Silverstone!

The important stuff - pictures:

6-10-10 Silverstone

The school arranged a nice tour bus for us to get to Silverstone.  The trip took about 50 minutes, through some nice English country landscape.  Once we arrived we were led through the Silverstone Innovation Centre, where the track leases office space to various firms.  The CEO of Silverstone Holdings went through a presentation describing all the different functions the track has going on.  They are very much focused on making the almost 800 acre property a multi-function business.  Interestingly though, the whole "empire" is owned by the British Racing Drivers Club.  It was intriguing to hear the business side of running a race track, as an engineer and enthusiast you rarely think about the things that it takes to keep a track running.

The next presentation was from the architecture firm that was responsible for designing the new Pit Complex.  Populous has an extremely impressive resume of motorsport complexes and sporting venues.  Originally the building was estimated at 40 million (don't remember if that was $) but due to the economic decline and value engineering, the cost had been reduced to 27 million.  The structural engineers also supposedly reduced the amount of steel in the building by half!  Along with the pit complex, the firm has an in house circuit designer.  His presentation was really interesting, especially hearing about how he has to balance the various run off and safety barrier requirements between the FIA (F1, GT1/GT3) and the FIM (MotoGP).  The redesign of Silverstone accomplished many goals, from updating the circuit to all current FIA and FIM standards, to making more land accessible without having to cross the racetrack.  The original proposal had a Laguna Seca style corkscrew that dropped 8 meters.  Unfortunately this was scrapped because of water table and flooding issues.

The next stop was easily one of the highlights and could be a once in a lifetime opportunity.  We were welcomed into the British Racing Drivers Club by the current club secretary, Stuart Pringle.  This club is very exclusive, and to even be in the building is an incredible opportunity.  We got to see all three levels, the top level being an outdoor deck and great view of the final few corners of the Grand Prix circuit.

After the BRDC we got tours of Race Control and the Medical Centre (one of if not the leading facility of its type in the world).  In essence a complete small hospital.  Race control was impressive to see how much camera control and capability they have.

To finish the day, we got to experience one of the Circuit's driving experiences.  They maintain a fleet of "Formula Silverstone" cars at their Stowe circuit (completely separate from the main Grand Prix and other track configurations). The cars are something like Formula Fords with wings added on.  A Ford Duratec 1600cc engine is mated to a 4 spd manual racing gearbox.  No synchros, straight cut gears, and no reverse gear.  The transmission was the hardest aspect of the car to get comfortable with.  One time down the straight I kept grabbing 3rd gear, so I just kept bouncing off the rev limiter.  It wouldn't take a lot of time to get used to, but definitely more than the 20ish minutes we had.  The experience was absolutely great, easily the fastest and most responsive car I've ever driven.  I'm sure they are setup this way, but they were surprisingly easy to drive, you could feel the back end sliding if you were doing something too quickly and correct it very easily.  The entry to the pit straight and the chicane following the pit straight were the coolest bits of track.  At the end of the longer back straight you could very much feel the wind pulling up on your helmet - not a comforting feeling!  There was no speedometer in the car, only oil pressure and water temperature gauges and a tachometer.  I think I was getting to a little over 100, maybe 110 on the back straight.  The tach was too far down in the car for me though.  You are supposed to keep your eyes ahead when driving, and while doing this it was difficult to pick up the tach or the shift lights.  The view of these was basically through the bottom half of the steering wheel.  I mostly shifted based on sound, which worked out for the most part.

A very long, full, excellent day.  I do have to edit some of our group assignment though, so it's going to be a bit later night than I was planning on.