56 replies to this topic

[PaulCP]

Have a nice holiday in Bournemouth Paul.

Eastbourne this year!

[Mozo]

Just got an up-to-date forecast, 16C and clear every day this weekend! Really looking forward to this now!

[techieboy]

Just got an up-to-date forecast, 16C and clear every day this weekend!

Really looking forward to this now!

I've been trying to resist looking at the forecast but have had a sneaky peak once or twice. Great news, especially for the drive down there. Fingers crossed they've got it right.

[Mozo]

Thats true... fingers crossed they've got it right for a change! Just tring to decide how much extra time to leave in my journey time tomorrow to get there... M25 and Dartford tunnel Sat nav reckon 2hrs 30mins from Bedford

[techieboy]

Thats true... fingers crossed they've got it right for a change!

Just tring to decide how much extra time to leave in my journey time tomorrow to get there... M25 and Dartford tunnel

Sat nav reckon 2hrs 30mins from Bedford

Been doing the same calculation for a week or two. Aiming to be at Dover for around 1:15-1:30. So think I'll be leaving Bedford at 10am'ish. Not sure how badly ferked the M20 is with Operation Stack in place because of the Chunnel. Hopefully not too bad.

[Mozo]

Where is "operation stack VX's" taking place prior to embarkment on the ferry? Think 10 coule be a good time rather be there really early than stressing being last minute! Think the M20 should be ok now (hopefully not jinxed it!)

[techieboy]

Less talk of stacking VX's please! No idea how it works down there, to be honest. Haven't been on a ferry from Dover for 20 years. When we went to Le Mans this year we met up at a service station on the M20 and did the last few miles to the Chunnel in something like a convoy. Certainly aiming to be there earlier, rather than later as I want to give them a nudge about ground clearance etc. Can head down their together if you want and try an meet MartinS down near the docks somewhere?

[Mozo]

Sounds good to me... where and what time do you wanna meet up? Just put my VX220.org sun strip on... hopefully it'll stay on.

[MartinS]

Top trip boys. 630 miles at the end. Had the roof off all the way home (bloody cold though) and couldnt believe how busy and rubbish our roads are compared with what we'd been on all weekend. Thanks for helping make it a great time all round. Sam if you can make Abbeville, that would be great. Why not contact LOT as a reserve? Martin s ps Keep clear of those cauliflowers!

[techieboy]

Glad you made it back okay Martin. I got home at exactly 9pm so was a long days drive. Hadn't seen a queue of traffic all weekend and then we were in a traffic jam within 3 miles of the ferry. M25 was also as miserable as ever. No idea what the mileage was at the the end but I reckon I did 5 full tanks of petrol (and that's with a 48 litre tank). Almost ran out of fuel on the M25 and had to dice with death trying to make it across to Thurrock services in the carnage that was the Dartford crossing. Great little circuit and will be interesting to see how it develops over the next couple of years. They're planning a whole parallel high speed circuit that can also be joined to the existing circuit, so should be good. My forearms certainly know they've been exercised over the weekend. In it's current guise, it's not a circuit for uber powered cars as there just isn't really anywhere to stretch it's legs but a bloody good test of your steering technique and suspension setup due to some of those corners.

[Mozo]

Does that mean I had superior technique compared to the exige I went “hoooooning” past in my standard N/a whilst the LoT were talking to martin?! (Not bad for a novice) Was a great weekend and made all the better meeting up with you guys! Will look at the funding situation later and then see about getting on the reserve list for Abbeville.

[Mozo]

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[MartinS]

He was probably doing a sighting lap, and your car almost certainly had at least 300bhp as all our cars were turbos, werent they!! Let us know if find a way of getting to Abbeville. I have some pictures of then trip, if you pm me an email adress, I'll send them. Really good to meet you Sam. Martin s

[Dynamo]

Hello Matt, Martin and Sam, Adrian here. Good to meet you guys at Clastres on Saturday. I made it back home on Saturday night - got home by 10:30...so having got up at 4:30am it was a long day! Good fun as always though, and good to see a few VXs. Initially the Clastres track seem disappointingly windy and narrow, but as the day went on it definitely grew on me. I started out on quite hard suspension settings which worked well at other larger circuits like Spa, Zolder etc....but at Clastres, soft suspension settings really helped my lardy turbo get round the track faster. According to my videos, I gained 3 to 4 seconds by moving to soft suspension settings; giving a best lap of about 1:23.6 at the end of the day. I hear they are putting in kerbs within the next few weeks, which should help define the circuit better. Quite a few people were clipping apexes or running slightly wide, which mean lots of stones and dust got on the track. This should be reduced once the kersb are in place. The funniest thing on the day was when I discovered that the guys who fitted my tyres on Friday had set my pressures close to 40 psi rather than 30 !! That explained why the car felt like it was sliding a lot...I thought it was just a low grip surface since the track was new! Techieboy - what was the name of that phone software you mentioned to me? Hope to see you chaps at another day soon.

Edited by Dynamo, 23 September 2008 - 08:56 PM.

[techieboy]

Hi Adrian. Glad you made it back, safe and sound, if somewhat knackered.

When we went back through Passport Control at Boulogne on Sunday afternoon, the UK passport inspector bloke asked me if there had been a rally of some sort for our cars as he'd seen a silver car (presumably yours) going through his lane on the Saturday night on it's way back to Blighty.

Glad you enjoyed it in the end and found some settings suitable for the track. A softer setup certainly seemed to work better on that circuit and I just kept my regular road settings as it made the rear end easy to control when it inevitably stepped out on a couple of those corners. I kept meaning to adjust my Nitrons but the brakes had had such a workout I didn't fancy venturing anywhere near the disks, so didn't bother in the end. Good lap time though. Beat my best of the day by 1.4 seconds but then I guess you had a slight power advantage over us NA boys.

The freebie phone software is RaceChrono. Seems to work very well, especially if you use it with an offboard GPS receiver with a faster refresh (5Khz or similar). You can even connect it via bluetooth to your OBDII port to capture rpm/throttle position/etc. The developers are just starting to experiment with the onboard accelerometer on some phones now, so may soon have some G readings captured as well. I've been playing around with some of the logs today using the Performance box software and another piece of handy looking software called Danas from a company called I2M.

[Mozo]

Hey Adrain Glad to hear you got home ok after your marathon journey! Dont know how you did it! Hopefully see you soon on another track day

[MartinS]

Hi Adrian Good to meet you on the day, even enjoyed our tootle around the local area searching for fuel. I too enjoyed the track more, as the day went on. Impressed that you did the whole return journey and track day in one day, impressed but think you and the others who did it are bonkers, good effort. See you sometime, hopefuly another track that stops you using all that lovely power and gives us na boys a slight fighting chance. Martin s