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We're not going to be doing a huge amount of track time in the Juno this year due to work and other holiday commitments sadly. But we've done a couple (Silverstone and Brands Hatch) and have a few left (the annual Spa/Zandvoort double header and a day at Croft).
Silverstone was going fine until the brake pedal hit the floor when I was driving. That turned out to be air in the rear line which we thought we'd bled enough after the clutch replacement, obviously not. In the course of diagnosing the massive vibration I was now getting through the wheel (I'd flat spotted one of the fronts trying to stop it) we found a lower front ball joint to be so worn we daren't actually run on it until replaced. Giving the four corners a shake test we also found one of the rear wheel bearings to be on it's way out. It cut our day short at lunchtime, but the car was running so well up to that point and we're loving the new Silverstone layout. It's a definite Juno favourite.
We swapped the bearings and went to Brands. No such issues this time (though the exhaust clips keep breaking, it's on the list to sort before Spa). What it did allow us to do however is meet Ewan (Mr Juno) and his crew as they were there with a couple of works drivers and the new car. All thoroughly nice chaps.
We were also garaged next to Ed, another Juno track dayer. What transpired between Ed and the Juno guys was that we're so off the pace with this car it's untrue. Now a lot of that will be circuit unfamiliarity as we'd never been before and a large number of red flags wasn't exactly helping us learn it. But it still doesn't change that the pair of them were lapping us within a 20 minute session like we were stood still. On the one hand that's awesome as it still means we have a lot to learn with this car, on the other it is a little soul destroying just how much quicker they are. We'll get there, and at somewhere we know like Spa, I suspect the difference wouldn't be quite so dramatic. From the logs it looks like the fastest lap we managed (actually me for a change, though Colin really wasn't having luck with his sessions) was a 1.42. I think the other guys must have been at least 10 seconds faster than us. Sadly there's no footage as another thing that needs sorting is the camera, it's also on the list.
Ah yes, then there's the Christine reference at the top of the screen. It seems our car was christened Christine at the factory when it was first built. It simply wouldn't run right and was stripped and re-built so many times that it ended up being named after John Carpenter's psychotic car of the same name (based on a Stephen King book. Both John and Steve have made better...). The fault was eventually traced to a faulty loom that was replaced, but not before the name stuck. I suppose it didn't help that it's also chassis number 13.
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