Twas a good day, very much a Lotus affair where Vaxhall were the interlopers but all the owners were good fun.
Format was stand around getting cold while they sort the cars for group photoshoot in manufacturing order (which in itself got weird, I had no idea a different trim interior qualified as a separate model
) with the VX's and the Sprint tagging on the end almost.
Stig was a no show and so was the second choice (who basically forgot) so they got in Juilan Bailey (Le Mans, F1, BTCC etc etc) to do the driving. I didn't see all the laptimes but for some reason he didn't really rate the Exiges (problem maybe) but the S1's were 'fun'.
He came round to Steve's NA and came back in saying it handled better than 'everything else so far" which generated a flurry of arm waving from some Lotus people who claimed it was running on sports suspension. This was the image that got em huffy, as it was clear the car was sorted in the corners:
Despite being told it was a standard car only day Steve 'forgot' to mention the Nitrons
so slapped wrist for Steve and signs of relief for Lotus peeps as Julian liked it so much
Then came Sean in his Moonland VXT. Judging from this picture he wanted out
Julian predictably complained the suspension was too soft for the track (well it would do after Nitrons
) and that it felt slower than the NA but was in fact 2 seconds faster.
Then came the daddy.
Which was a whopping 5 secs faster than everything else
The track was the standard Top Gear one and frankly I was deeply unimpressed. The surface was excellent and they'd done their best to make a decent circuit but it was so featureless I was still lost after 10 laps or so and having a figure of 8 configuration meant no open driving so we had to follow a pace car, fortunately for some of us this was the Sprint and James (editor of TG) was fairly handy and obvioulsy knew the circuit so the pace wasn't too bad. The other groups had the Focus RS which must have made it a bit dull tbh.
Was the first time I had mine in close proximately to the Sprint and they seemed almost identical in performance. The Sprint could still gap me a car length or so out of the tight turns but this may have been down to the fact that my car weighs a little more and an awful lot more considering I had Seans mate Rob in the passenger seat and he's 6 foot 4 and weights 16 stone
I'd love to try a back to back lap with the Sprint as I think they're almost identical in performance, I'm carrying more weight but more power and both cars have identical torque. One day I guess. I still think mine looks better though
Was an excellent day, the TG crew were all great, the guys from Lotus were happy to have a bit of p*ss taking done and all the owners were a good bunch.
Edited to say - expect skiddo will tart 'em up now and add yellow to them!
was a really good day except for my brakes going on the way home....needs new pads and discs on the front.
Lotus drivers were really cool and complimentary even after you and Stu made fun of the new Exige, the same Exige that left you on the track second time around 
Have a video of the sprint on the track if you want it
good pics though. Glad the sprint trounced everything.
What was the Lotus peoples real reaction to the VX?
Did any of them go away with a little more respect for the VX than they arrived with?
Will be interesting to see if it gets mentioned on SELOC
, so, have some more questions in the mods forum 
