November 2023

BSC History pages revamped

I've spent a few evenings working on the BSC History site, and the reports are working really well now. Most pages have tables which have hyperlinks inside them, to drivers, or cars, or years, that allow you to drill right down in to the data and have a good poke around. I hope you can spare a few minutes to have a look round.

I've just received a Wera Tools Advent Calendar in the post; I won it in a competition organised by Motorsport UK. Thankyou to MSUK and Wera Tools. I'm looking forwards to opening it tomorrow.

Some more good news for me, I've had another contract extension through, to guarantee me some more work for the next 12 months, which will allow me to compete again for another season in the championship. I can continue to code, and work on Azure and AWS platforms, mostly in PHP and Python, as a DevSecOps engineer, which is what I love doing. Cant ask for more than that.

I've altered the Google Adsense advert placement and frequency settings, for the site, so you may see one or two more adverts, on pages as you navigate. I dont make a great deal of money from them, the revenue just about covers the web site hosting costs for the year. On youtube I'm a long way away from being monetised. I've almost reached 500 subscribers, but I'm light years off meeting the other requirements to qualify, such as getting 10 Million views of video's LOL

2024 calendar

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2024 calendar - 44 run offs!!!!

After the awards presentation, the BSC calendar for 2024 was read out, and next year we have even more events! What total madness. We will have 22 days racing, which amounts to 44 run offs. And six of those dates are single day events. Cadwell, then Mallory Park the day after, and once again in June, and Lydden, Llandow and Castle Combe.

Some better news is that it sounds like we will be only dropping 25% of the rounds though, so for dropped scores anyone with a chance of winning the title will need to do the minimum of 33 run offs, or in other words, attend 17 days. Thats not good, that wont attract more people to enter the championship. It needs to be 30 rounds with best 24 to count, same as the BHC. Not only that, but we wont know who is in the lead until Knockhill in September!

There is a new sponsor for next year, which is Woodford Trailers. Good to see them on board.

There are going to be new classes for ModProd and Sports Libre, but again, what is the point if there are no class awards to be fought for? To counteract that, there is going to be a 'discount' scheme for anyone wanting to enter Sprint Leaders and the BSC, just to win a class award. But you may as well merge the two?

The Sprint Leaders awards was a tiresome affair, with awards given to several class winners where there was only one car registered in the class. Again, reintroduce the BSC class awards, and guess what, you'd have more than one car in each class so there would be bragging rights in winning the class! Where is the honour in winning an award for a class when there's no competition? I came first in the BARC-Midlands Championship class 5E, but as the only driver in that class, dont expect to get an award, which is how it should be. That's how most championships work, isn't it?

Awards

It's the awards presentation on Sunday, where I collect my second place championship trophy. That's all I get though, nothing else, thats the issue with finishing runner up I suppose LOL, I was runner up in almost all the other categories too.

But what I did do was finish as the highest ever points scorer in the championship in one season, with 909 points. But does that win me an award? Er no, but there is an award for the highest points scorer, but that didnt go to me, as its the "highest counting scores" that determines the highest points scored, whatever that means. But every round is a counting round, and I went to every round.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've just ordered some more 3D prints, I'm going to try a printed PA12 nylon reluctance ring for the FTR gearbox, and a printed trigger disk for the front wheels. These will use steel dowels that push in to the printed rings, to provide the trigger for the induction sensors. I'll test them out on the bench before I fit them to the car. Delivery is two weeks.

Header tank removed

I've removed the header tank, and immediately spotted an issue with it, which I've resolved. I'll keep an eye on it next year, to make sure it doesnt happen again. The tank is marked up and ready for modification, I'll take it over to Altiss this week. Once it returns, I'll give it a clean and a polish, and then modify the wiring to allow the sensor to be connected to the ECU.


I'm writing up a season review, with lessons learnt. Once I've finished it, I'll publish it on the web site. Some sobering lessons on what not to do at an event, like turning off traction control for example, that cost me a win at Pembrey. And using 6th gear at Blyton, which was clearly slower than using 5th, again another win thrown away and a potential 4 out of 4 run off wins in one weekend! What could have been eh! I only lost the championship by one win (9 vs 10), and one bonus point (2 vs 3), which was 2 points in total. I do remember having a conversation with Steve Miles earlier in the season saying it would come down to bonus points (for breaking class records). I was right.

Speaking of bonus points, we're still not sure what rule changes if any are going to be made. One rumour was the bonus points would be removed, but the organisers dont appear to want to listen to the drivers, and with just one year left under the wing of the HSA, it may not even exist after 2024, with drivers frustrated by the lack of direction. The championship has lost SBD Motorsport as the title sponsor (Steve Broughton has sold the business and is taking retirement), so we dont even know what the branding will be next year. The BSC isnt alone with the uncertainty though. The BARC Connaught championship I ran in this year, in which I was first in class and finished 4th overall, still hasnt even published the official final list of winners! I finished first in the Goldfinch Trophy, but there is a question about eligibility for the award, which hasn't yet been verified. And it has a first prize of £100 which would be a nice reward for winning.

We dont know next years calendar yet, that'll probably be announced at the awards on the 19th. We know Cadwell was meant to be the first round again, with two visits to Mallory park, a full weekend at Knockhill in September (lets pray the weather is kinder this time), one Blyton, probably two Pembreys again, two Angleseys, two Lyddens, one Kirkistown, and again, before you know it, we have too many rounds and a huge percentage of dropped scores again, which makes it all a bit of a nonsense really. I'd like to see 30 rounds (two rounds per day, so thats 15 days of driving) and 25% dropped scores, which will make for a far more attractive championship for some.

For me, that'd be Anglesey (April), Blyton (May), Pembrey (June), Snetterton (June), Lydden (July), Kirkistown (August), Knockhill (September), and Anglesey (September) for the grand final. No more events in March or October when the weather is crap! That would give 15 days, or 30 rounds. Far more affordable.