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Silverstone, Silverstone, Silverstone

24 hour Entries
A reminder that entries will open on the C1 Racing Club website at 1700hrs on Sunday 28th October.

For an entry to be valid, three drivers have to be named, all of whom must be current club members.  If you have not joined yet, fear not, your Club membership will be valid for the 2019 season.

The entry fee is £3,500 per team, which does not include any testing on the Friday.  We are trying to negotiate the best deal that we can for the Friday for you, but the 24 hour event will start on track at 2030hrs with qualifying.

We expect to have full video coverage of the event; and to have live streaming available.   If you would like to have an in-car camera, please let us know at board@c1racing.club .

Motorsports Days Live 
Motorsports Days Live is at Silverstone on 2nd and 3rd November.  We will be there both days in Absolute Alignment’s garage if you want to come along and have a chat.  We’d love to see you there.

The C1 Racing Team

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Dan Trent – Goodwood 16th Oct 2018- The Real Holy Grail of Motorsport

Why racing a Citroën C1 at Spa is the real holy grail of motorsport

Why on earth would anyone want to race at Spa-Francorchamps in a Citroën C1? With just 68hp you might think it would struggle to drag itself up from Eau Rouge. And whether it’s Häkkinen on Schumacher back in 2000, Jacky Ickx, Derek Bell and their ilk monstering the track in Porsche 956s in the 80s or Jim Clark and others conquering the infamously fast, road circuit layout in the 60s, Spa has a deservedly fearsome reputation.

What place does a cheap supermini with a roll cage have in this most glorious of motorsport traditions? Be ready for a surprise…

Close, competitive racing focused on driver skill, not how much money you spend, is the holy grail of any series, whether it’s F1 or the Revival. Because, let’s face it, the races we remember are the ones where the lead swaps places several times each lap and it’s a firm but fair fight between committed drivers on the absolute limit.

Creating a series where this kind of racing can thrive is a constant battle for organisers. But one the Citroën C1 Racing Club seems to have nailed by basing its championship around a cheap, everyday hatchback you can buy and build into a racing car for very little money. And making absolutely sure everyone plays fair by restricting modifications to an absolute minimum and controlling the supply of packages and parts that transform cheap, dependable city cars into a machine that can race for 24 hours around Spa.

And, while a lowly C1 may not be the most prestigious or fastest competition car ever built, proof that it’s the racing, not the machine that counts is what attracts everyone from gangs of mates on a shoestring to experienced, affluent drivers moonlighting from GT3 and top-flight historic series. All this becomes clear as I start my first stint as one of four drivers in the C1 Racing Club’s own car. I’ve done about three laps in daylight but, by the time I strap in, Spa is brooding under a silvery, moonlit sky.

As I merge onto the Kemmel Straight I’m down by about 20mph on the pack of cars who’ve carried their speed through Eau Rouge. And I’m basically trying to keep out of their way until I can pick up momentum on the downhill return. It’s chaos, C1s circulating in packs, locked in private battles, while mad bike-engined, Citroën-based prototypes scythe their way through and everyone dodging the slow-moving regular 2CVs, trundling along gamely at half the pace of everyone else.

It’s not unusual to have a pack of a dozen cars of wildly different speeds all converging on one corner, lights dazzling you in the mirrors as you try and second guess whether you’re overtaking or being overtaken. Somehow it works and you get a few seconds to catch breath before you have to do it all again. And, modest power or not, by the time you reach the fearsome downhill left-hander at Pouhon you’ll be doing 90mph-plus and sliding sideways as the budget Nankang tyres start to let go.

Lap after lap, hour after hour these battles go on, slipstreaming up Kemmel and then ‘doing a Hakkinen’ on some unsuspecting 2CV – a winning technique for gaining a place into the Les Combes chicane. And then it rains. As it always does at Spa’s most exciting races. One thing watching it from the sofa on a Sunday afternoon. Another entirely at 2am when the spray is so bad you can’t see the track surface, your tyres are shot and there are people ricocheting off the barriers in all directions.

With nearly 70 C1s on track – two thirds of those from British entrants – and lap times separated by just a few seconds you’re never far from a battle. In my second stint I enjoy one that goes on for maybe 10 laps, my rival and I fighting fiercely for every corner but able to exchange a friendly thumbs-up at the shared thrill as we swap places on the straights. And that’s what it’s all about. No quarter given on the circuit and relaxed, ego-free camaraderie in the pits. In a car you could build and enter from scratch for less than £5,000. Pure racing, the like of which attracts high-rolling racers to gangs of mates alike. And levels the playing field in a way few other series have achieved, for a price within reach of nearly anyone. That’s why you’d want to race a C1 round Spa.

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End of 2018 Season

2018 Season – still a few more races if you want to exercise your C1

Well that’s our official 2018 season over, although there are still a couple of chances to get your C1 out, most notably the simply wonderful Race of Remembrance run by Mission Motorsport at Anglesey on Remembrance Sunday, at which we will be running our somewhat battle-scarred car No 303 (reshell coming over the winter…).  If you think you will be able to pass the breathalyser test, you may also want to consider Ben Atkinson’s “Plum Pudding” event on Boxing Day.

 If you think you may build a car – Let us know now!!!

It is already clear from the various chat forums that a number of people are considering building a car.  If you are planning to do so, you should order the club kit and cage no later than the end of November.  The main issue is the cage, the lead time for which is already 12 weeks.  So if you were to order a cage today, you wouldn’t get it until mid-January.  This is Safety Devices’ busiest time of year, we have no influence over their lead times and we do not carry spare stock.  If you are building, or thinking of building a car, especially for Silverstone, we would encourage you to get an order to us as soon as possible.

 2019 season opener will be Silverstone!

We’re going to start with the fabulous Silverstone GP 24-hour.  We’ve tested at Silverstone, in the damp, and it was utterly fabulous.  And, well, its Silverstone.  Its what you asked for in the survey, so we took a brave pill or two and signed a big contract.  We’re just working out the support races at the moment.

 The rest of the calendar is currently being nailed down.  We will announce it as soon as we can.  Entries will follow the same procedure as last year, with the race entries opening on the website with plenty of notice.  Again, reflecting what you asked for in the survey, there are going to be a couple of sprint days and four or so enduros, hopefully with the season being rounded off with Spa again.

 Spa 24 hour – well done to MacAttack for a fast and clean race

Spa was fabulous, wasn’t it?  Many congratulations to MacAttack who have had quite a season and rounded it up with a class win at Spa.  It was a very well measured and confident drive after a spectacular qualifying lap from Simon Walker-Hansell, who managed to get a tow both up the Kemmel straight; and from Stavelot to Blanchimont.  The MacAttack car also still sports the same bodywork that it started the season with; so it is possible!

 We all arrived at Spa in blazing sunshine, well except for Nick, who didn’t get in until nearly midnight. Having come from a decidedly chilly UK, it was lovely to feel the heat of the sun again.  They have a slightly different approach at Spa, so its always a bit of a voyage of discovery as to what’s going to happen; and sure enough, the welcome packages weren’t as expected, but they were in a very large orange bag.  We could learn things from them, we thought.

 Scrutineering proved to be a whole lot easier than last year, mostly because we had organized for an MSA scrutineer to be over in Spa with us, who was marvellous.  Keith, thank you.  So we all got stuck into practice.  Well, two sessions of practice, unless you wanted to go and play with some very quick and awesome-sounding DGMC (a German category) series cars.  That Mustang must rate as one of the angriest-sounding race cars in history.  It went pretty well and looked stunning as well.  Somehow, over the day, we managed to get all the cars weighed and scrutineered (or thereabouts).

 You really should attend the Spa driver’s briefing.  It could only happen at Spa.  Of course it started late; and of course it was in French.  But we had Steve Sykes translating, which was just brilliant.  The Clerk would speak loudly and enthusiastically for some time.  Steve would then translate briefly and drily something like: “Respect the marshals, they’re there to keep you alive”.  It was also the shortest drivers’ briefing in history; and failed to cover any of the material things that it would have been nice to know about, like full-course yellows or two safety cars.   Not that any of us asked any questions of course.

 It is an FIA requirement for every driver to complete three laps of night qualifying in order to be able to drive in a 24-hour race.   Not in Belgium, its not.  Quali was one and a half hours, which is mighty tight when you have 6 drivers, and daylight only.  Its even tighter if you forget (despite half a dozen text reminders) to have your car weighed.  And its underweight.  And the seat is out of date.  You had to admire our American friends style of walking over to the reassuringly expensive shop and just buying another seat, though.  We managed to get them out in quali.  Just, with their car sporting some lead that was somehow (and somewhat worryingly) procured from a nuclear power station. Most of the rest of Saturday passed in a cacophony of noise from the BGDC, the standouts being that Mustang, a Mondeo which sounded like it had much the same engine and, of course, a brace of 911s.  It would best be described as an eclectic bunch.

 The race proper started at 4.30pm…  well, it should have done.  More like 4.45pm and it took a while for the timing system to catch up.  Obviously, the drivers’ briefing hadn’t covered the start procedure, so we had no idea what was going on, but it all worked in the end and off we all went!  Atomic Racing turned a mistake into misfortune, somehow getting caught up in the wrong group and starting from the pitlane.  They enjoyed leading the class for the first 5 laps until a safety car bunched things up again.  There’s nothing like rain to shake things up at Spa; and boy did we get rain.  Those lucky enough to be in the cars at the time could watch the thunderstorm coming up the valley towards the circuit until the deluge hit.  At times, visibility was down to 25m or so.  The rain stayed with us until the closing stages of the race, but dried out eventually.

Stand out heroes?  There’s a deep bench to chose from here, but mentions have to go to Hurricane, for giving their car to another team after an accident concussed one of their drivers – that is proper sporting behaviour and we love you for it chaps.  To 416, our American friends who had never seen a C1 before; arriving at the circuit with six drivers and mostly-finished car.  It even had a stick shift, but at least it was left hand drive.  They beat all odds and finished the race.  Gents, and lady, well done, and we look forward to having you back over here again soon. To Mission Motorsport, who brought two cars and fifteen injured veterans over, one of which finished, the other of which had an accident; and to all the team crews who repaired broken drive shafts (we ran out), body work, suspension arms and kept everyone on the road.

 Wheelgate… Citroen are investigating

We had some more wheels fail at Spa.  All bar one of the failed wheels have now been given to Citroen to analyse, so we will come back with their report as and when we have it.  The only additional news we have is that each wheel that failed appeared to have come from a different batch; and that most had clear kerb or accident damage to them.  Safety comes first of course, so although we do have some options for different wheels that we could use, at this stage we don’t know whether they would be stronger, and they are a multiple of the cost of the current steel wheels.  Our advice remains that if a rim is damaged – dispose of it.

 2019 regulations

We are meeting shortly to agree what changes there will be, but we hope that you will be reassured to know that they are likely to be minimal and aimed at safety and keeping costs down.  One will be the requirements will be to have an operating forward-facing video camera. This is a low-cost way of ensuring that the Clerk of the Course will have the evidence to investigate any contact; and support a continued improvement in driving standards.

 Autosport 2019

We’re going to be there again on the BARC stand for all four days.  Come and see us for a catch up, to ask questions and look at cars.  We will have a car on the stand for the children (young and old) to play with.  Look forward to seeing you there.

 Charity Day on behalf of the Stroke Association at Castle Combe

On Saturday 27th October, the Stroke Association is running its long-standing day at Castle Combe to raise money for itself.  This dates back over 25 years and has a simple formula:  owners of interesting and exotic cars bring them along and provide 5-lap passenger rides to the public in exchange for a solid donation.  There is no cost to the owners; and every penny goes direct to the charity.  We’ve been invited along, so if you would like to take your C1 along (you’ll have to have a passenger seat, obviously), please get in touch with Richard Jones, who is the volunteer organiser on  07961 565970 or by email at  richard_c_jones@hotmail.com

 Thank you

This has been an amazing first full season for us; so we would like to thank each and every one of you for making this possible.  We hope that you’ve enjoyed it as much as we have, we feel somewhat humbled by what we’ve created, and of course if you’re receiving this newsletter you are part of that success, whether you are a driver, mechanic, car builder or interested reader!  As always if you have any ideas on how we can improve things, drop us a mail at board@c1racing.club.  We’re already excited about next year and look forward to racing with you all next season.

 

The C1 Racing Team
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Silverstone GP circuit confirmed for 2019 C1 24 hour

We are ridiculously excited to announce that we have agreed with BARC and Silverstone that our first UK 2019 24-hour race will be held on the Silverstone GP circuit on the 26th, 27th and 28th April, 2019.

 That’s right:  the same circuit that the Formula One race takes place on.  With 110 C1s, which means two start groups.  We are of course inviting our Belgian, Portuguese and Scottish friends to join us, but also expect teams from Germany, Hong Kong and the Unites States of America too.

Outline timetable is:

Qualification                        Friday 26th April 2030-2200hrs

Race start                               Saturday 27th April 1700hrs

We have elected for the old Formula One garages, because they have more space, especially in the paddock behind the garages; they are next to the showers and other amenities; and because we just prefer the pit lane entry there.

The entry fee is £3,500, payable 50% on booking; and 50% before 28th February, 2019. Entries will open, as usual on the C1 Racing Club website, at 1700hrs on Sunday 28th October.   Please remember that to book, you and your drivers need to be current Club members.

The balance of the 2019 season calendar will be announced shortly, once it has been finalized with BARC and the circuits; but rest assured that we have reflected what you all asked for in the survey.

 Excited?  Its going to be a long winter.

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End of the 2018 UK Season and Spa

So that’s our first UK season done and dusted.  We’ll do a proper review of the season after Spa, but it’s been quite an experience for us at least.  Please let us know your views:  what was good; what wasn’t; what we can improve and anything else you’d like to see.  Please email us at board@c1racing.club 

 Croft

The A1M turned out to be as awful as anyone could possibly have feared, although closing one of the UK’s main north south arterial routes on a Friday and a Sunday was an interesting approach to road management.  But wasn’t Croft wonderful when we got there?  Cold too – maybe there is something in the phrase “the Frozen North”?  We haven’t been up there for a couple of years, and Tracey (the new circuit manager) has really sorted the place out since then.  Smart, nice new lavatory & shower block (better than at home, one person quipped) with lashings of hot water.  Talking to Tracey, there’s a lot planned at Croft over the next year or two, with a new building, improvements to the entrances:  we look forward to seeing it all.

 Wheels

One of the key topics for the weekend turned out to be wheels.  Or rather Wheel Failures.  We had been planning a piece for this newsletter about lifing wheels; and how it is not a good idea to use the older wheels for racing.  Typically, small nicks in the holes turn into stress fractures, which result in wholesale failure.  You also find, if you turn a GoPro on the wheels, that the older wheels flex a lot more than new wheels, the welds and steel both fatigue over time, so the handling on older wheels isn’t as good, as well as the risk of failure going up dramatically.

 What was new at Croft was the failure of some new wheels, and failing through the body of the metal, not at the holes.  All wheels that failed need to be sent back to Citroen for investigation; please can the owners of those wheels get them back to us and we can forward them on to Citroen; we will report back when Citroen do.  A common feature to all three wheels was significant dents to the rims, suggesting heavy kerb usage.  We can’t emphasize enough that using kerbs in endurance racing is a pretty sure-fire way to end your race early.  Not just from a wheel damage perspective, but the shock loads that it also imposes on the suspension, drive shafts etc can all lead to premature failure.  It may feel racey; and it may even be faster for a few laps, but its not good practice in longer enduros.

 Sprints

What did you think?  We were really pleased with the way that the four heats and final went.  Driving standards were high overall, although track limit breaches were reported eighteen times by the marshals.  The racing seemed to be good as well right up and down the field.

 We will be running a couple of sprint events next year:  probably one on the same weekend as an enduro (as per Croft); and one on a separate weekend, so that we can all see how it works and how popular it is.

 Observers

You may not have noticed it, but for the first time this season, BARC supplied four track-based observers to report on track limits and driving standards.  This will be standard practice next season, so that there is 100% consistency on reporting throughout the season and throughout each meeting.  However hard we, as directors, try, we can’t be everywhere all the time, but we are determined to ensure that we maintain the highest level of driving standards possible in the series.

 Rockingham Appeals

We are delighted to announce that the decision to disqualify Car 414, Team Green Racing and Car 384, Area Motorsport has been overturned on appeal; and replaced with a fine.  This is consistent with the penalty applied at the touring cars meeting at Knockhill the previous weekend and, in the Club’s view, the correct penalty under MSA regulations for a safety infringement.

 The final results are to be restated and published shortly.

 Spa

Our season finale is in less than a week now.  It is, we realise, too close to Croft, and we will ensure next year that we don’t have races in such close proximity.  It only came about this year because we had a date at Donington that was cancelled shortly before we announced the calendar for the season; and that was all we could get at that point.  We will endeavour not to do that again.

 The final instructions and supplementary regulations for the wonderful season-closing race at Spa have been published and you can find them here; and we are hugely excited about it.  For those of you who haven’t been before, wrap up warm, its always very cold at night there – we’ve had one year where it was minus ten degrees and we all carried on racing.  It is a brilliant weekend and one we look forward to all year.

 It’s going to be one of the biggest grids ever at Spa, so we should see some pretty exciting racing.  Look forward to seeing you out there.

 

The C1 Racing Team