Minis vs Beetles today at York Raceway
Turbo Mini Forums

Today myself and Carl have been to York for the Mini vs Beetles shootout.

To begin with not a great turn out of Minis although some more arrived a bit later on. The Brown Cow racing lads from Carlisle made the trip down, plus a few others, a forum member called Coop, and Sprocket was also knocking about.

First run for me in the DON was to be interesting, as my last two runs at MITP had resulted in a violent pull to the left on setting off, requiring a lot of steering input to correct. I had the car in bits to check it over for bust shafts or anything else untoward but didn't really find much, however it was a good opportunity to spend some time fine tuning the suspension setup, toe and camber front and rear, and also castor at the front.

First run it was evident there was a decent amount of grip, the big M+H tyres are also now starting to scrub in well and really do the business, so I managed a starting effort of 12.84, which I was very pleased/suprised about seeing as I missed 2nd gear!

Second run was lined up against Carl in the twinnie, however approaching the 1/8 the car felt very unstable and not good at all, so I backed out. On reaching the end of the strip and turning to the return road it was evident that something was not right at all, and I jumped out to find one of the rear wheels very loose......:$
Still managed to run a 13.9 believe it or not.

So for the third run with all the wheels bolted firmly in place, and the start felt really pretty good, this was bourne out by a 60ft time of 2.10 sec, and a ET of 12.54 @ 112.79mph.

For the fourth run and again things felt good off the start, reaching the 1/8 in 8.1 sec at 91mph, and then achieving an ET of 12.41 @ 112.8mph.

That then marked the end of the qualifiers, so I was pitched up against one of those pesky Beetles for a race, simply whoever crosses the line first is the winner! This race meant business so the nitrous bottle was opened and armed. The rules basically were that I had to beat the Beetle over the line, whilst not going more than 0.5 sec either side of my previous fastest qualifying time.

So off the line and the fucking Beetle just launched away like someone had attached a massive bungee cord to it, however with the DON up and running, and using gas in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, I really was gaining on the bastard, unfortunately he pipped me to the post by 4 tenths of a second, however I recorded a new best time for the DON of 12.1731 @ 120.94mph.

In the end I think the Beetles beat the Minis 8 points to 7 (booooooooo)

The final thing worthy of a mention is Carls final run in the twinnie against another pesky Beetle, as a lot of you will know the twinnie can be temperamental at times, but with a few tweeks it had run well through the qualifiers and things were looking promising. In the final run Carl ran a new personal best of 10.85, also beating the rival VW in the process. So congratulations must go to him, and all in all a fairly successful day out for the Force Racing team.

well done tom and carl,
sounds like you had a good day
excellent times there for you both!
get any pics tom??

Some great times there guys Well done!!

Wish I could have made it myself, however family commitments got in the way :/

Who knows, maybe next year my mini will be up and ready? (most likely the year after at the rate I work though :( )

http://www.jolyonway.com

Just got back, lol, though its not as far for me as it is for some others

I think Tom let the side down in the final run. The Minis could have equalised with that run Carl had a blindingly quick final run, i think he was playing it sly all day and then turned up the gas at the last minuit

All in all a good day, but the Missus was bored shitless, so she wont be coming to these events again :)

Congratulations.

Some great times there.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

good stuff,

although i dont really like beetles there are some quick fuckers about! their ability to get of the line helps tho.

soooo, not long until your in the 11's then Tom!!

I do love it when carls twinni come together and does a good pass

good stuff, did coupe run?.

133.5 bhp 123 lb torque 116mph @6640rpm 9.5psi
Shakespear RWYB 14.995 91.83mph

I'll get me coat

tom,
your always so......subtle....lol!
well done,
but mini13 says sounds like you'l be in the 11's soon..??

wow, excellent times!

i went fishing instead of minis vs beetles, i coudnt be bothered lol

no longer a series, but still 1.3 turbo.

Hi,
I went! Haven't got a working mini though :(
Damn Beetles won by one point, still the minis won the last 2 years.
Good to see the cars in person, must get to meet the people next time!
I'll look through the videos I took see what's worth posting, once the ringing noise has gone in my ears!
Cheers,
Gavin :)

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My Mini build diary

well done lads. sorry i couldn't be there.

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph

no longer a series, but still 1.3 turbo.

Congrats lads,
I was gonna come down but i was too tired from the hard week i had. Oh well, need to improve my engine anyway.

Back once again like a renegade master

Well done to you both Tom and Carl, and great results on new PB's, glad Carls was trouble free :)

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c248/spe...er1/mini007.jpg

If it a'nt broke don't fix it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good day, though as Tom said not as many Minis as you would have hoped for.
Well done to Tom & Carl, & to Carls car for being the most consistent & reliable i've ever seen it.
Also congrats to Mike my fellow Brown Cow Racing mate, who after upping the boost managed to bring his time down to 14 seconds, when his previous best had been 15.2. So a big improvment there, with still more to come despite mapping it on the way there & home ! Lol.

WWW.TURBO-MINI.COM

I had a good day in terms of enjoyment, although the car was letting me down in terms of times. Started with a 15.9 at 10am, feeling like crap from the commentator shouting 'wakey wakey campers' at 8:20am!

Car got faster as the day went on (certainly wasn't my driving improving!). I'd reached a best time of 15.25 by the end of qualifying. I actually ended up with a 'bye' for my run in the shootout, so only had to run within a half second of my qualifying time to get the point. By some fluke (or maybe the fuel and timing tweaks just beforehand!) the car finally managed a 14.9 @ 93 and I got the point.

All in all I managed to get 8 runs in - 7 qualifying runs and the shootout run. Would have liked to have got more for my £30 for the runs but I enjoyed it again. Much prefer Shakespeare County as a venue though.

Good to meet Carl and Tom and anyone else who I spoke to and didn't get names or did and have forgotten!

i think we all need to run out and get some m and h tyres , oh and a diff ,and a light car , in fact ,forget i said anything :)

congrats on the ''personal best'' beating runs , specially mike with v little set up time .

Edited by robert on 25th Aug, 2008.

Medusa + injection = too much torque for the dyno ..https://youtu.be/qg5o0_tJxYM

some cracking times!! well done lads, 11 seconds looms for you tom!

WWW.TURBO-MINI.COM

Yeah I realised it was you Phil, and couldn't remember Mike's name!

Well done Tom and Carl !! Awesome times. The twini must be the madest thing ive ever seen, and ive only seen videos........so in real life it must be wicked !!! Well done again both of u !

"So wat we gonna do tonight Brain?"
"Same thing we do evernight Pinky!"
"Try to take over the world!"

Well done to all of you,

Carl , concistency is the target now, get that little bastard doing that all the time, how it didnt snap your neck it nearly did mine and i was only watching.

Tom, theres still more to come. (I gather you new who i was)

Rick

ps got pics up in show us yours

Was a good day. glad the weather held up! was raining here in kendal this morning, me and phil nearly never botherd going. glad we did now! gona have to spend a bit of time on the rollers setting the thing up abit more, then i can try and get into the 13's next time. hehe