Cadwell Park was the first of the 2 Ginetta festivals in 2008. The meeting had 3 free practice sessions on the saturday and then qualifying and 2 races on sunday.
My dad went to Ginetta on Thursday to get all of the parts needed to rebuild it after Paul O'Neil barged me off of the track at oulton Park 2 weeks ago.
There was more work than I anticipated which meant that it took all of Friday and Saturday to rebuild the car. I would have to qualify the car having not tested it at all which isn't ideal!
We arrived at the circuit late on Saturday night and set up our pit as it got dark.
Sunday saw an early start. The car passed scrutineering with no problems and I went out to qualify. with 8 minutes to go I was p6 on the grid, I pitted to make a suspension change and managed to set a time good enough for p4 on my penultimate lap. I felt my last lap may have been quicker but I found traffic which slowed me down.
Midway through qualifying the car stopped 'flat shifting'. This is where the car automatically cuts the engine when changing up the gears to give a faster shift. The car was also smoking heavily as we had put too much oil in the diff and it was spitting some out onto the exhaust.
On return to the pits we found that the diff bracket had bent like a banana. My ever faithful team of students from Derby Uni dived in to change it in time for the race.
I also asked Ginetta's technicians to look at the problem with the flat shift. They found that there was no voltage in that area of the loom and it couldn't be fixed in time for the race.
When I drove the car onto the circuit I noticed that the gear indicator had stopped working which was a bit of a pain but once you're driving you know how many times to shift for each bend so it's not too much of a problem.
I lined up P4 and got ready for the rolling start. Unfortunately I lost sight of the lights (the car in 2nd was in the way) just as they went out and lost a little time. The absense of the flat shift really showed here too as I lost half a car length with each shift.
A cautious Entry to turn 1 left me 6th. A mistake on lap 3 where I caught my foot on the brake and just kept the car on the track left me 2-3 seconds behind the battle for 4th/5th. I was over 10 seconds ahead of 7th.
Frank Wrathall retired with collapsed suspension a few laps from the end promoting me to 5th. Then I started to feel something was wrong. The engine felt down on power. I kept looking at the oil pressure on the dash which read 45psi - a little low but not worryingly so. I thought that perhaps the exhaust had blocked - my g20 did this in a race last year and it felt the same.
As I came onto the back straight on the final lap the car slowed massively and then the engine died. The cabin filled with smoke and I steered the car onto the grass. As I got out I realised the car was on fire and I pulled the extinguisher cable. I then looked around for the nearest extinguisher and sprinted to them, sprinted back and doused the car. The marshals also arrived at this time and helped out.
The car was safe from further damage, my adrenaline reduced and I collapsed to the floor. All of the hard work put in to get there for nothing. A big hole in the engine. It's been a pretty emotional year so far!
We then had the fun job of getting rid of the extinguisher powder - it's extremely corrosive. We took the car to bits and jet washed it for about 2 hours. I had to drill holes in the floor for the water to run out!
A post race analysis with ginetta's engineers showed that the part of the loom which brings the gear cut and gear indicator signals into the car also carries the oil pressure sensor readings. The Motec system is programmed to revert to a preset (by ginetta) setting of 45psi when it loses a sensor. No alarm is shown.
Unfortunately for me the belt that drives the oil pump had snapped. The engine stopped getting oil. Because of the problem in the wiring the dash was telling me I had 45psi so I continued as I knew nothing about this failsafe preset. The engine seized and exploded.
If there hadn't have been a wiring problem then I'd have got an alarm and a reading of 0psi when the belt went. I would have then turned it off immediately. Ginetta are now reviewing this preset level. I will also rebuild the car with a mechanical oil pressure gauge in the cabin as a failsafe.
The car itself isn't in too bad shape. The rear end has some blistered paint and the diffuser has deformed slightly with the heat. Everything in the transmission tunnel is a bit scorched - the wiring and sensors and the heat shielding. I need to take the car to bits now to find all of the damaged bits. I think this will rule me out for the next couple of meetings whilst everything is repaired. Certainly knockhill next week will be out of the question.
The insurance that we take out on the car doesn't cover any of this so it's going to hit the budget hard. I'll post up more news when I have it.
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