My Day At Cadwell Park

yeah it is the Sprint spoiler. I dont like the cup one (awaits abuse) makes the car look pants

i did see a punta on track actually. was it a dark blue one covered in stickers etc?

i swear to god apart from me and about 3 others every car that was on track was race prepped n stripped

all in all i feel i did well

biggest credit went to my tyres, they made me look better than i am
 
‘ello, just having a little nose about after spotting your site link and having a brief chat to you at Cadwell, Punto owner moaning about melting Pirelli Neros and suggesting that I probably should of bought a RenaultSport due to my cars nannying systems. :smile:

If the next Clio RS has a turbo as suggested I could well make the leap, if I don't go for another megane.

You looked like you were driving well when I took a break to watch from the sidelines, your car look great on track, particularly like the primer colour, it's a bit different.

Was a bit of a hardcore day, never seen so much track prepped stuff at a trackday before, not many stock motors.

I had hoped to sync up a session with you just to see if I could keep up but sounds like I probably wouldn’t as my Abarth was on par with the VXR you say you dispatched, I was happy with that though as I’m over 20bhp down on that and don’t have his fancy toys (what I wouldn’t give for an LSD)

Did see another Punto there a Mk2.5 I guess you’d call it, he was snapped, not very clearly in this shot behind me

XSP_5454.jpg
 
Yeah, thats my friend Rob in the blue one behind you. He reckoned it was a great day, though he had some tyre pressure issues.

Your Abarth looks v. smart! How did your brakes hold up?

I know from past experience that the Clio on sticky rubber is just so easy to chuck around Cadwell, really easy to take liberties with, and extremely forgiving. The earlier Clio's, i.e. 1*2's are a bit tail happy in comparison, as are the Saxo's, 306's, etc. the Clio doesn't seem to have that problem, just settling into a neutral drift when you push too hard.
 
I did speak to your buddy as I was interested in what he had done to it his motor having had a Mk2 Punto in the past myself, his car sounded quite good as I passed it, he wasn’t a very happy chap though at that moment in time, said he was having brake issues.

The Abarth comes with very good stock brakes, think they are the same as the Meg 225 / Clio 197 up front and posed no issues for me my first time out at Cadwell, this was my second time at Cadwell, this time with uprated pad and floating drilled discs, supposedly better braking setup that comes as part of the Esseesse kit I put on the car (like the Cup pack but for Abarths) , if I am honest I couldn’t tell much difference. :oops:
 
‘ello, just having a little nose about after spotting your site link and having a brief chat to you at Cadwell, Punto owner moaning about melting Pirelli Neros and suggesting that I probably should of bought a RenaultSport due to my cars nannying systems. :smile:

If the next Clio RS has a turbo as suggested I could well make the leap, if I don't go for another megane.

You looked like you were driving well when I took a break to watch from the sidelines, your car look great on track, particularly like the primer colour, it's a bit different.

Was a bit of a hardcore day, never seen so much track prepped stuff at a trackday before, not many stock motors.

I had hoped to sync up a session with you just to see if I could keep up but sounds like I probably wouldn’t as my Abarth was on par with the VXR you say you dispatched, I was happy with that though as I’m over 20bhp down on that and don’t have his fancy toys (what I wouldn’t give for an LSD)

Did see another Punto there a Mk2.5 I guess you’d call it, he was snapped, not very clearly in this shot behind me

XSP_5454.jpg

Hi there

Firstly, your car looks ace in them pics. love the white on white combo.

I did notaice that walking through the 1st part of the paddock where the photo booth was there was a shed load of 'un road legal' cars and ones that simply consisted of a seat and a steering wheel

Did you see the blue 172 that was running throttles boddies and cams? sounded ace and kicked my ass all over the place

I did feel for you on the Pirelli's. i have had them on 4 Fiesta ST's and thought they were pooh! My Yokys were awesome and made me look far better than i probably am

I was happy to get past the VXRs, other Clio and the Civic Type-R as i saw them as my closest competitors. TBH i didnt really know a great deal about the Punto Arbarth

All in all a great day

Im just about to book my next one later today

Nice to meet you yesterday and maybe il bump into you again sometime

Regards

Ashton
 
Didn't think the blue one was too bad (might of got him on a warm up/cooldown) the Orange Clio though blitzed me proper, so fast in the bends.

No one knows about the Punto Abarth, I am always hearing I didn't know they did one of those :smile:
 
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Sounds like a good day had by all.

Nice work on the spewing Ashton hahaha!!!

Sandys, that Punto looks ace mate, I really like those.
 
Hi, Iam a friend of RalphyBMW it was my blue punto!

Ashton you have a fantastic car there, myself and my friends were commenting on the day that it must be an awesome car for Cadwell

Goes without saying I think Sandys car is really nice but perhaps I am a little biased towards Fiat?

I had a few issues on the day, firstly with needing to re bleed my brakes and then through using a faulty tyre pressure gauge that resulted in my tyres being nearly ten psi over

So I never really got to its full potential but best lap of the day was 1.57 looking at onboard footage.

My car is running a standard 1.8 hgt engine at 130 BHP, but has has been fully stripped.

Was a fantastic day with many nice cars , hope to see you at another day!

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i have no idea what times i was doing unfortunately

i had a good time hunting down the punto. it looked well on track. it certianly shows that with only 130bhp it can be a quick little car when the weight is stripped out

The whole day was great, The only thing that did my head in was the guy in the porsche boxter with 'george' written on the door who decided that because he was in a porsche he didnt have the let people past. I was stuck behind this donut for 2 laps with the mk1 mx5 before he pitted. needless to say that words were said.


frustrating!
 
those guys with the porsche were next to me in the pits and had a bit of a go when my mate missed a gear in the morning in front of them, one of there drivers seemed quite quick but one guy was so slow, the red flag in the mid afternoon was due to him putting it in to the barrier, a lot of damage! headlights and bumper off and one wheel pointing where it shouldnt!
 
What happened there? I love the long righthander (chris curve i think) after that corner.

Did most of my overtaking there as people were hugging the apex

:smile:
 
I had used a new tyre pressure gauge without checking it, it was nearly 10psi out! so the abs had been chattering all morning, i thought it was a ABS problem so removed the fuse, that was the result, just locked the rears when i touched the brakes!