Technical Changes in 2010 and performance in 24 Hour Race

[Nick Roads]

I just thought I would share our experience of the changes to our car for 2010.
Be interested if anyone else has any comments or items to add.
Car 40 - CRISIS Racing

TOYO tyres - we ran at a high tyre pressure and were surprised how long tyres lasted. Swapped 2 on the front in the race only. New tyres (not buffed or prepared in any way) seemed as quick as those more like 'slicks'.

WEBER - we had 2 weber carbs and 1 solex. In testing we found 1 weber we had not used this year used 11 litres in 31 minutes. That went back in the box. The other weber which I had used at Oulton and Mallory we used in the race. We were using 21 litres every 1 hour 40 minutes approx. The approx was because our fuel gauge failed after a couple of hours. We lived on the edge as most times the car would take all the fuel in the can when a driver came in but we stuck to changing every 1:40 and finished the race ok. On the SOLEX in previous years we got over 2 hours.

My conclusion is that the TOYO change is much better as we now have a lot cheaper tyre which is easy to source and gives very similar performance. In the wet I did miss the MICHELIN but then our tyre pressures were crazily high for those conditions.

The choice of 2 Carbs is very close in endurance terms. We definitely had much better mid range power and torque on the straights - this could of course be as much to do with Sammie's engine which she had built for us. We had to do a lot more pit stops however. Overall we believe we gained but it was a close call.  I think the choice of carb adds a good extra dimension to the races.

Someone told me Rent Boys and the Tete Rouge Stable were on Solex's but not sure on this ? Stinky, Lucky Jon, Lumaca and Hollis were on Solex my spies told me. Unsure about the rest of the pack.

Otherwise I was surprised how we seemed to have jumped a level after 5 years of 24 Hour Races.

For those new to it then the answer I think is the experience in getting a good team together is critical. We saved quite a few laps by being quicker in the pits with the various problems we had (failed headlights caused by burnt out wiring, couple of smashed fans, HT lead jumping off, front wing destroyed and punctured tyre in a crash, no fuel gauge, no fogs after a couple of hours). You can only improve this with experience.

After that in no particular order its engine, driver, car setup (weight distribution, tracking and camber) and finally some good luck.

A short clip on youtube rather sums it all up. We have great speed and touch 80 mph, can take the esses with great handling and have drivers who don't mind the dark.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1qXjSlCVs8

[Paul Robertson]

It's probably a bit of everything nick ,the tyres changed the gearing and made russell chicane and the start straight better ,if your solex didn't work properly the weber would have seen to that and sammies rebuild will have played it's part.
Rent boys started on the solex ,we went onto it after 2 laps when we changed the engine,car 88 did the whole race on the weber.