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I think it’s long overdue that I give a rundown of the leading Subaru Impreza in Time Attack UK championship this year. Since our debut in 2015 it’s all been an enjoyable journey. In 2015 with a complete rebuilt car by Chevron Motorsport we hit every event trying to learn the tracks. The Club 4WD entries were poor, started with 3 of us fighting for points, Damien with his mighty Legacy, Simon Griffiths in his Evo and us. Damien unfortunately pulled out after round 3 and it left me and Griffiths fighting for it. Inevitably we finished second but it was a very close battle till the last round with only 1 point separating us.
In 2016 we continued to develop the car and placed second again in the championship. We had bad luck as we kept destroying standard 6 speed boxes and fought with inconsistent braking. For the lat 2 round of 2016, Croft and Snetterton we sourced a Samsonas 6 speed dogbox and fixed our braking issues. The gave us 2 outright wins and a tie in point for the championship as we fought all year with dalibor and his classic 2 door impresa all year. Dali had more wins than us and thus giving us P2 again in the championship. It was a very close fight with Dali always separated by less then hald a second in every round.
In 2017 we built a new engine, a 2.1 litre SCD block with standard position GTX35 turbo by Owen Developments, Radtec intercooler and special Chevron radiator/oil cooler. Matched to a rebuilt 6 speed dogbox we have a great package. Chevon worked hard developing the new suspension setup that has till now proving to be our major strength.
This year’s season is very hard fought, in my opinion the Club 4WD class is most interesting class int eh whole series. We are fighting for milliseconds in every event with Bruce Winfield in the MG Motorsport Evo, Alex Bones in the Formula racing Evo 9, and Ben and Mat with the JDS Evo 8. The first round at Cadwell we sued a shakedown. Not my favorite track as I always manage to make myself car sick every time I go up the mountain jump but still secured second place behind Bruce with a 1:37.196. Was a very difficult day for me but the car performed well bar a failing coil pack that lost us points in qualifying.
Off to Snetterton 200 for round 2 and bad luck struck again. We technically broke the lap record with a lap time of 1:16.797 in practice. But on the 2nd lap of qualifying our gearbox problem reappeared. Broke the selector ball joint on the selector shaft and that was game over. The warmup lap we of qualifying of 1:19.193 still securing us 3rd place in qualifying. But unfortunately there was no way we could go back out in the finals.
Rebuilt gearbox again and off to Brands for round 3. In qualifying we secured the Club 4WD lap record previously held by Damien with a time of 50.978. Unfortunately we hit very bad traffic in the race and could not put down one decent lap, and came back with a 51.578 and third place. Disappointing as we knew there was much more in the car but luckily no one went quicker than us in the race and we still hold the lap record for Brand Hatch Indy of 50.978.
Donnington was a week later and luckily this time we had nothing to do to the car. I had never been at Donnington and for me it was all new. Immediately in the morning sessions I realized it was my kind of track. Long sweeping fast corners and soon got accustomed to it. We had so much fun and the we went quicker and quicker. We were in P1 for all four session and also broke the Club 4WD lap record previously held by Lee Bullen with a 1:13.612. A well-deserved win the first of this year’s season.
Few weeks later we were at Oulton Park (Island). We had a love hate relationship with this track as it was our first event win in 2015 and a very disappointing 2016 where we went slower with gearbox and brake issues. Knowing we had solved these gremlins from last year we were confident we will do well at Oulton. And so we did. We were again in P1 for all four sessions. The car was flying but Ben from JDS was on our tail for the final and it took one final banzai lap to regain first place. Luckily we did it with an amazing time of 1:29.763 separating us and JDS by only 0.185 of a second and beating the 8 year standing record of Kev Horsley. We have also finally gained 1st place in the championship standing.
Now preparing for Croft for a double header on 2nd and 3rd September. We already hold the lap record from last year. Wish us luck as we hopefully can continue on our record breaking winning stream.
There is a lot of hard work and sacrifice to get to this level. Chevron Motorsport have done an amazing job building and transforming an amazing winning car. In particular Simon and Jon that spend countless hours maintaining and developing new things on the car. The helpers that travel long distances to help out on the days, Simon Stanley, Jon Caddick, Kevin Pace, Jean Mark Rapa, Stuart Mason, Dan Lewis, John Felstead and Fred Walton and all the staff at Chevron. Thanks also to the support from our amazing sponsors, ChevronMotorsport, Owen Developments, Radtec, Tracktive, Bachler Racing, Fuchs, Eat my Pixels, Logografix and Whiteline. An amazing team and amazing can that can hopefully keep the Subaru flag flying high in the UK Time Attack Championship.
So what’s about the Maltese Missile thing? It’s a nickname that Mas Yumeda starting using back in 2016 in his commentary box to describe the car on track. It stuck well so we gladly keep it unless he asks for any copyright
For more details about the car please like our facebook page "https://www.facebook.com/JC-Racing-Team-226611420863168"
sure Simon will have you sussed but if your still needing guidance or components brake wise then always happy to help as we do for various competitors..........
Thanks for the offer Alan, It has all been sorted now. The obp brake pedal box was flexing and got worse with time from totally inconsistent barking to lockups and stuck brakes. We binned it and Simon and team have fabricated their own solution that is working pretty well now.
It is a very intersting story actually. The car was a 2005 Maltese import in UK and I bought it from UK and drove it back to Malta in 2010. It was a bog standard wrx (not even an sti). I starting tracking the car in 2011 and pulled it off the road in 2013. Up till then I had bult it myself, a fast track day car at that point. The adometer reads 40k miles at the moment lol, obviously not on the original engine or anything else for that matter.
Since my last update we have been to Croft for a double header and Rockingham for the finals. At Croft on Saturday we had gearlinkage issues with the box, but still managed to overcome the problem and won the event with a new lap record of 1:30.342. It was a great day but we have spent may hours working on fixing the gearbox. Sunday all was fixed and we were all charged up for another great event. Unfortunately in qalifying we have had a catastrofic fail of the front right hub that cut qualifying short. A great jesture from Paul Wright and he lent us his hub from his amazing P1 and staying out for the final himself. Unfrotunately on one of our hot laps the hub failed again at Sunny out and again cutting short what was going to be another lap record. We had to settle for second place with a time of 1:30.282 whilst Bruce took away the lap record from us with a 1:29.457.
We headed to the finals at Rockingham leading the champioship with a 2 point advantage over Bruce Winfield. We knew we had to be right on it and get in front of Bruce to win the championship. Unfortunately we had electical issues in the morning with a failed oil pressure sensor and had to miss both warmup and practice. So after fixing the issue and with no seat time at all, we get out for qualifying when I manage to break the gear linkage once again! Had to settle with doing one lap stuck in 3rd gear and a time of 1:40.508 and 5th position. At this point we thought our championship was over. But Simon and Jon managed to strip the gearbox and fix the linkage in 90 minutes and send me back out for the finals. The gear changes were not great but I pushed the limits of the car to clock a very respectable 1:35.823 and second place behing Alex Bones and in front of Bruce.
This meant that it was down to the wire and with only one point ahead of Bruce we are the 2017 Club 4WD Champions - Subaru FTW!!
excellent result yozef! , well done to you and your team you had your fair share of problems and failures but thats racing i guess. great result beating both evos to the top spot.
28 July 2017, 01:51 PM
Time Attack Subaru - The Maltese Missile
