TGRacing Datalog

Video showing Alex's first ever race

2010-12-10T20:02:00.000-08:00

Our new French driver Alex joined the team recently and with no prior race experience hopped behind the wheel of our BB6 and did a great job. He cut this video of himself. His driving is quite smooth and quick. He was easy on the car and did a great job. Nice job on the video too Alex.

28th November - Ebisu 6 hour Endurance Race. Thomas O'Dowd (4 of 4).

2010-11-30T17:25:00.000-08:00

Looking at the weather in Nihonmatsu the night before, I saw that it would more than likely rain during my stint. I don't mind rain too much as long as I have some thread and was looking forward to a new experience. Rain might give us a good fighting chance against some of the rwd race cars also.

When we turned up at the circuit it was pretty cold and unbelievably it soon started to drizzle. It wasn't really enough to make any standing water on the circuit so no major worries. Qualification was 15 minutes earlier than I was expecting. Opps. Anyway, getting ready as fast as I could, I listened to some of the other cars do a lap or two and the rain started to get harder too. So much for them drying the line for me. Damn.

I was quite apprehensive heading out as we'd 4 new tires on which had never seen a surface before. I was wondering how long they would take to start gripping in the wet. As such when I headed out, I was took my time and weaved and speed up gradually. Loads of time. Qualification is 30 minutes after all. Normally, I'd have come in after a few laps but I wanted to make sure that Mike had good tires to start the race with too with good air pressure so I stayed out. Times started coming down as I gained confidence in the grip. I took zero chances as we'd a full 6 hours and 4 drivers to go so I decided to come in when I'd got a 1'13.3. There was definitely more time there, but I figured that was fairly decent. Little did I realize but it put us 5th on the grid! Sweet!

The race itself should have been relatively straight forward from here. We were nearly 3 seconds faster than the next car in our class (in the wet at least) and 5th would be an interesting race start for Mike :-) I won't talk about Mike's run (as he has done so already) but midway in his session the officials were telling us to bring him in as the flap was hanging off dangerously on his front left wing. Took Mike a few laps to see the P sign but he finally came in much to our delight.

I'd already got tape and a cutter ready so the first thing we tried to do was repair by tape. This wasn't working though as the underbody was wet and I'd decided that it might come undone again. Better to take it off. We tried cutting the underflap next though but it was too tough to get through. Mike kept telling us to yank it off but I felt that it might do more harm than good to just yank as its pretty strong plastic and the last thing I wanted to do was yank and have the fender come off with it. I got a + out of the box and undid a screw which released one edge and from there we were able to pull clips and cut cable ties. It was off! It was the longest bloody pit stop and one of the hardest as we knew we were pissing away time. Anyway, once the official was happy, Mike tore off down the pit road in fury and we were all wondering if he'd end up in some ditch driving like a maniac to claw back any lap time. I think we were 3 laps down when Mike finished. Opps.

Sumi was up next and drove a steller pace throughout his session. We were 4 down as he went out and the course was drying out. After his session, there was 2 laps in it again. We still had a fighting chance. Alex was out next. Mike and I were wondering how our race would be looking when his 90 minutes were up. When he entered the course car 51 was just behind him and he somehow he stayed there for more than a few laps. This was looking good! Then car 51 got passed but didn't really pull too much of a gap. We were 4 laps down again. I started timing laps and Alex was doing pretty much consistent 1'13.5s. Fantastic. Suddenly he started to real back in car 51 and a few laps later he was passed. Wow! 2 laps down! We had a proper race on our hands again. Alex was performing wonderfully. Due to the other team pitting and us pitting, when I got out on the track, we were 2 laps down.

I got in the car as quick as I could and got the straps on, reset the TraqMate and started watching cars as they went past the first corner. The boys were starting on the 3rd fuel can when I saw 51 go around again. It took a while more to let me go but my target was pinned in my memory. Car 51. White. Big wing. Mine!

I went out and started to nail some laps together while checking the car. Brakes were horrid with the peddle almost going to the floor in a wishy-washy way that didn't inspire confidence. I knew it was just air though and I just believed in the nice thick new pads we'd put on the car and kept the speed up. It meant I had to brake early though. I had such a blast as I worked my way by so many cars without remorse. Finally I caught car 51 and noticed that he was quite fast everywhere except the downhill chicane and the downhill corner. I got by easily and Mike was showing me funny signs like -3 laps etc which I thought to egg me on as I couldn't be 3 laps behind them. Finally he showed me the -1 I'd been expecting and I just worked on lapping fast.

After passing so many cars, I finally came upon a fast B class civic that didn't want to let me passed to easily. He didn't block or anything but held his corners and had much the same speed as me up and down the hills. I'd another car behind that was trying to pass me also and for a few laps, I drove as cleverly as I could to keep the other guy behind while trying to take the guy in front. This was proving to be really enjoyable. I was really loving our 3 way battle. We got caught in traffic at the inner hairpin and I had to hit the brakes un-expectedly to avoid the black civic who'd done pulled right when I didn't expect him too. The little white TMC car got passed on the inside. That guy is good on the brakes. I was hoping he'd open the door for me on the civic but he was having the same trouble I was. Another momentum car.

I decided to try and pass him again rather than wait and I got him on the uphill first corner after he'd hit the brakes to avoid the civic making a mistake on the last corner. He was right on my ass again. What a race! I decided the only way to pass the civic was also the up hill corner. I'd got close a few times but he wasn't giving it to me easily. I left a bit of space before the last corner and got a really nice 3rd gear last corner on the gas up the hill. I got it just right and was on his bumper the whole way up the hill. I moved for the inside as the power kicked in cresting the hill and got him under braking as I ran out of revs. Awesome. The white TMC car came too. I wasn't going to let him passed though and concentrated on making a gap and finding that 51 car to take the lead.

Passing the 51 car to take the lead actually turned into a bit of a non-event.
I was on his ass from the bottom of the hill and he indicated left. Then I
guess he saw it was me and stopped indicating. He was coming up fast on
another car on the left though and he indicated again to keep left and I just
flew by... No fight and no drama, but we were in the lead. It would later turn
out that they needed a tire change badly and were just trying to hold off to
see if they could retain the lead. I didn't know this though.

Towards the end of the race, I was hoping pit wall would give me some lap info as I was running low on gas and was trying to figure out if I had pit time or I should tune down my right foot and start changing up more. I decided on the latter. I got fuel starvation with about 5 laps to go but decided that it was just under high G's so we might be ok. I figured the yellow light handn't been on long enough to use up 9 or so litres of fuel that might remain in the tank when it would come on. I kept out there as it seemed I might loose less time than a fuel stop the the pits were not ready for. I didn't get any more signs of fuel starvation after that one and when I saw the checkered flag. I was very relieved and very happy! We'd done it again. We'd gone and won the bloody race!

Well done to everyone who helped us work on the car! Thanks for all your time and effort. We couldn't have raced with out you. Thanks to all the team who worked hard in the pits and drove hard on the circuit. You can't win the race alone. You need a great team! Team Gaijin Racing.

Miguel keeps adding that photos and video are coming but I haven't had any
time to work on them yet. They are coming though...

28th November - Ebisu 6 hour Endurance Race. Alexandre Plattard (3 of 4).

2010-11-30T16:44:00.000-08:00

*** PICTURES TO BE ADDED & TRAQMATE VIDEO TO FOLLOW ***

First of all thanks to the team for inviting me and trusting me.

Practice
I jumped in the car, attached myself with the help of Sumi-san and go. I had in mind that I had to be careful with the tires and to bring the car back.
As I was driving around, learning the track, getting used to the gearbox and the steering wheel on the wrong side, I tried to go faster little by little.
I managed to reach lap time around 1.15 which was a bit disappointing. I didn't feel very comfortable with the car and had difficulty to get used to drive a FF again.
At night, after reviewing videos and comparing my lines with others I had some better idea of what I should do if I wanted to improve my lap time.

Race
The pressure went up as we lost some time trying to fix the car. We were
very close to the team 51. Sumi-san jumped out and I had no difficulty
getting in as he moved the seat back. He then helped me to find the belts,
Mike and Tom refueld, added a bit of oil and shouted "Go!Go!Go".
Weirdly I don't remember much of the race, it felt like it lasted 2 minutes
only. During the race I felt much more confident than the previous day. I
could understand the car's behavior better. As I was driving, I saw a white
car behind me. I remembered that during practice there was very fast Silvia
so I thought it was him and decided I would let him go. As he takes over I
see the number on the side : "51". Ooops! Lesson 1 : Don't let anyone go if
there is no blue flag. Anyway I thought it was a good opportunity to improve
my lines by folowing him. Gradually I managed to get close to him again and
in the straight I was a bit faster and took over in the first corner. It
felt good!

At some point a grey car, driven by students decided he would take over
under yellow flag. It got me really upset so I thought I would not finish
the session without taking the position back. So again, in the straight I
was faster than him and managed to take over in the first corner. For some
reason he tried to block me, even though we are not racing in the same
class!

A black car had a problem at the end of the straight after the chicane and
ended up crashing badly. The driver was not coming out and the ambulance had
to take him out. I hope he's OK. It reminded me that shit can happen. The
black car with the manga paintings also span for some reason. It was after
the kink, everything looked fine and he decided to spin right in front on
me.

This fight with these two cars was really exciting and a lot of fun. After
that I was a bit lonely on the track. At some point I thought they stopped
the race and I was the only one who didn't see it! Just taking over the
black car with Manga drawing and another very slow blue car. Of course the
Silvia and MR-2 were taking over every 2 laps.

Before starting Mike told me I should target a lap time of 1.13. In the end
I was happy with my lap times as I went down to around 1.12. Mission
accomplished. I need to improve my gear shifting as I too often wasted time
by missing gears and I think I can be more agressive. I heard so much a

So it was a great week-end and I hope I can join again. The team is really
friendly and I am sure that it helped me a lot to release some pressure
before racing.

Cheers

P.S : I keep my beautiful french accent on purpose because girls like ;-)

28th November Ebisu 6 hours endurance race - Hideo Sumi （2 of 4）

2010-11-29T06:50:00.000-08:00

28th November Ebisu 6 hours endurance race

We projected racing driver ,Tom ,Mike ,Alex.P and Sumi.
total entrant were 24. running car were 22.

Car inspection.
We were indicated about seat belt fixed angle.
We must modify for next race.

Qualifying heat.
in rain session, Tom ran very fast and gave us 5th position.
It was 1st position in N class.
Hey Tom nice driving !! wow!!

Race heat.
1st driver, Mike
2nd driver, Sumi
3rd driver, Alex.P
4th driver, Tom

9:45 ,race session opened , Mike dash , dash , dash.
He ran very smooth in rain. after a short time ,We were given orange ball flag from official.
It was machine trouble. Left hand front inner trim separated body.
It was very danger , We called him and repaired in pit.
Maybe We lost a few minute.
When his session finished 2nd position in N class.
minus 4 laps.

after open 90 minute , driver change , He got out , I rode on BB6 with a lot of fuel.

first I ran slow pace , because I think scary running in rain.
and S line , turn left , I slid rear tire , It was very scary.

because before long clear up , I ran very push.
I passed a lot of rival team car. I funned very very ...

but I had fatal mistake.

last 20 minute I lost fuel. I must got refueling.
I send to pit crew by klaxon.
When I checked crew's sign , I have touch and go.

I ran 90 minute and released to 3rd driver Alex.P.

Number 1.

2010-11-28T23:43:00.000-08:00

28th November - Ebisu 6 Hour Taikyu Race - Mike Gadd (1st of 4).

2010-11-28T18:41:00.000-08:00

***** PICTURES WILL BE ADDED LATER & TRAQMATE VIDEO TO FOLLOW ***

I was looking forward to starting a race – never having done so. I wanted to experience the atmosphere of it all which I figured would be very different form the end or middle of the race where I have so far only driven.

With the discussions we had at the team meeting and the new methods I tried I had managed to get 1:11:0 during practice and felt that a low
1:10: was certainly doable - i was eager to find out exactly how low- but damn the rain started!!

Despite the rain it couldn’t have worked out better for my first race start as Tom did an amazing job in qualifying not only putting us at the top of our class but in the top 5 overall. I was to experience the race start for the 1st time in the front of the grid at the no,5 spot surrounded by the Rire cars and their ilk.

Alas in the rain and cold the race queens were few and far between and despite our prominent position never came close to our car for the prerequisite pictures.
Race started slowly with the B class cars around me going ape shit swerving violently back and forth in the rain trying to get some heat in their tyres and almost hitting each other at times in the process....

As the race got underway and settled down we soon spread out. With no cars in our class infront of me I was happily lapping some surprisingly slow B class cars while I kept an eye out in my mirror for our class cars.
The rain had been coming down for over an hour and the track was slippery in places. I was frustrated at not being able to get decent lap times but as I was lapping B class cars and hadn’t seen any car in our class behind me I knew I was at least maintaining our position hopefully gaining a lead.

The rain slowed and almost stopped for a while then it would start up –. This actually created more danger as cars (myself included) would begin to pick up speed and change line demand more grip and then occasionally when the rain picked up again the grip would go and you’d have to rapidly readjust. The rapid changing conditions caught many off guard and quite a
few span. I was comfortable and stable basically keeping a conservative
dry line but reducing the speed as the rain wasn’t pooling. I was certainly getting zero under steer and was probably lapping at about 1:14?. which appeared to be competative in these conditions even amongst most of the B class cars. In practice the day before I had tried out some techniques we had discussed at the team meeting and boy what a difference. The chicane now is far easier for me. I also changed the way I took the last corner with a lot of success taking it as a constant radius corner no braking going in and full throttle from apex going wide and high. (basically appreciating we have more turning grip after apex than before) I was settled in and things were stable. The rain had probably picked up and I was passing the kink. What I had been doing so far was to clip the kink in 4th lift, then back on the throttle at const speed, no braking,
wide, and enter take the corner on a constant radius. As I begin the
turn in and at last min drop into 2nd and as soon as I apex its smoothly
transitioning 70% throttle for a short time then 100% as I go wide up the hill. Bit of oversteer half way up that needs to be adjusted for.

Then disaster struck.... For some reason I suddenly had less grip after
the kink. I don’t know if the rain had picked up more or there was oil on the track (I suspect the latter) as I was doing the same thing I had been doing all along – but something had changed. As I passed the kink const throttle const rad I was fine for a bit then as the line turned more in the back swang out violently. Possibly I wasn’t on enough
throttle and the back was light or rain or oil - but either way I couldn
’t catch it and recover I span off the track sideways and ploughed along sideways in the dirt. To be honest it reminded me a lot of my landrover days. As I’m sat there my immediate thought was to see if I was stuck to get straight back out there. I didn’t want to spin the tires to I gingerly tried to pull forward - they span! Bugger. At that moment I saw the no2 place car pass me – bugger! Thinking back of the landrover times again I put her in reverse and forward and rocked her gently before finally getting out of the rut/soft soil and managed to get my front tyres on the track! Yes. Waited for a gap and got back out there dumping a considerable amount of mud on the track.

The offing had cost me about 10-20 seconds which I was determined to make
up but decided to take the last corner entry slower. Surprisingly
quickly I caught up with the no2 car and passed him. He was still behind me as I reached the kink then despite slowing down (and thinking about it know – because of) as gracefully as I could I span off in exactly the same place doing exactly the same thing! This time I stayed on the track and recovered so fast I actually caught up with him almost right away. I remember thinking this guy must be thinking I am if nothing else unrelenting as I regained all the lost time without missing a heartbeat. I realize now that I span the 2nd time precisely because I wasn’t on enough throttle (for that line) to keep the back down right when I needed rear grip. Lesson learnt – less throttle can be less safe if its at the wrong time. Im also thinking for this reason perhaps we need a rear wing......

Everything back on track I settled down retaining our lead but I dialed it right back further on the last corner. Given that I had been taking that corner as fast as the slick clad rire cars i figured i could afford to dial it right back. I saw 4 cars spin off there during my session – I suspect there was oil mixed with the rain and made sure to pass this info to the next driver. I could see I was the faster car in our class overall and we were in front so I was content.

....... Then the real disaster struck I saw tom with the ‘pit in’
sign. Apparently one of our wheel arch liners had come undone and was
hanging down. The marshals wanted it fixed. I had just had the battle
of my life to keep our place so I was far from happy to be pissing away time in the pits especially as nobody was telling me what was going on. I ’m sure tom and sumi were working as fast as they could but from drivers perspective in the middle of a race the removal of the liner was infuriatingly slow. I swore rather a lot as I sat there seeing the no2 car lap us again and again and again! That’s one video that I don’t want to see lol!

Back on the track with 15mins to go and we are 2 laps behind in 2nd place! Damn.
The good news was the rain had stopped and the track was drying so we were hoping sumi alex and tom could regain those lost laps!
They did. Alex in particular did amazingly well, His driving is smooth and fast. After a couple laps lost to driver change and refuel It came down to tom to regain our lost laps. By the time he went out after change and refuel we were 4 laps down and it was very exciting. Tom was 2 secs a lap faster and they also had a driver change and refuel to do so we were on the edge of our seats. We didn’t know how fast their new driver would be.

Then they made a huge mistake! They came in for a driver change, they refueled, they checked the oil – and then with only an hour to go they changed tyres!! With a smile on my face I watched tom passing the pit lane again and again as they faffed about. That error and toms faster driving during his session took us up to a +4 lap lead and 1st place!!

It was a great race and a lot of fun. Despite his outrageous accent Alex is an asset that I hope we will be seeing a lot more of in the future.
The new pedal position and cover make heel and toeing a breaze. The new
extensions i put on the harness wasite straps makes them a lot easier to use. The car needs a wash, and tom needs to burn that video of me :) well done team gaijin!!!! what a season!

Another win for TGR!

2010-11-28T04:44:00.000-08:00

We'll have more news after a rest back in Tokyo. We had a pretty big battle today and lots of drama and the odd bit of swearing but we managed to grab back first place in our final session. Finished 7th overall which was another good showing. Well done team!!!

Rain qualify puts us 5th on grid!

2010-11-27T17:05:00.000-08:00

Scary Brake Drama...

2010-11-15T03:55:00.000-08:00

We knew the brakes were bad but this is a tad dangerous don't you think? In the last race, we used up quite a bit more brake pads than we expected to use. Mike finished the race with no front left bad basically. We didn't know how bad it was until we were swapping them out this weekend. Check out these photos!

Here you can see the naked piston. The heat melted away the dust cover. Eeek.

Here is a side profile of the two left pads. You can see where the piston pushed into the melted back plate which has totally been pushed out of shape. There is only a slight bit of useless pad remaining. The other pad has no pad left either and is also down to the back plate.

Here is a front on view. The pad meat should be there but its just shiny metal that remains. Yikes. Mike - how the hell did you complete that race! Not to mention you guys bringing the car home in 3rd! Lesson learned me thinks - no more "it should make it"... Lets not skimp on essentials like tires nor brakes!

Gotta repair the caliper now. Have ordered a caliper repair kit from Honda. Should get it tomorrow.

16th October 6 hour Ebusu Endurance Race - Mike Gadd (To the chequered flag).

2010-11-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

Miguel was doing well, 1:10s and had just pulled a 1:09.5. He was gaining on the 2nd place car (in our class) and in the pit we were frantically discussing the refuel strategy. My session was about to start - 90mins to go to race end. We knew a full refuel would only last us about 1hr 15mins. Miguel was pulling such good times and because we had just done a splash and dash we knew he had fuel enough to keep going for an extra 20mins.
All day there had only been 2 safety cars out. I reasoned that if no safety car comes out during my session that we would lose time doing the splash and dash necessary for me to complete the last 25mins, so I suggested we kept Miguel out an extra 15mins as not having to stop for extra fuel would give us an edge overall.
We stood at the pit wall and kept the `pit in` sign well out of his view and kept our arm movements down so as not to give Miguel the idea we wanted him to pit at the scheduled time. I suspected he wouldn't pit anyway unless we called him in as I knew, like my mum’s old Jack Russell, once he had the smell of blood in his nostrils there's no stopping him. We discussed it and agreed that if we called him in after an extra 15mins that would mean Id be starting a 1hr 15min stint with enough fuel to complete the race with no pit stops - perfect given that we knew the 2 leading cars were changing drivers every hour on the hour so they both would lose perhaps half to one lap after we changed drivers. So with our lead if I could go out and maintain a reasonable speed and not crash we would be guaranteed to be on the podium as we would have no stops.
Just as we were about to call Miguel in he entered the pit lane. Getting in the car I realised the seat was really too far forward and I adjusted it back, too far and the harnesses were all really lose. I had a job finding the straps - Miguel was assisting me a little as the others were refueling. I closed the door and continued getting the straps done but all too soon (in light of how fast we refuel now with the new cans we maybe need to look at assisting the driver strap in more) I was signaled to go. I only had one glove on, one strap was not over my HANS device, all straps lose and my balls trapped uncomfortably under one of the crotch straps...not a good way to start the race. Rounding the 1st corner and through the chicane I didn't feel right. The seat was too far back, harnesses weren’t right, only one glove (the other had dropped in the foot well and was now resting somewhere around under the clutch pedal). I felt really hot, I didn't feel comfortable at all and tried my best to get so and get up to race speed asap. Passing the start line for the 1st time in my session I was busy putting the final tightening on my harnesses, resigning myself to the facts I had to make do with only one glove and potentially never being able to father another child. Unsurprisingly I noted, once again, that the traqmate wasn’t working but I knew the first lap or two would not be at the kind of times Id want to see anyway. Unfortunately it took me far far longer than usual to get up to race speed and Id joined the race not far in front of the 2nd place car, who with my reduced initial speed managed to catch up and get in front of me passing me around my 2nd lap. At that point I had just reached a point where I was sorted, comfortable settled and up to race speed.

As I speeded up I now faced a new problem. I had allowed the now slower 2nd placed car to get in front of me. We were going around the circuit bumper to bumper. At each corner I would exit faster and be up his bum - he'd block me, he'd get the blue flag, I’d try again, he'd block me and take the corner. This was happening on every corner. After what felt like 100`s laps of this I was getting more and more frustrated. I was clearly the faster car and they were just taking the piss. The marshals at downhill hairpin and the last corner were getting increasingly and noticeably animated waving the blue flag at them. It was getting to the point they he was spending so much time blocking me that he was off the line and slowing us both down. At times I could just see the 4th place car in my rearview he was catching on us. I didn't mind just maintaining our no.3 position the guys had worked so hard to obtain and not being able to pass the 2nd place car but I sure as hell didn't want them to slow us down so much that the next car catches up and we potentially lose /have to fight to keep 3rd place. I had been flashing and flashing them on every corner and right up his bum getting increasingly aggressive to the point now that it was dangerous for both of us - it was so clear that he was far slower. Strangely I was actually quite a bit faster than him on the chicane (which I assumed was my worse corner surprisingly) and I knew I could outbreak him so decided Id set it up to take him at the downhill hairpin. I came through the chicane backing off just before it enough so I could get on line (he was driving slow off line to block me) and so get max exit speed. I succeeded and was now gaining on him down the straight. I was making it very very clear I was going for it. I was flashing high beam and hand on the horn as I’m gaining fast on him. I was on line still behind him and I stayed to the left knowing he'd try to block me if I showed my hand too early. I could see ahead of us the marshal waving yet again the blue flag at him. At the last min I modified my braking a tad swung across behind him and took the inside line. I passed before the corner tight on the inside line he was well out of my corner view behind me. I was perfectly placed, on max breaking, tight, inside line - I knew I had the corner. Then in the corner of my eye I see him go deep breaking hard then pulled right across me. I couldn’t believe it. It was a very bad move, especially for a car that’s being blue flagged at the time. I literally had a car parked seaming stationary right across me at 90 degrees completely blocking the track. I had nowhere to go; I locked the wheel up, modified the pressure and turned as much as I could into the grass. He had to break so hard to turn and block he was practically stationary across me so it was the offside front corner that made contact with him at his rear door. The contact started at his rear door and ended at his front fender.

I kept going and took the corner (in front of him) and instantly decided I would find out if the car was left in a dangerous condition the hard way. Foot to the floor I sped off and the 2nd place car slowly but surely disappeared into my rear view mirror. I didn't see the 4th place car again either so I fixed my target to catching backup with the 2nd place car again and trying to gain on the Westfield.
After another dozen or so unfettered laps I saw the Westfield ahead of me.

I gained on it, once again coming down to the downhill hairpin. Threshold breaking I felt the car snake as if I’d hit ice. The lightest of steering correction and modifying the pressure settled it but I’d lost my line and the gap opened up. The loss of control worried me as it was not due to something that was familiar to me. It was a strange sensation. Then on the downhill hairpin every time I threshold braked the car would snake increasingly violently. I concluded that something had been damaged from the impact (Turned out the steering arm was bent, making the car vastly toe out on the left side). With each lap it seemed to be getting increasingly harder to keep the car on the track under heavy breaking so I decided I had no choice but to slow the pace right down perhaps even to give up all but one lap of our lead on the 4th place car, slow enough to maintain our 3rd place position and survive the race and forget about trying for 2nd. The decision was made easier as I knew car in 2nd and 4th had just done a driver change so would be perhaps a lap down and I had gained a lap on the Westfield and regained the lost lap from the 2nd place car.
Then the 2nd place car with a new driver flew past me like I was stationary. They were truly flying.

I knew immediately I wouldn’t be able to gain on them. They obviously saved a fast driver to last. So the focus shifted to just keeping at least one lap ahead of the 4th place car.
How far behind me were they? Could I afford to slow the pace (so as not to crash) and not lose 3rd to them if they caught me up? If I was forced to slow to a snail’s pace how many laps could I give up to them without losing 3rd place? Each time I passed the pits I scanned to see if they were showing me my position, as we had discussed the importance of this info and how best to give it during the last part of the endurance race, earlier. I had one time seen Simon holding something the size of a pocket handkerchief earlier with some writing on it but too small to read and I hadn’t seen anything since. I decided I’d just try to go as fast as the brakes would allow and if I saw the 4th place car come up behind me I’d just hope we were either a sufficiently large number of laps ahead that they now (with 15mins to go) couldn’t make up enough laps to take our position. I didn’t see them again.
5 mins to go and the TMC car appears behind me. I didn't know if they were a risk to us or not but they were in our class. I didn't want to take the risk of guessing wrongly. I quickly realised that I could be faster than them on all corners but I wasn’t able to outbreak them on the downhill hairpin at all. If I even came close to threshold breaking the car would snake very violently. It was literally suicide to try to.
The only thing I could think to do was to stay ahead of them on rest of circuit as I knew I could, and...Well...block them on the downhill hairpin. And this is what I did. I did it for what turned out to be the last 8 mins of the race (the cars internal clock was wrong) with each lap the degree of breaking I could apply at the downhill was decreasing. Although I admit to blocking it was only for one corner and it was clear I was the faster car on rest of circuit so I don’t think they had too much of an issue with me or that I was doing anything wrong. I certainly wasn’t getting blue flagged even on the downhill hairpin as I was faster right up to my earlier breaking point. The situation with the 2nd place car was different.
In that case it was abundantly clear they were not the faster car.

I passed the chequered flag taking 3rd place. Happy that I didn't erode the lead that Simon, Alex and Miguel had done such a great job winning.
I was surprised to see so little damage from the contact. The Preludes a tough car.

I explained that it was losing control under breaking and Miguel took a quick look at the front brakes and informed me that they were worn very thin on one side and worn down to the metal on the offside. The car was snaking under heavy breaking because we had toe out on the left side & harder braking on the right because of metal to metal contact.

I was frankly stunned to hear we had tried to use the same pads for a 12hr race and then a 6hr race.....
3 podium places in 3 races - I’m very proud of our achievements.

16th October 6 hour Ebusu Endurance Race - Miguel Varella-Cid (3rd of 4 drivers).

2010-11-04T09:59:00.000-07:00

As I’d need to get home quickly after the race on Saturday, I’d opted to ride up on my bike, letting Alex carry my small backpack in the Prelude. Although the weather had been nice, leaving Shizuoka, I had taken the decision not to wear my leathers, but an armoured waterproof over suit. Alex & I travelled up in convoy except when I had to peel off to fill up, whilst he carried on. Then as I got back on the bike to catch him the heavens opened up about 50km from Koriyama, where we’d be stopping for the night. We couldn’t resist a Chinese meal and plenty of ice cold Asahi beer. Then the first surprise of the evening – I got a call from Mike. He was less than 20 minutes away and had managed to make the race, having abandoned his pressing work engagements and just driven down in his Lotus. More beers ensued, whilst Mike helped finish off the rest of the Chinese food. Sumi, on the other hand wasn’t going to make it… He’d tried putting on his helmet with stinking flu and felt so nauseated he’d e-mailed and called to say he wasn’t going to make it, poor chap.
Simon & Steve arrived shortly afterwards and more beers were drunk, much laughter and a narrow escape from a Phillipino infested hostess bar..

As Alex had volunteered to drive the Prelude up and spent so much time helping us prepare the car for the race, we’d intended to let him qualify, but since Sumi was now not going to race, Alex would drive his stint and I’d do the qualifying.

This race was had a surprisingly large number of entrants, so we were in for a fight… That’s how we like it! I went out and tried to set fast lap times, but this required timing it so I wouldn’t be held up by any other cars. In frustration of being held up and trying to see how the car would handle if I really chucked it into corners or braked too late, I was making mistakes. The car felt wrong too, lots of under steer. The plan had been for me to do say 6 laps, and then let Mike have a go, but the car wasn’t right. I came in; we checked the tyre pressures and took out some air. Mike noted the front damping setting was at something like 11, when it should be around 6. That would explain the under steer due to the dampers working sluggishly. I asked him to set it to 8, went out and the car felt immediately better, although the back still felt a tad under damped..
I did a mid 1.10 lap which I felt a little disappointed with, as I’d felt there was more to come and had hoped for a 1.09, but as we were now 3rd in class, behind the red Westfield and yellow Impreza Sti 5 wagon & lots of cars behind us that should have been faster, being lighter and on S tyres, etc. I realised everybody else had found the track as challenging as me, so we hadn’t done too badly I guess..

Simon started the race. Blue Leaf’s black Primera had one of their fastest drivers on for the first stint who took Simon in the first lap and began to pull a gap on us. The Westfield – in the meantime was going well (For a change!) and maintaining 1st position. 2nd Positioned Impreza Sti 5 was the same car that had been so slow in the last race, but was now a lot quicker. After 90 minutes we were down two positions to 5th, but the Yellow Impreza had more driver changes and we knew some of their drivers were slow – so there was no threat from them. Our targets were the stripped out black (Blue Leaf Team) Primera and the Red Westfield, both run by very competitive teams (The matt black DC5 we were challenged by in the last race is run by the same team).
The B class cars that had qualified fastest were still quicker – but not our targets. One notably fast little car was that 1.3 litre full tune Datsun. It sounded Awesome and went like stink! What a cool machine!

As Simon came in, we were all ready. Our new Fuel cans were much faster for refueling – and Alex helped get Simon out, whilst I helped Alex get his belts on as the fueling was about to begin. Alex went out and began fighting.
I could see he was enjoying himself as lap times got less and less. Not a bad way to be, after not having raced at all or driven on Ebisu since the first race our car had done.

Simon, Steve & I went to eat some food at the canteen, whilst we watched Alex do the middle bottom hairpin. He was doing well and we were up one position. We reasoned that with Mike and I being the faster drivers, with our stints still to go, there was a chance we’d catch Blue Leaf’s black Primera and were in with a strong chance of 2nd place. Remembering how the car had handled in qualifying & I watching the Prelude, I could see it was handling well, but I still felt the back was still a tad lively, being under damped. I began to form a list of things in my mind we had to do when Alex pitted and I took his place after 3 hours racing:

Correct the Interior Clock, reset the Traqmate, Dump a litre of oil into the engine, set the rear damping to 3 clicks from minimum, refuel & go!

As Alex came into the pit when we called him in, the team did their best to finish the pit stop FAST, and then I was out.

The last race, I’d felt encouraged by having a target (of sorts, because I wasn’t sure which car I needed to catch, so I caught everything I could & took it!) so now – knowing I had to get Blue Leaf, I was on a mission. The extra damping at the back had helped the car’s handling. It felt sweet now, and I got into the groove and just concentrated on doing fast laps. I had some good tussles with the Westfield, which I overtook and left behind for a while, more due to nerve than difference in speed.

Their car was only marginally quicker on the uphill straight, if anything – which is commendable for our Prelude, I thought. The best fun I had were a string of 4-5 laps, staying with the B class full race spec DC5 ORC Integra Type R on S-tyres. He’d gain 4-6 car lengths on me at the uphill straight with his close ratio gearbox, lighter weight and more power but I’d catch him up each lap on the Chicane and long sweeper. I felt chuffed knowing our road spec Prelude was quicker than the ORC full race spec car on the corners. Our handling felt spot on.
Then as the end of my stint was about due, I caught Blue leaf...

They knew their position in front of us was only 1 lap, so their driver immediately blocked me. For the first few corners where I tried to overtake, being faster – I thought perhaps he wasn’t doing it intentionally, but by the end of the second lap where he’d deliberately cut in front of me twice on the uphill straight and necessitated braking, I knew he was playing dirty. His driving was good, aside from the blocking – but this wasn’t racing, this was cheating! My head lights were on full beam and I was calling him a fucker in my helmet.
I’d stand on the horn entering corners, but he wasn’t paying any heed to the marshal’s blue flags, so I’d be inches from his rear bumper on the hairpins and once on the Chicane. Was kinda fun to see his car squirm all over the place as he desperately dived into gaps, where other cars were getting out of the way as we approached – but I stuck behind him headlights still blazing. One time as I tried to take him on the outside as he hugged the inside berm on the bottom left hairpin, he pushed me off the track. With each lap I got more determined.
I'd enter the bottom left hairpin inches from his back bumper, almost on the verge of hitting him Eventually, on about the 4th lap of this fight I tricked him, got alongside as got to the top of the hill and dived into the top hairpin. He couldn’t have blocked – all he could do was take a wider corner & make way for TGR which had the racing line. Our team had been watching Blue Leaf’s antics from the pit wall and Alex had commented, “Oh, I bet Miguel’s pissed…!!” the lap before I took him. Once I was past, I made up a lot of space on the chicane and lost the Primera. That was probably about the time I did a 1:09.5 - our car's fastest lap yet. We'll see when the Traqmate footage is uploaded.

I'd had to avoid not only the Primera's rump but a couple of spinning cars in front of me and one virtually standstill green Civic crawling up the hill as I overtook the Westfield earlier. No mishaps with our car.

But now my time was up and the reserve fuel light was coming on. I felt a bit of fuel starvation. Time for Mike!
As we changed drivers and did another super quick pit stop – I warned him of Blue Leaf’s dirty tactics...

There will be video footage…(soon). Should be good to watch, especially the fights with Blue leaf. Perhaps this is what touring car racing can be like.. So aggressive!

I had (amicable but firm) words with the entire Blue Leaf team after the race. I don’t think they’ll try those tactics again as next time they know we’ll bash their car or make a complaint!
They’re an excitable, dedicated younger team that’s done well – who were just too attached to keeping their position – and we all know what it’s like to get over excited. That’s cool.
I congratulated them on their driving, but told them what they did wasn’t racing – but was dangerous and politely asked them not to do it again next time.
Within a few minutes they conceded to realise what they'd done wasn't really fair racing. We didn’t lodge a complaint, or anything.
Our car only got a couple of scraped rims and easily removed dents on the front passenger side wing in the last stint... No cost to repair at all, which is a relief, considering we'd just had the rear quarter panel repaired. Their last driver who’d hit our car came over after the race to make sure our car was OK and apologised again. Good lad.

We started 17th on the grid, with 14 B class cars in front of us and ended 7th overall and 3rd in class, 2 laps behind the Blue Leaf Primera… After colliding with them, our car’s steering was misaligned from the impact & brakes wore to the metal soon afterwards - Had they played fair, we’d probably have caught them… or got much closer to getting 2nd place. But it didn’t matter – we got a Podium finish and had the biggest smiles on our faces.

Team Gaijin Racing’s been causing waves and people have begun to pay attention as we’ve had two podiums in the last 3 races (4th in the 12 hour, we missed 3rd by 23 seconds!!) When we started in this race series a little over a year ago we had an ill-handling Prelude and were about 5 seconds a lap slower, so the car’s really improved a lot.
We've got plans to improve the car further over winter & if we're successful I think next year TGR will be capable of 1.08's, which is very, very fast for a street registered class N/A car, but will pretty much be the end of development of the Prelude - within the rules. We intend for our car to become the quickest in the road registered N class. It’s not all about car performance - it’s also about pit strategy, refueling speed, reliability & of course driver skill.

The team will race again at the end of November, but I'll sit this one out.
Hopefully we can all meet before the race and have a session to coach the rest of the drivers and get each to the level where they're capable of doing consistent 1.10 laps. That would make TGR very hard to beat. Go for it lads!

16th October 6 hour Ebusu Endurance Race - Alex Labrador (2nd of 4 drivers).

2010-11-04T08:22:00.000-07:00

I woke up thinking the fire alarm had gone off… Turned out Miguel was on the phone at reception ringing for 3 minutes. Yeah, I’m such a heavy sleeper they’d use me under train tracks if they could…
So I dashed and splashed in the shower, jumped into my race suit, (yes I said race suit!!) gathered my stuff and went downstairs. The others had left already…
I’d driven the Prelude up the day before – so I’d been elected to drive it to the track, stopping on the way to fill the jerry cans and tank with Hi-Oku.

Simon had been the first to drive and I’d been getting a little nervous as my time to prepare was up, but then Miguel told me, “Get ready, 2 laps and we’ve got a pit stop – you’re on”!
We weren’t wasting any time. The car came in; I helped Simon out and jumped inside. I couldn't get the harness on quick enough then bam!! GO! GO! Fuel stop was fast – and I was off…

I’d only driven the first race, back when we used the spare TEIN suspension because the Aragosta suspension still wasn’t completed from the overhaul. Now getting out there, I could immediately feel the car was a lot more stable. It took me about 4-5 laps to get my bearings on the track and I began to throw it around harder... Looking up at the traqmate I spotted 1.11 as my lap time. That’s about 5 seconds a lap quicker than I did in the 1st race!
I began to settle into the groove of overtaking before corners & throwing the car in, knowing it wouldn’t under steer. Boy, was I having fun…. Don’t know if it’ll appear in the video clips, but I was having so much fun I couldn’t help whooping a few times & I KNOW I had the same concentrated grin inside my helmet that Rossi wore on the outside of his helmet last year... I was racing!!

The car would slide on the Chicane and was frisky on the bottom right sweeper as I began to brake – but despite a little slip, it felt totally stable & wasn’t going to bite. All too soon, my time was up as I began to see the fuel reserve warning light come on... The guys were at the pit calling me in…
Like Miguel had said – the car would take whatever I could throw at it, or it into. This thing’s unbreakable!
I had quite a few miss-shifts and trips to the rev-limiter (Good reason to get Redline Heavy Shockproof in that box!) which lost me split seconds, but I found out after I came in I’d done a mid 1.10 amongst other faster laps.
Felt sorry for Sumi who had been sick and not able to make it. Thanks to him, I’d had the most fun time behind the wheel yet…

16th October 6 hour Ebusu Endurance Race - Simon Batters (1st of 4 drivers).

2010-11-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

Fresh from attending the Japanese Grand Prix and [for me] a record 9hr trip home from Nagoya to Yokohama the previous Monday I was on the road again along with the tools and trolley jack etc to support TGR over the 6hr race luckily Luckily Steve came along and helped with the driving, we arrived in Koreyama around 11pm in time to catch the other guys and set out for a nightcap, after walking around trying to find a decent bar, we had a near miss outside a Philippino bar called Bacarlaccarlaccaca..... We settled for a few beers instead I finally hit the pillow at one am only to be woken at 3am by Miguel wanting to talk about the race car, well actually was I sober enough to drive it to a car park!

Race day and the alarm signaled that it was 4:30am and time to get up; we arrived at the circuit in time to wait with everyone else while the lady with the keys was late. We were allocated the rear of pit 18 and I unloaded the van and parked up and started to prepare for my stint which would be the first, this would be the third time I have started our race. After setting up the TraqMate equipment prepared my drinking system, flushing out my pipes with Pepsi.

Miguel Qualified the car and did a great job as heavy traffic can block you having a clear run and the track tends not to be so fast early in the morning, Miguel seemed a little disappointed with his time but it was plenty fast enough giving us 17th position on the grid of 39 cars and 3rd position in our class.

At 9:30 it was time to set out for the grid, this was the first time I had driven the car since my last stint in the August race and it felt a much more responsive and sharper the engine felt a little stronger too possibly due to the cooler air. There is something very satisfying in arriving at the grid a little later than most and having to weave your way past 22 other cars and their entourage to take your position, as usual I stayed in the car belted up with about 15 minutes to go as usual, all my TGR team-mates came and took pictures and offered encouragement we also had a visit from the race queens.

I really like the time before the start, the calm before the storm, sitting snugly in the car as the anticipation and tension mounts around you as you plan your route in the mayhem that will be the first lap it is strangely relaxing.

The endurance races start with a rolling start where you must maintain position until you cross the start line, well we were off and it was fairly well mannered but crowded I remember it was about three abreast into the first corner and through the chicane and two about two abreast for the rest of the lap then it settled down.

I then followed my lap plan which was about using as little brakes as possible and keeping the tyres stress free whilst going as quick as possible, for me this should equal 1m 13s to 1m 14s laps and trying to limit my braking and accelerating to when the front wheels are in the straight ahead position. I think this is key to getting an even wear across the tread of the front wheels so that they can last the full six hours and avoid a tyre change which would cost at least 2/3 laps and possibly a place lost in class.

I know the behaviour of a lot of the drivers in the field when I recognise the cars so I can anticipate what they will do, for example, I can control where faster cars can pass without slowing me down and quickly pass slower cars without getting stuck behind them, although where car/drivers are very evenly matched there is an opportunity for some great battles, I had some great battles especially with an MX5 where we traded places many times.

After about 1hr 15mins [my session was set for 1h 30m] the fuel gauge started to hit 'E', as I passed the pits I sounded the horn, this is our signal to pit, but could not see anyone from TGR so I lapped again sounded the horn again, this time I had some fuel starvation and had to pit my entry to the pits was very fast and upset the marshals but the team were ready and I got out feeling pretty good, I later learned that I finished my stint 3rd in class and 15th overall.

2010-10-10T15:31:00.000-07:00

Got up early on Sunday morning to a rainy day, so my plans of riding the bike or RX-7 to Zama using Fuji's beautiful Skyline toll roads via Odawara were shelved and I took our workhorse & race support car instead.

In the meantime Russ (Rextreme) had taken a 2 hour ride on the train from Chiba and met me at Zama station on the way.
As we opened their front door we could smell Alex & Morgana was already making a big traditional American breakfast, right down to pancakes, syrup & fresh orange juice, so we sat down and enjoyed a proper start to the day with friends!

At the workshop whilst Alex got on with some work on his GT-R, Russ and I got stuck in. He'd already hand cut the smaller replacement stickers at home, but needed to make a template with tracing paper of the driver's side, to then cut a mirror image for the passenger side.

In the meantime, I got on with assembling the new fuel drums with fittings obtained elsewhere. Yoshi, a friend and competitor had done us proud - not only supplying details of where to buy the drums but also fittings and correctly sized hose.
Using some old hose clips I'd kept as spares - I assembled each.

The hose actually fits tightly into the filler cap, so I'm hoping the breather in the tank will do it's job, but I may try to find some copper fittings and add a small solid nozzle for each hose end, on race day.
I stamped numbers for each nozzle & can - that way we can easily tell which to assemble together - and have the plastic hose curling directly forwards when assembled.

Russ' job was going to take him about 4 hours, so I wanted to avoid working under the car till last. I fitted 3 small magnets on a new bracket side by side to hold the fuel cap shut instead of just one. Feels stronger now of course.

As Russ was finishing, I lifted the front, put it on stands and took off the front pipe off the bottom of the manifold.
The flexible section was sheared in two, with only the mesh holding it together.

I cut it out and ground away excess diameter, till I had a tight fit on each end& welded a new flexible section to one end. Checked the fit and marked where to weld next then finished on the other end. Removed the damaged heat proofing and ended up irritating the skin on my arms. I'd forgotten how nasty that stuff was!

The Ebay cat replacement pipe we'd bought for a Prelude BB6 has incorrectly sized flanges on, so I could fit it. Why do so many sellers there not even bother to sell goods fit for purpose! I want to see if we can find a better replacement in Japan.
The intake now sounds great, but the exhaust's still too quiet!

Checked the subframe bolts, all OK. Lowered the car and tidied up the interior. Found that 2 wheels can slide into the back from the boot's access hole - with fuel cans in the back too. So we only need to have one wheel on the passenger side.

Russ had to leave early to get back to Chiba, whilst we finishing off welding the front pipe.

Whilst waiting for Alex to finish on his car, I did a small bit of waxing. I'll probably take my porter cable to the track and give it a quick buff to remove all the rubber markings on race morning.

Here's the original driver's side:

Russ had slightly changed the design of the passenger side, to try and avoid using small stickers which may be damaged from fuel spillages. He also made up some white sheets for us to stick our race numbers on & even made a little TGR Keyring!

Big thanks to Russ (Rextreme) for coming out and helping us on a Sunday!

Now our race Prelude's all ready to go. Just needs fuel and someone to drive it to Ebisu & back.

Beautiful weather today. Hoping it'll stay like that for a week so we can have a dry race on Saturday!

Race Preparation 3rd October 2010

2010-10-03T17:44:00.000-07:00

On Saturday morning I bought and collected all the bits I thought Sumi, Alex & I might need for fitting a dry battery, induction kit, cold air partition and a magnetic fuel lid release to our Prelude. These included aluminium and steel brackets, since we'd need to re-mount the oil filter block and the magnets of course.
I'd be adapting an unwanted Blitz induction kit to fit our Prelude - originally made to fit a Subaru Legacy...

In the meantime other parts had arrived: New (spare) driveshafts, 2 new Dunlop Z1 Starspec front tyres, Odyssey dry battery, cat replacement pipe, oil, etc.

Last Thursday evening Bodyshop-K had delivered the Prelude back to Alex's with the rear quarter and door repaired. I'd told them only to do the quarter as we have a spare door... Hopefully they won't charge for doing the door too and keep to the 50,000 Yen estimate Toshi Kun had quoted me over the phone... They did a perfect job!

Hoping our man Russ will be able to come over next Sunday (10th Oct) to replace the missing graphics, replace the proteeth stickers and tidy up the vents around the bonnet!

Sunday morning we met at Alex's and loaded up the Hiace with all the stuff we'd need and headed out to the workshop. The Prelude's exhaust leak's getting bigger!

Sumi & Alex switched the left rear tyre with a good used one that had survived mostly intact from the previous 6 hour race & switched the front tyres for new.
Sumi also inspected the brakes and bled the fluid.

In the meantime, I first got on with figuring out how to re-mount the oil filter block, using some brackets bought from my local home centre.
Wanting to keep weight as low as possible, I mounted the battery flat (being a Gel battery it can be mounted in any orientation). I cut the original screw hooks and re-threaded them, so we could re-use the original battery's positioning clamp.
For the air filter, I cut off a section of the original air box's lid and screwed into the Blit'z copper inserts. Air gaps were plugged with self adhesive foam.
As we're no longer using the air vents on the side of the bumper, I routed some spare ducting tube to the bottom of the air cleaner.
I hadn't been able to find any corrugated plastic suitable for making a partition, so I made a template out of cardboard first, then with the use of a jigsaw used that to cut an exact sized carbon fibre partition. The result fitted perfectly. Just need to plug a small gap with foam between the air intake tube and suspension turret & we'll have a much larger volume air box with total seperation from the rest of the hot engine bay.

Sumi undertook the task of fitting a small handle and magnet to the fuel lid. No more shouting to each other to release the fuel cap and risk losing valuable pit time!

Alex & Sumi finished by changing the oil (Castrol RS 10W50 under 3,000 Yen per 4 litres!), whilst I measured the leaking flexible tubing on the exhaust. A new replacement will be arriving shortly...

I checked the driveshafts for wear. They seem OK. We'd ran out of time, anyways - but I don't think they need changing... We will need to send back the OLD ones Simon has at his place, but in the meantime, the new ones can stay in their boxes as spares. Driveshafts are a known weak link on Hondas with tight LSD's..
Maybe we'll add more initial torque when we upgrade the final drive for the next season and change the driveshafts then whilst we're at it.

In the meantime, this morning 3 x 20L drums have arrived. I'll drop these off at Alex's and we'll fit the fittings bought for them. Now we'll have the best available fuel cans for faster pit stops.

Next Sunday, the plan is to complete the following:

(1). Assemble these new fuel cans & fittings and replace the old (Slower) ones.
(2). Fit an additional magnet to the fuel lid (We found the current solution's only just strong enough).
(3). Check front subframe bolts (For some reason they came loose twice before).
(4). Cut out old flexible section of the front pipe on exhaust and weld in replacement.
(5). Fit catalyst replacement pipe.
(6). Replace missing decals where the repair's been carried out (May be worth changing the design near the fuel cap, since spilt fuel made the decals unstick directly below, previously), tidy up the decals on the bonnet and replace missing decals on the rear bumper.
(7). Clean & polish the car, ready for the race on 16th August.

Hoping to have a better turnout from some of the other team members on 10th October, so we can complete the work quickly.

James' video of Ebisu 12 hour race!

2010-09-04T17:48:00.001-07:00

Here's a video of the 12 hour endurance race (28th Aug 2010) made by James, one of our drivers.

Enjoy!

Ebisu 12 hour race report - by Miguel Varella-Cid.

2010-08-30T06:30:00.000-07:00

This was one of our greatest races so far, bettered of course by our previous 1st placed finish by Simon, Tom & Mike in June – but no less eventful for it.

We’re all pleasantly surprised at how well our Prelude Type S has developed (touching wood as I write this..!) and how it’s taking all the punishment we keep subjecting it to in it’s stride.
Simon commented during the race that Honda’s top brass should attend one of these races and see how many 10-15 year old V-Tecs are used in this series and note the following and enthusiasm their performance cars have and I think he’s absolutely right.

On a seperate note TGR tends to stick out like a sore thumb as the single foreign team in addition to driving the only Prelude amongst a sea of EG6 Civics, DC2 & DC5 Integras, Mazda Roadsters, Silvias, etc. Maybe we need a few more Gaijin teams to even the balance!

As the Prelude Type S is considered a heavier car than the lighter Civics and there’s a lack of tuning parts in Japan for it (Many of our parts were imported from the USA in fact) & so it’s unlikely other teams will follow suit, but we have every intention of making our car even more competitive...

The further modifications will come not only before November, but also in winter whilst we have more time to work on the car. If all goes to plan, by Spring we’ll have finished the development on this car as we’re running out of things we can do to it, being an N (Road registered) classed car but I’m sure we'd all like to see it become the fastest Group N car we can possibly create.

For this event James, Simon & Sumi mostly took care of the preparation and fitting of tyres, race pads, all oil changes, etc. whilst Mike and I were away to avoid the August heat & humidity. Thanks guys!

I returned home the night before leaving for Fukishima, to drop off my wife and daughter. Friday morning I unpacked our holiday luggage & re-packed up our Toyota Hiace Diesel with a full compliment of tools & supplies and cruised the 400km to Koriyama, to meet Mike and James for around 6.30pm. Arriving an hour or so too early – I drove around till I found a large Cainz home centre and bought the rivets and washers & bits I needed for that night’s work on the car… James had volunteered the task of driving up in the Prelude – a brave job getting out of Tokyo in the raging August heat with 70% humidity & no air conditioning! Everybody on the team except Sumi & myself had wisely invested in a cool-shirt and Mike had made a cool iced water pumping system with a clever way to remove the water fast and replace with ice blocks for quick pit stop strategy.
That night, in the Hotel car park Mike fitted it, whilst I put safety nets on the window frame of each door so we could drive with windows open. That remind me - I want to find an Inpreza RA spec roof vent and fit that too!

Anyways - We now had a properly prepared car for endurance racing in the heat..

With our Type S Prelude’s handling finally improved to the point it’s wayward under-steer & tyre wear problems have been banished forever and wearing a much harder set of suspension springs than we'd started off with, I was looking forward to driving a well sorted car. It had been over a year since I last participated in a race, having only driven our Prelude a few laps since, when I volunteered to be team manager in November last year. Looking back it’s come a long way, as has TGR as a team and so I was looking forward to this whilst praying nothing would go wrong!

Mike didn’t manage to sleep at all, but did admit to finding the porn channels in his hotel room (Again)! I woke up at 3am and couldn’t sleep any more either, maybe too much coffee at Starbucks. Or Gay coffee as Mike put it, because it was iced.
At 5am we all met at the hotel’s reception. Overnight, Simon had arrived from his business trip to China and Sumi had “launched” himself all the way from Tokyo direct from his office.

Simon's wife Jill had driven him directly from Narita and was to be one of our pit crew, manning the fire extinguisher. Mitsumasa Takano (A fellow Prelude BB6 owner and endurance racing veteran) also graciously drove all the way from Tokyo to be with us on Saturday morning to help out with pit duties and promptly returned that very night. It never ceases to amaze me how cool some Japanese enthusiasts can be - he drove a total of around 600km there and back to be with us on a blazing hot day!

So we all turned up at Minami Ebisu circuit at nearly 6am with full tanks of fuel and loads of blocks of ice, drinks, chocolates and food. We immediately unloaded and begun preparing our pit for the day ahead. The car was still filthy from it’s last race so Jill, James and I gave it a quick once over with some wet cloths and James & I gave it a polish with Poorboys 2.5 to remove the rubber marks all over the bottom line. In the 7am driver’s meeting I found my T-shirt was already soaked through with sweat. It was promising to be a very hot day…

At 8.30 Simon went out to set a scorching 1.13 lap, putting us just in front of the middle of the grid. With 37 cars out there all trying to set their fastest lap, that was about as quick as he could have gone in all that traffic to get through. Job well done.

Some of the entries were a lot slower and there were some stupidly inexperienced drivers out there, notably a white EG6, A Silver Pulsar, a very slow Impreza Sti wagon and others.

Quite a cocktail, considering there were some professional drivers in other teams such as Rire Racing, ORC and Yashio Factory to name a few.

Simon came into the pits at about 9am having already scalped his first victim. Our neigbouring pit’s Westfield 7 had tried to cut into his racing line at the top of the main straight just before the right hander and collided with our Prelude’s rear wheel when he ran out of braking space We had a graze on the rim and some easily removed rubber on the paint, but the Westie was never to be seen again – already retired before the start of the race from suspension damage. They did have a well prepared matt black DC5 as a second entry (More about this car below), which went on to complete the race, so it wasn’t all bad.

Simon reported he loved the ice cooled shirt & had felt almost cold whilst driving round the track!

At 9.30am Simon started the race, putting in a steady & fast pace to get us into the top 4 cars in our class.
James, Sumi & Mike each drove their stints for 90 minutes. Naturally some of our drivers were slower than others, but all were good, with not one off road excursion. Mike set the fastest lap of the day at 1.12.8 and did some consistently hot & fast laps with some smooth driving.

Even in the dry I was amazed to see other team's cars going off the track so frequently and getting stuck in the dirt. Once every 90 minutes or so the race would be slowed to a crawl with the safety car out whilst the tow-truck went out to clear the carnage and we’d take the opportunity where we could to refuel and change drivers – to save on lost laps. This meant some of our team lost about 15 minutes of their drive, but it was worth the sacrifice. We had a few missed opportunities during other safety car sessions where we could have used the time to better our advantage – but endurance racing’s as much about driving as team strategy and knowing when to make pit stops. We learnt it’s vital to have good car to pit communication – which was almost non existent for this race.
Lessons were learnt!

(Mike takes a well earned rest before his first stint).

Come my turn at 3.30pm the first 6 hours were already over so the tyres were changed super quickly whilst I strapped myself in, oil was checked and topped up, car refueled, Traqmate memory changed & reset. With a toot of the horn to get errant pedestrians out of the way - I was off!

At first it took me a few laps to re-learn the circuit and get into the groove & allow the new tyres to wear in – then I began putting in consistently smooth laps whilst trying to keep the car cool and preserving these new tyres. Some of the other drivers were really slow, so I worked out that by switching on my head lights and applying full beam when I wanted to overtake, I’d get them to move out of the way easily. The indicator helped show which way I wanted to go, but wasn’t reliable, as I’d sometimes apply it when going over one of the chicane berms and be sliding slightly sideways whilst approaching a car in front very quickly, so no time to glance at the dashboard. Just pulled the lever back and looked for a gap to open then took it. The marshalls would usually notice my signal of urgency and wave a blue flag to help signal the slower cars something faster was behind.

(The eventual race winner - Yashio Factory's B class S15 Silvia).

I found that by making the chicane as straight as possible, with just a quick dab of brakes before entry, I could make up a lot of ground on other cars which were taking much more of an S to avoid the berms upsetting their car. By momentarily coming off the throttle in the transition through the S, I could make the back end a little lighter and reduce the chances of under steer coming out of it onto the back straight. As I got to the bottom of the hill I’d be carrying a lot of speed, but could out brake most cars whilst occasionally triggering the ABS – and with headlights on full beam they’d usually stay to the left, giving me a tight entry to the hairpin before exiting wide and accelerating strongly up the hill. I also learnt when exiting widely I could come on full throttle right away without any under steer. Car felt good - way better than when I last drove it a little under a year ago!

The next hairpin was a doddle, just had to make sure nobody was sneaking up the inside. If they were, I’d slow to be right up their chuff, then take a tighter exit before acceletating down the hill on the outside and usually cutting into the 4th gear kink to straighten that slightly off-camber corner as much as possible, where the car would 4 wheel slide nicely sideways without getting too flustered, before hardish braking up to the bottom of the hill. I also noticed it was easy to be misled and brake too hard for that corner – it’s actually faster than it looks, especially as the steep uphill section actually helps slow the car down before putting the power back on. I never did try a 3rd gear entry in Tom’s style, preferring to accelerate harder in 2nd to just before the rev limit and changing swiftly to 3rd to continue up the hill. A couple of times I had cars drive me wide to the right, putting my right wheels on the grass briefly – but I’d do my best stuff them up the inside of the next corner at the top of the hill. The horn definitely helps in these situations..

Lots of slower traffic to overtake, but I had some good tussles. Like Mike, I was surprised to find our car was quicker than the white Rire Racing B class Roadster and a lot quicker than many of the EG6 Civics. I also enjoyed wrestling with that matt black DC5...

The car I wanted to dice with was a beautifully prepared & driven B class Toyota Levin AE111 I'd seen before. We were very evenly matched so a good scrap was possible, but I was slightly dissapointed when eventually he waved me by... I'd intended to scalp him fairly!

As it started spitting rain during my stint I began to wonder if the Prelude’s hard suspension mixed with all the rubber laid over weeks of dry weather on the track - now being wet would make the Prelude's on the limit handling become nervous, but it seemed to remain stable, albeit slower. The rain soon stopped and it turned out the tarmac was still so hot the water quickly evaporated with no noticeable loss of grip! Our car was quicker through the corners (Especially the downhill Chicane and 4th gear bottom kink) than the matt black (Very fast) Integra Type R from our neighbouring pit, but would lose out on the uphill straight…
The Traqmate was working on my stint – as James had changed the memory card during the pit stop, so I could tell my lap times were in the 1.12 & 1.13’s mostly – which in this heat and with so much traffic still out there, I was happy enough with. Like everyone before me, I came in feeling the car was very well sorted and had a great time out there... Thanks to James for lending me his (Still soaking wet!) cool shirt and for the ice donation from Mike and the others, I was comfortable for most of my stint.
I’m a convert and take back every disbelieving thing I said about these. I want one, maybe even one for my helmet, as it was soaked by the time I came in at 5pm!!

It’s possible I didn’t get a full tank of fuel before going out – I was running on below half a tank within 40 minutes and the orange reserve light came on as my session finished, but I didn’t have to slow down – so it was all good…

There were a few chassis bending crashes, but no injuries. The worst was an N/A N classed MR2 which hit one of the B classed Civic 1.5 V-Tec Hybrid race cars. Looked nasty especially for the MR2 and took a long time to clear the Civic. The MR2 they just left on the side of the track till the end of the race.

Quite a lot of cars retired through the day, especially in the last 6 hours, due to mechanical failure and accidents. The Yashio factory S15 was seriously fast and made going quick look effortless. The 2nd from Pole Integra Type R DC5 sadly retired towards the end of the race with mechanical problems, as did an awesome sounding white EK9. It's always a little sad for others when they can't finish the full course of 12 hours.

Rire’s MR-S and Mirror finished Roadster B class cars were both taken out from off-roading excursions, despite having boasted a lot of professional race drivers on their team.
It serves to remind us no matter how good and well prepared, none of us are invincible out there..

Sumi drove well, but also had a second prang on exactly the same panel as Simon at the uphill hairpin at the bottom. He’d ben spun out by another car as he pulled into the racing line, but managed to stay on the black stuff. Just a dent and in the same place, with a bit on the door too, no structural harm done, thankfully. At the end of his 2nd stint he came in & the exhaust was noticeably leaking too – getting louder with each passing hour, but it sounded awesome! Turned out to be the flexible mesh pipe, which we’ll have to repair between now and November's race.

At 6.30 pm having had only 3 hours’ sleep the previous night and sweated buckets I was getting tired, thirsty and hungry again, so I got a lift from my friends Andy & Emily who run Power Vehicles of G1-GP fame up to their garage overlooking the circuit.
They had a BBQ on the go and I couldn’t resist an ice cold Asahi from their fridge! On the way up Emily told me Andy had recently proposed and proudly showed me the diamond decorating her finger, which was the perfect way to raise my spirits. So happy for them – if you know these two you’ll understand!
Suitably refreshed by 7.30, I borrowed their quad to get back down the hill, then planning to head back to their place after the race, I packed the Hiace up with all my tools, spare wheels, etc. to kill time before my last stint.

Just before 8.30 we called Mike in - and now was time for my last session. The others checked & told me we were just 2 laps behind 3rd placed car in our class and to drive hard.
As Mike pulled up he yelled “No fuel needed!” as he was still on just above half a tank and this was a 45 minute session... I checked the tyres and there was still plenty of tread on the fronts, so no need to change even the outside one either. We were in with a fighting chance!
Simon helped strap me in quickly and I left the pits as hard as the car would go. We were close enough to the exit not to worry about the 40 km/h limit.

Not knowing exactly what No 7 (3rd placed car) looked like, I just went for it in every gap and overtook anything in my way driving very obviously aggressively.
I'd hit full beams and burn the necks of any driver in front who dared be in my way and I once overtook the blue S15 Silvia just before the chicane. Before any corner was game in my book now. Nice guy ettiquette had already flown through the nets and out of the window as I left the pits.
I’d hit the downhill chicane as hard as I dared and didn’t back off if the car was sliding, instead keeping the power on. The remaining rubber on the tyres would take the punishment for 45 mins, I figured. Once as I bit off too much berm trying to make the Chicane far too much of a straight line, the car’s inside wheels jumped into the air & the back end came out wide. I veered towards the grass on the other side of the tarmac on opposite lock, but the car regained it’s composure and lost not a lot of speed...
Later as I thought about it I was glad I'd previously drifted on Ebusu's tracks with my own car during a matsuri - perhaps it had helped me remain composed when the car slid too much and just reacted to get it back on line and keep going.
Seeing what happened that matt black DC5 I'd just taken backed off slightly – knowing now I was on a mission & he never challenged again. If that made him back off I'd sure like to intimidate him again in future given the opportunity, as that's one of the quickest cars in N class and he needs to be weary of our Prelude and not think he can get one up on us just because he's marginally quicker on the uphill straight. That's racing!

At one point I was overtaking a slightly slower metallic blue B class EG6 Civic on the outside and he forced me onto the grass on the downhill section after the chicane. My choice was to either slow and miss the opportunity to overtake and do my best to avoid spinning out, or keep the pedal pinned and use the Diff’s lock to keep the momentum & acceleration being transmitted through the front wheel on the tarmac. Not having much time at that speed I overtook wihilst the car was bumping over the rough grass and cut in front of him in time to begin braking for the hairpin & throwing up dirt at his windscreen.

I later wondered why he'd done that - driver error, panic or on purpose? Maybe another car to watch for the next race..

Everywhere I could I’d take another car and another and another confident I'd be faster. All this in the possibility it was one of the fastest cars in front I was catching that we needed to overhaul for 3rd place... Having no idea specifically which car I needed to catch I was doing my best to overtake absolutely everybody and enjoying every minute of having taken on a mission with meaning to drive like that. So thanks for that bit of inspiration, guys - it really helped!

…Then the 350Z safety car came out… Oh crap!

(Yet another team taking advantage of the safety car's 10 minutes of race stoppage).

As we circled every 3 minutes or so the errant Silvia on the grass finally disappeared & I began to inch closer to the car in front, ready for another onslaught. The safety car was going quickly now then slowed again and waved all the traffic by by as he prepared to go into the pits and let the race resume, but that ridiculously slow Silver Pulsar that had been getting in everybody's way throughout the last 12 hours still wasn’t sure what to do…!
Not seeing any yellow flag displayed from the marshall’s hut I overtook him before firing up the hill and noticing another yellow flag still being waved further along. The DC2 behind me had also overtaken the Pulsar… I wondered if we’d be docked some laps for that slight error of judgement. In my mind I prepared myself to argue the case if I had to, then the hammer dropped again and the race resumed.
In any event it wasn't an issue. Besides, that Pulsar was known to be one of the slowest cars of all... so we were hardly bettering our positions!

On each consecutive lap I’d try to go faster. I’d stuff myself into the top corner, always getting the inside line, being at the top of another hill, I found I could actually enter the corner faster than I had during my earlier sessions, then lift off the throttle to help the rear pivot round slightly before firing out of the apex & quickly positioning the car straight for making as straight a line as possible through the chicane.
The aim was to do this without actually getting the inside wheels onto the concrete sections which would jolt the car too much and send the wheels off the ground.

At the bottom of the hill hairpin I’d usually have overtaken a car or two then accelerate hard with just a touch of understeer at the apex before banishing it with engagement of the diff and powering to the outside of the short up-hill. I’d make it agressively clear I was taking the inside of the next corner and anybody in my way was going to have to fight for it. Most would usually just give way as I inched past & braked later. Where not, I’d stick to their rear bumper going into the hairpin, stick close to the edge of the track and get the outside of the next straight before cutting across and getting the next apex.
I could see a flash going off from above each time I went through that hairpin and figured it must be one of our team.
Felt good to know someone was watching the battle I was in to get a better position.
In a bid to get faster acceleration off that same hairpin I also found I could clutch-kick once as I straightened to help get the revs up and quicker into V-Tec, ready to power down the slight downhill incline to the outside before short shifting to 4th and taking the inside line at the kink - again to try and make the corner as straight as possible.
The car would be sliding gently sideways in 4th as I hit the brakes & chell-toed to 2nd approaching the uphill right. I kept making a mental note each time to brake less than my brain was telling me to and enter that corner faster, with just a touch of trial braking until the front compressed as it went uphill & let off the brakes more smoothly.

I watched the car’s dashboard mounted digital clock and saw 8.30 come and go whilst looking out for the chequered flag at each lap. I had no idea if we had secured 3rd place, but the fuel reserve warning light was now solidly lit and I reckoned I had maybe 3 or 4 more laps I could do before I’d probably splutter to a halt. I could feel the exhaustion creep in with every passing lap and wanted it to be all over soon. Then at about 9.35 the chequered plag was finally waved. I slowed it down for the last lap and as I came into the pit lane the path was crowded with lots of happy people in support of their respective teams. I reved the engine to let them know I was coming through. I then saw Mike in the distance guiding me into our pit.
I stopped and called for the chocks to avoid using the handbrake. Sumi quickly put those in and as I got out of the car drenched in sweat the team was there to meet me with a round of applause & big smiles.
We’d gotten within just 23 seconds of catching the red number 7 Civic. We knew we were faster, but they’d done less driver changes and better planned their pit strategies. Had the safety car not gone out for about 15 minutes and the race been extended by only 5 mins, we’d have just made 3rd place, but there are always so many ways to lose time.
No worries - We’ll get em next time.

Apparently the team had thoroughly enjoyed watching that last stint almost as much as I had enjoyed driving it. Our Prelude was the only car with red hot front discs as it went past the pits and the holed flexible front pipe of the Mugen manifold was letting in air, making the exhaust backfire & crack loudly as I changed down for the top corner, which they said only added to the atmosphere... As I got out James excitedly told me I’d done several 1.10 laps in the dark. Collectively, we all felt a sense of relief we'd finished honourably and felt a sense of pride for our humble Prelude Type S.

We’d all driven a great event and our road registered N class race car has now done over 48 hours of racing, with no serious problems. Fantastic. Thank you Honda, for making such a reliable, forgiving & rewarding car to drive so hard!

More of these and less of the boring econoboxes, or the Toyota FT-86 will take much of that hard won V-Tec glory away in the near future..!

We learnt a lot and everybody finished the night with satisfied smiles. As I drove away in the Hiace to meet Andy & Emily after the race, I felt that sense of serene exhaustion and happiness I often get after a good track event. I was shattered but still buzzing and called my wife to share our small victory.

That feeling of happiness is what racing’s all about to me and now some of us can’t wait till November’s event. We’re aiming for a podium finish next time and this time we’re taking no prisoners...

Video clips and more writeups from other drivers coming soon - watch this space!

1st Position in June 2010 6 hour race! by Mike Gadd

2010-08-30T06:12:00.000-07:00

My first thoughts as I rounded the 1st corner after starting my 2hr stint
was the car was skittish. It felt like the back wheels were disconnected
from the car and I was driving across ice. Bouncing hard through the 2nd part of the chicane my head bouncing for what would be the first of many times to come off the door frame I started to remember how it felt driving the prelude. Taking the downhill hairpin for the first time since June I was surprised to get a little tire squeal. I wasn’t getting that last time
but these tires have 4+ hours use on them so maybe that's why. As the
race continued I soon acclimatized and was able to control the car no problems at all.

I new I was starting my stint with a 4 lap lead over the DC5 won by the stellar performance of Simon and Tom, and I was anxious to maintain as much of that as possible. I hated the thought of being the one responsible for losing us 1st place and letting everyone down but knew it was a real possibility.

I was on perhaps my 4th lap and just getting up to race pace speed I guess when I rounded the top hairpin and spotted the DC5 in my rearview. I was surprised when I matched his speed through the hairpin and down through the kink the bottom hairpin and the top giving me confidence that our speed differences wouldn’t result in a rapid erosion of our lead and the thought crossed my mind that perhaps Simon and Tom faced the DC5s best drivers and that fortunately I was left with their worse?. I caught myself trying to calculate how fast he would have to be per lap to erode our lead and put us in 2nd place.

Then suddenly as I approached the last corner the Rire roadster in front of me exploded spurting oil all over the track as it flew straight off the track across the dirt spinning as it did and ending up with its ass against the bank. I was fortunate to be just far enough away from him to miss the line of oil he had left while at high speed and as I regained my line, glancing in the rearview before taking the corner just in time to witness the DC5 lose control as it hit the oil, slide off the track a long ways across the dirt stopping just shy of the right side bank and almost at the corner!

I knew the SC would be out but I literally still had a completely full tank so didn’t pit.

I lined up behind the SC which let us pass one by one until we were all in race order behind it. I chuckled to myself that having just got my A license that I knew exactly what to do

On each lap we would drive slowly past the guys with brooms soaking up the oil precariously close. Unfortunately I realized on the very first SC lap that miraculously the DC5 had instantly extracted himself from the dirt and perhaps only lost at most one lap!- damn

Simon showed me a +5 as I passed the pits. He looked happy.

Once the SC left it was back to work as the field quickly spread out.
Nobody was more surprised than me when a while later I found myself coming
back upon the DC5! I was about to lap him! As I did it didn’t take long
to realize he still wasn’t matching my speed and I was to lap him again in the next hour. Additionally I would lap several of the B class cars time and time again.

An hour into the race and Simon showed me a +6 as I passed the pits - he looked very happy. As was I.. Tom was telling me to slow down. They were confident of our lead but I knew Id have to pit for fuel and wasn’t sure if the DC5 had to or not to finish the race. I wanted a good lead to take no chances. It was frightening how slowly the fuel was used up during the SC but how much I was using up afterwards.

Curiously, and it was a strange situation that showed the subconscious bias that grows with the marshals who see a b class car and assume its going faster, as they would blue flag me on corners as I approached with a B class car behind me that I was lapping! After the third blue flag and the third time I let a B class car pass only for me to then have to pass him a corner latter as he was going too slow - I stopped taking head of the blue flags unless I knew for a fact the car behind was far faster. It appeared to me that several of the B class cars were very erratic with their speeds. They would pass me then I would pass them, then I’d lap them, then they would pass me and so on.

Time was going by and I hadn’t seen the DC5 for a while. I assumed they had pitted for a refuel and confidence started to grow that there may be no way now they could regain the lead. Then I saw him a little ahead of me. After a bit of a battle (And a tight overtake at the hairpin) I passed him with a big smile on my face.

Simon showed me a +7 but now both him and Tom now frantically telling me to slow down!

20 mins to go and my fuel levels are low. I started to calculate in my head how many laps a fuel stop might cost us and if fully refueled the DC5 could catch up. I didn’t know what their race strategy was or if they had a super GT driver scheduled for the last 20 mins.

I wanted to catch up with the DC5 again. I wanted to lap them just one more time before pitting as I knew a pit stop for a splash and dash would cost us laps.

Trying to force myself now to conserve fuel and drag out the splash and dash time as late as possible while maintaining our lead so kept an eye on the rearview for them. I just wanted to need to do a splash and dash - no more than 10L, or one lap time lost.

I reasoned that I should slow to conserve fuel until I see the DC5 behind me. At that point I should pit for as min amount of fuel as Id need to finish. Unfortunately I still couldn’t see the DC5…and It was not easy to force oneself to maintain a slower pace but I did my best.

15 mins to go and I’m driving on fumes. I press the horn as I pass the pits to give them a 2 lap warning I’m coming in. Still no DC5. I pit to be greated by a smiling Tom and ask him to give me a splash. We knew that we could get 20L in within a 1:13 lap so we stopped at 15 L and I headed back out. Still no DC5, so that meant at worse case we lost one lap to them - best case we didn’t lose any.

It was about this moment that I knew we had won. I knew now it was mathematically impossible for the DC5 to beat us now. But…I was still lapping B class cars and as we had only 3 cars in our class I new without finishing high overall some might say we really were just lucky rather than competitive - so I maintained my pre splash pace, fast but cautious - just backing off a little.

Unfortunately this almost caused me to crash as I glanced at my gauge at the wrong moment looking up to find myself half way through the chicain totally off line and going too fast. A B class car that was bumper to bumper with me for the last lap was close but on line. When I realized where I was and my speed and off line position I knew I was in very deep shit. There was no way I could turn I just didn’t have enough grip. I did the only thing I could do and took the only line that would provide some grip - hopefully enough, that I can regain control from, that was to go straight over the chicane across the track straight over the right hand chicane rumble strips and dirt bouncing violently onto the track in a full out of control slide towards the bank. I knew I had to remain totally calm and that the biggest danger was an over correction. It took all my self control to trust that a gentle small correction might just give me enough grip back to just make th e corner without coming off. After the bounce I was sliding viciously, I corrected and the car surprisingly reacted. I felt some grip return momentarily and my steering inputs start to take effect then I felt the moment it started to overcorrect and grip began to be lost, I started to slide the opposite way. I don’t know were I found the nerve but I just gave it the deftest, lightest of re-corrections and much faster than I thought I was back in control and speeding down the downhill with the B class car behind me keeping a slightly larger distance away. Im sure he couldn’t believe what he had just seen because I couldn’t believe it was possible to recover from what I recovered from. Lesson learn - never give up and when the shit hits the fan relax don’t tense up and give it the lightest of touches!

5 mins to go and Im growing more and more anxious. I knew only a crash now would cost us the race and Im trying to drive cautiously.

The prelude clock now says 4:00 Im coming up on the finishing line. I don’t know if the race will be extended given the 15 mins SC time but low and behold there’s a chequered flag! It was one heck of a moment!! We won!
Not only that but we did well against the B class cars too.

This race more than any other taught me its not just about speed its more about planning, race strategy, refueling strategy, team work and car prep.

A great day one of lifes important moments our first win!

Victory Video

2010-06-26T19:50:00.000-07:00

Simon created a short video of our victory at Ebisu. Enjoy!

First Blood! Victory at Ebisu!

2010-06-24T06:45:00.000-07:00

Fantastic news! We won our first Endurance race since we set up the team hardly one year ago. We ran in the normal class at Ebisu East Circuit in the 6 hour endurance race over the weekend.

Here is a shot of us on the podium celebrating the victory. We should have some more photos etc coming as well as some in-car footage so please hang in there.

We ran a 3 driver strategy for this race - each driver doing a 2 hour stint. I qualified on a drying track, Simon started the race and ran our first 2 hours. I followed this up with another 2 hour stint and then Mike brought us home 6 hours later, first in class and seventh overall. 18 cars ran altogether and we gridded in 13 place so we did well to move up 6 spots by the end of the race.

Personally speaking it was a relatively straight forward race this time round. In every race so far we've destroyed the tires each time in little over an hour. This race, we made some key changes which helped us run the full 6 hours and more on the 1 set of tires. We went from 205/50R16s to 235/40R17s up front and 215/45R17s on the rear. We also added negative camber on the front and the three of us made a pact that'd we'd drive fast and furious but we would be kind to our tires!

The toughest part of the 2 hour stint was when my tube stopped dripping water after my 500ml had run out and my mouth started to go dry. I was sweating alot and not putting anything back in and I could literally feel myself dehydrating. I drove pretty much without error though for the whole stint and kept really good concentration throughout. I was really proud when I finally climbed out of the car and saw there was lots of thread left and only 2 hours remaining.

We couldn't have done it without the help of a great pit crew. Sumi-san gave up his weekend to be with us and did a fantastic job organizing the pit and making sure the work got done. Thanks to both John and Alex for being the extra pit talent needed to make it really work. Thanks also to everyone who has been a part of the team so far. All of you have helped us learn what it took to win this race. I hope there will be many more!

Ebisu Practice Video

2010-04-19T16:31:00.000-07:00

As Saturday was cancelled due to snow, I thought I'd put up a couple of practice laps of the 3 drivers. The car as you can see was quite easy to drive. The back was perhaps a little hard though as it did tend to hop along in places. Braking and turn in where excellent. The car has come a long way! I think we would have been pretty competitive.

It's confirmed. Race cancelled:(

2010-04-16T14:58:00.000-07:00

It is snow in Nihonmatsu

2010-04-16T13:20:00.000-07:00

Good morning.

Now , Our team stays in Aoki and can't go to Ebisu circuit.

Topping up before practice

2010-04-15T20:22:00.000-07:00

Last prep

2010-04-13T16:55:00.000-07:00

Car is stickered and clean air filter went in this morning as last minute prep finished. The race begins on Saturday and takes place in Ebisu again. Its 6 hours this time but we've only got 3 drivers so a proper endurance event in on the horizon! Whippee!

Car Prep for 2010

2010-03-27T19:50:00.001-07:00

We've decided lighter and cooler is the way to go in 2010. As such we've been busy messing about adding vents, taking out the air con, the sound deadening, etc as well as adding some harder springs and wider wheels.

sucking out the aircon gas.

Swapping the springs

cutting a new vent in the bumper for more air flow and refix that number plate.

Flaring the fenders after operation big wheel. we're going from 205 on 16s to 235 on 17s.

This is what we look like currently from front and side.

We also fitted a new exhaust manifold. Still a lot of work to do on the car before the next race. The water sender needs to be fixed as it is broken, tires fitted. We're still lacking a proper fan belt to remove the aircon properly but hopefully we'll sort this and some more stuff out before the next race which is coming up April 17.

Ebisu 1'10.569 Qualify Lap

2010-01-20T16:06:00.000-08:00

This post is over due. This is our qualification lap from the last Ebisu Endurance race of the year last year. We got a 1'10.569 which is pretty decent. We were on brand new tires, so I took it easy on the first lap after nearly ending up off the track through the first chicane when I forgot the tires were not worn in yet and they just went from under the car like it was on ice. Luckily, I collected the car up, got around a lap and then set our qualify lap before coming in for a pressure adjustment. That turned out to be our best lap!

Fuji Speedway Video

2010-01-05T07:37:00.000-08:00

Simon took the Prelude out for its debut run around Fuji Speedway late December. He discovered much to his amusement that the car was still limited to just over 180kmph. Still he strung together some fine laps and managed a best time of 2'13.654. I was pretty impressed with the way the car handled and the way Simon took the 100R. Nice driving Simon!

Extra Ebisu 6Hr - the Video! (aka James' Perspective)

2009-11-30T06:15:00.001-08:00

For those of you waiting for the video version, here it is!

Many thanks again to James G. for his fantastic video skills!

Extra Ebisu 6 Hour - Rod's Perspective.

2009-11-29T17:48:00.000-08:00

Rather than re-post all. I'll direct readers to Rod's own RacingInJapan blog.

His post includes a lot more than just the TG-Racing event, so check it out.

Ebisu Super Taikyu Web Page

2009-11-25T07:37:00.000-08:00

Check us out on the Ebisu Circuit Super Endurance page.

Direct Link ... http://www.ebisu-circuit.com/2009-4r-end/11-23/11-23.html

Extra Ebisu 6 Hour - Dan's Perspective.

2009-11-25T07:06:00.000-08:00

Dear All

Wonderful guys you all , So happy to race with you all if my driving style suitable for our team &,If I have seat always I'm there.

Anyway first time I had FF Honda on circuit all the times have been with Roadster & Imprezas,Evos.

In Ebisu uphill,felt little lack of power even though 2.2 VTEC, I think prelude is little heavy compare with some same class machines. we can do some weight reduction(Lightining) on expert honda instructions.

Again So sorry about under str. & front Left tyre wear toomuch as first Driver so discomport will do some good alignment & shocks works-So sorry not a technical guy but just love cars,speedy driving even My Roadester I have pit crew two Japanese for even practice days in Tsukuba.So much lack of Tech. expertise on cars-sorry.

Thanks Miguel your Managment & Technical advice for all of us

Thanks Sumisan for very tired organize works, all paper works with Good Gyjins

Thanks Tom,Rod,James & Mike for Be a wonderful guys to me & my car crazy Son you all so kind super gyjins in Japan.

Finaly Thanks Tom, Invited me to such a great times with Great bunch looking forward to see you all in very near future.

Kind Regards,

Dhammika Silva (dan)

p.s- all the photos sent by my Nikon D70- My son's camera has lot send later

Ebisu 6 extra hour - Tom's perspective

2009-11-25T06:28:00.000-08:00

I've driven all 3 races with the Prelude now. The 12 hour on the original Aragosta suspension setup, the 6 hour on the Tein and now the last 6 hour on the new Aragosta rebuilt suspension with uprated damping and springs. Each race saw an improved the car and faster lap times.

Thinking back to the original race, I think tires have made a huge difference. My original first session was done on RE01s where as the 2nd night session was on a vastly grippier tire, the Z1 star specs. Unfortunately, I found night driving a real visual challenge and was not able to drive as fast as I should have been able to drive to really get a feel for the Z1s but I could sense that they were faster. The next race, we had 8 new Z1s and after a practice session, everyone who raced was confident of the extra available grip and raced them harder leading to improved lap times. Personally, I preferred the first suspension over the TEIN setup we had due to a very slow initial roll rate. I personally think tires as well as cooler weather made me faster.

This last race, the car was vastly different again. A new suspension, gear box and LSD among other things. The gearbox got rid of the reverse problems, but it does have some syncro trouble I think between 2nd and 3rd. The LSD gives us vastly improved traction out of corners which feels amazing. I really enjoyed that. Its a one-way LSD setup. The suspension immediately felt amazing on practice and gave me a lot of confidence to try to go faster.

During practice I pitted a few times to try different damping adjustments and was really amazed by the difference they made. The first setting I tried was quite good everywhere except for the chicane where I felt, if we could get easier neutral turn-in, we could improve our lap time. The next few settings were definitely a step backwards until finally, I got something I liked and went out and got a 1'11.4 in one lap before I came back in again satisfied. What I liked though was how different it felt with every twist. Thanks Miguel and Sumi for working with me on the adjustments.

Before qualification, we found the crack in the rotors. I was in two minds about what to do but decided to believe in the brakes and get on with it. On new tires, I headed out around the first corner and lost it completely sideways though the chicane. I managed to get things back under control and pointing down hill again but it was quite a scare. I had completely forgotten that these were brand spanking new tires so they still had to get through a layer of skin before getting down to actual proper rubber compound. I did 2 slow laps to get the tires prepped and on my first hot lap, I scored a 1'10.5. The next few laps, I made the mistake of following the super 7 around which affected my time as I had to lift or brake earlier to avoid him at times. I felt we could have gone faster but it was time to save the rotor/tires and car and come in. A 1'10.5 is the fastest the car has been and it got us 8th on the grid and 2nd in class - ahead of the Super 7 I might add :-) Looking at the TM data, I note that the best virtual lap time for that session was a 1'10.0 so we can get into the 1'09s for sure.

Dan started the race for us and I mostly watched from the pit as I kept an eye on things. Dan is new to the team which made starting the race for us a lot more stressful on him then he might like to admit. It's always hard to know what your team mates are thinking, you are worried about starting from 8th and ending your session last and not living up to expectations, you are worried that you haven't driven the car so much before, nor done a rolling start. You are worried you might mess up and kill the car before anyone else gets to drive. You want to bring the car back but you want to make your team proud too. I know this feeling from my first endurance race when I started the race for 7 others that I didn't know and I was starting from 2nd on a grid of about 28. Pressure!

When Dan pitted, I checked tire pressures and checked the tires. We had a problem. Our front left tire was showing a lot of degradation and was ripping apart on the outside. Tire pressure was down also to 220kpa (a slow punture perhaps?) and we sent Sumi out on it hoping for a safety car so that we could change it without losing too much time. That was a terrible judgement call and I'm quite embarrassed over agreeing to it but it was driven by 1 silly reason; the fact that this was only the beginning of hour 2 and we had only 4 worn tires left (one of which itself was blistered although not too badly) - would we last the race... Would I be able to drive the car back to Tokyo on our race rubber? Deja-vu from the last race.

Anyway, Sumi was out on badly worn tires but doing quite well with lap times of around 1'13 ~ 1'14 so all didn't seem too bad. Back in the pit, we thought about the problem and decided to change the tire if the chance arose. 30 minutes into Sumi's session things were looking bad as he was lapping around 1'30 and we decided to bring him in albeit a little too late. He had a puncture and was coming in anyway. With the tire changed, Sumi did a few more 1'16 laps before bringing the tires back in pristine condition for Mike. Apologies Sumi! You did a fantastic job! I hope you learned as much from it as I did.

Mike was in charge of hour 3 for us and he promised to drive hard but without pushing under-steer. He lapped a mixture of 1'13s with some 1'12s and 1'14s in the mix. He got our best lap of the race which was a 1'12. Well done Mike! When Mike pitted though, the tires were showing blistering again although no-where near as bad as when Dan first came in. Still having learned from the puncture, we decided to give Rod a "new" left tire.

Rod was only out about 15 minutes when the safety car came out so we dragged Rod in and decided to raise the front suspension. Miguel and Sumi worked their magic and we had Rod out again before the safety car ended. He noted that the car under-steered more with the new setup but he drove a pretty clean race and finished our 4th hour with decent rubber left for James. I need to check up on Rods times but think he drove very consistently at 1'14s. Nice driving Rod!

James was in charge of hour 5. We'd two old front tires left should we have needed them for the last driver which was me. James was very mindful of the tires also and lapped with average lap times of 1'15. Thank you for being so mature James! During James run, I noted that we were only 1 lap down from car 39 which was a white roadster. We were sitting in 10th willing James on to wind that lap back when the safety car went out at around 14:40 and the decision was made to fill up, bring James in and send me out. This made sense race tactics wise but perhaps not so much for James whos session was cut about 15 minutes short. Sorry James! I hope it was worth it to get 9th place!

Before I got in the car the guys put on the old front tire from the practice session on the front left and off I went just in front of car 39 who was trying to up the count to a 2 lap lead. I drove slow enough around during the 2 safety car laps much to the annoyance of the 2 cars behind me who kept flashing me. I suspect they wanted to pit again for more gas before the safety car would come around but I was in charge and they didn't have time to pit before the green flag came out and the race was back on as I missed third gear up the hill and let the cars get too close to me. The faster NB got up my inside on the chicane and I slowed to get a clean line around it when he also slowed in front of me thus letting car 39 through for a 2 lap lead! What just happened? Was that team tactics? I smiled to myself at the cleverness and chased conservatively for the next 3 laps. Having a 75 minute session left and worrying about excessive tire wear, I wasn't going to push the tires just yet. I'd save them for when I needed them.

Car 39 pitted about 4 laps into my session and I looked at the petrol gauge only to see that I'd just around 7/8 of a tank and about 70 minutes to go... Hmmm. From that point on, I decided to be intelligent about fuel also so as to avoid having to pit in and lose laps to car 39. About 40 minutes to go I passed car 39 on the uphill section and new that we were safely either ahead on the same lap or 1 lap ahead. All I had to do was keep the tires, keep the fuel and stay on the track and we'd keep our new 9th place. The orange light came on with about 10 minutes to go and I started changing up even more actively and not using all the throttle on the downhill sections. It became a race for survival.

Coming over the finish line, I was blissfully happy and shoved my arm out the window as if we'd won. What a race... There is something about an endurance race, the complete team effort, the awe at the car making it so far that draws you in wanting more. It turns out I didn't really have to worry about tires either as they were pristine like I wanted them as I had to drive back to Tokyo on them :-)

In hindsight, it would have been worth swapping data cards in the TraqMate to check the first sessions video while Sumi-san was running to see if we could identify if tire wear was down to the driver or the car. I've since reviewed some of Dan's footage and am pretty sure that he destroyed the tires in the first 20 minutes or so of his session. The remaining 40 minutes he actually drove really well as he found his lines and braking points. Nice driving in the last part of your session Dan!

In my opinion we are killing tires primarily in two places.
a) downhill braking and turn in area followed by under-steering the exit.
b) exit of the last corner
Here a) is the primary killer.

Thinking about this further, I think we need:
a) pre-race driver education on how to drive our car and what not to do.
b) more camber on the front - we need to use more of the tire under load. this will help get more speed uphill also on the exit of the last corner as well have more tire patch in contact.
c) more setup testing to better understand what we have and how to change it.
d) different tires which are less prone to break up under a little abuse. The RE11s for example have a much wider outside thread like an s-tire and might be worth trying. Other Sports-radial suggestions welcome.
e) improving downhill braking. A lot of problems seem to stem from braking issues down hill. RE11s also brake quite well in my opinion. Maybe worth trying a stronger pad on the rear (as it doesn't need to be an endurance pad on the rear). Another thing which will help that is reducing weight which has already been mentioned.

I would tend to shy away from harder springs right now and leave the suspension as it is. I think we have a lot more we can improve on before we need to go firmer. Camber might be just what we need to go even faster.

Hmmm. That is rather a long post without any photos but I'm sure my team mates will forgive me. Again - thanks to all for a great day and some great racing. Thanks especially to all who worked on the car preparation!

Ebisu Extra 6 Hour - Mike's perspective

2009-11-24T05:00:00.000-08:00

Joined TGR team again as a driver in their Honda for the 6hr endurance race. The weather was great albeit very cold. The rain that was forcast never came. In practice I managed my best lap time at Ebisu so far (1:11.9) thanks to an improved car (stiffer springs) plus me finally finding a solution to the S bend downhill hairpin and the kink/uphill hairpin. Tom also got his best time during qualifying with a 1:10.56, putting us 2nd in class and 8th on the grid.

The 6 drivers were :

Myself plus-

H.Sumi
T O`Dowd
R. Rolirad
J. Gibbons
D. Silva
team manager, pit boss and all round sweetheart: M. Varella-Cid

Tom also got his best time during qualifying with a 1:10.56, seated 2nd in class and 8th on the grid. Overall the car felt like a different car than before - much more stable - a good 2 secs faster. On race day after qualifying 10 mins before race start I noticed a 3 inch long crack going through one of the brake rotors!! The spares being in Tokyo.

I was a tad surprised to get agreement when I suggested we drill out the crack :) a technique thats often used to stop crack propogation. We quickly drilled a small hole at the end of the crack in the hope that would stop, or slow it growing. I checked at each pit stop to see if the crack was growing or if it was eating up the pads. As it happens the rotor and pads lasted the 6hr race without falling apart! These rotors had just been skimmed and fitted the day before. this crack therefore must have grown very quickly!

Unforunately were still seeing rapid outside edge tyre wear although not quite as bad as before. The car currently doesnt have much camber so its been suggested we could look at adjusting that and seeing if we can reduce the edge wear.

We qualified 8th and finished 9th overall. In class, we qualified 2nd and finished 5th. 13 cars ran, 6 in our class. We out-qualified a Westfield seven which Tom almost drove over under braking in qualification

It was a fun race!!

Mike.

Ed. Mike's full picture Gallery is here. (Miguels also here.)

Ebisu Extra 6 Hour - Miguel's Perspective

2009-11-24T04:09:00.000-08:00

Whilst I’ve got it on the brain, may as well get this mail fired off! Great fun as usual this weekend. Felt like a real team working together and having fun, which is what it’s all about, innit! J

Thanks for being such a great bunch of guys racing. Even though I only drove one warm up lap, one fast lap and one coming in lap (To test how the car felt) I felt like I raced this weekend. Managing was fun and of course socializing was enjoyable as ever too. I think everyone had fun.

I think we all agree the car behaved better now than ever before, which is encouraging – handles better and everybody was able to set consistently faster lap times, but there’s still lots of work to do! We also learnt it’s important to bring the spares we have for the car. Had we say, lost a drive shaft – or had our badly cracked disc failed (Amazingly it lasted the entire race!), we’d have been out of contention – so no storing spares next time please!

Next race will be in April 2010 at Ebisu again (6 hours). We’d like to get dates for this and sign up the next 6 race drivers ASAP. That way, we can bring in the funds needed for the next stage of preparation. I’m quite happy to not race this event, I’d prefer to spend time trying to understand the car and getting feedback from people – and continue improving it. Maybe I can do the race after that… there should be plenty next year.

The suspension is better controlled now and the car pitches and rolls less – but our conservatively chosen spring rates need to be increased. Also, despite setting toe to zero – we had some blistering of the outside of tyres, especially the left side, which came from heavy under steer exiting the downhill chicane and the hairpin as the bottom of the hill. Drivers need to avoid putting so much pressure on the tyres, since it kills them – but in any case it’s a problem we also need to address with handling. Watching our car in the hairpin closest to the back of the pit area with Mike – we noticed when the suspension at the front was set very low, we’d lift a rear wheel – after increasing front ride height, this stopped – and Rod mentioned the car seemed to under steer more as a result. Tom also said the same, having felt the car was different when he first drove it, compared to the end, when the car no longer wanted to turn in. So we can lower the front a little more, but have to be mindful of rubbing tyres on the underside of the inner fender, especially as there’s vertical pieces of metal which could cut the tyre on a larger bump.

Suspension modifications:

I’d like to see if 16kg/mm springs are able to fit the rear shock (Which would give us a choice of 12, 13.4 & 16 to test with) and uprate the front springs to around 18-20 kg/mm.

Camber adjustment kits are available, which are cheap (Eibach or other brands). The outside of the tyres could be made to run cooler if we decrease camber further. We really should be wearing the tyres out evenly, ideally and of course – not getting this blistering. If we can find it, a eurethane bush kit would also add improvements in keeping geometry correct when pushing hard. If available, this too is usually inexpensive.

We actually have 7.5J wheels instead of 7J, so we could fit 225/45/R16 (If size is available?) or 225/50R16 at the front for the next race to also help reduce under steer – although I think our problem is of front end control rather than tyre width…

I don’t think our Prelude will ever become an evil over steer prone car, it’s quite front heavy so I would also like us to also consider fitting a larger rear anti-roll bar to the rear to help turn in too.

To test these modifications, I think Tom’s idea of going to Ebisu one weekend to test & adjust the car after modifications is a good idea. We could then play with spring rates and damping, plus camber settings. Finally testing if the car would be better with or without a thicker rear stabilizer and have the car best prepared for racing. Maybe we could even go up a day before practice.. assuming weather etc. co-operate.

We would need two new front tyres to do this at least, or all 4 ideally – but it would mean the testing and setup is done before the next race, not set during driver practice.

Assuming our damping adjustment range would be enough to accommodate the spring rates we decide on, then all of the above modifications should be comfortably within budget for the next race – if we choose to go with them. I’d like to see under steer become much less of a problem – as this is what’s slowing us down most now.

Lightening modifications:

A. For sure, we’ll need to lighten the car, especially the front (Which should also help turn-in). So we’ll need to remove air conditioning pump, condenser, drier and all piping, make the a/c fan work in combination with the cooling fan if necessary too (although I haven’t noticed any problem with cooling there anyways). Battery should be ditched and replaced with a smaller dry cell (Kinokuni) and a kill switch also fitted, which should be used to isolate the battery when car’s not in use. We can also get rid of: interior sound deadening on the floor, rear wiper and motor and maybe replace the window winders with manual ones and get rid of the electric mirrors replacing with craft square styled ones , if it’s not too much work / expense. Mike also suggested an FRP boot lid with no heavy hinges (bonnet pins instead?) which would be nice if available. Lightening the car is pretty much free for the most part.

Would also be nice to fit wider rims. We noticed the winning N class car (RIRE wide body NB8C) had major bodywork modifications, so there’s nothing stopping us rolling the arches and cutting the front fenders just below to swage line and spacing it out with z shaped pieces of stainless steel and riveting in place. Easy to do, looks cool and enables us to fit wider wheels.
Other desirable modifications:
The brake does seem quite mushy although it’s not air that’s causing the problem. It may be the master cylinder’s seals that are worn, so we could replace the master cylinder (Easier than rebuilding, which can be time consuming) – which can improve brake feel.

We’ve noticed other N class cars openly *take most advantage of* the rules. Most run without catalysts (Judging by their sound) so we should fit a cat replacement pipe(Taking the original cat in case needed), Mugen manifold (When we can afford it) and – we can also fit some form of open induction kit. Not that these will improve power a lot, but will at least sound like it should! We could adapt an old existing induction kit to work with the resonance chamber already on the car. Should cost pennies to do if not free… with parts I may have lying around.

Rear bumper. I’d like to propose the rear bumper be cut with an upside down “D” shape, similar to the back of a 370Z – and black mesh fitted. Doesn’t have to be a huge hole, just enough to allow air to escape rather than creating a parachute effect. This is only very minor though. Remember we also want to refit mirror bracket in a safer position. Aki’s V-Tec controller also needs to go on.

ATS final gear would also be desirable. Don’t really fancy taking out the box to fit it, but it will become a necessary evil… That is, unless we can find a CL1 transmission used and fit a better final to that…. Would make for a very quick Prelude then… We’d all like to see our car be capable of holding it’s own on the uphill against other N/A cars J!

We can also drill and rivet seams, to help stiffen the car… So much can be done yet, guys!

In brief, I propose for the next race preparation would be
New front brake discs:
6 new tyres (Minimum):
Engine oil change
New springs (16gk/mm ): If only two springs:
Camber adjustment links:
Eurethane bush kit (Not essential right now, but desirable at some point):
Rear Stabiliser kit
Brake master cylinder: .
Dry Cell battery & Kill switch..
Cat replacement pipe: .
Replacement belt for use after removing A/C pump – Need to measure and obtain before doing this removal:
Induction kit:
Replacement brake duct hose : .
Mugen manifold, and perhaps an ATS final drive gear…

I’ll be off now to do some proper work!
L8R
Miguel

Team Work and Play

2009-11-23T06:10:00.000-08:00

Tom and Miguel in deep discussion. The guys work hard but also have some fun in their adventures.

Here is a little insight from some snaps. hehe :)

The serious side...

The not so serious side...

What's this piece of road kill under here? Mmm Squirrel.

Last time it tasted better.

Rod helping Sumi-san into the car.

The serious review of TRAQMATE data.

Time for dinner with Andy from Powervehicles.com and a tour of Kumakubo's K-Style

The guys wish they were running one of these.

Next morning Tom plugs in again.

Rod does some lonely secret work...

Sumi-san doing it the easy way. Ahh electricity...!

And doing it the hard way fitting in to the Gaijin experience. James making video.

Some last minute directions for Dhan.

After a while, Miguel got the taste for squirrel again.

Time to pose.

Then get to work...! race time.

Finished!

2009-11-23T04:13:00.000-08:00

Photos and videos to come later - Miguel reports the team finished 9th overall (in field of 14) and 5th in class!

Qualifed with a time of 1'10" - so the car is getting faster!

Nicely done guys!

Qualification results

2009-11-22T16:20:00.001-08:00

We got 8th on grid of 13! 2nd in class. Dan is first out in the race.
Go Dan!

Last minute prep....

2009-11-21T19:58:00.000-08:00

For tomorrow's practice run at Ebisu - as the team challenges the circuit one more time on Monday - Alex, Simon, Tom, and Sumi-san joined me in getting the car ready.

Other than the 8 used tires we have to take off, and replace with 8 fresh Dunlop Direzza StarSpecs - which timely arrived due from TireRack (thanks!), we re-installed the rebuilt Aragostas with stiffer springs, changed out the brake fluid twice (just to make sure), and did an oil change.

Photos from the day:
8 new tires!

Sumi-san does his inspection:

Simon conducts a suspension seminar:

"Ah, so this is a coilover?"

In place!

"Vroom, vroom, vroom!!" Wow this is fun!!!

"Tom, will you please stop goofing off and help us?"

Done!!

So my impressions of the rebuilt suspension - very nice! The car certainly tracks better, with stiffer springs in the back, the front stays planted. Ride is actually quite supple, but precise. Of course, didn't drive at high speed, so might be different on the track...

When we get updates, will post them! Wish us luck!

A drag on the carpet.

2009-11-15T05:43:00.000-08:00

TG Racing set out for some smaller mods today. The first one was the rear drag reduction project. But not all went as planned. Initial designs for the rear bumper taped up.

Restrictions for size of mesh resulted in only the folowing becomming possible.

But as we revealed the under layer... some issues occurred with the original fitting so we put that stopped that project.

The other guys continued on with their interior trim removal and stripped some more non vitals.

Another kilo or two saved.

TGRacing BB6 Prelude Current Spec

2009-11-14T07:10:00.000-08:00

TG-Racing Honda Prelude

1998, September
BB6-1200016
JDM Spec S.

Engine
H22A 2.2L VTEC producing approx. 235hp.

Engine Ancilliaries
Mugen Muffler
K&N wet type air filter.
Fluidyne Alloy Radiator
25 row Setrab upgraded oil cooler
CUSCO 1-way LSD (Recently added)

Suspension and Brakes.
Non ATTS model.
Aragosta Kit. Rebuilt with F14Kgmm springs.
Tein Monoflex. (Spare)
RunMax Stainless Brainded Brake Lines
Dixcel Brake Rotors
Endless Endurance pads. Endless M84N compound
Ducted hoses.

Wheels and Tyres
RAYS Volk Racing CE28N's of 16" under 5.0 kg each.
Bridgestone Potenza RE-01R's of sizes 215/45R16 f 205/50R16 r
OR
Direzza Star Spec 215/45R16 f 205/50R16
Honda Integra 16" Type R Wheels (Spare)

Exterior
Pearl White Paint
TG-Racing Graphics by RE-Xtreme
Vented Bonnet FRP with bonnet pins
Mugen front lip spoiler
Front bumper NACA ducts
Spec S rear spoiler.
Honda Spec S side skirts and rear skirt
4200K HID headlights + Fogs.
Rear Bumper modification for drag reduction.

Interior
Autopower Roll Cage
Sparco Race seat
Takata race harness
Momo Race steering wheel.
Defi 60mm gauges, water temp, oil temp, oil pressure in Centre Guage Pod.
TRAQMATE with chase cam and data logger.
Motorola 2way radios.
Mugen shift knob.
un-necessary trim removed.

Continued Thanks to the team and guests for time invested.

Race on!

ps. A little video http://vimeo.com/7464481 ( Russ driving :p )

TGRacing - now we're getting serious!

2009-11-07T01:02:00.000-08:00

Another day in the shop for Sumi-san, Miguel and Alex, except this time they managed to convince these two guys to make the drive down and help out: Mike and Tom!

On today's menu - replacing our transmission from one sourced from a BB4 (with stronger 5th and reverse gears), which ALSO came with a CUSCO 1-way LSD!

First, locate where the transmission is...

Second, even Miguel has to check the service manual once in a while...

Here goes...

"Hey, you dropped it!"

Now that wasn't too hard:

The clutch side:

Here is the LSD. Note the rebuilt driveshafts in the back, those went in too.

As Miguel holds the frypan, Mike adds some spice:

Meanwhile, Sumi-san was busy with replacing the driveshafts:

Taking the LSD apart:

We decided that the LSD needed more initial bite, so adding shims was key:

The inside of the transmission casing:

The guys finished in time - from what Miguel told me, the initial torque has improved, but is not excessive - we'll worry about fine tuning it when we change out the final gear in the future.

Next week - lightening the car, installing the rebuilt suspension, and wheel alignment...

Ebisu 6Hr- Hiroshi's Perspective

2009-10-28T07:12:00.000-07:00

Our other guest driver Hiroshi (above) sent me a message earlier today, with his thoughts.

"A big thank you to the Team Gaijin Racing team for inviting me to drive in this event. As it was my first real car race, I didn't know what to expect, but my teammates (and new friends) welcomed me and gave me suggestions and advice, which was nice to have. The Prelude is certainly a much different driving experience than my 993, but in other ways, they are the same. Obviously, the Prelude has more understeering, but both cars require smooth driver input to get the most out of the car.

I have been told that the guys are working on improving the car's suspension and tractive abilities, which should really make for a fast car. Although I have other commitments so I can't make the next race, I am hoping the guys will be kind enought to invite me back to race with them next year - I certainly would love another go at the wheel!

Thanks guys -

Hiroshi"

Hiroshi also arrived with his own very attractive photographer friend who took many pictures for us, including the following:

The car in action, Miguel driving (click on this photo for a great wallpaper):

Some in the pit action:

Alex doing some calculating.

Juan making sure the car has enough gas! (while the others were, ehem, discussing strategy I'm sure...)

Tom letting some air out.

Having a meeting.

Hiroshi and Sumi-san, ready to refuel!!

The Safety Car - the view from the front (at the race start)

Half the team... I think we were watching Tom drive...

Ebisu 6Hr - Miguel's Perspective.

2009-10-25T22:10:00.000-07:00

Miguel's Perspective.

"Great memories racing again – both on and off the track and good to meet some new people too, notably Juan – who gave up his weekend to help us with counting laps, refueling, etc and Mike who proved to be very smooth and proficient - putting in consistent 1.14 laps even with tyres well past their prime. Bearing in mind this was only our second race – we’ve been doing well. Our driver changes and pit stops were a lot quicker, although there’s always room to improve, I guess.

Our focus for the next race will be to improve the car further – not just getting our original Aragosta suspension repaired, but also getting it re-sprung and re-valved for best possible control. With less roll and suspension travel and quicker suspension response, plus a lighter car - we should not only be able to improve our lap times by 2-3 seconds for the same conditions but also reduce our tyre wear considerably, meaning less pit stops and less lost laps! I’d like to see a brake bias valve fitted to the car for the next race as well.

So Aki & I are off to get thie shocks delivered to Nishiki tonight. Will update more on this later.

Looking forward to November 23rd!"

Miguel.

Image comments by Russ.

Rear inside wheel lifting.

Sometimes lonely in qualifying and practice.

The team under pit direction.

Race day pit for the oversubscribed Ebisu.

The office. It's pretty comfy actually.

Start to what?

Sumi-san is off.

Attack and Under Attack.

Just under attack here.

Bit of a nosedive under braking.

Sometimes lonely during the race too. But it doesn't last long...

"Here is a nice sequence of images"

Shows the tight racing that ebisu circuit can probide as well as safe overtaking places. Unlike Tsukuba.

Lights on and bring it home.

Another finish for TG-Racing.

Prelude Data Log 12 +6 Race Hours.

but the team is thinking about this.

Ebisu 6Hr - Mike's Perspective

2009-10-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

Joined TG Racing team as a guest driver in their honda.

Really great bunch of guys and had a blast (as you can see from the pics).

Surprised how easy the honda was to drive after the lotus. Very forgiving car that gives far more warning of loss of traction than the lotus - making it an easy car to step into and race for the first time.

We came in a respectable 8th place in our class and 24th place overall.

First set of tyres only lasted 2 hours then were totally shreaded so by the time I went out I was driving on last set of used rubber and we had changed our race strategy to `survive and finish` agreeing on a tyre saving conservative lap time we should all keep to.

Unfortunately when I went out the trackmate failed and I was unable to tell what lap times I was doing so I had to try to guess and just drive as smoothly as I could.

In the end we did a total 254 laps just 3 laps shy of 5th place!

Mike.

Ed. All of Mike's pictures are here or watch a slide show here.

Race Summary - team manager perspective

2009-10-24T17:24:00.000-07:00

First, let me thank everyone who came out yesterday - great job everyone! Special thank you to Alex and Juan, for being, really, the backbone of our organization and efforts yesterday - it seemed like while I was yelling at everyone, co-manager Alex was steadily counting laps, measuring lap time, and calculating our fuel consumption while Juan made sure our fuel canisters were topped off, assisted Alex, and while timing our pit stops, helping out there too, even making sure our car could clear the pits with no problems! Thanks so much guys - hope you'll be able to join us again next time! Go Navy!!!

Our pit stops, by the way - were a real team effort. Our shortest pit stop - with a full refuel and oil level check - was somewhere about 2 minutes and 30 seconds! Even with full four wheel tire swap - front to rear - AND fuel - we did it in less than 5 minutes! FANTASTIC! I don't think we can get much better!

Second, I think we all learned a lot about car set-up. It was clear to me that our car - while certainly one of the more unique shapes out there - had some tremendous mechanical disadvantages. Our last minute suspension replacement left us with a severe handicap, as demonstrated by excessive tire wear (see earlier post Bad Hair Day). The spring rates were actually the same (I think) as the Aragostas we ran last time in the 12 hour race, yet the overall spec of these coilovers just were not up to the tasks of driving hard on a circuit. After we discovered how bad the problem was after the second hour, our drivers had to back off and with some smooth driving, were able to keep going to the end on our spare set of tires. So we'll have to get those Aragostas fixed in time for the next race, and with specs appropriate for a racing course.

On the way home last night, Miguel and I discussed certain other mechanical changes and improvements we want to make, but if I told you now, I'll short myself topics for the blog, so stay tuned for further updates!

Finally - it's very obvious that we have tremendous driving talent. Nice circuit debut for Hiroshi - despite running on worn tires he brought the car back safe! Also, good idea with the last minute pedal mod too (worked for me!).

I also want to thank, and apologize to Mike especially, not only for his spectacular driving (the tires when he came back into the pits looked like they weren't even worn!), but for leaving him without the Traqmate running (so he couldn't measure his times while driving), and for not allowing him the pleasure of some aggressive, racing driving. Sorry about that Mike!

So, despite the troubles we had with our car, not only did our drivers extract the most from the car - even with the limited resources, we still finished in a respectable position - of the 38 cars in the field, we qualified in 27th place, yet finished 23rd! How's that for some great driving! Admittedly, we dropped a couple of spots in our class (from 6 to 8 of 10 - but frankly, I am very suspicious of some of those other so-called "street-legal" cars...), but to be able to compete with fully race prepped machines (non-street legal) and yet move up 4 spots in the overall field really says something about our driving! And this is still our second race!

So - overall, I was happy with our efforts. Not only do we seem to be getting better everywhere - in organization, in our talent, in our car prep - but as we were able to finish without injury and go home in one piece, I think the difficulties we had really were a tremendous learning experience which should serve us well in our future efforts!

Go Team Gaijin!!

We did it!

2009-10-24T00:14:00.000-07:00

Nice job teammates!!

LAST DRIVER!

2009-10-23T23:00:00.001-07:00

GO TOM GO!

One down...

2009-10-23T20:42:00.000-07:00

Crash claims one rival. Our tires are wearing out faster than
expected. Miguel at the wheel now, being very consistent time-wise,
to save the spares we put on.

Bad hair day.

2009-10-23T20:07:00.001-07:00

Our new front tires after only 2 hours:(

And we're off!

2009-10-23T18:04:00.000-07:00

Go, Sumi-San, go!!

Miguel qualifies...

2009-10-23T17:29:00.000-07:00

6 of 10 in class

Miguel qualifying

2009-10-23T16:47:00.000-07:00

Miguel kicks off the day for us.

Dinner

2009-10-23T03:52:00.001-07:00

Weekend before the race...part 2

2009-10-18T08:47:00.000-07:00

As Russ posted earlier, we had quite a busy day. And, as usual, he's being modest, having done the brunt of the difficult work... again.

mea culpa, I was the one who nicked the bumper during a practice run, resulting in that horrendous tear. See the following photos as to how Russ fixed the repair (and yes, I paid for the materials out of my own pocket...)

First, he scraped and cut away excess....

Then he applied putty, to let it dry.

Then he sanded it down, and taped up the area to be painted...

"A few coats (sorry for the runs.)" edit by Russ.

And presto, done!

In addition, he fixed some damaged lettering, and also applied the big stripe on the bonnet while waiting for the putty to dry.
Also, Sumi-san and I managed to purchase some plastic tool boxes to organize everything - it all looks tidy and organized now, thank you very much!

At Ebisu, will have to stop by at the local home center and figure out what we can buy to fix the rearview mirror (still showing bolt), as well as the bungee cord idea for the harness. We also have to wire lock (or use an altenative) to the oil level dipstick.

6 hr Race 600hrs of prep!

2009-10-18T05:55:00.001-07:00

Ok, After my debarkle with my alarm clock, Aki and I(Russ) eventually made it to pick up the car. It looked cool tucked away in the carpark. 12hr event stickers fading away and sitting on the deck!

We assessed our jobs for the day. Filth removal, sticker replacements and Sumi-san would raise the height.

I had this little extra to think about too. "Who did this?"

Any way , we headed off to clean it a bit. The car looked like it was crying.

The speedhunters stickers survived from the last race.

We headed over to our "PIT" for the day.

Sumi-san set about correcting the Ride height on the Tein coilovers.

After a special "Aki-Wax" with tar removal. I cut the sticker for the bonnet and started on the front bumper repair.

Here I am masking the repair after some body filler and sanding. Luckily our PIT had some body colour paint on hand.

It came out pretty good considering our location and time constraints. It still needs to be sanded back a bit. ... THOUGHT. Paint the NACA ducts white for concealment.

Inside I prepared some driver instructions.

Refreshed the TG-R Badge

Added some yellow visual for the Air-man.

Sumi-san was testing the new "temporary" window driver labels on his Silvia.

New Honda badge in the sunset. If everyone hates the swish, you can trim it.

Door list for Ebisu 6Hr TG-Racing Drivers.

S. Batters
T O'Dowd
H.Sumi
M. Varella-Cid
H. Motoki
M. Gadd

Looks finished... Not Yet.

Side Proteeth and Kinokuni replacements.

And a very important one on the rear. tg-R

Interior. Sumi-san tried a new seat configuration. Ready!

And the exterior is Ready!

Next Race is the 24th. Support us and Join Us.

Russ.

Weekend before the race...part 1

2009-10-17T16:59:00.001-07:00

We have guest drivers... and we now have an international team of guest mechanics - meet Lennart - without whom we would have been in a tight spot! Thanks Lennart for coming all the way from Holland to help us out! (ok, here's here in Japan to do other stuff too, but we really appreciate your help!)

I mentioned last time that we had to replace our Aragosta coilovers for slightly used Teins...

Here's the damaged Aragosta...

So what was Miguel up to - upgrading our front brakes, by adding brake duct cooling!

Miguel insisted on these NACA style ducts. Of course, makes sense to me!

Here it is, the tubing

Extending the tubing to the brakes...

New brake pads:

New rear rotors:

Spring for the oil filler cap, as required by regulations:

Finally got the rear view mirror re-mounted, very clever Lennart!

Sunday - Aki, Sumi-san, Russell to clean up and re-sticker the car, and organize the parts floating around loose in the car...

....And, We're BACK!!!

2009-10-16T09:26:00.000-07:00

So yes we've all been quiet lately... vacations, work, other races...but it's time for another race, yes this time at Ebisu east again!

6 hours - October 24, 2009.

There are a couple of changes to the driver line-up. First, as it is only 6 hours, we decided on a maximum of 6 drivers - Miguel, Sumi-san, Tom, Simon - and two new members, Hiroshi (993 Turbo) and Mike (Lotus Exige).

Myself and Alex will now focus on pitwork - making sure the driver changes and work on the car are as smooth and quick as possible. Two Navy guys - the team is going to be run with military like precision and discipline!!! (uh... well... actually more like the Superfriends, but more on that later...).

In the background, supporting us in his down under way - Russell - I wonder what surprises he has in store for us this time?

Unfortunately, work and other commitments means that James and Rod will not be with us, but as our teammates, I know they'll be rooting for us!

We got together tonight at Simon's - many thanks to him and his better half Gill for hosting us and presenting us with an incredible food smorgasboard -

Man, that was good!!! Stuffed now...

But we were able to discuss our pit strategy, driving strategies, and various other items. Tom had prepared video with clips from the last race, which was instructive to watch. Simon's friend Steve was in attendance, and he gave us some technical tips, as did Miguel's friend Lennart, visiting from Holland!

I of course will have to be the big ole meany again, but this time Alex will be co-directing the efforts - as he put it, I'll be anal, and he'll be retentive!

Tomorrow Saturday, Miguel, Lennart, Sumi-san and Alex will be making some last minute adjustments to the car. Last weekend Sumi-san and I were attempting to change out the springs on the car when one of the dampers sprung a leak. We were able to replace with a used set of Teins, which Sumi-san will affix tomorrow. Miguel will be working on brake cooling and other mechanical issues.

Sunday, Russ, Sumi-san and I will take care of organizing what needs to be, along with detailing and making the car pretty - sitting outside for 2 months, got pretty dirty! Tom may join us to hook up the Traqmate again too.

Busy weekend - but the days are counting down until next Friday's practice session!

TGR The Behind the Scenes Movie, Part 2!!!

2009-09-09T08:07:00.001-07:00

And the magic continues. Our very own James Gibbons produed this movie to show you all the behind the scene moments during the 12 hour race.

Enjoy!

PS - next race is October 24 at Ebisu! Stay tuned for updates as we improve the car, embark on an actual racing strategy, and make a bigger mark as the first non-Japanese racing car team in Japan!!!

TG-R Prelude Graphics

2009-08-30T03:52:00.001-07:00

I never did get around to slicing the bonnet graphic. Still need the door number backing too.
How do you guys feel about this design. A little different to the last one.

BTW. BTCC rims and ride height are just for fun.

Russ.

TGR - The Behind the Scenes Movie!!

2009-08-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

Thanks to team member James and his mini HD video camera - this man has obvious talent, and not just behind the wheel!

This was recorded the day before the race - we got to all practice driving the car, but while the car was shod with street pads and used tires. Hence the comments.

Looking forward to Part 2 (race day)!!! Stay tuned! Thanks again James!

Newera's Introduction

2009-08-26T07:19:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy year for Newera, but now as a (part) owner of an interesting Honda - Thought I'd share the story of what some of us here in Japan have been involved with the last few months which you might enjoy, So I'll spill the beans start from the beginning...

In August 2008, 7 drivers & myself rented a full N2 prepared racing Civic EG6 complete with mechanical support and went 12 hour endurance racing.

One of our drivers was Tomohiko Sunako, a well known Nissan & Japanese GT500 works driver who has recently retired. He also put on a race tuition day for a bunch of us last year - a fantastic learning experience in car control!

So the 12 hour Taikyu race at Ebisu circuit in Aug 2008 was to be his last race - just for fun.

With Sunako at the wheel, our little EG6 set 2nd from Pole and we got off to a great start! Unfortunately about 4 hours into the race we suffered oil starvation which sadly killed the main bearings before low oil level could be discovered. Our choice was to bite the bullet and fit a spare engine we had waiting, or quit. We chose the former even though it meant there was no way we'd get anywhere other than close to being one of the last placed cars. We wanted to be sure to finish!

Our 2 race mechanics did a fantastic job and changed the engine, including removing and refitting clutch, flywheel, gearbox in just 2 hours and 15 minutes. Race was stopped for 2 hours AFTER we'd they'd just finished fitting the engine - due to heavy fog, then there was heavy rain till the end of the race. Not a good mix for S tyres, a car with no heater or demisting and poor quality standard headlights. Still, we avoided crashing the car as many other teams did and finished the race!

Other drivers will have their own experiences of course - I most vividly remember doing my last stint in heavy rain at night with poor visibility, whilst other cars around me were driving desperately quickly to try to earn top positions. Predictably some of them came off the track going into corners way too fast and aquaplaning into oblivion, sometimes passing me on the entry to a corner, then going off & crashing right before me... I remember being on a fast kink and having another car spin several times right in front of me. My choice was to hit the brakes hard & risk aquaplaning or go around him... I chose the later and vividly remember seeing his car still spinning as I passed just a few feet away. I found myself aquaplaning at the end of the long straight, but fortunately took only a minor excursion onto the grass before steering back onto the track unscathed. Mayhem!! Fun & scary moments !

We finished intact:

Ebisu 12 hour Endurance Race event - N2 Spec Civic EG6. VIDEO & FULL PICTURES

http://minkara.carview.co.jp/userid/405712/blog/9963486/

Being the first proper endurance race some of us had done, it was huge fun despite our mechanical failure, terrible weather, etc. We learnt a lot about efficiency in refueling, driver changing, team work, car preparation, what was required to race for 12 hours continuously, etc.

The huge learning experience, sheer excitement of racing and seeing the spirit of our's & other neighbouring teams (Some of the cars were crashed hard not once, but several times, but repaired and put back on the track - before being driven home!). Even bent chassis were straightened in the pits using big hammers, etc. Amazing to see...

All of this planted a seed! - We just HAD to do this again, but this time we'd compete not in the race car class, but the street registered car class, to make it easier to bring the car to the track, etc. and we'd buy and prepare our own car between a team to keep costs of preparation down.

So 3 of us who'd competed in Aug 2008 Aki, Tom and myself set about finding 2 other people who would want to buy a car together to race. Wasn't hard! Simon - a tuned NS-X owner and Sumi, a tuned S15 owner - and suspension engineer by trade (Both good drivers with lots of high speed track experience) made formidable fellow owners and willingly signed up to share equally in some financial damage. Team Gaijin Racing was born (For those of you who don't know - Gaijin means 'foreigner' in Japanese).

Fortunately Newera Imports had a good car in stock, which was affordable but most importantly a car we felt would be reliable, not too thirsty (Even this car could easily use 500 litres of fuel when driven hard for 12 hours!) and equipped with some decent equipment to start with.

So between us we took this pristine and rare 235 bhp Prelude Spec S out of Newera Import's stock list and between 5 enthusiasts we each invested an equal share to buy it, get 2 year's shaken and register in Japan (Apologies to the customer in UK who'd just decided he wanted to buy it at the time!).

Even though the car was equally owned by the 5 of us - As I had the required parking space available at home, I was elected to be the registered owner. Being based in Fuji and this being a Prelude BB6 I thought we might as well reserve a private plate, so we got "Fuji . . . 6" when I did the Shaken test - to be able to register it.

Here's the car as it started out - and it's spec:

http://www.neweraimports.com/soldcarDetails.jsp?carId=401

We wanted an N/A car for reliability (less heat) and lower fuel consumption and a Honda would be reliable too. We did consider everything else, but most cars we'd have liked were too expensive (S2000 would have been a first choice, being RWD too!).

A Prelude isn't always a natural choice as a race car, especially as few parts are available to modify it in Japan, compared to say a DC2 or DC5 Type R. Unfortunately neither of those two models was within our limited budget at the time - and besides, we like a challenge and wanted to be different!

Newera Parts had a roll cage specially built in the States and shipped to Japan, as it wasn't available for this model here - we sourced a rad from Fluidyne in the States too & specified our own extra thick 25 row Setrab oil cooler kit and robbed our store of a decent used race seat, Takata race harness, steering wheel, Defi gauges, etc, etc. We replaced the brake discs, fitted braided lines and racing fluid, researched what would be the longest lasting endurance race pads (Endless M84N compound chosen... they were less than half worn at the end of the race!!) and much more...

Naturally, Newera Parts supplied everything at trade cost and threw in whatever was available in stock for free.

I couldn't participate in this event, as I already had a summer holiday trip planned & booked with my wife and daughter before the car was bought (Couldn't really have our holiday dates moved, so I just helped prepare the car !) - but looking forward to competing with TGR in the next 6 hour event at Ebisu circuit on 24th Oct...

So with 4 owners left driving this event - We found another 4 willing drivers to join us (Russ, Alex, Rod & James) to share 90 minutes behind the wheel each (In 2 stints) and help contribute to the costs of racing and preparation and they each added whatever else they could too. We didn't want to risk driver fatigue, or accidents due to loss of concentration - the goal was to finish the race primarily, this being our first - hence the shorter stints.

Russ is very good at making models and stuff like that which requires perfectionism & dexterity so he volunteered to make decals. Thomas could get a Traqmate for us on sponsorship and is a dab hand at making videos. As a racer himself could give instruction & driving tuition for those who hadn't raced before. Pre race meetings were held, videos shown and various more evenings were spent in preparation. Simon's place will be where the post race celebration party will take place

As the race loomed, the car was completed just on time, with many late evenings spent at the workshop.

The car's engine had to remain completely standard right down to the air filter, but wheels, suspension, cooling, exhaust, interior, cooling bonnet & some other modifications were allowed for the street registered class.

Our main goal as a team was to introduce real racing to others who haven't raced before and get more people into this.. Although most of the team had prior track experience only two of the owners present had raced before.

Fortunately this first event went without a hitch and considering this was a low budget team - the car performed really well for the whole 12 hours!

The brake discs were cracking by the end and feeling a bit spongy (Proper brake cooling ducts feeding cold air to a fabricated box around the discs are going to be added for the next race).

Our Prelude finished 4th in class, with a total of 25 cars racing. We didn't get a trophy but were awarded a small prize for being the best run team on the day. Most importantly, everyone participating with us in TGR loved it - and each driver's now also hooked on racing and the buzz of events like this!

Success! So it looks as if TGR will continue to progress - and introduce more people to racing in Japan. Our Prelude's also available for rental, for track use.

Check the full story on our blog via the menu.

With the use of the Traqmate, we've got some great video footage being prepared by Tom, but for now here's one video clip just made one of the drivers of the preparation. Note this is the day before the race on street pads. They only fitted the race pads just at the end of practice, so keep them fresh for the 12 hours ahead.

Check the Video of preparing the car & practice at Ebusu circuit

In car video of Rod qualifying:

Lots more video footage and stuff to come! - So stay tuned!

Miguel
__________________

http://www.neweraparts.com/
http://www.neweraimports.com/
http://www.neweramedia.com/

Back in the shop... for some maintenance

2009-08-22T08:18:00.000-07:00

So back again today to the shop. Alex, Sumi-san and myself.

First we lifted the car up to do an oil change. And took the opportunity to check things out underneath.

Nothing seemed amiss, just found some melted tire rubber and grass on the underside. After the oil change, we took off the wheels (to replace with the Yokohama DNA rubber, so we could save the Dunlops strictly for race use) and then decided to look at the front discs and brakes.

What we discovered was, the design does NOT allow for any air to be sucked into the disc rotor, at least not from the front side - there is a small lip on the rear, but clearly this is not enough during the race.

This is what lead to overheating fluid, brake fade - and maybe warped rotors. At the very least, afterwards the brakes felt spongy and there was brake shudder. We decided maybe a cut out would work - but when we fitted the rotor on, the cut away area was not enough - it still did not allow air passage to the center of the rotor.

So, Sumi-san had a good idea - let's try drilling holes! Here he is in action:

Why were we concerned - take a look at these brake pads. Yes, they are the Endless endurance pads, but the material had turned yellow in some places, and was crumbling!

This can't be good, can it? So the plan is, once Miguel can get ahold of some air scoops, to install cooling hoses to the fronts. Maybe we will remove the metal plate altogether, in which case we will need to apply heat protection to the softer joints and rubber. May not pass shaken though? Meanwhile, as our spare pads were really thin, we decided to go ahead and reuse these pads for the time being (but this is an item we may need to reorder before the next race). We also replaced the brake fluid - Sumi-san reported a LOT of air in the fluid. And replaced the worn rotors with new ones (heat treated).

Then, right before we were done, we diecdied to check out the member bolts again to make sure they were secure. I was able to tighten a couple by hand, so obviously, they had worked themselves loose. So, out came the pneumatic socket wrench - and some Loctite!

Sure hope this works...having such loose bolts can't be safe...

So the car now drives very, very smoothly, the brakes feel great. We need to organize the items relating to the car a bit better - we found some plastic containers being sold on base for about $3, so these may work well.

In anycase, the car is ready for its next outing... who's next?

Thanks to Sumi-san and Alex for spending their day doing this.

What a Great Weekend!

2009-08-18T22:40:00.001-07:00

Well I never imagined that I would ever take part in a Motor Race, so last weekend was very special for me, made all the more memorable and enjoyable by such a great bunch of teammates and new friends and some pretty good teamwork!

The drive was a lot more enjoyable and a less tiring than I imagined [helped by power steering!] - but really the car is beautiful to drive, so forgiving and infinitley adjustable through the corners, I still need to find a quicker way through the hairpins - so I am looking forward to Tom supplying some data and video to help. I think it is an easy car to drive quickly but needs more technical focus to go very quick.

I'm still smiling and can't stop thinking of my stint immediatly after the safety car, as I could see the crashed car being removed from the undergrowth I started to warm up the brakes and Dunlops to see if I could gain some places when the safety car went in and I managed to pull off some nice overtakes as a result.

The more laps I completed the more I ammended my thinking and line around the corners, personally it will be interesting for me to compare the 'in car' footage of the begining of my first session to the end of my last :-) Other factors may play a part such as;

a) The slightly lower gearing on the Dunlops

b) The Dunlops had more grip

c) A full tank of fuel [2nd session] kept the tail more 'planted'

Anyway we must have enough material, data and experience to make the next visit to Ebisu even more fun

Thanks Guys, looking forward to doing it all again !!!

Simon

Qualifying Video

2009-08-18T07:37:00.000-07:00

Rod did a superb job qualifying us with a lap time of 1'14.5. Here are his last two laps of qualification where he got his fastest time. Well done Rod!

Btw, playing with TraqMate and combining the best sectors of these two laps, Rod could have actually got us a time of 1'14.2. Way to go Rod!

Nicely Done Everyone!

2009-08-17T07:45:00.000-07:00

I don't have any pictures to share, unfortunately. (I was too busy stressing out about the little details and getting myself ready to drive!) [update - the photos above were sent in by our new friend Takano-san who was one stall over in that Civic... and he's a Prelude owner btw]

I think Russ and the others have done a great job documenting the race itself - both in pictures and video. I am really looking forward to the video that James shot, and any other pictures I have yet to see. And of course, the analysis from the Traqmate should be quite interesting and educational!

However I did want to publicly thank not only my teammates but also some friends who supported us or came by to cheer us on, not only on the day of the race, but also during the time we spent getting the car ready for the race itself. I think I can speak on behalf of the team - and at the risk of leaving some people out, special thanks should go to Nao (for allowing us the use of the garage), James (for his help in getting the car ready), Gill (for her support during the race) and Steve (for spotting that potentially lethal problem during the race)! Also, of course, Richard T of Traqmate Japan! Thanks, we could not have done it without you!

In addition, a few words about the race itself - interesting to see how a true race team was "born" by the experience - by the latter half of the race everything we did, from changing tires to driver changes to checking the oil in the car, became a well synchronized ballet - magic! As others have said, it truly was an honor to be a member of this particular team!

For the record, here is how the Prelude fared:
1) During the race, we added 4.5 liters of oil.

2) We discovered that while the brake pads were superb, the fluid (even though it was DOT 5.1) deteriorated, and the rotors have heat cracks in them. As a result, the car is not braking well at the moment. A future mod will have to be adding brake duct cooling.

3) Reverse gear is now not engaging - I've checked the forums and this appears to be an issue on the Prelude, particularly if there have been upshifts from second to third that miss third gear. A fix is either opening up the transmission to fix the offending fork, or to do some "interesting" driving as described on the forums. [update - Alex emailed me and said he had no problem getting the car into reverse. Go figure.]

4) For Ebisu Higashi anyway, the gap between second and third gear is huge. First, second are fine as they are, but third should be closer. Unfortunately the lack of Prelude tuning parts means we may have to get creative to fix this.

That's it, really! Fantastic car overall! Other desirable future modifications (as we discussed in exhaustion the day after) might be an LSD, shorter gearing, different tires, stiffer springs...but not much else!

I'm looking forward to Saturday October 24, when we will once again find ourselves at Ebisu, this time for their 6 hour endurance race. Meanwhile, I hope we can get the Prelude fixed up and ready for a few practice sessions!

Cheers guys, what a fantastic weekend!!

Aki

Ebisu 12hr Race Review - Final Stats

2009-08-16T19:50:00.000-07:00

Ebisu Super Endurance Race Series

12hr event

August 14/15th.

Team Gaijin Racing

Car: Honda Prelude BB6 S-type

Number: 115

Class: N-Class

Place: 4th

Time: 12:00'35"838

Laps: 451

Best Lap: 1:14'550 (lap 401)

only 93laps behind the winning Bclass Turbo SW20 MR2.

The work now begins to get ready for the next 6hr event in Ebisu on October 24th.

Ebisu 12hr Race Review Part 5 - Race

2009-08-16T06:59:00.000-07:00

We started... Go-Sumi-san!! Go TGRacing!

I checked the board for my jobs, then I put down my camera. We all had 2 sessions each of around 30~40 minutes depending on safety car and other factors.

I remembered to ask James to take some pics in my session, Thanks for the following.

This is how I saw my first session. Up the straight and just into 4th,

Then use my Sunako-style braking technique to good effect. Although I didn't expect a three wide braking attempt into this corner.

Once I got used to it, Ebisu's downhill S-curve is great. At this stage about 4~odd hours had past and the car was sliding around but totally predictable on the RE01R. I was loving my first session.

Eliminating mistakes from my driving and making some progress. (This B-Class Mirage was no match for the mighty Prelude) hehe.

After this session and some lunch, then I went back to work and the camera dissappeared for a while. (actually the whole race)

Somehow I couldn't really get confident with the car in the second session, being hounded by much faster and just a little faster cars. It'd be interesting to see the time differences in these two sessions. By the time I completed my less confident second session it was right on dusk.

I found my camera again in my relax time. This is Aki blasting into the night.

Here is Tom on the final lap. To our surprise, a 9:10 finish gave Tom a grueling last stint.

CONGRATULATIONS TGR! 12hours of hard work and many more hours of prep paying off to bring home the BB6.

The proud team with the machine. The "race director's prize" winning team.

Ebisu 12hr Race Review Part 4 - Pre Race

2009-08-16T06:19:00.000-07:00

Mr2 heading out to take up pole.

Ebisu circuit always advertises in the nicest of places.

Crid was setting up.

James and I headed down to survey the grid.

High budget teams at the front.

Most of these cars have inbuilt air jacks. I like the FD Rx7 splitter on this NC. It wouldn't finish like this though.

This GTI-R shows that this event is a "run what you have" style event. It had a rear mount intercooler setup.

Rod looking proud of his qualifying.

Our gaijin Sumi-san was calm and ready to go.

His view of the preparations.

Tom giving some last minute advice.

Ready to rock and roll.

Aki, Alex and James in good spirits. Play the top gun music here.

GT-R 33 pace car.

And I was wondering why Sumi san slowed just a few meters before....

Then I turned around....

Ah hah!

Ebisu 12hr Race Review Part 3 - Qualify

2009-08-16T05:40:00.000-07:00

Early rise and get as we got to the track, there were already a stack of things to do. Swap back to race rubber, change a lot of stuff, fix a few things and get ready.

I can't believe I was still applying stickers on the car 2 minutes before the qualifying session.

We passed our technical inspection and were told we gaijins were to be watched very closely by officials all race.

This B class Integra DC5 had all the right equipment for the event. A very well sorted machine.

Rod did well putting us in a good spot for Sumi-san to start.

Pole sitter.. Simply... Fastest. "grrrrrrrrr" "pshyu" followed by flames! That's the story of turbo power.

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

This Silvia also had no problems passing up the straight.

DC5 looked nice. Notice the window net too.

Even a AE86 on the grid, but it would only see about 100 laps.

Race countdown to continue.

Ebisu 12hr Race Review Part 2 - Practice

2009-08-16T04:19:00.000-07:00

Practice time. For most of TG-R's members, it was the first time to try out their race car.

Our N-spec BB6 Prelude is a well prepared car and everyone had a chance to get used to it's character, which everyone decided was a good one with great balance.

As we all got used to the seat shifting positions, power, handling and for 5 of us, learning the track in just a few laps was an interesting experience.

For me personally, the amount of things to learn was large, and I made a mental notes of the things I would need to work on during the race.

Here is Aki learning that pushing hard creates understeer.

Simon heading out to sample the other honda. A bit different to NSX I'm sure.

He circulated well and gave me some pointers on braking points that really helped me know a good safe limit for the car before my session.

Some of the BIG Budget teams were preparing their 10 sets of S-tyres.

This JIC wide body turbo SW20 MR2 would go on on to win the event. Very Very Fast and Very Very well prepared. It would usually appear from nowhere flash by while I was trying to pass someone else.

This MR-S would not finish after some off-track excursions. The same limits of adhesion and stupidity apply to all.

I set up a pit board logo for us. Most of the time the IN was the only thing we needed. Later we went to a 3.2.IN approach for the race.

Pulling in for some adjustments.

Then out again for some harrassment. We should just rip off the exhaust. It would be quieter than this straight pipe Roadster. BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

This is Rod on the center hairpin.

Downhill from here is fun but a little unsettling in traffic when you are forced wide.

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

The drivers must be deaf by now.

Here's the MRS early on.

Some of our direct competition. N class Intergra was circulating well. 10 laps ahead of us at the end. Actually a slower car but other things can effect results.

Itaishya ? car. The driver had a similar looking girl as a gf.

After practice we set up to enjoy a few snaps. Made a list of things to do and not to do, swapped the wheels to scrub our new tyres and everyone was very very positive about the next day.

Press on race day

Ebisu 12hr Race Review Part 1 - Transporter

2009-08-16T03:51:00.000-07:00

TGRacing doesn't own a massive transporter (like some other teams entering the Ebisu 12hr) , The only way of getting our car to the 12 hour event was to drive it for 4 hours. So already by the time we got to Ebisu circut, the car was warmed up.

On the highway, the car got some attention. As we cruised up the tohoku expressway leaving early we avoided the highway traffic Jams.. Almost.

finish

2009-08-15T05:35:00.001-07:00

yahoo!!!!!

2 to go

2009-08-15T03:25:00.001-07:00

all good into the night
concentrate

Tyres

2009-08-15T00:13:00.000-07:00

Time for a tyre change. Inside front right was a real trooper. Alex is
out making the dunlops shape up.

6.5 hour

2009-08-14T23:33:00.001-07:00

tyre change
next pit

5hrs in

2009-08-14T22:21:00.001-07:00

1 round of drivers down
car is running well

we love the prelude
easy to drive
how is it?
ask questions after a rest.

4th Hour

2009-08-14T20:20:00.001-07:00

And heeeere weeee......GO!

Work hard, play hard.

First corner, first lap.

2009-08-14T17:18:00.000-07:00

Go Sumi-San! Race underway.

live update

2009-08-13T22:25:00.001-07:00

practice
5 drivers
pad change from worn pads.

Daikoku Futo

2009-08-12T09:49:00.000-07:00

Daikoku Futo was not the place for completing the application of vinyl. From my very first attempt creases occurred. So I couldnt really do what I set out to.

I ended up settling for smaller stuff, like driver names and a few small details. HID eyelines. Some sizing of stickers were a little wrong and could have been much bigger.

But alas I will try to complete some more tomorrow in readiness for pre-race.

The guys manged to finish installing the www.traqmate.jp system and the harness install.

Russ.

Mechanical Work on Sunday

2009-08-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

We've seen the wonderful work that Russell did to the outside of the car - it really says "Race Car!!!!"

But - Sunday morning, Sumi-san and I went to Zama to meet with Alex. At the auto shop, we hunted down the sound coming from the right front suspension when making left turns.

Although I thought it was problems with the CV joint, Miguel was right - it was a loose bolt in the suspension system. I started by checking to see if all bolts were tight, by hand, once we had the car up. And Oh My... one was so loose I could easily turn it with my fingers. So I used the air socket gun to tighten it.

When I did that, the bolt on the OTHER side exposed itself - as the photo taken by Sumi-san demonstrates.

It goes without saying that, these bolts were supposed to support the suspension member - no wonder that noise was happening! And actually, after we tightened 4 bolts, the car actually handles better!!

Anyway - we then installed the HID lights, fixed the left fog light (loose connector), changed the oil filter for a new one, finished bolting the last bolt of the roll cage, and changed out the tires for the RE-01Rs, on the theory that we will save the Dunlop Star Specs for rain.

We then went to Carest Zama to get the transmission oil changed (Motul 75W-140). After which, we drove to Koenji to pick up a couple of folding tables and a dolly for the gas cans.

After which, we made our way back to my place for the stickering...

Red Lines of Hell!

2009-08-09T19:17:00.000-07:00

I think our red lines now have meaning. They represent the maxed out limit of everyone who prepared the car. Last nights late night session turned into a marathon for everyone, and it seems we have all been working pretty hard to get the car ready.

All the jobs require massive concentration and the sticker application was no different.

Thanks to all who were doing things on the car. As for me I am yet to see the other modifications as I was busy busy busy with the vinyl graphics.

First putting lines on the car, then cutting templates from scratch, cutting out using make do facilities and installation. I tried training some helpers and Aki did some good work! Nurse Tom was a great assistant. "Scissors... Scalpel....". The right hand side is near perfect.

But in the end it was just time and energy that beat us. As the hours rolled by the left hand side (which is more difficult with fuel cap etc) has a couple of minors that needs correction, But as it was created using the reverse of templates and no energy. I think it is exceptional.

We still have a lot of small stickers to apply, but these are the easy part. That massive red stripe was the hard one. PS, the bonnet stripe template has not been done.

And as we were 4am Zombies (see below) I left all my gear in the car by mistake. I guess Wed night may see the final applications.

Honda badge looks great.

Thanks to everyone last night. It's looking good.

Russ.

Finishing Touches

2009-08-08T08:42:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across printable stick on chrome in the label section of Yodobashi camera the other day. I hadn't cut the Honda emblem yet, and I thought this stuff would be perfect.

Not wanting to waste a whole sheet to print just one badge, I thought... Hmmm how about If I reverse the chrome black theme with transparent red for some nice chrome and red chrome TG-Racing emblems for the dash/steering wheel or whatever.

I must say they all came out much better than expected. My blurry low light pics do not do them justice. they shine and shimmer like chrome should. The red has a nice shine also. Almost like a taillight glow.

I am very impressed with them. A totally cool finishing touch to the car.

Russ.

Prelude's got teeth.

2009-08-06T03:24:00.000-07:00

We have another real sponsor. ProTeeth donations get them some car space.

I had a little space left, so I added an "I Heart Honda" logo and printed the Honda badge for the front of the bonnet seeing as the FRP one doesn't have one.

Russ.