Race report 2007: Ganloese Hillclimb

During the fall of 2006 I had booked the Spitfire for a track day at Ring Djursland. Besides engine work I had changed dampers all round and put in more negative camber at the front, and the idea with the day was basically to test the car and see if it with withstand the trackwork. Well, to cut a long story short, it wouldn't - and I got really, really tired of it all.

In fact I didn't touch the car until March, and of course this was a rude awakening. Electric problems persisted, but the engine trouble turned out to be loose cylinder head nuts. With some of the problems fixed I had entered the car for the first hillclimb of the season - and then the head gasket blew the day before. Well, well. As I changed the gasket I also inspected the cam followers, only to find many of them seriously damaged. Nothing new there either, then. For some reason I still wanted to race (!), and entered the Spitfire for the second hillclimb, Ganloese in June. Ganloese is in Sealand, some 300 kilometers from Aarhus, and naturally the electric fan stopped working before getting there...but at least the radiator was newly uprated, and had enough cooling capacity, and we were only going to race one minute, and then wait an hour before the next run.

Then at the tech inspection: The car would suddenly only indicate left! They let me pass, but it could have ended there...

A relaxed moment in the lineup, where I let the engine cool off by pushing the car forwards

The route at Ganloese is not ideal for the Spitfire, as there are in reality only 2 corners - the rest is acceleration, at least in my car. The timetable told the same story, and I was further of the pace of cars I'd raced against before than I used to be on the twistier runs. I tried to get below 53 seconds, but missed that with some hundreds of a second.And basically there was no need to push, as I was the only car in my class. All in all I found the time respectable, and was quite happy with the result.

Ready for the start, when the red lamps are turned off

I've often found the Spitfire happiest, when it was being driven hard, and saw that happen here again: On the road trip over the was some hesitation and spitting from the engine, but now it ran very well up till 7000 rpm. I tried 7500 once, but that caused some missing and loss of power, so stayed at the 7000 for my other runs. That might indicate a problem as well, as 7500 has been possible before.

Nicely balanced though the lefthander before the hill - other runs saw plenty of oversteer here

At the end of the day I managed first in class (I finished!) and a total time of 25th out of 38 finishers. OK on 1150 not-quite-OK cubic centimeters. But on the way home the electrics went mad again, and blew the fuse to the fuel pump. A few days later I got my mechanics' honest opinion: The wiring loom is a rat nest! Many years of bodging (on behalt of the former English owners) had taken their toll, and the best solution would be a new loom. And I have ordered one from Rimmer Bros and hope this solves the electric problems.