Racing a Lancia Delta HF Integrale 16v

[Thurbs]

I have the entry list for this weekends racing and notice another two Lancia's in attendance!

CSCC Future Classics
A70
54 Steve Camplin / Martin Bloss Driver Lancia Monte Carlo 2000

CSCC Special Saloons & Modsports
A
37 Richard Siffleet Driver Lancia 037 (T) 1997

The club are going to do a start line photoshoot during lunch I think. Is it anyone here?

[Neil]

Where is that event taking place?

[sparehead3]

Possibly Silverstone ?

http://www.classicsportscarclub.co.uk/?q=Calendar

[Thurbs]

Silverstone International over both days (27th & 28th).

http://www.classicsportscarclub.co.uk/?q=Calendar

[Thurbs]

A gearbox leak means I am not going to make this one anymore. 

[Thurbs]

Managed a day's shakedown this week at Donington.

Pictures: https://www.facebook.com/pg/LanciaDeltaRacing/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1951456395141555



Here is some in car footage of some spins and a reasonable lap at the end of the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFulPGEe_HM

Still lots to do mind.

[Thurbs]

If anyone is near Darlington this weekend and fancies watching some racing, I have entered the Delta in to a weekend of events. https://www.facebook.com/notes/lancia-delta-hf-integrale-16v-racing/croft-preview/1975016312785563/ I have a few spare tickets if anyone wants to come, otherwise it is £14 for adults and kids go free.

The team is looking forward to Croft this weekend, our most Northerly race planned for this year. Looking at the forecast, it is expected we will have an English summer all weekend and go from monsoon one minute and thirty degrees the next. Luckily, we have both the Nankang AR-1 for dry and the Nankang NS-2R for any heavy downpours, the tricky bit is making sure you are on the right tyre at the right time!
On Friday the car is booked in for a full day’s testing with 4 sessions split throughout the day. The weather for Friday looks changeable with conflicting forecasts from cloudy to heavy rail. The hope is to get the driver and car dialled in to the circuit and get as close to an optimum setup as possible in the time allowed.

Saturday sees both qualifying and race for the Classic Sports Car Club Modern Classics and the Lancia is in class A, or the highest class for the series. At Croft the grid is shared with the faster New Millennium series featuring much newer and more modern machinery often with aero bits producing meaningful downforce. At the of writing the star cars joining the Lancia on the grid include a Ferrari 355s, Lotus Esprit & Elise, Porsche 911 RSR, 944s, 968 & Boxter, a Ginetta G50 and a host of BMW M3s. The weather reports heavy showers so the tyre decision will play a key role in the outcome of this race.

Sunday afternoon sees both qualifying and the race for Future Classics for cars built in the seventies and eighties. The Lancia is in the A80 class and is expected to do well against the competition. The race to the finish in this race is likely to be with the 1979 Porsche 911 RSR of Tony Blake as well as a powerfull Triumph TR7 v8. In the A80 class the Delta is up against Coventry’s finest in the shape of a v12 six litre Jaguar XJS. Depending on the report, this is either going to be a dry or showery day so again tyres may play a role in deciding the outcome.

All to play for and the team are confident that should the car finish, it will do well. Here is a video from last year in the Renault Clio 182 championship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GpBELSTsp8 Watch out in race 2 for what could have been a massive accident with car 27. Stay up to date with live timing here: http://tsl-timing.com/event/172964 Facebook updates: https://www.facebook.com/LanciaDeltaRacing/

[Thurbs]

Hi guys. It has been a busy few months and we have finally had some race finishes, a class win and an overall win! The Delta is awsome on the wet...

Here was Spa where we had 2 x DNS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6LwLrw2olI&t=25s

The first Race at Croft we got a class win: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBN_RSMN_Sg & https://lanciadeltaracing.com/2017/07/25/first-you-must-finish/

The second race at Croft we qualified 2nd, took the lead on the first lap, won overall by 40+ seconds and got the fastest lap: https://youtu.be/cCckIHgvwOY & https://lanciadeltaracing.com/2017/07/27/to-finish-first/

The race win I have done a "unlisted" video for anyone who is interested in watching the whole thing... warning: it is 50m long! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZJc1wK7Hfc

[Thurbs]

Hi all. Just finished the Festival Italia at Brands Hatch. Great crowd but sadly got a DNF in both races.

Blog: https://lanciadeltaracing.com/2017/08/16/lancia-v-...

Ferraris Spin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxejRqRGqaU

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LUd6ryZRI8

Extended: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poh_LboMlME

[Thurbs]

Hi all. Racing at Donington this weekend, I have loads of spare tickets if anyone wants one.

After a much-deserved summer break, we set our sights on the next round at Donington Park this coming weekend of the 9th and 10th of September. Looking at the forecast, currently light showers are expected on Saturday with Sunday reported as cloudy. After the success of Croft we are all doing rain dances here as I fear the Delta won’t be quite as competitive in the dry against some stiff opposition. We will be using the Nankang AR-1 for dry (4 new & 4 part worn) plus the Nankang NS-2R for any rain.

Of the two race ending problems faced at Brands Hatch we have identified the root cause of both. The drive belt failure was caused by a miss-aligned alternator pully which was causing pre-mature ware on the belt. The pully has been machined and should now be in alignment. The second failure was caused by a shear through the drive shaft at the point of the circlip on the outside end on the rear right-hand side of the car. We don’t know if the failure was just because the shaft had been a road car for 27 years before being asked to race and gave up, or if the standard shafts will all need replacing. We will keep an eye out for that.
Saturday sees both qualifying and race for the Classic Sports Car Club Modern Classics and the Lancia is in class A, or the highest class for the series. Confirmed for the meeting is a bumper grid of 36 cars with a fist full of BMW M3s a large litter of Porsches including 993 RSR, 911 SC, Boxter Ss, 968 CS, 944s, some Lotus’ with an Esprit and a few Elises plus a super-fast TVR Tuscan. Normally we would test on the Friday to get everything dialled in, but the Friday test is ridiculously priced so we are giving it a miss. Instead we are going to try and change the setup through qualifying, particularly with the rear dampers to try and get the car more balanced. For the race, a podium finish would be superb in a field of seriously fast cars, however that is probably only possible if it rains.

Sunday sees both qualifying and the race for Future Classics for cars normally run for seventies and eighties cars. At Donington the grid has been spilt so the eighties cars get their own grid, I think for the only time in the season. The Lancia is in the A80 class and is expected to do well against the competition. Like with the Modern Classics, the grid is full of some seriously quick cars with 26 cars currently. Germany makes up most of the numbers with 11 Porsches including 911, 964, 928, 944, 924 plus three Ford Sierra Cosworth’s and three ridiculously fast TVR Tuscans. With a good run should see a shot at the podium with our chances significantly improved should it be wet.

All to play for and the team are confident that should the car finish, it will do well.

Here is a video from last year in the Renault Clio 182 championship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X2TeoaEFUs A small crash can be seen from 7m30s onwards.

Weather forecast: http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2653591

Stay up to date with live timing here: http://www.tsl-timing.com/event/173664

[DavidLaver]

Good luck this weekend.

The surprise in all of that is that a 928 is out racing.  A rare site.

[Thurbs]

After a much-deserved summer break, we set our sights on the next round at Donington Park the weekend of 9th and 10th of September. After the success of Croft we are all doing rain dances here as we fear the Delta won’t be quite as competitive in the dry against some stiff opposition. We will be using the Nankang AR-1 for dry (4 new & 4 part worn) plus the Nankang NS-2R for any rain.

Of the two race ending problems faced at Brands Hatch we have identified the root cause of both. The drive belt failure was caused by a miss-aligned alternator pulley which was causing pre-mature ware on the belt. The pulley has been machined and should now be in alignment. The second failure was caused by a shear through the drive shaft at the point of the circlip on the outside end on the rear right-hand side of the car. We don’t know if the failure was just because the shaft had been a road car for 27 years before being asked to race and gave up, or if the standard shafts will all need replacing. We will keep an eye out for that.

Unlike previous rounds we decided not to test and this put us slightly on the back foot in qualifying. We had new set of pads to bed in on the front, tyres to scrub, new springs on the front as well as some adjustment in the rear tow. There is an adage in racing that you should only change one thing at a time and we were playing with fire. Luckily we didn’t have any issues with the new setup but with lots of slow cars on track it did mean we only got one semi-reasonable.

There was a slight miss-hap half way though when intending to signal Richard (I) accidently turned the car off! Luckily we got going again and lived for another lap. In the end the Delta qualified a lowly 10th just behind a gaggle of cars in and around the 1m 19s to 1m 21s so there was a chance of going forward from there.

This weekend was again one where much time was spent looking at the sky and the weather radar screens. It had rained during the previous race but was sadly drying out for our race so we opted for dry tyres, Nankang’s AR-1 road legal track tyre, expecting it to continue to dry but hoped it was still damp out on track. We pick the action up from the warm up lap where we do a rolling start.
After the first corner the delta had made up three places and continued to syth through the field on the greasy track. After the end of lap 1 the Lancia was up to P2 behind the Porsche RSR of CHAMBERLAIN / FARRELL and spent the following laps closing down the gap to just over a second. By lap 5 though it was pretty much dry and the quick cars started to catch up and overtake dropping us down to 4th before the pit stops.
The second part of the race was about holding station as much as possible against the quicker field coming through. Some silly mistakes by Richard (me) meant at one point we dropped back to 7th but some shunts, spins and unreliability meant we climbed back up to 4th where we stayed for the rest of the race. 

After two DNF at Brands Hatch we were relieved to have finished and finish well. 3rd in class against the faster M3s and TVRs was a great result and we had all worked hard to overcome the advantages RWD cars have over 4WD in the dry. Choosing the delta is always going to be a compromise and days like today are when you have to double your efforts to stay at the sharp end.

In the next episode we take part in Sunday’s event at Donington in the Future Classics series for cars made in the eighties.

Video: http://youtu.be/WRrkPtfd8cw
Extended Version: http://youtu.be/hRY1K1W63Gc
Timing Sheets: http://www.tsl-timing.com/file/?f=CSCC/2017/173664cmc.pdf

[sparehead3]

Brilliant ! Thanks for posting Richard

[Thurbs]

Hi all. Sorry I didn't update this thread from Sunday's race... The following day we took on the might of the nineteen eighties with the Classic Sports Car Club Future Classics and face some stiff competition.

Qualifying
Having reviewed the footage from Saturday’s race we made some small damper changes to see if that would help the car and driver unlock some more speed. Here is what happened!

Despite all of the tail out action, we did improve on our best from Saturday but still qualified a lowly eight. The good news is there was a second separating about ten cars and we were right in the thick of it. Opportunity to go forward but also to drop back.

Race
We made some final changes to the setup for the race, particularly around breaking stability and took ourselves to the assembly area. This one would be 100% dry which was disappointing but that is how things go.

We made a reasonable start and got a few places on the first few laps, but being conservative on the tyres we were soon overtaken back. The car ended up 8th after the pit stops having served a thirty second winners penalty after winning Croft. We were fortunate to pit early as there was a whole train of cars behind us.

As you saw the Morgan used tape as a fuel cap, caught on fire quite badly. Thankfully everyone was ok and the car isn’t a pile of burning embers but the race was stopped. As we were less than seventy five percent through the race distance it was re-scheduled for the end of the day.

For reasons best known to the drivers and teams, a number of cars withdrew at this point, packed up early and went home. This immediately promoted us to sixth for the re-start. As you can see the rain dances worked and we had a wet track to begin with.

http://youtu.be/DBMgupBVXAg

“Richard Thurbin’s four-wheel-drive Lancia Delta Integrale was untouchable with the extra traction in its rain-soaked race. From sixth on the grid Thurbin comprehensively bested the field off the line, going around the outside of Redgate to claim the 1980s race lead.” – Autosport 14/09/17

What a race! It was all over by the first corner… there was one brief moment on the first lap where I thought “great I am in the lead, oh that means I don’t have any references for braking!” I didn’t make any real mistakes, kept it smooth and off the racing line and ended up two seconds or more a lap faster than the next guy. It very nearly ended in disaster though as the last two laps I was running out of fuel and was surging through the corners. I then used an endurance technique of lift and cost plus higher gears to eke out what little fuel I had left. Luckily a TVR stuck it in the gravel which meant 4 cars on the side of the road so they flagged it early. I made it back to the puts with only just enough fuel to put it on the trailer.



Winning for the second time this year is really amazing (and the only car to do so). Clearly the Delta has a significant advantage in the wet and we need to be more competitive in the dry so we have a chance at winning in all conditions. All that being said, it is great to finish both races with 3rd in class and first overall. Happy camper here!

We haven’t yet decided when the next race is for the year so keep an eye on lanciadeltaracing.com as well as Facebook for updates and pre-views. In the meantime why not subscribe to the channel and please give the video a thumbs up.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2itOICjjKw

Extended Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOtFm57bh_4

Timing Sheets: http://www.tsl-timing.com/file/?f=CSCC/2017/173664fuc.pdf (scroll down past the 1970’s group).

[lancialulu]

Excellent! Fuel management must be high on the list... bigger tank?