Next Outing at Oulton Park

[Steve Brookes]

Yep, really looking forward to this. Easytrack are arranging to have the 964/RS garages next to each other. Forgot to ask Mrs B to do us a cake [] but the kettle will be on all the time as per usual. All are welcome for a cuppa []

Let's make sure we don't do an impression of the Goose!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvy5YvpZkEs

 

[h_____]

Have a great day and please report back.

John - didnt think the 65 cars were allowed to run on Webers, although may be different for rally cars. Thought you had to make the best of the solex's

 

[oldtimer]

ORIGINAL: h_____

Have a great day and please report back.

John - didnt think the 65 cars were allowed to run on Webers, although may be different for rally cars. Thought you had to make the best of the solex's

Hi H , might be wrong about the vintage , the car is wearing a D plate so maybe its a 66 after all .

Oulton was both dry and wet , the dry bit was in the morning . I'll post a bit about the day later but just to give you a quick flavour , here's a video clip when it was dry. I am following Kevin who is following Chris's new Cayman R , which was pretty nippy. Anyway we were just pootling around , the blue car in a hurry was the 911 'special' that Ninemeister have been correcting for one of their customers......it seemed to be a mix of early shell and late engine wrapped up with some race bits , fuel cell etc.

More later !
http://youtu.be/RihSReHLCjo

 

[Steve Brookes]

Yes, a great day out and some tales to tell and some pictures to post. Also have some video to work up of the three amigos out on track and some Ferrari hunting with my old co-pilot []

 

[h_____]

Glad you guys had a good day, a mix of dry and wet is always good. Glad it all finished well. Really tempting for me to make Snett work now.

 

[kasbridge]

Hi all, sorry I had to slope off early - hope you got a bit more dry time in.....

another great day/company/tea and hope we can do another before the winter......

Been with Aston Martin Racing today on the Millbrook tracks - most of the guys are ex-racers so I have at least four opinions now on the best way around Druids

Lovely cars - Vantage V8, Virage, DBS and my fave Vantage V12 at 160 in the wet!

 

[Steve Brookes]

Good to see you again Kevin, indeed a cracking day out. We carried on in the wet and following on from John's little whoopsie, I had my own moment when Chris was on board. I locked up all four going in to Lodge...the ABS was noticeable by its absence...so decided on the 'if in doubt turn it in' approach but even though I had an armful of lock on, the car carried straight on...quite a surreal sensation...then by instinct (or probably luck) I eased off the brakes...suddenly she gripped...and we went round Lodge as if nothing had happened! []

Anyway, here's a video of us playing in the morning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y3Y8mE8m0c

The last hour dried up very nicely and John and myself swapped passenger rides. With perhaps half the track dayers having gone there was a nice dry and mostly empty track to enjoy. Plenty of space to lean on the tyres and push on. John was really 'on it' in the last session [8D]

Here's my last session which features the nice sounding and conservatively driven F430.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCpPPUE_Asc

And some of my snaps of the paddock []

 

[oldtimer]

ORIGINAL: Steve Brookes

We carried on in the wet and following on from John's little whoopsie

Unfortunately although this was witnessed by the passenger ( Kevin ) and the circuit control tower on CCTV , I dont have any in-car video footage to play back and learn from......not that I need any more coaching []

If anyone wants to re-enact the incident , it needs a nicely wetted Druids and progressive attempts to enter the corner carrying as much speed as you can in 4th , balanced throttle and no trail braking or any braking input after the initial braking for the corner. One eye on the rev counter , the big round thing in front of you , in the dry this can be pointing at 4000 or so depending on how calm or skillful you are feeling , I would not have it at more than 4500 unless you are Gruppenfuhrer, and if you are just starting a series of runs then build up from say 3500 in the dry.....less in the wet......
.....however Druids is tricky when wet , whether its different surface materials , or differences between racing line and off racing line etc ....and probably not best place for car control practice.

Anyway having had no prior warning on previous passes , we got I think pretty near the second apex so most of way through the turn when back overtook front as car swapped ends and we were running backwards , one side on the grass , the other side JUST on the track - Kevin reckoned on the rumble strip. After a brief backwards run in same direction as track , the front overtook the back as the car tried to swap ends again , this time did not quite complete the full 180 degrees , and came over to the other side of the track slow enough for grip to return and just facing about 30 degrees to the left , so able to gather it up and trundle back to the pits. Passenger and driver both happy to enjoy a refreshing cup of Steve's tea after driver had received mandatory caution from circuit control .

Acknowledgements to Chris W for his well remembered story of a similar incident at Spa ( Radillon /Kemmel) and how he dealt with it , it must have lodged in the subconscious of this 67 year old as there's not much space elsewhere[]

 

[Melv]

Nice one John!! I remember being behind you on that corner when you hit some spilled kettle coolant once.....[]

Is that Chris' YE11 UYK??? (sic)

 

[Steve Brookes]

Sure is Melv. Quite a good little mover it is too! []

 

[Melv]

That colour is so Chris! []

 

[oldtimer]

During the drier part of the afternoon I went down to the Ninemeister pit garage to get a passenger ride in one of the 2 cars they were testing

After some deliberation I chose to go out in the black one , dubbed a '993RSR' , it looked a bit GT2ish , and I was happy to let Marc Clowes do the driving........it was brutally quick.......at the time we were out there was no danger of being passed , although it might have been more interesting if Gung-ho Gordon had been around in his 996GT3RS on the same bit of track. Loads of grip , plenty of acceleration , and the brakes weren't bad when Marc chose to use them.
Staggered out of the fully caged beast to return to the calm of the Steve B teahouse , eardrums still ringing [8D]

 

[Laurence Gibbs]

Would be interested in what the Cayman R was like on track

 

[Steve Brookes]

ORIGINAL: Laurence Gibbs

Would be interested in what the Cayman R was like on track

From the passenger seat it felt extremely capable. It certainly had enough grunt on the straights to keep ahead of Kev's standard 964RS (see John's video above). Even though it was on road tyres it had plenty of grip in the corners. With something like the new Michelin sports on, I would say that it would be a hard act to keep up with in the twisty bits. Hopefully, Chris will give his own thoughts on how it drives on track.

 

[Laurence Gibbs]

Thanks Steve, yes hopefully Chris will be along to give some insight. Would like to know if it's as fun, as direct and as communicative as his RS 's

 

[ChrisW]

Yes Melv, a very "Chris" colour

This was the final stage of running the car in and I didn't want to overdo it --- so I was quite happy to bottle out when the rain came.

It's now done 2400 miles and crossed the 2000 mile running in period at the end of the 100 miles I did on track.

Almost exactly 10 miles to the gallon, interesting playing around and finding out what the PDK would do in both automatic and manual --- where strangely it will change down on kickdown if it feels that it has more grunt to offer in a lower gear, but will allow you to hit the rev limiter without changing up !!

I specified also PCCB brakes and was braking early and keeping it all very smooth --- so was pulling away from Kevin out of the corners and down the straights, but he was catching me up on braking. At the end I did think I could detect some wear on the discs / pads --- but when jet-washed it was just brake dust on the discs (none in the holes) --- and there is now absolutely no evidence that the car has been used in anger ! So next time I can try harder ! !

Balance, lovely, gearbox --- you have to keep an eye on the gear display rather than have a sixth sense for where you left the gear stick, and to be honest it all takes a little getting used to.

But on a lazy day in automatic, it is absolutely fantastic !! Truly amazingly good --- and not bad on the track !

Definitely a learning process, which was precisely what I wanted.

One thing that is interesting, the DI 3.4 engine has a compression ratio of 12.5 :1 ... so there is an amazing amount of engine braking.

Another thing that is interesting, is that it would appear to be the same engine as that fitted to the new 991 C2 ...

So maybe it's giving a little more power than the paperwork would suggest ?

What do you my passengers reckon ??

P.S. Sorry to have been so busy .. have missed the banter .. []

Passenger rides willingly given ... and there should be N rated supersports later this year ?

 

[Laurence Gibbs]

great to hear your enjoying it Chris. Having had a Boxster with Tiptronic i can understand the allure of the PDK. There are days when i wish i had the tip back.