest lap was 1:09:104 on his last flying lap available.  Richard said that the front end of the truck was pushing and so we decided to do some setup work on the front end after qualifying.  End of the session and Richard was having trouble starting the #24 truck so we decided to charge the battery overnight.  We also found we have a clutch problem as well and it was all sorted by 2am on Sunday morning.  Thanks to Poodles (#54) for his assistance and especially the whole Michael Smith’s team (#93) for their help and for us to borrow their equipment.

Sunday morning and I woke up at 7am to do the normal checks on the #24 pickup truck as we had to get ready for practice just after 9am. 

Sunday Practice and Chris Dawkins (#10) and Lee Rogers (#69) missed this session.  Richard’s fastest lap was 1:07:099.  A big improvement to Saturday qualifying time.  Richard was saying that the front end of the pickup truck is better but can still be improved.  After practice Richard was having problems starting the pickup truck again.  As there is only a short time before Race 1 we decided to concentrate on the setup work and leave the starter motor problems until after Race 1.

Sunday Race 1 and Richard started 4th and finished 13th.  Richard was keeping up with the leaders until lap 3 where he was 3.5 seconds slower than the previous lap and got dropped down to 14th place.  He gained back a place on lap 6 where he overtook Neil Tressler (#37).  Richard’s fastest lap was 1:07:177.  After the race we had the starter motor problems again and this time we had enough time to change the starter motor and the battery.  Thanks to Tony Mumford (#7) for his battery.  Richard also complained that the #24 truck is now not totally balanced and so we altered the setup again to reach that sweet spot.

Sunday Race 2 and Richard was on pole position.  He got a good start and like Race 1 he lost a lot of places on lap 3 down to 11th place but this time Richard only lost 0.7 seconds from the previous lap.  Richard would battle the rest of the race with Julian Arnold (#3) and Chris Dawkins (#10).  Richard finished 11th with a fastest lap of 1:07:180 with Michael Smith (#93) beating Richard at the finish line in 10th position.  After the race has ended, Paul Saunders (#26) received a penalty and was penalised 25 seconds and this put Richard into 10th place in the final results of Race 2.

In the end, we survived an incident-packed weekend and Congratulations to Gavin Seager (#54) who now has won both the Oval and the Overall 2008 Pickup Truck Championship.

Many thanks to the following teams for their help:-

#3 Julian Arnold

#7 Tony Mumford

#9 Pete Wilkinson

#10 Chris Dawkins

#26 Paul Saunders

#54 Gavin Seager

#63 Phil White

#69 Lee Rogers

And a special thank you for everyone at Michal Smith’s team (#93) for everything and sorry for waking you guys up on Sunday.

See you all at the season’s finale at Brands Hatch on weekend beginning 31st October 2008.

Yung

Mechanic

Friday night I got there 2 hours later than planned as there were traffic accidents on the M4, M5 and M42.  When Richard Novell arrived we begun to start setting up the pickup truck from circuit running to oval running.  It took a while but we got there in the end.  New driver in the Pickup Truck series this weekend is #46 Miguel Gomes.Saturday Qualifying and Sarah Carnell were to be our spotter.  Richard completed 10 laps before having fuel pressure problems.  He was 13th fastest with a 41.59 second lap.  With the first race on Saturday this meeting, work began on fixing the fuel pressure problems and fine-tuning the oval setup.

Saturday Race 1 and Kelly-Jayne Wells were to be our spotter.  Richard Novell was starting from 3rd place.  During the race, Chris Dawkins (#10) had a big crash on lap 2 and unfortunately that forced him to retire from the weekend.  Richard was doing well and was keeping up with the pace until lap 11 where he lost places to the fast trio of Pete Wilkinson (#9), Nic Grindrod (#22) and Gavin Seager (#54) and then Richard began to slowly lose places every few laps.  He finished the race in 12th place.  After the race Richard said the truck was pushing after the corners and this was evident as the right side tyres left their mark on the Rockingham wall between Turn 2 and 3.  Had to quickly tune the setup of the truck ready for Race 2 on Sunday as the Pickup Truck Party was about to invade our garages.  After completing the setup with the help from Michael Smith’s (#93) team (and their garage space) we joined the rest of the paddock at the party in our original garage space.

Sunday Race 2 and Jamie Watts were to be our spotter.  Jamie is our original spotter but was too busy on Saturday.  Richard started 3rd again as some of the other drivers had problems in between races.  A poor start left Richard 13th after lap 1 and was battling with Julian Arnold (#3) and Antony Hawkins (#98) for most of the race.  Dave Briggs (#2) and Pete Stevens (#4) joined in the fight later on.  Up front, Michael Smith (#93) was leading from lap 23 with Pete Wilkinson (#9) behind him.  On lap 27 they touched and lost places giving the lead to Gavin Seager (#54).  Michael Smith (#93) would continue the rest of the race and finish without the whole rear panel and the spoiler as it was missing from his truck.  Richard would finish the race 9th place and thus finishing the Rockingham Championship in 9th place ahead of Michael Smith (#93).  After the race Richard had minor front bumper and left wing damage to his truck.

A big thank you to the following people/teams for their assistance:-

Sarah Carnell
Kelly-Jayne Wells
#3 Julian Arnold
#54 Gavin Seager
#93 Michael Smith
#98 Antony Hawkins
 
A good weekend in the end for the RMN Motorsport team.  Currently only 100 points away from 10th position in the Overall Championship with 2 race meetings left. Next race is Pembrey in Wales where it is my local track.  See you all there in the weekend beginning 10th October 2008.

Yung
Mechanic. 

Brands Hatch and this weekend we were supporting the DTM’s (Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters) this weekend.  As this event is major in the UK, the pickup trucks had to be at the circuit and all ready on Thursday.  Chris Millett would arrive at the circuit later on the Friday and Michael Russell will arrive on Saturday morning.  Thursday night and the clutch was sorted thanks to Poodles (#54) and Steven (#93). 

Friday morning when I got there, we had to put all the small parts back on the pickup truck as the paint was still drying on its way to Brands Hatch.  We tweaked around with the clutch all day as we were continuing to put things back on.  Only had half the decals on the pickup truck before Friday practice began. 

End of practice Richard was 13th fastest and just over 2 seconds slower than the fastest pace setter that was Gavin Seager (#54).  Richard was pushing on all the left corners and was spinning the inner wheel on Clearways.  The fan motor was also loose as one of the bolts holding it in place was missing.  Got it tightened as soon as the pickup truck got back in the paddock.

Friday night we done some setup work on the rear to improve traction on Clearways and on Saturday morning we altered some of the settings on the clutch.

Saturday Race 1 and we started in the middle of the pack and was going well until Richard stopped just after Druids.  When the #24 pickup truck got back in the paddock the alternator belt was snapped off along with the cam belt.  As we dismantled the engine head, we found 12 bent valves.  A new engine is required to get the pickup truck back out and running again.  Richard and Chris Millett decided to head back to Bedford to get his old engine from last year while Michael, Chris Stubbs and I get started on removing the rest of the engine from the truck.  Richard and Chris got back to Brands around 9:30pm and we fitted the engine and connected the clutch and gearbox back on by 11:30pm.  We all decided to have a few drinks and relax a bit with Michael Smith’s (#93) team.

Sunday morning came and we refitted all the hoses, wires and cables back on the engine.  Started it up for the first time and a lot of smoke was coming out.  If I remember correctly, that’s what happened when the last time we changed an engine at Rockingham October 2006 so I was hoping all the smoke was normal.  After a while the smoke stopped coming out and the engine was running smoothly.

Sunday Race 2 and the predicted thunderstorms didn’t materialise and all we got was bits of rain now and then.  We were starting last because we changed an engine but we didn’t break any seals as the seal from last year was still on the old engine.  The officials only asked us if we broken any seals which we didn’t.  Richard was battling with Neil Tressler (#37) during the race until Richard reported of clutch problems over the radio which set him back behind the #37 truck.  Richard nearly got pushed off the track by Kelly-Jayne Wells (#21) as he was letting her through but then later on Tony Mumford (#7) got a coming together with the #21 truck and Tony drove back into the pits and retired from the race.  Richard finished the race 16th and behind the #37 truck in the end.  After the race the #24 pickup truck was leaking clutch fluid and so will need to be sorted before the next race at Rockingham at the end of September.

A big thank you to the following teams for helping over the weekend:-

#2 Dave Briggs

#7 Tony Mumford

#9 Pete Wilkinson

#10 Chris Dawkins

#22 Nic Grindrod

#37 Neil Tressler

#54 Gavin Seager

#63 Phil White

#93 Michael Smith

#98 Antony Hawkins

See you all at Rockingham weekend beginning 26th September!

Yung

Mechanic

Donington/Thruxton was my first back-to-back race meeting and the weather was so much different between the two.  Donington was all sunny and hot.  Thruxton was cloudy and windy until Michael Smith’s team arrived and then the heavens opened up.

Matt was back for this weekend as well as Phil Harris.  That makes it a full team for the weekend so whatever that needs doing on the pickup truck, it should be done quickly.  As we unloaded the lorry on Friday night, we had a punctured tyre and also two tyres that was leaking air.  Had to wait until Saturday before Avon arrives at the circuit to sort our tyres out. 

Saturday morning and it was raining although not as heavy as Friday night.  We did some setup work on the back of the pickup truck to improve traction and was ready for Saturday practice.  The rain stopped before we got on track and it was drying up so it was decided to go out on slick tyres.

Saturday Practice and Richard was 12th fastest which included him flying, quite literally, as all four tyres was off the ground and two excursions at Village corner.  There wasn’t a dry line as the pickups went on track and Richard first missed the chicane and hitting a big kerb which made him fly and at Village corner, he went wide off the dryer part of the track and onto the grass both times.  Besides minor bumper damage and a lot of grass, there was no problem so Richard continued after the first excursion at Village corner.  The second happened just before the end of practice so we got it back in the garage.  Work started to check everything since these pickup trucks are designed for racing on the road and not for flying or running on grass.  Everything was good so we were all ready for Sunday Race 1.

Sunday Race 1 and was raining at the start so we went on track with full wet tyres on.  The rain died out during the course of the race and so everyone was going faster.  We was starting 14th out of 17 pickup trucks and we finished 14th.  We was as high as 12th before Richard radioed in saying there was a clutch problem.  After the race, we found that a half-shaft was broken on the right side of the differential so we had to change the whole differential for Race 2.  There wasn’t a problem with the clutch luckily.

Sunday Race 2 and it was dry but cloudy.  Slick tyres were put on the #24 truck and we started 13th.  Richard was battling for 12th place with Tony Mumford (#7), Neil Tressler (#37) and Damien Carr (#14) for most of the race.  That is until the #7 truck got in contact with #14 and ended up in the tyre wall on lap 8 and Richard having a misfire on lap 10.  Finished in 14th place again and it started to rain again after the race.

Looking at the lap times, if there weren’t any problems with the truck, Richard would have finished 12th in both races.  We are currently in 10th place in the overall championship followed closely by Julian Arnold (#3) who is only 10 points behind.  Michael Smith (#93) is 9th with a 85 point gap.

The next race will be at Brands Hatch with the DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters) on 30th/31st August.

See you there!

Yung

Mechanic

A new member of the team for this weekend is Matt as our Technical Advisor.  His previous experience includes working with the championship winning team of Nic Grindrod (pickup truck #22).

Arrived at the track on Saturday night as all the pickup truck action on track was timetabled for Sunday only.  This means practice and both races squeezed into just the one day.  Decided to do some setup work in preparation for race day and with a few minor mistakes on my part, took a while to complete.  Learnt things the hard way which should help me remember for next time.

Sunday morning came with a few wake-up calls from the airplanes from the Nottingham East Midlands Airport.  They woke me up before my alarm and when I finally got up, me and Chris Stubbs got the truck ready for morning practice.

Richard done 2 flying laps before he suddenly stopped on-track for no reason.  Thoughts of Mondello came to my mind but thankfully it wasn’t.  End of practice and he was classified as 14th fastest out of 19 runners.  Richard got back and he said that there is no throttle so something has broken.  Got the truck in the garage and found that a small bolt in the throttle linkage was snapped off.  It was replaced as well as some extra setup work on the rear of the pickup truck as Richard was saying he had no grip on Coppice corner.  Besides that, the truck was well balanced and we were all looking forward to a good race result.

Race 1 and Richard was starting in 6th place.  He completed 2 flying laps before coming into the pits with a problem again.  This time it was clutch problem so the pickup truck was hastily pushed into the garage and work began to fix the problem.  All completed with an hour to spare thanks to everyone including Richard.  We all had a little break before getting hyped up for Race 2 as there is a good setup but no final result to prove it.

Race 2 was delayed as two BTRA Trucks ended on one another during their race and so everyone in the pickup series was waiting for the marshals to clean up the track.  They took longer than expected and so the remainder of the races on the track, which included us, was reduced by two laps.  Richard was starting second from last and behind us was championship leader Gavin Seager (#54).  We finally got underway and as the green flags came out for the start of Race 2, not a minute later there was yellow flags as three pickup trucks got involved in a incidence on the first corner.  It was Julian Arnold (#3), Michael Smith (#93) and Anthony Hawkins (#98) who all got off on the first corner.  Richard was going good and was as high 12th place until the last lap where he suffered a puncture.  He crossed the line 14th place with the front left tyre going flat.

Overall the weekend was good besides the results.  A top-10 finish is potentially possible in every race if there is a bit of luck with reliability.  Thanks to Matt for his advice and Michael Smith’s team for helping me all the time.

Bring on Thruxton!

Yung

Mechanic