But, you are quicker in that emergency response vehicle than you were in COMIT. You were definitely pulling away from me and I think I’m quicker than I was a couple of years ago.
Few laps from me at the end of play. Car was going pretty well considering the abuse it took all day. Main problem was with me, Sunday/Monday I was absolutely wrecked, hands, arms, back, hips, must be getting old, or out of practice. Practice, more practice that’s what’s needed
Hope you don’t mind I borrowed one of your pics Mike.
Will try and stitch together some when the track was busier when I get a chance.
What a day
Hats off to Ben and BAT for the organisation.
Unfortunately the orange car was playing to type and decided to throw some sillies at us which was a tad disappointing and at one point very frustrating, especially after all the work put in by Martin and Steve … and Gill … ( fully deserving of the red caliper award ) to get clutch, shocks and a few other assorted issues sorted for the day.
Firstly we had a crazy brake balance issue, which was finally traced to the adjuster having been wound fully to the front and jammed ( how is only speculation ) … then the stupid quick release boss decided it wanted to remain quick released ( which nearly resulted in it and the steering wheel being propelled into the Irish sea) …
The shaking at over 100mph was traced to the front splitter falling off and eventually just before lunch we had a car that would stop, steer and went quite well.
However … Orange car demons came back and Stan identified an oil leak from the rear after I came in from my first real run in the thing, feeling the Ohlins were the right call after all.
We used lunch time to try and fix this, traced to a fitting in the most difficult to reach area, so we took apart the offside rear quarter and finally tightened it … only for it to leak even worse.
Closer look a the fitting revealed a hairline crack in the taper … so that was the end of the day … well end of the driving day
The evening in the Premier on the West Midlands table was a perfect antidote for the crap car problems and really, as usual meeting up with Exigers was the best part of the trip - looking forward to the next one …
Nice pics and vids everyone - even got one or two of the Orange car !
Yeah gutted that you and Stan had problems just when the car seemed to be ready to play. I am however glad that those Ohlins are on the car!! At least you and Stan enjoyed some time in some lower powered NA cars eh! It was also nice to meet you on circuit even though I did not realise it at the time as you were in the Edwards racer
Loved your vid Will, serious pace bud. I think lots of us felt the same the following day/s with aches and pains. I’m gonna need to do something about my fitness before 3x consecutive days at Spa/Zolder!!
Yeah, I actually really enjoyed the racer … was really good of Steve to give us a go … however I had tried to forget that as it did make me seriously wonder if all this exotic stuff is worth it and an S1 with a simple NA engine is in fact just more fun … oh hang on thats almost a Caterham
It became apparent at the 11th hour that one of the block bookings had created a bit of an over-subscription issue. Far too late to really do anything about it since everyone was inbound so we just had to hope it was not too busy. Sure it was busy in the morning but nobody complained to me.
So what to do with revenue from the extra trackday fees gathered by BAT for the places that did not exist? I discussed with Jonny and it was agreed that Steve (Clio) and Graham who had miserable days with zero tracktime get credit and I hope we’ll see them out on circuit again later this year. Maybe Graham/Steve would consider chucking a couple of quid in the charity pot when they redeem their credit.
The remainder of the surfeit goes in the charity pot with the pax fees meaning BAT just added £998 into the pot, cheers Jonny, result Current total is £1563
I hope everyone is happy with the decisions I took.