Brands Hatch 15th March

[Bryan Degerlund]

Excellent first day of the Brands Hatch season, good weather, close racing with few incidents, healthy grids (excluding Open Sports Cars!!).

As Chief Startline marshal, may I offer a couple of pieces of advice:

1) the Brands start grid has a definite slope from left to right. Two of the BMW's had to be removed from the grid due to losing fuel while waiting for the start, both from immediately behind the driver's door. When checked on level ground the leak had stopped. Probable cause was overfilling, made worse by the slope.

2) The passenger door on one of the silhouette cars had opened and was flapping in the wind, he was given the Black/Orange flag (drivers, which means?) for three laps, and as he did not respond, this was changed to a Black Flag. Both flags shown with his race number -- fair enough. Unfortunately, as the flags were being changed, another driver saw the black flag going out, and (possibly with a guilty conscience) thought the flag was for him and came into the pitlane. On stopping, he undid his belts, jumped out the car, took his helmet off, demanding to know why he had been black-flagged. It took sometime to get through to him that he had misinterpreted the flag, and as there was only a couple of minutes left, it would be too late for him to go back out.

Advice: if you do come in for a black flag, stay belted and helmeted until an official instructs you what to do. With some clubs, depending on the reason for the flag, a Clerk may come to the car to give a b*ll*cking before releasing you back to race.

Enjoy the rest of the year!

[bdwoody]

i saw a few bmw's leaking fuel ,but it seems the rules state that they must run with a standard fuel tank and system and as such is the design of the 3 series they suffer from fuel surge on tight corners apparently. to combat this the guys were filling them to the brim to stop this happening but this it seems just led to another problem with fuel comming out the overflow when on the starting slope and at grahan hill bend and surtees .maybe the series organisers should look at this with aview to allowing the guys to fit propper tanks !!!! just a thought ..

was a good days racing though and the marshaling was first class as ever well done guys and gals ...woody.

[johnw]

Originally Posted by bdwoody

i saw a few bmw's leaking fuel ,but it seems the rules state that they must run with a standard fuel tank and system

Not so bdwoody.
Standard tanks yes, but the cars may have swirl pots fitted to combat the fuel surge that some models encounter.

I suspect that those brimming their tanks were trying to make the minimum weight

[MG Racer]

Originally Posted by johnw

I suspect that those brimming their tanks were trying to make the minimum weight

Do they not use the traditional method called lead ballast?

If the minimum wieght is set so low that they have to brim them then for safety sake shouldn't that be changed?

Surely it makes them better to drive without x gallons of fuel sloshing about that you dont actually need? (Makes a very good bonfire if you have a moment as well)

p.s. I know nothing about the series so just general comments

[bdwoody]

^^^^^^^^ i agree :-)

[juliann]

I've been involved in PBMW for a few years now. The minimum weights aren't that low - eg 1125kg with driver for a 320i which is easily achieved with simple prep. Some cars do suffer with fuel starvation hence the regs changes a couple of years ago to allow swirl pots. Ballast is of course allowed. I suspect that as the first race of the season with many novice drivers, some people put unnecessary amounts of fuel in their cars. We don't normally see fuel leakages - don't think we'd still be 'let out' after 6 years if it was common.

However, if the fluid leaks were observed directly behind the drivers door, maybe they were a result of nerves. Did anyone do a dab & sniff test ?

[Bryan Degerlund]

Originally Posted by juliann

However, if the fluid leaks were observed directly behind the drivers door, maybe they were a result of nerves. Did anyone do a dab & sniff test ?

Yes, and it was definitely fuel

[johnw]

As you can see MG and Woody, there's no need for anyone to be running with more fuel than is required, if the cars are prepped accordingly.

Regs are available on www.pbmwc.co.uk

[Neil Adams]

if people have got the cars light enough to need ballast they're much more likely to have this extra weight bolted into the car in ballast blocks than carry it in fuel, i started with quiet a full tank and mine wasnt leaking so i dont know if full tanks was really the cause of the leaks,

we get fuel starvation with half a tank or less of fuel, so have to start with quiet a lot of fuel in the car, however we are having a swirl pot fitted in time for donny which will allow us to be much closer to the min weight allowed