Supercar 2000cc

Khun Mit and his team had completed some fine work on the preparation of the car pre season and we had our engine builders Thai Engine Shop build us a full race engine from Toda parts, a race engine we were hoping would deliver in the region of 245 bhp at the wheels, still well short of the overall power some of our competitors are achieving but we were hoping for reliability by sacrificing some of the raw power that can be achieved.

The engine was completed mid May and taken to the dyno shop for final running in and tuning on 21 May 2011. My race engine from last year that delivered 224 bhp had been overhauled and it was planned to be used as a spare engine for this year. All to plan so far but a spanner (big one) was about to be thrown in to the works when on the dyno the new engine dropped a valve and basically destroyed all of the top end, pistons, rods and block of my new race, with only the bottom end and new race cams that could be salvaged, in order to start building a new engine.

Disaster struck with less than a week to the first race weekend of the season. Thai Engine Shop set about rebuilding an engine that could now be used as a spare engine and my old engine from last year now became my new race engine for these first opening rounds of the season.

So we transported the car to Sakeao knowing that we would be giving away in the order of 40+ BHP to some of our competitors though confident we could obtain a good result as the chassis, suspension and braking system have all been worked upon by Khun Mit, his team and our engineer Guenter during the Pre season.

Practice and Qualifying:

The handling of the car felt really good first time out of the pits on old tires and Guenter only tweaked the set up a little between practice 1 and practice 2 though the engine felt completely flat. We had Khun Lim come and check the engine tuning before going out in Practice 2, but after just 2 laps it again felt flat, though managing to record decent lap times of 1.06.80 consistently.

Prior to qualifying we again checked everything in the engine including compression, electrical connections etc etc but could not find any tell tell signs of why we were significantly down on power.

Qualifying went well for two laps until another car had a spin in the first corner and scattered tires across the track thus preventing any real chance of a racing line in this fast first turn. Luckily on my two opening laps I had managed to record 2 laps in the mid 1m.06s at 1,06.49 and 1,06.60 which was good enough for 6th place overall and 1st in class for Round 1 on Saturday and 5th place overall, 1st in class for Round 2 on Sunday. Not 100% happy because we were well down on power and an improvement of 1 second would have moved me to the front row of the grid…….

Round 1:

Lined up on the grid in 6th place I knew that it would be difficult to move across from the outside of the grid to the inside of corner 1, but it was my intention to try no matter what to get to the inside as I didn’t want to be left high and dry on the outside of a rampaging pack into this tight corner.

The lights changed and I made a good start and almost caught Passakorn on the run down to turn 1, Jakthong had also made a very good start and was hurtling down the inside of me into the first turn, I gave him room on the inside whilst holding Passakorn on the outside of me on the approach with the rest of the pack madly into this first turn, There were cars 3 and 4 wide but on exit we all managed to shuffle around and find some space and the race began to settle down, though I did get hit from behind in the first corner which caused damage to the rear wheel setting and there was smoke pouring from the rear tire where the body work rubbed for a lap or two.

The race soon settled down and with being down on power I soon began to slip down the order, also with the right rear corner out of alignment from the hit in turn 1 there was a great deal of under steer with the car. I was content to sit behind Jakthong and ahead of car 52 the Red bull car in 6th place for the opening laps and then around lap 7, Jakthong managed to turn his car on the roof in the hairpin whilst attempting to pass Hathai. This brought out the safety car for a couple of laps.

The restart was manic and I lost a couple of places, though remained content to circulate picking up points with 3rd place in class. At the end of the race I finished 8th overall, 3rd in class reasonably content to pick up the points but disappointed with the engine’s loss of power.

After the race the engine was again checked a thousand times over to try and locate the loss of power fault. In the end Khun Lim, identified that the engines temperature sensor was faulty and was sending false readings to the engine management system whereby the management system was adding additional fuel into the engine as a safeguard measure to prevent the engine from destroying itself, thinking it was hot when it actually was running at the correct temperatures.  Thank you Khun Lim…..

Round 2:

This round was started as a rolling start, something that I am not really in favor of but rules are rules and can’t be changed. I started from 5th place directly behind Hathai who appeared to miss the start a little when the green flag was waved and the approach into turn one was manic with again cars 4 wide across the track. I lost a couple of places as I preferred to remain tight to the inside of turn 1 in a bunch but reasonably safely through this opening turn.

The car immediately felt good with the additional power and I soon began to work my way up the field passing the red bull car No. 52, Khun Preeda, car No. 36, Khun Tin car No. 91 who appeared to be having car trouble and found I was circulating comfortably in 4th place overall, 1st in class without having to push the car too much, short shifting and saving the engine as best I could.

Running this sort of pace (high 1.07 low 1.08) laps I found that the cars behind where being dropped and I could gain a little on the third placed Toyota car. We continued as is, then on the last lap car No. 90 the Toyota Team Thailand car was in trouble and I passed him by out braking him on the way into the hairpin to secure third place overall, and first in class.

The top 5 finished as Jack for OMP, in first, Khun Manat for Toyota in second (both grade A drivers) myself in third, Khun Pisanu in fourth and Khun Preeda in fifth.

A great weekend of racing with two pole positions in class secured and a 3rd and a 1st in the two races. Not bad considering until race 2 we were struggling with lack of engine power.

Special thanks to Khun Mit and his team of mechanics, brilliant as always,  Guenter our race engineer, Thai Engine Shop for the engine builds and of course Khun Lim for tuning. Now looking forward to the next race which will be Honda Racing Fest Rounds 1 and 2 on 11 and 12 June 2011, at Muang Thong Thani, can’t wait.