Caterham Academy 2017 – Page 3 – 2021 Caterham 310R Racer

Caterham Academy Aintree Sprint – 4th place

Posted on April 22, 2017September 6, 2019 by Matt

Got a 4th place at Aintree!

After a couple of months of messing around on track days today it got serious. The Caterham Academy season kicked off at a sunny Aintree sprint course.

The big different with sprints to circuits is you don’t get anywhere near the practise time. This was a big change for me as I’m used to spending a day or days at a track getting faster and faster.
With the sprint there are 2 practise runs. Followed by 4 timed runs where the fastest timed run counts.

After the first timed run I was placed 2nd. At which point I started to take the whole thing a lot more seriously and trying to work out who could push me down the order in the later runs. Looking at the times there were at least 5 or 6 people who could have ended up on the podium. It all came down to who made the least mistakes in the later runs. Each run was a little bit faster than the last. Unfortunately for me both Graham and James managed to go a few hundredths of a second fast than me and I got bumped down to 4th.

Still 4th out of 27 drivers in the Green Group is a great first result as that is well into the top 10 target I set myself. However looking back at the video I fluffed the start and had a few mistakes on all the corners. So losing out to 3rd by 0.01 secs is such a small margin!

But credit where credit is due Dan, Graham & James were all faster when it matters and Andy had a blinder in the White Group setting a new lap record. So awesome job guys, and everyone else that took part.

Can’t wait to the next event at Curborough on Saturday 20th May.

Castle Combe test day

Posted on April 2, 2017January 22, 2018 by Matt

The 2017 Caterham Academy had its first official test day at Castle Combe on Friday. This was the first time all competitors had the chance to get on track together.

Test days run slightly differently to track days. With a track day there are all sort of rules around only overtaking on the left and in safe places. While test days are race cars only and overtaking is wherever you fancy going for it.
Being able to overtake on both side and in braking zones was a revelation. My tendency to over brake and late turned out to be pretty useful for diving down the inside off line and getting past people. Currently there is a big difference between the speed of the various drivers but i’m sure that will get closer as the season progresses.

Weekend in Spa!

Posted on March 29, 2017December 28, 2017 by Matt

Spa Francorchamps what a place. Of all the tracks in the world I can see why drivers love it. Watching it on TV or playing it on racing simulators you really don’t get any perspective on the gradients or how committed you have to be in the corners. Eau Rouge, Raidillon, Blanchimont are all flat out in the Academy spec Caterham once you have the guts to go for it.

A few of the Caterham crowd were there including Dan a fellow Academy driver and we had some great fun out on track perfecting our drafting and getting used to driving on the limit nose to tail. The nature of the track with massive long straights meant that faster production cars would fly by on the straights while in the corners the plucky little 1.6 Caterham with van tyres would be all over them and past them in the corners.

Going to take a while to sort out a video from the 5hrs of footage. Watching a lap of Spa is likely to be boring so going to do a shorter compilation of all the close call moments. With motorsport the drifts and the off track moments are always better viewing.

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Next stop Castle Combe on Friday for our first official test day with all the Academy group.

4 Days of Motorsport

Posted on March 20, 2017December 28, 2017 by Matt

The last few days have been pretty hectic.

Friday – Donington GP track day
Saturday – ‘Caterham Handling day’
Sunday – Goodwood 75th Members Meeting
Monday – Brands Hatch track day

Donington GP track day on Friday was by far my best day on track. I had Callum a racing coach trying to turn me into a proper racing driver. After he set a fast time in my car it was my task for the day to get as close as I could to his time. Which involved me trying my hardest. Coming back to the pits, reviewing the data logger to see where I was losing time and trying again… and again. The whole experience was well worth it and I have shaved seconds off my lap times. I also got reminded of something I was told early on ‘If you haven’t been off the track you are not trying hard enough.’ Well i’ve got that covered now. Luckily I was able keep my foot in and power my way through the gravel trap. But it turned out that was the cause of some problems later on in the weekend.

The ‘Caterham Handling Day’ was the first time the whole of the Academy Green Group and our cars got together. The group is a really good crowd of people. Format was pretty simple. Do some practise starts and some slaloms around cones. Looking at the slalom results I think I will stick to the proper tracks. Annoyingly my practise runs were faster than my final runs 😦

Brands Hatch trackday got of to a really bad start the night before where I found out my CV boot on the driveshaft was spewing gunk everywhere. Given I had already paid for the trackday my best option was to signin do the sighting laps. After those drive to the Caterham parts department in Dartford. Get the bits I needed and spend the morning in the circuit garage fixing the car. Turned out the gravel trap on Friday had dislodged the CV boot seal and it was an easy fix. Took all morning but at least meant it could get on track in the afternoon.

The afternoon was the wettest I’ve driven in and people were spinning all over the place. Following a car into Paddock Hill and having it spin in front of me was an interesting moment.Now got 4 evenings to spanner check the car, change the oil and filter, bleed the brakes and put all the championship decals on. Next weekend is Spa!!

Back to Donington

Posted on March 12, 2017December 28, 2017 by Matt

Donington was a lot like Brands two weeks before. Started wet and dried out so it was a big help having some wet track time and practise the wet lines and the car control.
This weekend was also different as it’s the first time I had a bunch of mates turning up for passenger laps. In hindsight doing 20min stints for passengers might have been a tad too long. Especially for any with hangovers 😉 Main thing was despite a few sideways moments and a close call with a hare I didn’t make a complete idiot of myself and kept it on the black stuff.
Despite the extra weight I was faster than my last visit to Donington. So once everyone had gone I managed to gain an instant 2 second improvement on the lap times.