We went to Brands Hatch today for a track evening with Track Obsession. The Clio had been sat on the drive since it had come back from Donington Park in March. It had not done any miles on the road during that time.
The Clio was given a quick check at the weekend and
@EthanMenace found that both of the front electric windows were no longer working. He did a deep dive in the the electrics and worked out that the drivers side motor was dead and the passenger side was just not functioning. After several hours of investigations he traced the fault to a fuse box that we did not know existed. Once the fuse was replaced and the blown motor was replaced the windows started to work again.
The weather forecast for tonight had been rain, but today the forecast changed. It rained in the afternoon and then did not rain again. We got to Brands Hatch about 4pm and there was an Everyman track day going on. There were lots of very expensive super cars being driven around the track very slowly by people having experience days. These cars were very helpfully drying the track out before we could get on track about 5.30pm.
The range of Renault machinery tonight was limited to 2 Clio 182s, another Clio 200, the battered Track Obsession 197, and two Megane 250s.
We missed the sighting laps but got started just before 6pm and Ethan had a 30 minute session on track. The Clio was performing well. We removed the spacers from the rear axle and it helped with the rear end rotating better through some of the tighter corners. There was some slow traffic on track and other than a few E92 M3s the Clio was able to catch and pass most cars. Ethan managed to do a few 0m 58s lap during this session.
The first session came to an end when a BWM exploded on track and left a long trial of oil and coolant that took a while to clear up.
I jumped in to the car for the second session and was enjoying my time on track. I once again reminded myself that the car is far more capable than I think it is. I am always slower than Ethan and did a few 1m 01s laps.
The third session was interesting. Ethan was on lap 12. I had heard a few clunks coming from the car which I had thought was just rubber or tyre debris hitting the car, but I started to notice that the noise was always happening when the car was on right hand bends. The noise was not happening randomly. As the Clio was heading down Brabham Straight as fast as it could I saw Ethan wiggle the steering wheel from left to right a few times then when he braked to enter Paddock Hill Bend the Clio's wheels locked up and just went in a straight line towards the run off area at Paddock Hill Bend just before the gravel. The Clio slowed down just enough to dip in to the gravel and come to a stop. Ethan tried to move the car but it was beached.
We had caused a red flag. The marshalls came over and struggled to get the car out of the gravel as the Clio does not have an accessible rear tow hook. Eventually they decided to fix a strap to the cage inside of the car and use that as a point to drag the car out of the gravel.
A quick inspection showed that the drivers side wheel was not attached to the track rod end and was moving freely from side to side. The Clio was loaded on to a flat bed lorry and dropped off in the outer paddock. When he took off the drivers side front wheel we saw that the hub had snapped where the outer track rod end attaches to the hub.
It seems that the hub snapped as the Clio was breaking for Paddock Hill Bend and when the driver's front wheel was no longer moving as it should have been the Clio just carried on in a straight line.
We were lucky tonight as I had driven the Clio to Brands Hatch and Ethan had driven separately in his Megane as he had come straight from work. We have left the Clio at Brands Hatch and the plan is to go back tomorrow and replace the broken hub with a spare that we have in the spares bin and hopefully drive the car back home.
Normally I post a photo of the car at the end of the day in the garage at the track. Sadly the Clio did not make it back.
Hopefully this is a problem that can be fixed quickly with parts we already have.
I posted the snapped hub image on Instagram and a lot people including Alex at AW Motorworks said that they have never seen a snapped hub.
I will dig out the video when I have been through the GoPro footage as I am fairly sure it was caught on camera.
Despite the hub breaking the Clio was performing well and it was a good night. No one was hurt, the Clio does not seem to have been damaged anywhere else (although the under tray might have seen better days), no barriers were damaged, and the hub braking did not result in damage to any other vehicles.
Lessons learned tonight:
- Get a rear tow eye as it would have made it far easier for the marshalls to have recovered the Clio from the gravel; and
- A trailer could be really useful.
The next track day is a Circuit Days track day at the Nurburgring on 06.07.2026. I am glad that the hub snapped at Brands Hatch as it would have been far worse if it had happened at the Ring!
