LEE EASTELL'S BLOG...

UPDATED 03/03/2010

Over the last 4 months my evenings have been occupied by a full strip of the outfit and rebuild, The work I have carried out on the outfit in preparation for the season ahead entails every nut and bolt to be removed and  a good inspection off every part, The chassis gets a major clean then polished one main reason for this is to check there are no cracks as these chassis do crack due to the stresses and strain of being raced around the Isle of Man. I strip the brakes and Reseal Calipers and Master cylinders. Most nuts and bolts are replaced bearings cleaned checked and replaced if worn.Suspension overhauled by Maxton, Engines Refreshed i have three engines in total so always 2 spare if the unfortunate happens.My next job is to strip and prepare the bodywork ready for respray then I am ready to go. I will be competing at my local circuit Snetterton on the 27 & 28th of March at a club round this race weekend will be used for a shakedown in preparation for the British Championship.

The British Formula 2 Championship this year will be competed over 6 Round 3 of which will support the British superbikes the venues are shown below
April 17/18                                     Thruxton                BSB
May 2/3                                         Cadwell                 Derby Phoenix
June 26/27                                     Mallory                  BSB
July 24/25                                      Anglesey               Wirral 100
Sept 4                                           Castle Combe         New Era
October 2/3                                   Cadwell Park           New Era

UPDATED 05/01/2010

A little about me and my racing

I started racing as a passenger at the age of 16, from that first race I was hooked!!
I now own my own sidecar that I bought about three months ago, and I have done one race weekend which I used as testing and was not going to try to race the other outfits!! This obviously didn’t happen, I couldn’t help myself, I just couldn’t hold back.
I am now looking for a permanent passenger and a sponsor or two. I am going to do the British f2 championship which starts in April and has six-race weekends, possibly running as support races with the British Super Bikes.

Lydden Hill

The team travelled to the circuit close to Dover on the Friday to get us set up and organised for the weekend. For these races I had a stand-in passenger; Lee Watson, a regular competitor with the British f2 Championship.
Saturday morning the weather was fine and first port of call was the scrutineering bay to get the outfit checked, it’s all good and ready to go. Qualifying was our first event, this was a 10-minute session so not much time to settle into the new outfit and get a quick lap in. Feeling comfortable with the outfit from the outset we were quickly up to speed, a time of 46.7s was set quick enough to qualify 4th with former world champion Tim Reeves on pole.
A good check over the outfit and fuelled for the first race our plan was to just get some mileage under our belt with the outfit. Lined up on the grid ready to go it was time to find out the best way to get off the line. We had a reasonable start losing one place from the outfit of Lummley. Once settled down, we gained back our 4th position and gained on Dix towards the end of the race. We finished a good 4th with our aim for 3rd in the next race.
Race 2 we had a much better start and were with Dix from the outset. When coming over the Start/Finish line seeing the last lap flag I knew I had to make a move on Dix wherever I could. Coming into the only left hander on circuit I knew I was much quicker through this last section, so this was where I made the move at the Hairpin but we touched and I spun off, so a DNF. We weren't disappointed as we felt for the first day on the outfit this was a very good achievement and getting the 3rd quickest time of the race was also pleasing.
 
Sunday the weather was horrible; strong winds, heavy down pours, a really grotty day and we didn’t start racing till the afternoon. We had such an enjoyable day yesterday that we couldn’t wait to get back on the track even though the conditions were far from ideal, there was so much mist over the track you could barely see in front of your own nose, and there was a lot of standing water even though it had stopped raining,
We began the race but after four laps decided that the tyres we had put on were not going to keep us on the track, and out of the tyre wall. We only had intermediates on and really needed wets. We were a little disappointed but soon cheered up when we realised our lap times were still good enough to get us into the burn up and we would get to race against some of the best sidecar teams in England, we couldn’t wait!

 The Sidecar Burn Up

 This is the race for the 22 quickest sidecars of all classes (F1 F2 & Old-timers) over the weekend. This was the race I was really excited about, anything can happen and anyone can win, certainly with the conditions we had.
We qualified 7th yet another great achievement for the weekend. Some were on slicks some were on intermediates and others on wets, there was probably a couple of laps during the race for each choice. We got of to an excellent start with the first 7 outfits in close pursuit, first corner being very interesting and we all managed to slide around and keep it on the black stuff. This 7-way battle going on for 3 laps until the first 3 started to pull away, we were having a good battle with the F1 of Peachy and F2 of Hegerty holding on to a great 6th position. Peachy was pulling away on the straights and we were gaining on the brakes and twisty bits. Eventually we decided to try out braking peachy into the sharp left-hander where we both left the braking very late. With a touch going into the corner we veered onto the grass, from there on I was a passenger, so a DNF. This was not to put a dampener on the weekend though, as we climbed over the barrier still grinning from ear to ear, we had some great battles and racing over the weekend.