Hot and bothered at Padborg Park

This weekend’s training didn’t go quite as planned, but as one of the other competitors said: Better to discover the problems now than at raceweekends. What did I discover? Well, after 175 monotonous kilometres from Aarhus to the track at Padborg Park I’d say that the car was ready for a few quick laps at the track, but after just half a lap I could smell cooling liquid, and returned to the paddock immediately. The radiator was boiling – even though the Spitfire has never ever had temperature problems. Of course it has only been used to cool less than 80 horsepower! It seemed the radiator wasn’t evenly warm over its entire surface, and presumably it was the radiator that was the reason for the problem. Another task added to the list before the first race. The end result was that I didn’t get the training I was there for, and couldn’t try the things I have been planning all winter. If I can get the technical issues solved quickly I may be going for another trackday before the start of the season the last weekend in May. The weekend also shows that my now almost 1000 kilometers of street driving couldn’t identify this problem, so even a road registrered racecar needs real track tests. On the positive side of this weekend counts that the skimming of the cylinder head has stopped the oil weeping, and that the engine itself felt good, and clearly pulls a lot harder than before. Now it just needs to do that a full season.