Clubsport 250 Cup

If you cast your minds back, I replaced both driveshafts on the car shortly after buying it. Almost instantly, the new (genuine) drivers side shaft started to spew grease everywhere.
With a trackday coming up, I refitted the old shaft which didn’t actually need replacing in the first place - I just like doing everything in pairs. Fast forward to MOT time this February gone and the old shaft finally failed.

AUTODOC had sorted me a replacement out free of charge, so today I set about replacing it for the 3rd time.


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The outer boot had lost its clip, but there was no grease anywhere, so presume this must have failed previously.

My air filter was in desperate need for a change too.

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Gave the Protracks a scrub, and got the car loaded up for tomorrow. It’s gonna be an early start!

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So Cadwell. Not really much to say as most of you were all there.

Early start for me and Ben

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Plenty of company too. @Helpimonfire and @Beany with their freshly prepared Trackbaguettes special builds - though Martin’s suffered a questionable noise half way through the day. @burrellbloke and @EthanMenace made the journey up, still adamant that they don’t need a tow car and trailer, and the clio197 relic @R20BTG and his pal @s88thy with his new acquisition.

My first time at Cadwell in the Megane. Felt a little anxious to be honest. Had a couple of tentative sessions on the A052’s, of course with Ben pushing me along.
Finally found a little bravery and fitted the slicks. Wasn’t too impressed with these, but never really got them hot enough I think. Their time was called short pretty quickly, having rubbed the arches and beginning to delaminate.

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One thing the slicks did identify, is the suspension just seems way too soft for them. By comparison, the car feels absolutely mega on A052’s, and that’s what I spent the rest of the day on.

Had some mega laps chasing and leading @tombate911 with his E46. You’ve no doubt seen that video also.

Was happy to see that Rob Baxter in attendance with the Javelin crew, but it appears he spent all day taking pics of the Audi Quattro.

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Ben had a pretty crap day. We broke for dinner and the car decided to break whilst parked up.
This is the second time he’s had a genuine clutch cover fail now, and the 4th time he’s had clutch issues. He got home and stripped it down pretty quickly, only to be greeted with the following:

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Also gave the car a once over Saturday just gone.
Driveshafts all intact this time, A052’s will survive the trip to Germany, but a bit of play in the swivels on the N/S. Absolutely no way I can be arsed to sort them before I go, so like Martin, it can be something for future Nathan to sort.

Spent a good while Sunday cleaning it - the first time I’ve done it properly since buying it (laziness)

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Looks good when it's clean! Watching the onboards from Tom's E46 shows how planted the Meg is, really does look to be the full package.
 
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It really was no drama at Cadwell with the exception of a couple of sideways moments - nothing lairy though.

Looking forward to the ring now!
 
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A very exciting update. Not.

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Managed to find some ‘correct’ length drop links.

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Got the guy in the unit behind my dad’s to put me a fresh sunstrip on too. No more silly writing.
Satisfies my love of none messy cars.

Ring on Friday. Getting anxious now!
 
The annual pilgrimage to Nurburgring. Overall, a great trip, but not without its issues.

I was on the whole, fairly prepared for this trip, having put a bit of time into the car post Cadwell to make sure it was ready to go.

Friday - headed down to the unit to finalise my packing, and when I say finalise, I actually mean start it.
The Megane was still sat on the 4 post ramp, and neither trailer or tow car was loaded up. I opted to go for the minimalistic approach this time round, packing spare tyres, a jack, and my trackday tool grab bag.

By now, you’re probably all getting fed up of seeing the trailer, but I don’t care cus I think it looks mint.

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I departed for the 2.5 hour journey to Hull around midday, and arrived at the boat 4.5 hours later - Friday traffic really is the worst.

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(Ignore the TPMS warning)

After the debacle last year with my mate not being allowed to travel, I was feeling pretty anxious queuing up for passport control. Everything did go smoothly, and I was soon loaded and sat at the bar.

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Some poor sods happened to arrive 7 minutes after the closing time, and were swiftly sent on their ways

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Saturday morning

A decent nights sleep on the boat this time, with the exception of some pissed up silly bint running up and down the sleeping quarters shouting AARONNNNNNN at the top of her lungs at 2am.
Passport control on the Rotterdam side always seems to take forever since Brexit #perks but this did give an opportunity to perve on the other motors in the queue, namely:

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My travelling companion had managed to get through the boarder really quickly compared to me, so we met up at a small truck fuelling station to just go around the cars and make sure wheels were tight and tyres had the correct air

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The drive from Rotterdam seemed to take an age this time, but by 3pm, we were driving passed the ring sign

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We unloaded and headed to Brunchen to watch the end of the RCN race from that day.

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By 6pm, I’d accidentally ended up on track in the tow car

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More to follow shortly