After returning from the nordschleife Saturday night i went to the dutch national championship track and field. The stadium of Amsterdam is really close to my house so i could get some rest before i went there. It was a nice competition but nothing really exciting happened. The only disappointment was that after the competition it started to rain and all the equipment had to go completely wet inside the truck. The next event is in Uden this Saturday.

For the first time i went to a race on the world famous Nordschleife in Nürburg, Germany. For all the impresive fact about the track check this wikipedia link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCrburgring.

map

When we arrived on Thursday the weather was really bad but luckily there was a nice hospitality tent to stay warm and dry. Friday we had a free practice at four o`clock. The weather was nice and Michiel Campagne the driver of the Yellow corvette stingray was ready to go on the circuit. When we arrived in the pit lane the Marshall made a signal to start the engine. In a split second he told to stall the engine again. He said that we had to put in some dampers. So Roald our Truck driver/mechanic rushed to the trailer to get them. In the mean time i started disassembling the exhaust on the car. In 5 or 10 min all the dampers where in. Michiel started on his lap and after 12 min there was still no Michiel at the track. After 13 min he returned in the pit lane without oil pressure. After some quick checks of the electronic pressure measurement system we found out that it only had 0.5 BAR of pressure. We decided to take the car back to the engine builder the same night.

After a 2.5 hour drive we arrived there to do a series of tests on the engine. All without any success and the engine builder wanted to keep the car to check it the next day. Up till now he checked the complete engine and his conclusion is that it has to be something with the cooling system. We went back to Nürburg to have a Power nap for the next day.

Saturday Peter van Hoepen was the only one that could drive and Michiel was there to support him. Peter had never driven on the Nordschleife so the qualifying was one big mystery of corners. He managed to get to the 4th place on the grid with his Corvette Stingray Roadster. In the 100Km race he managed to get to the 2nd place overall. It was a nice experience for him to visit this circuit.

Now everybody at tachyon is going to prepare a few cars for the next race at Silverstone, england.

For the 4th tiem the drakenboot festival is held in apeldoorn. For me photo finish at dragon boat races was completely new. But with my experience in shorrtack skating i managed to do it right. after some rain and starting up problems everything worked perfectly. I always thought that dragon boat racing was not close but some boats only crossed the line 0.01 second from each other. On Sunday we tested our competition software and it worked good enough for the first time. Our software expert is going to improve it for next time so we can use it even better next time.

here a photo a small photo collection i made of this event.

Every year there is one track and filed competition in the middle of the week. This competition is held at the beautiful campus of Papendal. It was a pretty normal competition and everything went pretty smooth. The only thing that is different there is that a lot of cables are to short to reach the inside of the track. This needs some creative thinking to make al the right connections.

This weekend i have a weekend off and then i’m going to do photofinish at a dragon boat competition. ( That is completly new for me )

After a complete overhauling of my lowrider i made a test lap of 40 Km. The night before i managed to adjust the bearings in the rear wheel together with my uncle. He has more then 15 experience with bike repair. After placing 2 washers in the rear axle it was running smooth again. During the test ride my shifter was not working well and i was thinking about the solution all the way. I Knew that the two gears small gears in the rear derailleur have a up and a down gear. Usually there is a mark on them that says up and down but this time there wasn’t any. So Monday night i switched the gears and it shifted perfect. This problem had to do with the difference in play that the gears have. On has only axial play and the other can have play in more directions.

here is an old picture of the bike

Last Saturday the people that work at Tachyon started building the new nose section. Monday i took a look at the construction process and everything is going well so far. This Thursday the Mclaren is going to do a shake down at Zolder, Belgium. After that it is going to be shipped to America for a race on the Laguna Seca race way this august.

Last Saturday i went to the gouden spike track and field competition in Leiden. Together with my colleagues of PB-Event we installed the complete sound system. The weather was nice and dry so it was easy to break everything down again at the end of the day. It was a long competition and Ron and i where really happy when it ended. During the opening the chairman of the organising club and somebody from the local city council where there to do the honors of opening the competition.

Next wednesday i’m going to the Papendal games. I will give an update on that as well. 

Early in the season all the best eight clubs from holland came to vught to decided who has the best club team in track and field.

Starting at 6.15 it was going to be a long day. Together with Ron and Piet we prepared all the equipment to have a good audio system around the track. Everything went smooth and we had everything running around 10.00. At 11.00 the competition started with the first event. at 11.45 we had the official opening with the national anthem of the Netherlands. National anthems are always a exciting moment because u don’t want anything to go wrong at that time.

The most exciting moment in the competition is always the final 4 x 400M Relay with a lot of chaos in the area around the finish line.

After a long day of competitions at was time to get all the equipment in the van again and we where ready to go to the BBQ in front of the restaurant of the track.

results and more pictures www.athleticsonline.info 

To restore my corrado’s original look i got some BBS rims from a friend. They where not as sharp looking as they where supposed to. I brought them to a company who made them straight and removed the damaged from the edges. Now they are ready to go to a powder coating shop so they will look brand new.

Two weeks after the last race at Spa all the cars gathered for the 60 year anniversary of the Zandvoort race track.

On Friday only three cars entered the track for the free practice and everything went well for them.

On Saturday all the cars drove the time-practice to determine the place on the start grid for the first race that afternoon. Like the good old times i had to keep the Matra Djet running. This year the Djet is driven by Dirk Jansen. Dirk Managed to drive a lap of 2.19 a new record for the Djet. Last Year maarten andDirk both got stuck aroundthe 2.22-2.24 but Dirk found out how to go faster now. In Spa the rear wheel got damaged so Dirk had to drive with a welded wheel at Zandvoort. The wheel didn’t cosed any problem. This time it was the gearbox again. After a few laps Dirk lost his third gear. So i took out the gearbox and after that i dissembled it together with Ronald Glenn. Ronald Glenn has become a expert on Matragearboxes after some earlier overhauling. After a quick look we found out that the fork that moves the gears was broken and needed to be welded. At 23.30 Ronald managed to get the gearbox in one piece again and we mounted it with a few bolds. Then i went straight to bed to rest because on Sunday the Blue Corvette was also coming to the circuit.

At 6.00 i started on finishing the mounting of the gearbox and al the other stuff that is connected to it. Andi went for a test ride. After a few meters i found out that it didn’t had 2nd gear but all the other gears where working. After my small tour the gearbox got stuck again.  It was a big struggle to get to the paddock again. Then maarten used (after trying everything else) a hammer to get it out and then it worked again only still without 2nd gear. Dirk started the race andmanaged to drive the hole race without second gear.

On Sunday the Corvette also arrived and it needed still some work and a lot of stickers. This time David Hart was going to drive the car. He managed to go pretty fast through the field but then he had to stop with drive line problems. Also the car was making to much noise even with the dampers installed in the exhaust.