Trackday @ Croft 23/9/22
Arrived about on time after a two hour final stint from Newark; greeted by a row of garages full of clios.. to which more clios arrived later. I think 11 in total on the day, 8 of which from the forum and one token 182.
Vibrations/road/exhaust/induction noise levels on the motorway are on an exponential scale from about 60mph upwards. After 5 hours of practice… 69 proves to be a good number for yet another thing and is a nice balance on cruise in this clio!
Quickly checked all the bolts i did in the dark the night before, the inside rear seat floor bolt was .. not done enough (probably because it was the last to be done and my t40 bit snapped… thanks
@burrellbloke and
@EthanMenace for volunteering theirs to check things).
Looked like a well balanced crowd of cars until the Radical arrived but numbers were low enough that the day didn't really have any major queues. After the sighting laps … which aside from watching
@R20BTG 's video from May was the first exposure i had to the track (i always wondered who turned up to the safety briefing so underprepared they needed to see those track map boards showing the layout… it was me this time) i did the novice session, fortunately wasn’t the slowest by any stretch.
Quick pit to check pressures and re-route the OEM belts through the outside belt hole on the pole positions and away we go. I think i started at around 2 min laps, with the tuition from Nick i dropped to around 1:52-1:54, and after some savage rides from
@Big Ben and Iain i quickly realised how hard i could push even my stock suspension/no-LSD car.. ending the day with 1:46 as the best time. Thanks to
@RSRowe for the quick harness install! Gives some added confidence when on the brakes.
Confident i could have done better .. perhaps 1:45s would be my limit with that setup...
…If my car didn’t inhale it’s battery cover and fill the track with a plume of white smoke wasting a few hours of my day. Didn't really notice any change in the car.. just moved over for some faster cars and noticed it in the rear mirror… Came in immediately, marshals guessed ‘Brakes on fire’, others said ‘gearbox blown’ but it was driving fine .. and when looking under the bonnet Ethan asked if i had previously had a battery cover... doh.
About an hour of idling to burn the remainder off the manifold and some of
@Helpimonfire heat proof gloves and pliers to pull off the sticky plastic chewing gum from behind the (hot!) engine and i went out for the last session to burn the rest off.. only to get black flagged for dripping liquid. Which in the end was just a teardrop shaped blob of re-hardened plastic hanging off the undertray. Great day and nice to meet some people, although i think most had some sort of issue!
--
Drove home via a night in York and some tourism in the morning to appease the wife. Jacked up the front end at home and pulled 34 more pieces of hardened plastic string from behind the under-tray; i’ll get it double checked when on the ramps next but should be all of it.
Also dropped the arch liner to stick a multimeter on the washer pump plug to confirm the pump is dead - new one ordered, along with a new battery cover (which will be tied to something going forward..), a front bumper plastic fastener as i noticed the left headlight area protruding too high, and a new t40 bit because halfrauds are out of stock on their warranty bits.. great.
Probably going to spring for another sabelt harness - but debating a 5/6 point for driver side and relegate the 4 point to passenger.. undecided as to whether it adds much value.
Have also tidied the excess harness with some cable ties and re-trimmed the rear carpet around the cage for neatness - still not perfect but perhaps fine for now and doesn’t irritate my minor OCD so badly now.
Next stop - Gaz Gold install, and probably belt/dephaser, and a service for good measure. I can already see a quaife on the horizon. so much for a cheap track toy...