My rallying excursions (inc. pics)

[Alex James]

So I thought I would start this as a blog of what I got up to whilst rallying with the Junior 1000 championship

First it started when my dad sparked my interest from his passion of rallying. he asked if I wanted to have a go, me being me I said yes of course, thats when we decided to do the Junior 1000 championship.
On my 15th birthday he brought home an almost fully prepared 1.0 litre k11 micra.
this is what she looked like back then:

I did my first ever event at Anglesey race circuit in wales, having only done autotests before hand, so got thrown right in at the deep end ;P

This event was a 2 day event with night stages, aanndd on the first stage at the first chicane I thought i would test just how good the brakes were....... not as good as I had thought
We went straight through the chicane and smashed the lamps for the night stages and one of the headlights. but that was only a minor set back the bulbs still worked soooo we carried on.

Unfortunately after a long two day event, tiredness got to me and i had a little bit of a shunt:

Basically going for a 90 right and slightly over shot hit the grass and from there on out the car was only going forwards, then hit into a mud with mack off tractor tyres in front of it!!

Unfortunately my co-driver was injured and so I didnt finish that event
strangely enough she never sat alongside me again.....wonder why?

a few weeks later my little k11 micra looked a completely different car:

And thankfully the car stayed this way for the 4/5 events I did up until about half way through last year, when the Brawdy event came round.
determined to prove a point I was driving at my absolute peak and a bit over on the last stage as you'll see:



skip to about 10 mins for the crash XD

still it was a super fun event and despite a fairly big incident I finished and was pleased that I didn't come last despite this accident!!

I must admit I was getting a bit flustered on this stage, and I just made a simple mistake of turning in a fraction of a second too early to exit the chicane. thankfully nobody was hurt!

I took about a month for the car to be repaired and literally got it finished two days before the next event and got to test the newly rebuilt lass the day before!!!


To be continued....

 

[frank]

the brake pedal is the one in the middle alex lookin good tho

 

[h701micra]

Good to see another fellow rallyist. I look forward to more pictures of over enthusiasm

 

[Huggy444]

Hello you're track record seems similar to mine, finish one event..... then get dragged off the next stage good luck....

Edit: How mine normally ends up....


Wasn't even my car, had borrowed it...:/

 

[1275]

Nasty roll, glad no one was hurt. I'm just wondering what was involved in repairing the car, knock out and fill, or new panels, or both?

 

[Alex James]

Nasty roll, glad no one was hurt. I'm just wondering what was involved in repairing the car, knock out and fill, or new panels, or both?

We had a donor car so we practically just did a re-shell, floor pan was all alright, more cosmetic damage than anything else

 

[Alex James]

the brake pedal is the one in the middle alex lookin good tho

hahah oohh so thats where I was going wrong thanks

 

[h701micra]

You have a brake pedal in your rally car I must invest in one

 

[reflexuk]

You are trying to corner entry too fast with the result that you 'run deep' and you have a hard time exiting. The slowest part of YOUR corner is at the tightened exit your bad racing line has caused. You are also not entirely in control in the mid corner, again because you enter expecting to find huge grip and you find less than you need, sliding wide, which make the mid/exit even worse.

With these little engines you have to flip that entirely around and focus on corner exit speed and achieve max speed on the next straight. When the corners are connected together, focus on a good entry of the first one and a good exit of the last. To do this you have to brake late and hard then enter a corner asking for less grip than you probably find there is when you get there but you will be early on the power through the exit and you will be at far less risk of losing control due to excess speed. You will however be on the racing line which will make you quicker, even if you did leave a little bit of pace 'on the table' it will still be there for your next pass through.

Go and do some more autosolo, this time not just as a formality to get the stamps you need to go rallying, but so as to work out what speed to take into and round a turn and watch how most drivers mess up by trying to be too fast. It's the tidy ones that keep the car on line and in control which make the grade.

Good luck in future, stay safe and have fun.

 

[Alex James]

You are trying to corner entry too fast with the result that you 'run deep' and you have a hard time exiting. The slowest part of YOUR corner is at the tightened exit your bad racing line has caused. You are also not entirely in control in the mid corner, again because you enter expecting to find huge grip and you find less than you need, sliding wide, which make the mid/exit even worse.

With these little engines you have to flip that entirely around and focus on corner exit speed and achieve max speed on the next straight. When the corners are connected together, focus on a good entry of the first one and a good exit of the last. To do this you have to brake late and hard then enter a corner asking for less grip than you probably find there is when you get there but you will be early on the power through the exit and you will be at far less risk of losing control due to excess speed. You will however be on the racing line which will make you quicker, even if you did leave a little bit of pace 'on the table' it will still be there for your next pass through.

Go and do some more autosolo, this time not just as a formality to get the stamps you need to go rallying, but so as to work out what speed to take into and round a turn and watch how most drivers mess up by trying to be too fast. It's the tidy ones that keep the car on line and in control which make the grade.

Good luck in future, stay safe and have fun.

The problem is trying to keep up with other juniors that have 70+bhp when i have 54 bhp, so i'm having to take more risks to set decent times to keep up with the rest, meaning i'm having to keep more speed through the corners otherwise i will just lose time hand over fist.
the tyres we were using were Yokohama A048 medium compound which just grip and grip and grip, so i knew no matter how fast i threw the car into a corner that the car would grip.
I actually don't enjoy autosolos personally just because i've only ever really got to use first gear which is up to about 30mph so i don't think you learn a great deal of car control that you can apply to a rally stage.

I have improved greatly since this event, and the accident happened just because i was too flustered and eager to prove a point, simply turned in a fraction of a second too early.

Thanks for the comment though! and the same to you.

 

[h701micra]

My advice to everyone is race the stage not the competition. Once you get that mindset you've no pressure
Fantastic tyre choice though we use em on our evo for tarmac circuits they haven't let go yet

But having a power disadvantage doesn't help. Have you considered some mild modifications?

 

[Alex James]

The nicest part of Brawdy was at the end as we were packing up David Llewellin stopped as he knew my uncle and said "Don't worry kid, it happens to the best of us, I've done it myself, we all have a roll at some point" which made me feel a whole lot better!

 

[h701micra]

Its true though. Got to have an accident at some point... nobodys perfect.
Also teaches you thats the wrong way to do that certain part ofcthe stage coz rally drivers are invincible... so I tell myself

 

[Alex James]

My advice to everyone is race the stage not the competition. Once you get that mindset you've no pressure
Fantastic tyre choice though we use em on our evo for tarmac circuits they haven't let go yet

But having a power disadvantage doesn't help. Have you considered some mild modifications?

I started to realise that later on in the year the grip on them is brilliant!
that was dodgy ground as there was a lot of speculation flying around about lots of different juniors illegally modifying their cars to get more bhp than everyone else. But in the end it all just boiled down to money still saving up for an exhaust system

 

[Low Rider]

Good to have some valuable feedback on here regarding the A048.

Just watched your vid >.< As some others have said, a prang or 2 always open up your eyes to new things and provides an opportunity to move forwards.

K11 held up well though and glad your ok. Was your cage bolt or weld in by the way?

 

[Alex James]

This is some night stage footage of one of the last events from the competition at Anglesey race circuit.

Now its a case of saving up some money to prep the car for seniors!

 

[Alex James]

This is how she looks now:

 

[Alex James]

Good to have some valuable feedback on here regarding the A048.

Just watched your vid >.< As some others have said, a prang or 2 always open up your eyes to new things and provides an opportunity to move forwards.

K11 held up well though and glad your ok. Was your cage bolt or weld in by the way?

quite impressed how well she held up! the cage is weld in

 

[h701micra]

Do you have poly carb windows? I'm not sure how your regs differ to mine
Edit: got interior pics? Its good to see how somebody else lays their car out

 

[Alex James]

Do you have poly carb windows? I'm not sure how your regs differ to mine
Edit: got interior pics? Its good to see how somebody else lays their car out

No I've just got the standard windows that it leaves the factory with
sorry i haven't atm but i can take some if you'd like?

 

[h701micra]

If you find you've got the money for em I'd recommend em. You'll save a fair bit of weight. Which will pump up your power/weight a bit
Yea its good to share so far I've noticed your map light is in a different place to mine

 

[Huggy444]

If you're not based too far away fron east anglia, check out the Silverstone junior rally championship, no 75bhp 'standard' micra's

 

[Alex James]

If you're not based too far away fron east anglia, check out the Silverstone junior rally championship, no 75bhp 'standard' micra's

I can't any more too old I looked at doing it last year to be told, if I did an event in Silverstone's championship they wouldn't allow me to do any more events in the Junior 1000 championship. Otherwise I would have done

 

[Alex James]

If you find you've got the money for em I'd recommend em. You'll save a fair bit of weight. Which will pump up your power/weight a bit
Yea its good to share so far I've noticed your map light is in a different place to mine

requested photo's not sure how helpful they are to you doing some work on her so she is a bit messy

 

[h701micra]

It was just to see how you did things differently so far its reminded me I need to put my glass hammer in
There's pictures of mine on here already on "my long promised blog" though they're not up to date