We went to Cadwell Park for the first time on Saturday 18th March 2023. I had seen lots of videos of Clios going around Cadwell Park and liked the look of the track as something different that wasn't an open, wide and speed focused track like Snetterton or Bedford. Cadwell had been on my list of tracks to get to.
We drove up the night before and stayed in a cheap hotel that was comically awful. We turned up just after 10pm to find the hotel was having a St. Patricks Day celebration karaoke night. Our room was directly above the main area in the pub. It was super noisy until 11.30pm. But, you usually get what you pay for and it was only £63 for a twin room.
When we arrived the paddock was busy and I was told that the track day had sold out. There were a lot of Clios at Cadwell with a fair amount of 200s, 197s, 182s and 172s. There were a few familiar faces in the paddock, and a few faces that I had not met before.
@Helpimonfire @Beany @littleg78 @AlexW were all there.
I had been looking at the weather forecast the week before Cadwell and was hoping for a relatively dry day. We were lucky as it rained over night but as the day went on the track dried out with a few spots of rain, but the rain held off until about 4pm.
Unfortunately this was a common sight throughout the day:
There must have 7 red flags throughout the day, or possibly more. I caused one, but more about that later. A lot of Clios caused the red flags and by the end of the day there were a range of damaged Clios with either bumpers held on with gaffer tape, or bumpers just fallen off. The best red flag that I was told about was someone who floored their car from the paddock exit on to the track and lost control within the space of 10m and crashed in to the barrier.
We started the morning off in the damp conditions and did the first two sessions with the road wheels and PS4s. The track dried out quickly and by the time did my first session there was a dry line round the entire circuit. My first session was spent chasing
@Beany round the track. The day was very stop start as you could not get out on the track when you wanted due to the number of red flags. I did one reasonable session in the morning and then managed to do a second session before lunch that lasted no more than one or two laps before the session was red flagged.
Cadwell was the first circuit since we installed the ZPO that needed second gear for a fair number of the corners. Second gear was sometimes a bit problematic to find. It was there, but just not where either of us expected to find it. It is a bit odd to describe it but second was closer to fourth than you would normally expect to find it. This is an issue that we should be able to fix easily by adjusting the grub screws. There were a few laps with both
@EthanMenace and I went to put the car in to second but struggled for a few seconds.
@EthanMenace started the third session on the MRFs and the combination of the dry track and extra grip brought lap times down to about 1m 56s.
After having a very short session before lunch I was really keen to get out after lunch and get a few more laps in. I lined up in the paddock exit behind
@Helpimonfire and set off thinking that I would try and keep up. After the out lap I was full of confidence and flew through Hall Bends too fast and went sideways over a few floppy markers. I ended up on the grass facing the wrong way due to over confidence and not waiting for the tyres to heat up properly. Thankfully I did not graze the barriers. The car sounded like it had thumped the floppy markers and the car was left with a few scrape marks and was missing an indicator lens cover.
After the car was checked over
@EthanMenace went out again and managed to get some reasonable lap times. He then went out with
@AlexW for a passenger ride on his Megane 250 which was tuned to about 390bhp and came back saying that he had made up his mind and that he was definitely going to sell his 182 Trophy and buy a mk3 Megane RS. I took the opportunity to go out for a solo session but another red flag made it another short session.
The last session of the day was
@EthanMenace trying to keep ahead, and then keep up with
@AlexW Megane. During this session it started to rain, so much so the marshals got out the red and yellow striped flags. This was about 4pm. We decided that it was not worth risking the increasingly slippery conditions and decided to call it a day.
The Clio definately suffered with a lack of grip at Cadwell. The Gripper would have made a massive difference accelerating out of tight corners. I heard the tyres light up on every lap around the track. I am sure that a LSD would have been able to convert some of that wasted power in to grip.
I left Cadwell with mixed feelings as I wanted more time on the track but was disappointed that I had squandered some of that time after a spin. The track is fantastic with it's elevation and scenic surroundings and seems to be made for cars like Clios to chase each other. I will definitely go back to Cadwell and hopefully next time I go the Clio will have a LSD.
