Sunday @ Brands Hatch

As I mentioned yesterday, a group of about 10 of us made the almost 2 hour drive down to the Brands Hatch circuit for the Formula Ford Festival.

17-10-10 Brands Hatch

The drive was actually very enjoyable, the weather was good and there was some nice countryside scenery.  Brands is unique in that the circuit is just a little bit over a mile long, leading to lap times well under a minute for most cars.  The benefit to the short circuit is that you can see nearly every single turn from the grandstand.  A hairpin called Druids is obstructed by trees.  The cars were very evenly matched all day, making for some very exciting racing.  There were also quite a few accidents, including some big pile-ups and a car that got airborne for what seemed like an eternity.  He apparently forgot to brake, ran up onto the back of the car in front, got launched into the air, and when he came down in the gravel he started doing flips, then bounced up off of the tire wall for another pirouette until finally landing almost upside down.  Amazingly though he was out of the car and walking in less than 5 minutes. 

The pile-ups were related to cars who had left oil on the track at Paddock Bend - a tricky downhill right hander.  I guess the drivers were ignoring the debris flags!  One race was red flagged (stopped and resumed) after a car slid down the hill and impacted another car that was already stuck in the gravel with the driver still in it.  A note that some of you will understand - the corner workers were doing "hot-pulls" (recovering cars from the gravel while other cars were still racing) all day at Paddock bend.  What I'm used to at VIR is nothing like it was yesterday.  Corner workers were out attending to the cars in very very vulnerable situations.  It was an interesting contrast to the approaches I'm used to seeing both at VIR and other races on TV.

Damon Hill, 1996 F1 World Champion and president of the BRDC was there with his son who was racing in the Formula Ford Duratec Championship.  We did get a group picture with him after a classmate approached him and told him who we were - and he knew about the program.  I don't have the picture yet though, it was taken with one of our classmates DSLR.

This week is the module about composites, and from the schedule it looks like we will be having a lot of hands-on time.  We will learn how to actually manufacture a composite (presumably carbon fiber) structure.  It should be fun and more enjoyable than just a full week of lectures.