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Thursday, 06 May 2010 00:00 |
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Euro-B Warmup 2010 Valladolid SPAIN
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Driver: João Gomes
Date: 02-05-2010
Location: Valladolid, Spain
Race: European Championship "B" Warm-up
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When I arrived the track Friday morning and had everything set to start I went to tune my TecnoPower engine in the engine tune area. I had the Hipex pipe and manifold mounted and the H7 glowplug.
 On the 1st practice heat I felt I needed a change in power from the engine and I decided to change the manifold, with this change in combination the engine got better power and in round two of practice I just went to get used to the track and didn’t worry about the engine as the power ok.
On the 3rd practice round I went to check the runtimes and my engine stopped at 8:30min. running at 110ºC, so I wanted to improve my runtime in order to save time for the finals. First thing I tested was the 6mm venturi with the 33% Fuel and the engine got better. More power than with 7mm+25% but the runtime were still the same.
On the 4th practise round I tried to change the clutch to a smoother one, tried a larger pinion on the engine but runtimes were still the same and I had less low-end power so I reverted to my original setup.
On the 5th practice round I tried to change glowplugs from H7 to C6. In this round my electronic problems on the car started... on a table top jump in the middle of the track my car was always "off" for 1 second. For the next round I changed all my batteries and checked wires, etc, but everything seemed fine to me.
On the 6th and final practice round my electronic problems were still attacking me. At the end of the day in the Hotel I changed all my radio tray (New servos, new batteries, new receiver, new Transponder) and borrowed the radio from a friend, same as mine in the hop my problems would dissapear.
DAY ONE - Practice:
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DAY TWO- Qualifiers:
During the morning there was quite some interest in my pit area since I was asked for an interview about the TecnoPower engines for a Spanish magazine ;-)
 Now, back to racing.
In the first qualifier the engine was already very good in terms of powerband, super easy to drive and really consistent lap by lap. My goal was to put in a consistent qualifier without any errors.
BUT…. My electronic problems were still attacking me :-) THE ENTIRE radio tray was different, and a different radio, and I was still having glitches on that table top jump...:-(
I will skip the resume of the qualifiers because they were all basically the same: the engine was the only thing working on my car!!! From qualifier to qualifier, my "to do list" was basically this:
- Check all the electronics, change everything as much as possible
- Check all the electronics again - Re-check all the electronics
- Don’t have time to tune the car
- No need to worry about the engine
- Don’t worry about the engine…
I couldn’t make a single clean qualifier so I needed to go the 1/4 finals the next day.
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DAY THREE - Finals:
In the first 1/4 finals, while still having the same radio glitch on the tabletop, I was easily leading until the last 3 minutes. In the last 3 minutes, sometimes I just couldn’t accelerate and I thought "Sweet, my radio is keeping me from accelerating now", lateron we discovered a problem with the linkage which we fixed and everything was fine again.
I couldn’t make the semi-final practice because my radio just stopped working on the warm-up and I went to the pits to smash my electronics with a hammer(not really...lol).
 In the semi, while still having the same radio glitches, I managed to bump into the A-main and I was N°8 on the grid for the main final.
But the start of the final was surprisingly good! During the first 5 minutes I was second following the leader with only a 4 seconds gap which was really good considering that I didn’t control the car on that tabletop jump. But, as the other guys were getting into pace, that second I was losing on the table top jump was sufficient for them to catch me up and I was 4th after the first fuel stop.
The engine was running really good, no changes in tune and a clean fuel stop at 9 minutes. A strange thing happened at the second fuel stop. When I came into the pits for fuel and my mechanics were re-fueling the car, the engine was sounding like it was very lean on bottom and I thought "It could be running out of fuel", so I didn’t worry about that because on the track it was perfect, no loss of power, good smoke out of the pipe, power was ok, etc.
On the third fuelstop I came into the pits and there for the first time in the weekend the engine flamed out on me. When my mechanics were trying to re-start the engine again, it refused. So they first change the glowplug, but nothing, they changed the heater, changed fuel, changed air filter, NOTHING.... So we gave up and were checking the clutch, fuel tubing, carburetor, any cracks on the crankcase, but everything seemed just "fine"! Then(like almost 5 minutes later) we tried to start it and it started at the first attempt!!!!!!, I was like, Hmmmm, what is happening. Maybe the engine was tired of my radio problems...:-).
Anyway I made the rest of the final without any problems and finished 10th overall..., with this positon I reached the 3rd spot for the Junior class which was nice but not what we had aimed for.
For the final I only changed my clutch bearings, air filter and tires and I was like "Well, now I will have some fun as I have no chances of winning because of the radio glitches" :-(
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CONCLUSION :
It was a good weekend to test many things with the TecnoPower "B01" and I am loving it, many people were coming to visit at my pit area to check it out and asking questions about it, taking pictures, etc.
I think it is exceptional that despite the very few tests we have made with the engine we managed to arrive into the A-Final which for a new engine is very positive!
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Next time out will bend round of the 2nd Portuguese Nats in Torres Vedras.
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See you at the track!!!
João Gomes
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