My Avon 2007 weekend
Turbo Mini Forums

Well for me Avon started on the Thursday with the "Project Devious Bastards" thread that you'll all no doubt have seen by now, it had been really hard keeping the cat in the bag for so long, so by then I couldn't wait any longer to let the secret out! Before then Carl and I had spent the previous 10 or so weeks with nearly every spare hour spent on the car, credit has to go to Carl for driving down the M1 3 or more times per week to keep the project moving when I was at work etc.
So Thursday morning was spent on the last few finishing touches, adding numberplates, wiring in a shiftlight and fitting the tacho pinched from Carl's twinnie.

"The DON" (reg no is DON558K) was then loaded onto the trailer, and off Lisa and I went to my Dads house to stop Thursday evening.

Friday morning and the trailer was unhitched from my Audi and attached to the back of my Dad's motorhome that I was using for the weekend, it turned out to be a great bit of kit, although a bit thirsty with its 7.4 litre V8 diesel engine!
Off to Tesco's and £100 (!!!) was spent on food and beer, and so a sedate 20 miles over to Avon Park.
On arrival we found we were the first people there, although soon John Haston, Carl Austin, and Stuart Meades had arrived.
A bit of unloading and general sorting out, a quick blast up and down the paddock area with the laptop plugged in to set up the boost control valve, and we were ready to kick back and relax, and receive a barrage of text messages from the rest of the TM guys!
With the weather looking miserable we headed off to the local pub for some snap, returned and joined Carl and John Haston for a few beers before bedtime.

Saturday morning soon came around, and although it was more or less dry it looked pretty miserable. The DON was rolling roaded on some cold plugs which make him grumpy when cold so it was in with the 7's to warm him up, once he was warmed through the 9's went back in, and off we went for the maiden outing! This was the first time the car had really been driven, apart from on the rolling road, so it was absolutely a voyage of discovery!
So off the line reasonably slowly to try and avoid wheelspin, and then WALLOP as the boost come in, immediately the car did not feel at all nice to drive, quite unstable as the speed increased, I had to lift a couple of times due to weaving about despite my best efforts to keep it in the straight line. Time was a 15.5 (I think) so not horrendous considering the lifting off.
So round and back in the queue, lets try again. This time still the same, weaving about, unstable, but a better start, and a 14.6, although still with some lifting off.
After some discussion we then toed the front suspension out a bit to try and help with stability, we also then thought on and decided to check the tyre pressures, and found 38psi!!!!!!!!! in both front tyres, from when we blew them up to push them onto the rims! So these pressures were dropped right down, and I went out to try again. The car was now much improved although still unstable, but somehow I managed to hold it in more of a straight line and ran a 13.4, the times were going in the right direction!
For the next run we decided to fit the wider 13" wheels with the A048 tyres, previously we had been on 10" wheels and 8 year old A008's. We also tried a touch more toe out to see if that helped.
Well this next run was atrocious, the car again feeling horrendously unstable, with me ending up in the wrong lane at one point! In addition I did not use enough beans off the line resulting in the car being very slow before the boost came in.
After this a rethink was needed, as apart from anything else it was getting dangerous, I was quite suprised that the Avon Park marshalls had not had some words to say about how unstable the car was.
Even driving through the paddock the car did not feel right, with the back end moving about. With this in mind I decided we would check the rear tracking, so out came the tape measure and lo and behold we had just over 3/4" toe out measured at the rims!!!!
Half an hour with the spanners and this was reduced to more or less parallel according to my trusty Stanley Powerlock. I also decided to change back to the 10" wheels as I knew the car would perform on these acceptably.
So I set off to line up, even at jogging pace in the paddock I could immediately tell the car was feeling a lot lot better, so gained some confidence to really give it some welly.
Away from the line this time as instructed my Carl I gave it some more beans, a chirp of wheelspin but reasonably rapidly away, now the car was more or less driving in a straight line I was able to concentrate more on gear change points etc, so revved the car out a bit more in 3rd before changing to top, and lo and behold 8500rpm over the line, and the winning time of 13.3 at 112.8mph, but with a poor 60ft time of 2.5 sec. My best 60ft was 2.27 earlier in the day, so there would be a 13.1 possible if I had a better start.
Saturday drew to a close with one last run, for this I was up against Wolfie, who called me a few choice names as he realised we were up against each other!
After the stability issues earlier in the day, the last thing I wanted was to cross over and crash into Neil's lovely prepared machine, so I decided I'd give him a couple of seconds start so that if the DON veered off Neil would be out in front. So after 2 seconds or so I let rip, not a bad start, but then like a donkey I fluffed the change into 2nd gear, by this time Neil was well in front, got it in second and we were off, hooked third and started gaining on him rapidly, by the time I required 4th gear I was more or less level with Neil, and crossed the line in 13.8 sec, in front of Neil, doing about 15mph more speed! His quote afterwards was something along the lines of "fucking hell that thing is quick!".
So with racing over for the day, we decided to give the rear tracking a touch more toe in, this was done by Carl and I, and the car was then put to bed for the night, with high hopes for Sunday.
The usual Avon frivoloties ensued, with £43 worth of fillet steak being consumed by Carl, his buddy Simon and I, before repairing to the clubhouse with the Sheepspeed crew, Nic, Carl, Wil and Ben, etc etc.....
My night was cut a little short by the mrs, who after half a bottle of vodka very suddenly felt the effects and turned from a dancing queen into a rag doll unable to walk or talk! So off to bed we went with plans for more boost pressure, and high hopes.

Sunday I awoke to a fragile girlfriend and the pitter patter of rain on the camper roof. The BBQ was stoked up once more for some brekkie, and few folks congregated under the awning for a chat. The rain was sporadic, and at one point it was looking like there may be some racing to be had, with the request for road cars to drive the strip to shift some of the water, in fact Nic may have got the fastest time of the day on sunday as he went up and down in my Audi estate to help clear the water!
With nothing better to do I had the idea of the gathering of TurboMinis, so we spent an hour or so getting the cars together, Matt took some photos that will hopefully make it into one of the magazines.
People then started to drift away, as the weather was poor with no real sign of any improvements.
The presentation was the usual standard of a few people not being there to get their trophies, but I was pleased to fetch the Class D winners pot and join the elite ranks!

Thanks from me must go to two people; first off my girlfriend Lisa for being very understanding and a great help and support over the last few weeks which have been very hectic, and secondly Carl Austin, for giving me the opportunity to be involved in the project and then drive it, and also for his immense drive and motivation to get the car done in such a short timescale.

Finally to all of you I had opportunity to meet over the weekend, nice to chat to you, always good to put faces to names.

Edited by Tom Fenton on 16th Jul, 2007.

Friggin hell tom i better get a brew on before i start reading!!!!!

Back once again like a renegade master

Hi,
Congrats all round then :)
Cheers,
Gavin :)

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My Mini build diary

fooking hell tom, i'm moved , and so is my bank balance,lol.
couldn't have done it without you my man, too many wires for a start,

carl

WWW.FORCE-RACING.CO.UK PLEASE CLICK HERE

good work lads and much much more to come i think.

no longer a series, but still 1.3 turbo.

well written tom

nice write up tom shame about sunday

theres other events though

may be york ?

sounds like you had fun then mate!
shame about the weather on sunday though!

hopfully ill make it there one year.

My build thread..

http://www.turbominis.co.uk/forums/index.php?p=vt&tid=542985

Excellent report Tom - stick it on the TM site!

All of that Al? I already put a short bit on the front page.

ah yes, only just noticed. never mind me..

// back to lurking.

Sounds like you had a fantastic weekend Tom! I'm going to have to try my darn'dest to make it next year or some time in the future. How I would have loved to see that mini fly

Now a video -

http://media.putfile.com/The-DON-vs-Wolfie-Avon-2007

And my winning run -

http://media.putfile.com/Class-D-Winner-Avon-2007

well done tom and carl so what sort of bannanas is that thing kicking out it looks awsome mate.

always looking for them bigger bunches of bannanas

well done gents - an awesome machine and great write up tom

Nice one Macgyver!

1/4 Mile 14.3secs 96Mph Terminal 10psi of boost.


Fibreglass Parts? - http://www.tdkracing.co.uk/
Split Rims? - http://www.force-racing.co.uk/

Excellent write up and vids Tom, that car has some serious potential.

-MINI CLUBMAN 1380 TURBO-

Well done to Tom and Carl.. I was reading the Post the other day in awe... that is a serious piece of kit and flippin hell can it move (nice vids Tom)
markie

Top story Tom!!!

Great reading - really lifted my afternoon too

Alex

AlexF

Absolutely top stuff Tom & Carl!

shame I missed avon this year, but I'll almost deffo be at the pod for MITP.

Great account of your day Tom, and some storming times made! well done both.

Mark.

nice write up mate! nice driving too!! congrats!!

And on the 7th day........... God created turbochargers!

nice one tom

it was good to meet sum of the tm lot never been to a strip before it was wicked

loved it