Dion's Mini

[Dion]

The following Saturday after the Zwartkops race was Killarneys turn to host Passion for speed. Friday practice was off to a bad start. On my first warm up lap going into turn 5 I noticed a huge vibration and then when I pressed the brake pedal there were no brakes. Luckily I was not going fast so I managed to get through the corner and back to the pits. Problem was found almost instantly, the front right wheel appeared loose after jacking up the car we noticed it was wheel bearing failure.




The bearing had welded itself to the CV joint, with an angle grinder we cut off the remains of the bearing from the CV joint. Then a local engineering company at Killarney cleaned up the CV joint shaft on a lathe.

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During Saturday qualifying the car was not stable down the straight and there was another vibration. Back in the pits we found one of the steering arm bolts had come loose, a closer look revealed one of the bolts had stripped. This was repaired and we were ready for the first race.

First lap first corner one of the Golfs did not hold his line and cut me off, he spun in front of me and I ended up T-boning him.








After this knock the handling of the Mini did not feel right, two laps later I had a huge moment when I ran wide in turn 5, this bit of off roading further messed up the handling. After this I had no confidence in the car and just circulated until the end of the race. Second race went ok, but still I had no confidence in the car and I tried to stay with one of Anglias not pushing to hard.

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Damage does not look to bad, but it's going to take sometime to fix.