Round Two - UK F1 National Championship

Rother Valley Yorkshire 18th - 19th May 2002

I crashed out heavily here in both my races last year so approached this meeting with some apprehension. On the other hand Luke, Daniel and I had planned a night on the town (Nottingham) for the Saturday and I was very pleased with the improvements in the Mirages handling, so overall I was looking forward to a fun weekend. I was not disappointed.

Rother Valley is near the main expressway of England, the M1, two thirds the way up the country. Whilst in an area of industry (Sheffield Steel etc.) it is very scenic with the Rother Valley complex consisting of a variety of wild life sanctuaries, boating lakes and skiing. Nice place, and relatively local to my parents house, so no camping this time.

The course is clockwise (opposite direction to round 1) roughly oval in shape  with only one left turn. From the very shallow and wide sloping false grid it was a blast across the lake to the first right turn. Because of the six abreast start grid the field could arrive at the first corner still bunched up with thrust air everywhere. On the first lap the land transition was skipped (for safety) and it was a blast to the other end of the lake for the bottom right handed turn down to a small skip onto and off land taken as one right turn that sent us back onto the lake at right angles before the only left turn was taken at full power to complete the oval. On subsequent laps the blast across the lake was followed by a right hander to an EVIL transition that just had to be got right and at sensible speeds or you got punished. A shortish, straight land section lead to the transition to water and almost immediately back to the bottom wide sweeping lake turn. The overtaking spots were all on the water.

The weather was fairly OK, quite still on the Saturday, breezier on the Sunday. The wind was across the lake and in ones face on the grid. Lap times 46 seconds or thereabouts.

Practise

We had revised the skirt design to allow more air flow through the skirt bags for this meeting to reduce the contact of the hull with the ground. This meant that we (Ken and I) had to re-learn the handling of the craft. It was quite a bit different with the feeling that the craft was riding lower and much softer. It was easier to collapse the skirt on one side when turning but this increased the risk of a skirt grabbing and pulling away or causing a plough in.

During both the Saturday practise sessions (and throughout the weekend to a lesser extent)  we experimented with skirt segment configuration. At one point we ran the craft with no pressure pieces at all in the segments on the craft's side. At the end of the weekend we had a clearer idea of what we want to do for Round Three at Penton Lakes.

Ken and I have handling preferences which are quite different. I prefer the set up to be hard and flat when cornering so that I can slide the craft through the corner at speed, Ken prefers a softer (bouncier) setup where he can judge and control the tilt being put on the craft into the corner so that he can take a tighter line. We are working towards a compromise that will suit us both and I guess make the K & M Mirage a good all rounder.

As Ken didn't have a chance to do much driving at Carnforth we elected that Ken would do the Nationals on day one and I would race the Opens.

Race One, 

Not a great deal to report on this race for us as Ken was getting comfortable with the changed handling and learning the course which we didn't get much track time with last year. We came in sixth behind Pintail Racing number 12 who drove his Rotax 809 engined pintail to a comfortable victory ahead of Luke Sedzikowski number 2 and Tony Goldney number 5.

Pintail Racing consists of Conrad Beale who has been Hovercraft racing and constructing for a number of years and Daniel Newton who I used to race against in Juniors a few years ago. Daniel has a couple of F1 years experience on me and the Pintail craft design has been around and in development longer than the K & M Mirage.

Race Two

We finished fourth in this race but only after a race long scrap with Meteor Racing number 1 had been resolved in their favour after a good push and shove session at the far end of the course. Ken and Robin Brickles were at it hammer and tongues for lap after lap. Ken completed one transition onto land and then back onto water without the left side of our craft ever touching land as it was parked firmly on top of Robins decking throughout !!. Great spectator stuff from my public viewing point near the transition.

Saturday Night

Luke and Daniel slept at my parents house. I won't say too much about our night out, the highlight does however have to be the slow motion roll headfirst out of a taxi at four in the morning by Luke. Definitely 9.6 points for artistic performance! A real fun time.

We only just made drivers briefing (a few) hours later. Not helped by my father who was ferrying Luke taking a wrong turning, Doh!. The penalty for missing the briefing is automatic placing at the back of the grid.

At the briefing Daniel and I volunteered to take some park wardens (who were carrying out an assessment of hovercraft racing) for a, first, hovercraft ride to demonstrate how controllable and safe hovercraft could be. This was greeted with some mirth by the other drivers.............. hmmmm.

Race Three

For the Sunday we reversed roles with me doing the National driving. At the first corner after the start I had to take avoiding action by coming off the power when Robin Brickles Meteor Racing number 1 did a spectacular flip whilst leading the field 

After the restart and after I got past Daniel Newton Pintail Racing craft number 12 (he spun), I spent the rest of the race in second place chasing, guess who....... Yep, Tony Goldney! His craft is quite compact and with a relatively heavy four stroke engine so the high cushion pressure suited this course where stability at speed on fast water turns was more important than acceleration from slow corners.

Race Four

This race was crucial for Daniel Newton and Tony Goldney as whoever won the race would decide the weekend.

I could not start cleanly on this grid all weekend. The wide line up sloped down to the water, enough to prevent the normal start of the lift engine fully up to speed. In every race my starts were poor waiting for the lift engine to get going whilst it seemed that the rest of the grid had departed.

I was chasing for third place from Tony Goldney when I ploughed in at the bottom water turn and lost a lot of segments. So many in fact that I could barely stagger round the course to finish 5th and collected enough points for the weekend to finish third overall.

Tony Goldney lost out to Daniel and Luke to place him second for the weekend but the points placed him in the lead overall for the National Championship so far.

Final words

The only "moment" was when Ken rode over a marker and was pitched out of the craft at the first land transition in the final open race. The craft gouged a 6 inch deep, 18 inch wide and 9 feet long furrow in the course as it slide on its side completely vertical before stopping and flopping back down right side up. As the fail safes had already been activated the craft parked itself by the side of the course with the engines off!. Ken in the meantime was ejected and slid on a further 100 yards, we thought he was going to finish the race without the craft!  Fortunately no injury.

Ken picked himself up and checked the craft over which apart from some skirts missing seemed fine, fired up the engines and finished the race!

A fun weekend where we have learnt more about the handling options and potential that we have with the Mirage and will be implementing new skirt designs for Penton Lakes in two weeks.

The skirt design for Carnforth gave great handling but poor lift with structural damage to the craft's floor. For the first visit to Rother we increased the air flow to improve lift. This made the skirt quite soft and caused a tendency to plough in with the skirts dragging and ripping away. Photo courtesy of Paul Taylor.

The wide starting grid meant that the first corner on the other side of the lake could be quite crowded with craft changing position and ducking thrust air in every direction.

Ken had a good scrap with Robin of Team Meteor in race two. Ken kept shutting Robin out by taking a tight line hence the marker buoy going flying in picture three. For the whole of this land section Ken had the left side of our craft on top of Robin's.

I had a fair scrap with the other half of Team Meteor, Jon Spedding in an Open race. The top photo is when I spun trying to take Jon and the lower is when I got past on the lake and he had my thrust air on the transition.