OEKC Round 6 ? Daytona Milton Keynes
August 19th 2012
Engine Trouble
Today we all confident of a good result and had all equipment prepared to the highest standard as usual. We got through bits we needed to test during practice and continued into qualifying. We have been very frustrated with our brake issues so decided to scrap our brake system and use a brand new CRG brake system for this race. The brakes worked and felt good. We qualified in 2nd position so we were on the front row.
The race started and we move into 1st immediately and started to pull away from the pack. about 30mins into the race Reece reported the engine temperature was getting worryingly high. We couldn’t risk blowing the engine so had to make the call to bring him in and change engine. We knew this would cost us the race but with or without the engine blowing we would have to change it. Changing the engine cost us quite a bit of time and we rejoined the track in last position and 16 laps behind. We raced as hard as we could for the remainder of the day to finish in 10th position.
Although our brakes worked well for this race, we realised afterward that the pads would not have lasted the complete race. They only lasted because we had time off the track with the engine change. We will have to revert back to the other system and go testing again to try and solve the problem.
After this race, we took the engine to our new engine builder to find out why the engine over heated. It appears the previous engine builder failed to secure an internal part which resulted in too much friction and too much heat. It seems we had a lucky escape.
