On BBC Radio Norfolk you can hear Mat From Mat Smith Sports Cars and Lead Driver Martin Crass ( Martin was at the first ever race in 1989) talking to Phil Daley for a look at the world of motor sport in Norfolk and this weekends TVR race at Snetterton on 12/13 July. You can follow the show via the internet here live and also on the radio. The show to look out for is Petrol heads at 18:00 on the 10th July link to the show...
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Whilst we’ve been busy working on customer cars we’ve not forgotten our own Chimaera race car. The roll cage has been made for it and will be fitted to the car shortly, but whilst we had a moment we added the TVR Challenge Logos to see what the car will look like when it hits the track in anger....
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After Selling his Tuscan race car at the end of last season, Martin Crass found that he just couldn’t keep away. So we have sourced another Tuscan, the ex Micheal Cain Car, last run in the challenge by John Seery. The Car has been recommissioned here at Mat Smith Sports cars with some updates for reliability and the car setup to suit Martins preferences. The First outing for the new car will be at Snetteron on the 12th and 13th of July. With martin back in a car with us we are hoping for some great results. We look forward to seeing some of you at the...
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Mat Smith Sports Cars will be at Snetterton on the 8th Februay 2014 with our development Chimaera. We will be fine tuning out latest changes to the car and the...
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Today in the workshop we have the TVR Chimaera of Graham Walden the 2013 Clacc B champion from the TVR championship. Graham brought his car over from Worcester to have its Suspension Set up and 4 wheel aligned after He carried out a body off Restoration complete with new wishbones and bushes Whilst Graham has set up many a successful race car, When it came to having his road car setup he brought it to us at Mat Smith Sportscars after driving our own development Chimaera. ” With the road car I have no base date to set the car up, only the original TVR settings. Knowing Mat through competing against race cars he has setup I was more than happy to take my Chimaera to him to use his experience to put a setup on the car that would suit me. Driving Mats development Chimaera first only confirmed my thoughts. The Hunter computer alignment tools they have in the workshop is also a lot easier to use than the setup poles, string and ruler we use on the race cars, It also handily prints out a setup sheet for our records” Graham...
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After a busy season working on customers road and race cars, and enjoying some late summer sun in our project chimaera. Mat managed to escape the workshop and find some track time, taking the chimaera for its first test at a Snetterton afternoon trackday. To find a good base line to judge all our upgrades the car is still in fairly standard trim, just having been treated to a good service and fluid changes. The brakes are still standard other than using DS 2500 pads and dot 5.1 brake fluid to help the stoppers stay stopping! The car ran perfectly with no overheating or other niggles you might expect for its first venture on to track after 70,000 miles on the road, obviously benefiting from a good service and a specialist checkover! Mat was still running the tyres the car came with a mixed set of Continental on the front and Hankook on the rear. This combination provided understeer on entry and huge power oversteer on exit. To fit in the car with a helmet on Mat had to run with the roof off, and it sounds like one of the first modifications will be to replace the seat with something that allows him to get lower in the car and also holds the driver in position, rather than sliding around the car. Overall it was a great first test. a really good idea of where the car stands at the moment and what needs to be done to make it better. The driver also needs a bit of fine tuning as the learning curve from road to track is very steep! together with seat mods we will now start to look at improving the turn in and slow speed cornering. It will be interesting to see the impact of a matched set of new tyres on the handling. We’ll keep you updated here with Mat and the cars journey from road to track. ...
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