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Tel’s Tales Anglesey Sat/Sun 7th and 8th April 2018 After a very disappointing Easter Monday event at Croft which was wet, freezing cold and probably should never have started about 10 drivers were entered for this LDMC extravaganza attended by approx. 70 cars. The Croft event was abandoned before any timed runs had been offered, so we all scored a miserable 75 points (I will be discarding that score). We all arrived on Friday to find plenty of room in an almost empty paddock and plenty of space to get an electric hook up for our campervans and motorhomes. This was a bonus as it was quite cold and heating was essential as we had to leave the onsite café/bar due to too many staff and not enough business. Saturday Saturday morning saw a wet, gloomy start and the rain continued all day until 1700hrs when we finished sprinting! The day saw some great battles between all classes as well as individual personal targets irrespective of which class you were in. This would become the first event in 19 years that I have used wets all day rather than slicks and the competition was close and hard fought on a track that was wet but perfectly driveable and created a bit a level playingfield between cars of different specs/engines etc. During practice the pace was set by Richard Kerr and myself running around 10secs slower than the target time. It was good to see Mick Dent out again after his broken ankle caused a premature end to his 2017 season and his busa was going well. He also had his son as a secret weapon cleaning tyres and checking the car was going ok after the Friday trackday sessions. Their car would not start despite charging the battery and I quickly diagnosed a seized starter motor. Luckily they found a local supplier who had a secondhand one and they did not miss a run !. There was a lot of slipping and sliding mainly on the black stuff as well as a few spins but I did not witness any damage to Westfields. Mike West was enjoying the conditions and during the day he reduced his time down to 78.10secs from 82.74secs. John Loudon kept changing front springs for stiffer ones to improve grip and handling and it seemed to be working as the two of us were having a close battle in class G. Derek Hodder, Garry Bunn and Richard Kerr were after the class H points chasing Mick Dent. Steve Everall and Mick Skidmore were close in terms of times but running in different classes ( D and F respectively) We had 5 times runs and in the end Richard was quickest banging in a last run of 63.23 to better my time of 63.98secs and Mick Dent’s 64.10secs. We were 3rd,4th and 6th overall fastest with John Loudon 9th. Sunday Well it was a cloudless night and there had not been any rain but it was a cloudy start but it stayed dry all day and the afternoon was very good and we had a drying track to play on. Mark Anson had arrived at 0230hrs and was joining us in the Jedi. He had a few jobs to do fixing the front wing brackets and softening the trickshifter. During practice 2 Mark came back to the pits on a tow rope as it turned out he had fried some wires in his harness. This took him around 3 hours to trace the 12v power issues (or lack of power) but eventually he sorted it. I helped a bit by making him a nice cuppa tea. It really was a dream to be able to drive a dry track and push on a bit. We now saw Del and Garry showing the pace of their car whilst Rich K was trying to repeat his Sat performance. Unluckily for Rich when he came in after T1 the engine bay was full of oil and it looked like a blanking plate on the block had come adrift and ended his weekend. My weekend nearly ended too as I was way too quick into the left hander at the end of the garages and as I ran off the end of the outside rumble strip I hit the soft wet grass and soil to do a 360deg spin. I ripped off part of my carbon fibre floor but back in the paddock Steve, Mick Skidmore and John Loudon did a quick and great repair job to keep me running. The car looked like it had been used for grass tracking and the amount of soil and mud under the bonnet was ridiculous and took some cleaning up. Later in T3 Mick Skidmore ran over a rumble strip coming out of corkscrew and split part of his tub. In the end we had 5 timed runs and were well pleased with the day. Garry just beat Del and was 2nd fastest overall with Del being 4th, me in 5th and John Loudon 6th. Mark Anson with only 2 runs was 3rd overall so an impressive performance by him. That made 5 Westfield speed series drivers in the top 6. A newcomer was Chris Griffiths in his class H car and he was 9th overall behind Rich Kerr 8th. (7 cars in top 10!) We return in 4 weeks time to do the MGCC weekend. Terry Everall Class G Competitor

Finally, I have my Sport E repaired and working again - just in time to miss the season! It's been a long haul - over 2 years actually. Last month I completed the wiring and so took the car over to Potenza Technology for electrical testing (my sponsor). Here is a picture of the car in the workshop alongside the original Westfield iRacer. The iRacer had been recently recommissioned (and painted) for a trade show. This is a quick car. About the same power and weight as today's Formula E cars. A car before its time I think. Initially my car was checked over for electrical safety and to ensure all the original safety features were still in place and working. Tick. After a nut and bolt check I we tried to drive it. First problem, the motor rotated backwards! I'd forgotten that the motor/diff had been reversed. Digging around in the Potenza document archive, we found the original instructions and passwords to reconfigure the power controller. The direction was changed and we tried again - it went forwards this time but cut out at 10 mph - not a great start. This fault was eventually traced to an interference issue caused by a missing ground strap on the power controller. The second test drive was much more successful with the car pulling away strongly. After a few tentative runs, I did a full power, zero to 'sorry officer' run. It cut out again this time under full power. After some head scratching and several more runs the problem seemed to go away. Anyway, I booked the car into Northampton Motorsport for a geometry check and dyno test. At Northampton, the high power cutout problem reappeared but only for the first few runs. It became clear that the battery voltage was sagging badly under heavy load causing the power controller to stop working. After a few runs the battery warmed up, the voltage drop was less and so the power controller continued to work. I'll have to add a power limit to the control software at low battery temperatures to stop it from tripping. Back in 2014, I had the original car dyno tested. The graph below shows the 2014 graph (red) alongside the new graph (blue). More power - yay, but the new power curve is now a different and odd shape. One factor is the gearing. This year the car is fitted with 15 inch wheels instead of the original 17 inch so the gearing is lower. This could account for the steeper initial slope. Also the original Sport E limited power to about 120 BHP at the wheels. I removed this limit (it's a race car after all) and now the controller gives maximum torque at all motor speeds but power now appears to be limited by the lower battery voltage at high speed. Overall a good result - especially considering the car is also 200Kg lighter than the 2014 car - it's still 660Kg plus me though. Now if I can just up-rate the battery before next season ........