On Monday we went to Cadwell Park for a Javelin track day.
There were lots of other Clios about including
@Beany @Helpimonfire @R20BTG @s88thy @RSRowe together with Ben and Simmo from the Track Baguettes. There were also a surprising number of 197/200s and 172/182s there as well. It was a really good day.
The last track day had ended in disaster when I spun and hit the front end of the Clio in to a barrier. Since that fateful day in February 2024 we had made a few changes to the Clio:
- Refurbished subframe power coated in yellow with solid PMS bushes;
- Refurbished front arms with spherical bearings and solid bushes;
- Cup Racer front end (PMS EE bracket kit)
- New DS1.11 front pads and Godspeed G hook discs
- TRS crutch straps (to add to the existing 4 point harnesses)
- New bumper and other parts that had been damaged in the crash
- 7.5J Speedline wheels instead of the usual Oz Ultralegerras
We had driven up to Cadwell Park on Sunday night and stayed at the posh sounding Kenwick Park Hotel. We lett the hotel early at 7.00 am so that we cold grab some breakfast from the MSV cafe and heard someone shouting as we were unlocking the car, "Oi! Stop stealing that Clio!"
@R20BTG was shouting from an open window wearing a just a towel - not a pretty sight at 7.00 am in the morning!
The weather was perfect for a spring track day. The sun was out, the day was dry all day and the temperature stayed reasonable all day long.
You can see in the background of the photo above that an 1980s Audi Quattro group B rally car turned up. There were some other cars at the track day that were not Renaults. Someone brought an Aerial Atom who managed to crash it in Hall Bands. There was an obligatory GR Yaris. There were also about 4 or 5 Citroen 2CV race cars which were annoyingly just a bit slow.
We had been to Cadwell Park once before, in March 2023, and I had left feeling that I had unfinished business there. At my last outing the weather had been damp, my sessions had been generally cut short by red flags and I lost confidence in myself when I went sliding sideways through Hall Bends.
After tucking in to an unhealthy combination of bacon and sausage baps for breakfast we completed the sighting laps and
@EthanMenace did the first proper session.
I went out for the second session which was the first opportunity for me to test out the new Cup Racer front end. I will be perfectly honest I could not notice an amazing amount of difference when I first drove it - but more on this later. The car felt good but I was deliberately cruising through Hall Bends to make sure I was being careful.
After our initial laps we had both set markers for the day. Ethan had done a 1m 55s lap and I had done a 2m 00s lap. On our previous trip to Cadwell Ethan's fastest lap in the damp was 1m 56s and mine was a 2m 04s. We both knew that we could make improvements on the lap times.
As we took turns doing sessions it became clear that what you think might be the correct line, or correct way to attack a corner is not always the best way. During the morning Ethan did a session and ended up behind
@R20BTG and his lines and braking suddenly made so much more sense in how to get around the track faster. It was just a few small ways in which he was carrying speed by either not braking, or dabbing the brakes and using the throttle/LSD to get round corners. I often finish a track day driving a completely different way to how I started the day and usually it is due to watching other drivers.
After lunch we worked out that we had set the car up with a mixture of hard and medium compound MRF ZTE tyres on each side of the car rather than by axle. The four tyres used had been dug out of the "parts bin" and we knew that we had 2 hards and 2 mediums. Before the put the tyres on the car I had thought that the plan was to run the hards on the rear axle and
@EthanMenace thought that we were going to run the hards on the front axle. Because we had both taken the track wheels out of the car we had managed to put the hard compound tyres on the drivers side and the medium compound tyres on the passenger side. We sorted out the tyre mix up and put the hard tyres on the rear of the car and I am pretty sure that we ended up with more grip on the front of the car.
After lunch the track emptied out a bit allowing more time for some good sessions.
@EthanMenace had another good session chasing
@R20BTG. During this session there was a E36 M3 which got sandwiched between Ethan and Iain. It struck me at this point that a well sorted Clio is a match for most cars on a tight and twisty track like Cadwell Park.
I enjoyed a session in the afternoon chasing
@Beany around the track and later followed
@Helpimonfire to prove that I could follow him through Hall Bends without disappearing in his rear view mirror and take out some floppy bollards.
At the end of the day
@EthanMenace took the Clio without me as a passenger/ballast. He enjoyed a session harassing and passing an EP3 which later ended up coming off the track and cutting some grass. He managed to get his lap time down to 1m 46. I then took the keys and did a solo session to clock a time of 1m 53s - sadly the petrol light came on as I was starting my session so after a few laps on a virtually empty track I came in to make sure we had enough petrol to get to a nearby petrol station.
So what is the verdict on Cup Racer front end? My feeling is that it has given the car extra front end grip and stability. It seems that when you are going through corners the car is holding on to the tarmac more - it is as if inertia is not having the same force to pull the car out towards the outside edge of the corner you are going through when you are trying to keep the car closer to the inside of the corner. After mismatching the tyres I think that we only felt the full effect of the kit in the afternoon. I am not a good enough driver to comment on whether the 22mm ARB had a massive impact on the car as there had been so many changes it is difficult to pin point one particular difference.
As usual
@EthanMenace managed to get the fastest lap of the day with a 1m 46s.
We knew that by running the Cup Racer front end that we were going to suffer with some rubbing to the front of the car. We had put both sections of the arch liners in to the front arch after installing the Cup Racer kit. We did suffer with some rubbing. The wheels carved out a few holes in the arch liners and also rubbed the front bumper away in a style I like to call "natural rubbing".
But, I think that the rubbing and wear that was caused was less than I thought we were going to suffer.
The other issue that we have been troubled with is a leaky CV boot on one of the new PMS extended driveshafts. Ethan had noticed this after the EE bracket kit had been fitted and the car had done a few hundred miles on the road. Nick at PMS had said that the minor leak we had noticed could just be excess grease from the edges of the boot spilling out. The photo below shows the grease has got worse so that will need to be cleaned up and the CV boot replaced.
Despite having our CANchecked display before our track day at Snetterton in February 2024 we had a few configuration issues that meant we were still learning how to set it up/log data properly. At Cadwell I found it really useful having a gear indicator on the dashboard. It might be me but sometimes I forget what gear I am in. We are now able to log simple information like:
- Oil temperature
- Oil pressure
- Coolant temperature
- Inlet Air Temperature
None of the temperatures got particularly bad at Cadwell but now we have a better understanding of how hot some of the readings should be when the car is working under load so that we can work out what is abnormal in the future.
I left Cadwell Park on Monday far happier than when I left in March 2023. My lap times were not particularly fast but they had improved due to the weather and knowing the track better. We have another track day booked at Cadwell Park in late May 2024 with Track Obsession - this will be an opportunity to hopefully drive faster than Monday. Cadwell Park really is a spectacular track and I can't wait to go back.
What's next for the Clio? Apart from sorting out the radiator support we have not got any urgent plans. We might get the track Speedlines refurbed in gold/bronze, get some solid PMS engine mounts or refresh the front hubs with new bearings and ball joints by the end of the year. We will book another track day for June 2024 and enjoy the Ring in July. We will no doubt book some more track days later in the summer/Autumn. Now the Clio is fixed, in one piece, and performing well, I am a happy man.
