Win for Fidoe in the Empire Wraith Guy Martin drove

In tricky, damp conditions the Empire Wraith took Simon Fidoe to a shock outright “runoff” win against all comers at the historic Shelsley Walsh hillclimb at the weekend.

 A brave soul, Simon lent his car to Guy Martin, the motorcycle racer and TV presenter for his second series “Speed with Guy Martin” when Guy was planning to attack the Pikes Peak hillclimb in the USA.  The idea was that Guy could learn about hillclimbing by driving the Suzuki motorcycle powered car at the famous Shelsley course.  The car, crafted by Bill Chaplin and the team at Empire Racing Cars (www.empireracingcars.com) , is no stranger to winning, and Simon already holds a class record in the car.  However the car has never taken outright honours before in such a prestige event against much more powerful cars (that run in different classes until all the fastest cars compete for outright honours).

Slipery (for the others) when wet – the Empire Wraith driving by Simon Fidoe running at Shelsley Walsh on the 1st of May 2016 - captured by Geoff Robinson.

 When conditions are treacherous, as they were on Sunday, smaller cars often do well but his win was certainly an upset.  Shelsley is a steep climb and the approximately 200 hp of the 1000 cc Suzuki powertrain should be no match for the bigger cars which have significantly more than double the power so run high drag, high downforce setups as a result.  The Wraith is known for its high aerodynamic efficiency, which helped give the car grip (despite low drag) in the slippery conditions.

 Conditions for the first qualifying (class) round were better and Simon did well in those better conditions to qualify in a strong position for the runoff of the fastest cars.

Simon Fidoe and the Empire Wraith approaching the Esses at Shelsley Walsh – Photo Geoff Robinson.

I’m proud of my the contribution I made with help from TotalSim on this project and I’m particularly pleased to see a gentleman such as Simon Fidoe have such amazing success in the car.

Image from myself (Willem Toet) and TotalSim – www.totalsimulation.co.uk

 Here’s what Simon had to say about the weekend.  He had an engine problem last weekend and had to fit a spare engine.

 “Shelsley couldn’t have been any more of a contrast after our failed start to the season the weekend before, but what a weekend it turned out to be.

 Bill and Ronnie did a great job during the week to get the engine swap done, and the car ready again for Shelsley – it worked straight out of the box again.

 From my point of view, we started Saturday morning just happy to be there, with no great expectations for the weekend. The forecast was looking like it would be dry all day Saturday, and Sunday morning, but we all expected rain from midday onwards on Sunday.

We managed three practice runs on Saturday, and started in the low 28s and ended up on a 27.41, which is only 0.2 off my PB in the Wraith from August 2015, so given how cold it was, I was happy with that for practice.

We made no changes to the car at all over the course of the weekend, even in the wet conditions – it was great.

Sunday did indeed start dry, and slightly warmer than Saturday, but everybody knew they needed to be on it from the start, as there wasn’t going to be an opportunity to better the times in the afternoon.

The morning run was uneventful and I managed a 27.30 which was marginally quicker than how I’d ended practice, 2nd to Chris in the other Wraith, and enough to qualify 6th for the run-off.

It started to rain before the run-off started, but not hard enough to warrant inters (we don’t have full wets anyway), so I went on slicks. It was a case of lining up off the rubber and trying to drive off the start, which went ok. Once away from the start, there was more grip available than anticipated and the car just did what I asked of it, I didn’t experience any understeer or oversteer. Braking hard for the Esses was without drama, and I just induced some oversteer by getting on the power a little too early on the exit of Top Ess, but it was soon checked and on my way to the line.

The run felt fairly mundane and without drama, which in the conditions is a good thing; and obviously demonstrated by the time in comparison to others. I‘d got mine and the Wraiths’ first runoff win, happy days!

(I must confess that instructing at the driving school at Shelsley does also benefit me as well as the participants!)

The rain continued over lunchtime and into the afternoon, so we opted for inters for 2nd timed runs. Another steady and uneventful run, meant I was quickest in class for the afternoon, and qualified again for the 2nd run-off.

Unfortunately I tried a little too hard during the 2nd run-off. The lower section was fine but I went a little too deep into Bottom Ess and got a large dose of oversteer on the greasy entry which set me up too tight for Top Ess, and I then got a handful of oversteer again as I tried to compensate by getting the power down even earlier; the time was only good enough for 4th, but only 0.6s behind Ed’s winning time and still in front of some greater capacity cars.

The overall performance at the power hill that is Shelsley was fantastic, and the Man of the meeting award was recognition of the achievement and should be just reward for the efforts of all at Team Empire.”

More about the Wraith here www.empireracingcars.com

 Well done to you Simon and to Bill and the team at Empire.  Many thanks too to TotalSim for their contribution!   www.totalsimulation.co.uk

Race weekend short report from the Midland Automobile Club https://www.shelsleywalsh.news/2016/05/02/event-report-speed-into-spring/

A very short compilation from the weekend in which the car features (for some seconds) can be found here.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxdGGiZD_3Y

For more about Shelsley Walsh start here https://www.shelsley-walsh.co.uk/ 

More posts from me here  https://www.dhirubhai.net/today/posts/willemtoet1 

This is the picture that the Midland Automobile Club (MAC) report uses.   Well captured and thanks to Mark Constanduras and the MAC.