3i_gaz

i seen you in that BMW as we got off the boat in hull, was shotgun in a white 2 door scooby, comps and big AP's

Paul Eggleton

I know what you mean. The whole time I was there (a couple of years ago) I wondered what would fall off and you don't feel as happy as doing a UK track day. Luckily I only suffered a rubbing exhaust on my first trip but I took it very easy.

I'll still go just for the experience but I will always take it easy on the ring, balls out on UK soil though

John Laverick

I've been to the dam a couple of times before but its always worth another trip back

The BMW went surprisingly well [we decided to go in it last minute rather than my 106]. I managed to hold 130-140mph for about 15 minutes on the way to the Dam

John Laverick

I saw you in the Scooby [at the ring also] .... looked v v nice

RS Ben

Good lad.
We had the golf doing just over 110 when the exhaust went, what a racket and backfire when i lifted off. The car behind swerved in shock.

The customs pulled us over because of the lads laughing, 2 of the lads had a spliff which they declared n that was that we wewre getting all pulled over.

Had loads of cars passing us using horns and waving while we were sat there. Everyone who did got questioned to see if they were with us.

xr-stu

anyone know how SiB got on? he was worried his car wasnt gonna last the trip in one piece,,,did it?!

3i_gaz

dont know whether its still alive now, but i seen his saph going round the ring and it sounded awesome, PLENTY of flames too sounded healthy enough

Kelv

iTrader: (4)

he took me out for a lap late yesterday and the car was still holding together, even tho it was mildly strugling with the issues it left home with.

but all good fun

NUTS RuS

iTrader: (35)

AFAIK SiB is ok but his brother Nige suffered big end problems in the Pug and is currently on the back of a breakdown truck

Rick

Wonder if thats to do with losing his oil at nat day last year?

Jim Galbally

Sib towed sketch all the way to the ferry on a 1m tow bar

they left after us, and beat us there towing at 95mph!

snapped the towhook on the pug as they went to get on the boat tho... lol

he was gonna get it AA'd when they got off the boat, saves on fuel bills


personally i developed a small coolant leak, which is probably nothing to worry about, my aircon started to struggle so probabyl needs gassing, and i've warped the front discs, which was annoying considering i brake early and gently

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Jim, best temporary cure to the breaks you overheated on the road was definately 4 laps of the ring to cool them down

JonnyBravo

Sounds familiar

Boost Junky

lol.. seen that somewhere before

Si B

iTrader: (59)

As above for me and Sketch

My car had fuel pump feed issues, so took me 1.5 days to get there.

It then had a few other gremlins, such as a lack of power, and the standard rad struggled to cope with the water temps.

Managed a fair few laps though - 0ver 10, less than 20.

My bro's (Sketch) car span a shell - oil level fine, but running 9:09 laps, on R888 tyres, the Mi16 engine suffered a typical engine failure (my own Mi16 pug died the same way at National Day)

He should be home now, not heard from him- was on the tow truck in Dover 7.15 ish.

My car made a steady 95 cruise all the way home

Roll on Castle Combe and Central Day in 2 weeks

Si

JonnyBravo

Can't fault a bit of a towing marathon

We had a play with a Clio V6 on our way to France, he looked slightly shocked when I pulled up along side with my mate scraping my back bumper

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Si, is the misfire gone now?

Si B

iTrader: (59)

Not sure missfire is the word - more of a big splutter / hesitation. Could be related to my fuel pump gremlins of day 1. Who knows? Just put up with it and will sort when time and money allow.

Update on Sketch: He's about 40 miles away from home. His journey started at 9.30 this morning

Long day

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Glad sketch is nearly there now then mate.

Impressive times he was getting


Definately worth looking into whats happening with yours, might prove cheaper to fix sooner rather than later!

Nash

iTrader: (3)

Si might be totally unrelated but i had the same symptoms when i had fueling problems on my saph bud.

alistairolsen

if its a fuelling issue, get it seen to asap si!

I know people like to take their ow cars to the ring, but tbh, for a long complex track in a foreign country, I suspect the answer is a relatively std engine in a predictable chassis, built properly and thoroughly shaken down. Zetec fez, clio 182, xe corsa/nove, bmw 325, anything with mild go and thensome really decent brakes.

NMS Badboy^NUTTER^

I worked my arse off to get the car ready, and was running late, but the car was faultless, except for a rubbing tyre on the arch.

She did 10 laps, 9 with me and 1 with Dingy and was absolutely faulltless. .

But on my way home from work tonight my altenator packed in and i had to get towed home by my dad

And i now have gearbox issues, and maybe a rear wheel bearing!

Bless the old shitter

arkley

It's such an 'old shitter' though mate

Have you seen the pics of it looks unreal at the ring

Mike1

Bad luck Si - at least you're home basically intact.

On another note, I remember the 205 Mi-16 that Cars+Car Conversions mag built died of something similar - seems a common theme like you say

foreigneRS

agree

dojj

iTrader: (3)

you make it sound like you've pissed yourself jim

but he was breaking early and gently on the ring

at least no one will notice the brake dust though eh jim

Mike Rainbird

iTrader: (3)

I had a great time, despite the issues.

First lap, and it spat the drive shaft out on the near-side (I only replaced the offside one, as I thought the nearside was longer anyway ). However, upon actually getting to a right hand corner I had never made it to previously (due to the offside drive-shaft problems ), it shat it self and we had to be recovered off track (good old ADAC cover - didn't cost me a penny).

Travelled all the way to Guido's (60 miles) in Mike's RS6 (where I fell alseep and missed going 285km/h five up ) and collected a longer one for the nearside and spent a a while catching up with Guido before returning to fit the shaft.

Luckily there were three of us to do this job, with Kelvin almost bursting a blood vessel while Ryan and I were hammering in punches to line up the holes of the inner TCA to enable the bolt to go through. 90 minutes later, and we finally fixed it. We then went out four-up for a sighting lap and everything was good to go, with no-problems what-so-ever. We did a cool down lap of the outer roads on the circuit and then went back to the hotel to drop people off for a "proper" lap. Pulling up to the hotel, the car suddenly started puffing white smoke and then dropped on to three. SHIT! Checked the oil - perfect, checked the plugs - perfect, checked the water - fuck! A nice coating of oil on the handle of the screw-driver was meaning something terminal. Prognosis so far is, either cracked liner, porous head around one of the valves or a faulty gasket (unlikely to be the latter, as Harvey has only ever seen ONE of these be faulty ever).

Car should be back from it's trips on Wednesday/Thursday and depending on what it was, will be ready for Central Day (unless it is the head, and then I will have to wait for another to be done).

I was then handed the keys of RW's M3 and told that I was now sharing this for the weekend : APs all round, CSL wheels and £2.5k of Intrax suspension - one sorted motor. Not as devastating on track as mine, but after drifting it through Adenau Forst a few times, I could see me getting used to one of these and jokingly made a few comments that I would have to break mine and get a CSL - only to receive text messages from people off the board (WTF ? ), telling me not to a few hours later . The rumour-mill - don't you just LOVE it ?

Unfortunately the abuse dished out by Stevie on the penultimate lap of the day (for the BMW) saw the wheel bearing, lower ball joint, inner TCA bushes and nylon bush inside the damper body fucked. However, before hand, it dished out an 8.14.1 (beating Stevies Evo VI time ). I then took Willie out and had a bit of a "moment" down the Fox-hole where the back-end stepped out strangely while having to adjust the line for a big transit van on track where I wanted to be and then the noticed the wheel bearing noise was getting louder and louder. Not wishing to hand Stevie back a lump of mashed metal with a wheel missing, I knocked into 6th and went sight-seeing .

So the only car to make it back uner it's own steam from our hotel was Charlie's Seat .

We then got a Golf GTi DSG hire car, that Stevie then proceeded to knock out a 9.02 in (easily a sub 9 minute with no mistakes). I decided that despite being offered lots of drives after that, that I would just be a passenger, as I didn't want to get a rep as a car killer .

Thanks to everyone who helped out - you know who you are . See you all in September for a sub 8 .

Dingy

As you do nothing with your car how the hell would you know about preperation ?

Makes me piss comments like that from people that have provern all of f.all....

But having said that we learned about some cvh bits that were good enough for touring cars but not for the nms S1 but we got home with some slight mods and stolen engine parts LOL......(well not really stolen as we paid the guy )

YBJ

iTrader: (3)

I had some got fun overthere. Spoke to some members of PF, nice to see what face is behind the names on here ! Sorry guys if my english was a bit bad and maybe you didnt always understand what I was saying.

Unfortannelly on my way back home the headgasket of the cossie let go just before the dutch border . Lots of water came out somewhere under the turbo. But by filling her up every now and gentle driving I got home safely.

So now I have a nice job to do on her...

tracktoy

usual ring stories then- some with tears of sadness others tears of joy
and everyone planning the next trip over

great admiration for everyone who took their cars and had a go

Dingy

And the wrong springs fitted LOL

Paul Eggleton

You fucking know it makes sense!!!!!

Shame about Peggy

Franco

iTrader: (2)

Break the tub of shite Mike!

RichardPON

Mike has the addiction more than anyone on the planet!

Shame really, as a modded CSL with serious brake upgrade would be quite a car............. and probably faster

Jim Galbally

dojj, compared to everytone else i was barely using the brakes, but they still went wonky shonky M3s

after that me and chip decided to go out and do a sightseeing ap trying to get the lines worked out etc.

it was BRILLIANT! never had so much fun going so slow! you really get to learn the track when you're not panicing about braking zones and screeching off into the armco

so we did 4 of these laps, using no more than about 10% throttle, 50% engine revs and having to lightly dab the brakes in only 2 places!!!

we figured we'd time the second 2 laps just to see how slow you can throw and m3 around the ring but to our complete shock, we did a 11:20 and and 11:30 !!!! those are not bad times for some people who TRy!

we now understand HOW you can get a car to go round so fast, it's not all down to the power and the super trick suspension etc. it's about knowing the track, and knowing the lines. when you get the line right it's SO rewarding, you can carry phenominal speed through the tight bits!

RichardPON

It's ALL about knowing the track IMO.

That's why you seee those locals in stupid coloured 1600Mk2 Golfs tearing past everything.

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Agreed


The line Jim took and speed we went, I could have easily done in a fiat panda with a misfire, that was to do an 11:20, which as Jim says is a similar time that people who dont go on the correct line get when they are actually trying fairly hard.

I am very confident that I could do sub 10 minutes in pretty much any car, and stevenRW doing 9 flat or thereabouts in a golf on what was no doubt the same line, proves the fact.

Next time I take a car to the ring im taking something slow and standard, and only when im getting what I beleive to be within a reasonable margin of the best possible lap time am I going back to drive it with somthing more powerful, in the past ive always got carried away driving the arse off the car, and not paid enough attention to the track itself.

foreigneRS

also agreed (except that power up the hills can give you a useful reduction in lap times)

IF i ever go again, i fancy something like a 1.7 puma

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Without a doubt your lap times are quicker in a faster car, but my opinion is based on that ive done a 10 minute lap on totally the wrong line in a 350bhp saph when I first went, and its nowhere near as rewarding IMHO as a ten minute lap in a standard 1.4 corsa would be.

I think we probably all agree that if you want to be doing lap times you need all of:
The lines
Some driving talent
Commitmant
A car that handles / brakes / accelerates



I just feel that the order I listed them in is the order of importance, so im personally going to concentrate on the lines on my next trip, and then maybe the trip after I will take something fairly quick and see if I can get a "respectable" lap time.

john

You need shonky back Chip