OUMF Race Report Donington Masters Historic Festival, August 3rd 2024 - One Month to Build a Race Car

On June 24th the OUMF student team returned victorious from a week of serious stage rallying in Belgium with their Riley 1.5 after scoring yet another Class win on their 10th Ypres Rally. Hardly had the DFDS ‘floating palace’ of a ferry disgorged the team at Dover before our attention turned back to competition on track - and the mammoth task of getting the 1959 Elva Courier Mk 2 back to race fettle for what would be its first race in 15 years. We knew the format for the Goodwood Revival’s ‘Fordwater Trophy’ had reverted to ‘production-based sports cars up to 1960’, and that as the Elva is an original ‘Goodwood’ car that raced there in period (and in 4 Revivals too) it might be in with a chance of being invited again. However, as no invitation had arrived, we reckoned that getting it out on track at this big meeting at Donington, and trying to catch the eye of the Goodwood scouts, represented the best, and possibly only chance of getting the car invited back.

​ So work began immediately, with Ethan Wakeman and Tom Leclaire focusing on the loom and dashboard, fitting the clocks and gauges beautifully restored by Speedycables and Cartek’s clever power modules. Charlie’s Lemme and Stratton sorted the seat, the Lifeline harness and extinguisher system, the floor, and, with the great help of Raceparts UK, the steering column and bulkheads. James Biley and I attacked the engine, and the more work we did on it, the more problems revealed themselves, and the effects of its 15 years of hibernation multiplied. Sorting out so many issues, as well as having to race prepare both the Riley 1.5 racer and the Sebring Sprite for the two car weekend of racing at Snetterton with the HRDC, meant the chances of a glorious Elva return were looking ever more bleak. Undeterred by this, the OUMF team worked like crazy, and after a final week of long days and late nights, and help from BTB Exhausts, it finally ran - but only after working right through the night on the Friday, and just hours before our departure to Snetterton on the Saturday! However, with zero testing, and 20 year old Dunlop tyres, we wisely took the Sprite and the Riley to Snetterton, and scored another Class win in the Riley, which also provided the best photo of the year!

​Back in Oxford on the Monday, we were expecting to road test the Elva, but clutch issues meant we lost light and another day. The clutch would continue to stymie our progress until the following week, but after changing countless release bearings, master and slave cylinders and clutch stops, the Elva finally hauled itself out of the workshop under its own steam.

All hands on the Elva after returning from a test drive

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​Ding was soon at the helm and, looking like one of the Wright brothers in leather helmet and goggles to ward off bumblebees, he ventured out onto the road.  Following him in the mighty Subaru (2012 XV 137,000 miles, recent new clutch and flywheel £3195 open to offers! :) we watched the Elva scamper away down the road as she slowly started to remember she was a race car again. The following few days leading up to Donington was spent hastily sorting minor electrical gremlins and effecting other minor tweaks, and, most importantly fitting new tyres kindly provided by Paul Phillips at Phillips Tyres. By the Saturday afternoon before the Donington Masters races, the Elva was loaded and the van was packed.

The journey went smoothly and we were soon setting up in the paddock. Ding went off to see the organisers and explain why our grey Sebring Sprite that was on the entry sheet had turned red and lost its roof. Fortunately Glyn, the HRDC Clerk of the Course, was very understanding, and the Elva was swiftly substituted, signed on and ready. After another amazing meal in the Nags Head, the rest of the evening was spent doing our regular late night track walk and a test to see how many OUMF members my Subaru windscreen could hold (the answer is no more than 2).

We awoke on Sunday morning, expecting just our normal pre-race checks, but half an hour before qualifying the fuel pump packed up. We had no like-for-like spare, so we all combed the paddock looking for a replacement to borrow. Fortunately Westbourne very kindly came to our aid, and we got the pump fitted and the engine started just in time.

the Elva Ready to Race on Sunday Morning  

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An immense feeling of pride ran through the team as we watched Ding take the first few corners from the pit lane. As the new tyres were scrubbed in and Ding's confidence in the car grew, the lap times steadily started to drop. We couldn’t believe our eyes as car number 11 just kept on working its way up the leader board, 5th, now 4th, now 3rd in Class. With just 2 minutes to go, Ding leapfrogged the MGB of Nick Morrison and set us up 2 rows behind the Class leader in the very well-prepped TVR Grantura.

However, on the Elva’s return to the paddock it was clear we had a busy few hours ahead of us before the afternoon's race. The first cause for concern was the rear left wheel which was covered in brake fluid - and we soon had the car in the air to investigate. The piston seals in the brake cylinder were found to be the culprits and the cylinder was duly rebuilt. Meanwhile at the front of the car, the team was trying to diagnose why the Elva had dropped a cylinder after the end of the session and had come spluttering back into the paddock. Sure enough the plugs looked like they’d done a 12 hour shift in a coal mine! But with the limited time available, a clean up and telling Ding to keep the revs up was the best we were going to do. Returning to the rear of the car, things were getting slightly more concerning as the spare seals we had were not going to fit. So we cleaned the old seals and cylinder, and just had to pray it would last the half an hour race. All other checks and repairs were completed and we waited nervously for the call to assembly. The Elva was warmed up, and as Ding hadn’t yet done a race start in the Elva, he tried and got a slap on the wrist for doing a practice start in a quiet area of the paddock before it was sent on it’s way to the pits for its big moment.

completing qualifying in 2nd place

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The grid lined up after the green flag lap, the engine revs rose, and everyone waited for the lights on the gantry to go out. As they did, we watched with nervous excitement as - despite the lack of practice starts - the Elva launched herself, past two rows of the grid before Turn One! Ding was soon eyeing up the dark green TVR as the amazing start had put him right on the bumper of his rival. 3 laps in we watched in awe from above the Craner curves as Ding threw a move right in front of us, and with the Grantura dispatched, the only thing our little race car had left to beat was the clock. The next 15 minutes felt like an eternity as every new lap was greeted with a sigh of relief as we spotted a red dot fly down the main straight, still at racing speed. As we watched him pass by for the final time, we knew we would only have to see car number 11 on the main straight one more time and we would’ve done it. Sure enough a minute later Ding brought it over the line to a Class victory for the Elva in her first race in 15 years. After working so hard over the preceding month to make this happen the team couldn’t have been prouder of each other in what we had achieved. I think we can all agree that for a bunch of heavily sleep-deprived students, with little to no race experience, to build a class winning car in such a short period of time is mightily impressive; it is an experience I will most certainly look back on with a huge amount of pride and happiness. We owe so much to Julius Thurgood and the HRDC for enabling this experience, and to Phillips Tyres, Cartek, Speedycables, RacepartsUK, OCS, MDS, Fuchs, Richard Moore, Helix Autosport, Lifeline, P1 Fuels, BTB Exhausts, Powerlite, Think Automotive, Stack, Tillet Seats, Bilstein, and so many other great OUMF sponsors and supporters who made it possible.
Lastly, thank you to Ding for being crazy enough to hurl yourself towards a corner at over 100 miles an hour in a 65 year old wood and fiberglass tub, built mostly by us lot; we really couldn’t do it without you!

Tom Reid – Motorsport Engineering, Oxford Brookes.

PS The Elva received the invitation to the Revival, and we raced it at Goodwood 2024! :)…but that’s another, great, story...