Morgan Plus4 at the 2012 Caramulo Motorfestival *(2013 update)*

[Hun200kmh]

Some of you here already know about my occasional "hillclimbing" with a Morgan Plus4, ever since I bought the car in 2010. Here the older threads:

Caramulo Motorfestival 2010

Espirito do Caramulo and Motorfestival 2011

Espírito do Caramulo 2012


This last weekend was time for the 2012 edition of the Caramulo Motorfestival, an event based, but not exclusive, to classic and historically relevant vehicles, and where gentlemen-drivers, regardless of any kind of racing license, may take part in a properly organized hillclimb.

This the announcement poster

This time the car classes were not organized according to year of build, but according to type of cars, where my own Morgan was included in the GT class, understood as a class for road-legal cars (the other classes were "Circuit"; "Rally"; "Formulas")

Surprisingly, only 3 cars showed up in the entry list for this class (published a few days before the event. My Morgan, one Porsche 928 and one Porsche 911 SC. Well, it was a guaranteed podium for me or so I thought.


Here my report of what really happened this weekend, as posted yesterday in a social club I belong to within GTPlanet

I
"Morning Has Broken"​

I am native of a small town about 20 kms away from Caramulo and that allows me some comfort, such as the possibility to leave to the race from a house I call "my home".

I woke up early, everyone still asleep, and had my breakfast outside (on the balcony) so I wouldn't wake up anyone. And the most gorgeous sunrise greeted me from behind the litle town's old church. I took two pictures, one of what I had in front of me, the other of my own balcony under that almost "golden" morning light.

Here they are:

II
"And then there were FOUR"​

So, I had learned the previous day that the GT Class had now FOUR entrants, and not the THREE previously announced (my car and 2 Porsches). The Fourth car being a ... Ferrari F355 F1! My first podium finish was at peril !!!

I knew the Porsche 928 and its driver well enough (overall winner of the 2011 Espirito do Caramulo event) to consider them un-catchable. The other two I had no idea, but with such cars I feared I would be locked out of the podium.

Here how it looks. Pretty much a unmodified car, but, as mine, mounted on TOYOS (and he took off also the heavy A/C unit, according to him it didn't work anyway )

Arriving at the Event's location, I immediately spotted the 911 SC and couldn´t help but to notice this was not a normal car. In fact, it had this ominous sticker in the back window saying "Almeras Freres" and was, visibly, a race-prepped car, even if not a full on racing machine.

For those less informed, Almeras is one of the most respected Porsche tuners in Europe, and they do KNOW how to prepare cars to race, they were responsible for cars such as the amazing ... 911 SC ... that won the Monte Carlo and the Tour de Corse against all factory teams in the late seventies.

Here's how it looked. The tyres were also TOYOS:

And now onto the Ferrari. Although I knew its driver from previous editions (used to show up in a AC Cobra) and therefore I had to assume he knew the track well, I was relieved to hear, from him, that: a) He had bought the Ferrari only a few months ago; b) He was going to do the climbs with regular tyres; c) He was going to be careful.

But then I got worried when he said to me, with a smile "Don't worry, I'll go slow!" I know this usually means the exact opposite and also understood, quite clearly, also from both Porsche drivers, that nobody wanted their 300 bhp+ german or italian beauties to be put to shame by a litle funny looking car with wooden wheel, wired wheels and a 138 bhp engine taken from a bloody Ford Focus or Mondeo.

Anyway, the Ferrari was indeed a beautiful car, and the sound of its engine was just ... wow ... here how it looked in parc fermé, before we all started our climbs:

III
"And so it Begins"

SATURDAY (Sept 8th) - One practise climb + One race climb

The 1st practise climb produced the following results:

1st place Porsche 928 - 1.45,704
Comment - in front as expected, warming up to his own previous best of a low 1.43, a time I guessed nobody else would reach

2nd place - Morgan Plus4 - 1.47,358
Comment - a new personal best (previous at 1.47,9xx) and that was pleasing, I thought I could do a litle better, didn't want to think of a particular target at that moment

3rd place - Ferrari F355 F1 - 1.51,333
Comment - Hardly surprising for a first run, considering that my own personal best with road tyres was 1.53,9xx. He could clearly do better, the question was only "how much better".

4th place - Porsche 911 SC - 1.57,613
Comment - Only after this first run I understood two things, talking to the 911 driver up there before we were ordered to "return to base". a) He had just done the track for the first time in his life. b) He was the car's owner, a huge 911 fan (has 6 of them ) and it was him that sent the car to France/Almeras to be prepared for "some fun". He got the car back only a few weeks before the event and almost didn't try it. So ... nothing conclusive could be drawn from this first run



Then 1st race climb produced the following results:

1st place Porsche 928 - 1.43,333
Comment - 2,5 seconds better, not surprising from this guy, my guess was that he had it done and dusted already (the class win), he could even miss the rest of the event

2nd place - Morgan Plus4 - 1.47,140
Comment - again a new personal best, but by only 2 tenths. However, I made a time costly mistake during this climb and it was a surprise for me that I had bettered the previous run. I tried to keep it low, but started to hope for a 1.46 run, or even 1.45 run this year.

3rd place - Porsche 911 SC - 1.49,316
Comment - Yowza! He took 8 seconds away from his first run! My "lead" over 3rd got reduced to litle more than 2 seconds. Uh oh ....

4th place - Ferrari F355 F1 - 1.50,376
Comment - One second best than the previous run. That's more "normal", and to be expected. But he's out of the podium now, will he react?

And so ended our first day!

IV
"Up the Mountain Again"

SUNDAY (Sept 9th) - One practise climb + Two race climbs


The 2nd practise climb produced the following results:

1st place Porsche 928 - 1.43,908
Comment - ... cruise mode ...

2nd place - Morgan Plus4 - 1.47,097
Comment - a third successive personal best, by a mere 4 hundreths of a second, but I was a little frustrated this time. Apparently, the cold morning asphalt meant we couldn't do much better but I'm too rookie to understand these things clearly

3rd place - Ferrari F355 F1 - 1.49,236
Comment - A-ha ... The Maranello man wanted a podium after all. Another second shaved off from the previous run, with two runs to do he might end up doing 1.47 .... uh oh again!


4th place - Porsche 911 SC - 1.50,993
Comment - Don't know what happened (mistake? Scary moment?) but it was very clear that he wasn't happy to be fourth again. And it was now apparent that the Ferrari and the 911 were having a private fight, and also that I could end up being the victim of it. Oh well ...



Then the 2nd race climb produced the following results:

1st place Porsche 928 - 1.43,425
Comment - ... cruise mode ...

2nd place - Morgan Plus4 - 1.44,904
Comment - I couldn't believe it. I had shaved off more than two full seconds from my previous best. I was elated but also got to say that for the first time since I'm doing these climbs, some "fear factor" made its appearance. Slight, and didn't make me lift off, but it did. Anyway, this time proved essential to keep me in second because 1.47 was no longer enough, as I would soon find

3rd place - Porsche 911 SC - 1.46,716
Comment - And there you go ... almost 3 seconds from his previous race run. Would he be happy and satisfied with it. Well, no .... because I escaped him again, and because he didn't clearly escape the Ferrari, as follows

4th place - Ferrari F355 F1 - 1.46,884
Comment - ... No comment needed, the race was still on and it would be the last climb to clear it all!


INTERMISSION

To say this. Just before we set off for the last run the 928 driver comes to me and asks if I think my 2nd place is safe. My reply is "no, they improve seconds with each run they do".

And then he says "that means you'll push a litle more again, isn't it?" and I say "Yes".

Then he says "Then I need to push too". I protest that I am almost 2 seconds behind him and there's no way my car does a low 1.43. He says "you never know".

I thought he was being funny and just cheering me up in a strange way

END OF INTERMISSION



And finally the 3rd - AND LAST - race climb then produced the following results:

1st place Porsche 928 - 1.42,922
Comment - ... he pushed ...

2nd place - Morgan Plus4 - 1.43,637
Comment - ... and he didn't need to do it, but only just (his previous best was a 1.43,333). As for me, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw my result. Got to say, again, that I took some risks and had my front tyres complaining a lot in many places right and left.

3rd place - Porsche 911 SC - 1.45,632
Comment - He took another 1,1 sec off his time. Was a bit dissapointed that I escaped again, but in the end happy because ...

4th place - Ferrari F355 F1 - 1.48,424
Comment - ... The guy from the Ferrari did something he shouldn't. He switched the suspension setting to "SPORT" to try something clever, but that changed his car's behaviour entirely and without prior testing he had to take care and back off.

And therefore, this was the order when we descended the mountain for the final time:

1st
Porsche 928
1.42,922

2nd
Morgan Plus4
1.43,637

3rd
Porsche 911 SC
1.45,632

4th
Ferrari F355 F1
1.46,884

​

Thanks for reading, I'll just leave here another three pics and a video.

One of the pics was taken by my son Duarte when I passed the corner where he was at during one of the climbs, and he is very proud of it:

The other pic is a funny one, of my own wrist wearing a "rubber-wrist-band" (don't know how this is called in English ) offered and sent to me by jjaisli (GTPlanet member and a friend). With two interesting mottos I tried to take as guidelines in this event. One is shown in the picture, "YOUR BEST BEHIND THE WHEEL". The other? Well, something I did. "SURVIVE THE DRIVE".

The third pic ... my podium moment. It happened more than one hour after the event was finished and, apparently, I was the only one without civilian clothes in my "assistance" car (my wife's )

And finally a video from one of this years climbs. If you hear the 911 leaving before my own car you'll understand how I had to compensate over the corners all the seconds I would lose in the few straight sections.

​

The End​

PS - For now ...

 

[TheCracker]

Great write-up once again Mario. 👍

Congratulations on the result!

Reducing your time on every session is very satisfying and considering the competition you were up against, i bet you are very proud of your second place.

 

[MagpieRacer]

Very nice write up! Congratulations on the result as well, some tough competition out there. Looks like a hell of a lot of fun.

 

[Hun200kmh]

Thanks guys

The funny thing is that my car never gets much attention, even the speaker of the event, speaking at length of every car before they departed (amazing 928, fantastic 911, fabulastic F355 F1 ... ) clearly didn't have a clue what a Morgan was or what to say about it

I felt many times like Mike Wazowski. To those that remember "Monsters Inc." and this scene

[Mike and Sulley watch a commercial featuring them, but Mike is covered over by the Monsters Inc. logo]
Mike: I can't believe it...
Sulley: Oh, Mike...
Mike: I was on TV. Ha. Did you see me? I'm a natural.

You'll see what I mean when watching this video. Skip to 0:55 or close and you'll see the GT Class cars aligning to start, starting with the Porsche 928. And my comment to that video's got to be

"I was on YT. Ha. Did you see me? I'm a natural!"

​

 

[Hun200kmh]

Litle post just to share with you guys that I went up the hill this month again, in the 2013 edition of this event.

Compared to last year's 1'43,637 I managed again to improve, but this time only a tenth, to a new record of 1'43,520. But I think I'm reaching the limit of what I can do with this car, still totally stock (only the TOYO tyres to help).

And ... this year I had a "moment". To cut the story short, I had 2 practise climbs and 3 race climbs.

These were my practise runs:

FP1 - 1'45,187 (warming up)

FP2 - 1'43,629 - better than the previous record by a hundredth of a second


And these my "race" runs:

R1 - 1'43,520 - better again, new record set a tenth faster than the previous.

R2 - 2'41,759 - Things were going so well I tried to better the car by changing tyre pressures. Obviously this was stupid at this point in the event, and I paid the price. See video below

R3 - 1'44,436 - a bit shaken, unsure of grip ... did one full second worse than what I could do.

Since final classification was set by each driver's best run, time lost in the 2nd run didn't matter and in the end I still managed 2nd in class and another trophy to my small collection. Was fun, and I was (very) lucky, all things considered.



Just watch my "problem" happening, in the 2nd run, here:






Sadly I don't have my best run (the 1st) recorded, so if anyone wants to check a complete climb from this year I only have the 3rd one (1'44,436), here:




Enjoy!

 

[jjaisli]

I've said it before when I first saw that video, you're very lucky considering how narrow the road was and how close your front end came to the Armco. Potentially, this could have been a very expensive spin. But I smile every time I watch it. Kudos for pulling through. 👍 And another very impressive second place. Especially considering the competition.

 

[Hun200kmh]

Calling this "luck" is a nice way to put it, I bet you're one of those guys trained in motivational speech

But thanks. Again.

 

[jjaisli]

No, not as such. But considering:

1) You were really pushing
2) You were facing some stiff competition
3) You spun, 180 degrees, on a narrow stretch of twisty mountain road, and yet managed to avoid the armco (in reality, I believe it was much closer than it appeared due to the camera angle)
4) Despite this, you not only drove away undamaged but managed to hold onto your second place.

I would say that's pretty lucky no matter how one looks at it. 👍

 

[TheCracker]

Congrats on the 2nd in class Mario 👍

I had a similar spin in the cortina a few months back, but probably at a slower speed, back end let go and just pushed the front end off the track, unfortunately the barriers were only a few metres from the edge and had no tyres covering them at that point. Cue slow but sickening crunch, was one of those spins where you're just a passenger. Yours looked the same. Thankfully you got it stopped in time.

 

[Hun200kmh]

Thanks Jeff, "bad luck" definitely features the word "luck" in it too

And thanks Dan, I'm sad to hear about your car, hope everything got fixed without any major spending needed.

I keep looking for news on your racing but either you aren't posting them or for some reason I have been failing to notice your posts. Thought about you a few months back when I read that a Mini driver had a fatal accident in what I think was a race from the kind you also attend. I looked and no Cortina was involved, I think a Falcon or some other big american car was.

Again, thanks for the nice words. 👍

 

[TheCracker]

And thanks Dan, I'm sad to hear about your car, hope everything got fixed without any major spending needed.

I keep looking for news on your racing but either you aren't posting them or for some reason I have been failing to notice your posts. Thought about you a few months back when I read that a Mini driver had a fatal accident in what I think was a race from the kind you also attend. I looked and no Cortina was involved, I think a Falcon or some other big american car was.

Thanks, wasn't too much damage thankfully, bent it back into shape enough to race the following day.

Didn't have much of a season last year, plenty of starts, but not many laps completed for one reason or another. Had the new 'Appendix K' Cortina up and running about half way through the season, but it handled like a pig. Had the chassis straightened on a jig over the winter and it handles a lot better now, but it's still a work in progress. Managed to put a big hole in the block of the original car early on this year, so that's been out of service since. I've got one more race the middle of next month, so i'll probably do a thread on my 2012 and 2013 seasons after that. if i can remember what happened all those months ago

Yeah, very sad about the Christian Devereux(sp?) accident. He races in a similar series to ours, but has never raced with us, so i didn't know the guy, but the incident did send shock waves throughout the community in general. i guess it was just a bit of a freak accident as it wasn't at a particularly fast part of Donington Park.