Things are kicking off and I’ve got a busy week ahead! We’re taking delivery of our car later this week, and sometime before Friday I need to sort out insurance and buy another car that can tow our trailer. I also need to finalize my registration for the championship! As I mentioned last week, we’re taking the car down to Oxford Brookes where Austin and our newest recruit, Adam Painter, will do their engineering magic to make the car super fast and reliable for our next test. Since he knows what we need to do better than I do, I asked Austin to write a bit about what we’ll be doing to get the car ready for Silverstone on March 2:

With car delivery slated to happen over the next few days, and our first test only 10 days away, we have quite a bit of work to do. We need to take a car that Charlie’s never driven, and that I’ve never even seen and ensure it is ready for the twists and turns of Silverstone on March 2nd. Once we have the car in our possession we will perform an inventory of the parts we have available and figure out what equipment we still need to purchase, to ensure we are adequately equipped to handle a variety of situations that may happen at the track. We bought some zip ties, duct tape, and a hammer yesterday so that should get us most of the way, but we should probably have a few more things, just in case.

Once inventory is complete, we will strip down and rebuild of the car to ensure all of the nuts, bolts, and fittings are properly torqued and secured. On a side note, now is a good time to tell you that despite the fact that blue Loctite tastes like candy (Note from the editor: ಠ_ಠ ), you probably shouldn’t eat too much of it. Another benefit of this strip down will be to help us familiarize ourselves with the car itself; even if we were buying the car brand new and assembled from the factory, I would do the exact same thing. Once I am satisfied that the car isn’t going to fall apart we’ll put on a suitable set of springs and a usable gear ratio based on the data we can scrounge from past events. We’ll then fill it up with fluids (engine oil, gearbox oil, coolant, brake fluid, and petrol).

After a systems check we’ll fire the engine up and verify the functionality of the sensors and data logging unit; At this point the car will be drivable but there are still a few more things to do in order to prepare the car for Charlie. We’ll mold a seat using two part foam and we’ll adjust the pedals to his liking. When this is finished I may definitely will push the car around the parking lot and make race car noises before setting corner weights and packing the car in the trailer for the first test. We’re currently working on a test plan; once we determine what exactly that is I will be sure to give you another update very soon.

Cheers!

Hello everyone!

Well I mentioned when I started this blog that I’m terrible with keeping diaries/journals/etc. I’m terribly sorry I haven’t updated in more than 2 months. Part of it is because nothing interesting happened, and part of it was because big things were happening and I didn’t want to talk about them prematurely.

But, I’m totally stoked to announce that I have sold my racing car in the U.S. and on Monday I will be transferring funds in payment of a 2009 Duratec Formula Ford! Yes, we did it! With a month and a half before the first race of the season, and 2 weeks before the first official Formula Ford test day, we’ve gotten a hold of a very competitive car! Right now I’m swamped with registration and licensing forms and other bureaucratic nonsense to make our entry official. It’s really tough to keep track of all the things I need to do when I’m bouncing off the walls with excitement!

So the plan for the next month is this: We take delivery of the car early next week, and the weekend of the 21st-22^nd we’ll take it down to Austin’s Alma Mater Oxford Brookes. They have facilities where we can do set-down, look through the car to make sure all the bolts are tight, make sure the engine starts, and other diagnostic checks to make sure everything is in top shape. It will also give us a chance to mould the seat! For those who aren’t familiar, al modern formula cars and prototypes (and probably most sports cars), from F1 to IndyCars, all the way down to Formula Ford and Skip Barber, have seats that are molded to the driver’s back. This helps keep the driver from having to brace himself in the car through the corners, as well as insuring maximum comfort and increasing safety in a crash.

Another exciting thing is that the car we bought is a lot less than I expected. So, barring unforeseen costs (read: crashes), we’re able to do at least the first 3-4 races of the season! So now we have a chance to put up some results and hopefully gain some momentum, which could immensely help the sponsorship hunt.

So after a long, cold off season, things are starting to thaw! Next week I’ll get Austin to write up what he’s going to do with the car to prep it for the test, and we’ll start putting up some videos, pictures, and other other more exciting stuff!