MAD7BOY

I'll be there - but being [-]lazy[/-] sociable and sharing a lift in Chris'I's car.

No worries mate. Shame we didn't think to get some photos of the Evo pulling the 350 up the hill!! Was a good laugh though.

I'm going to call up and pay for my place tomorrow.

Oh ok. Fair enough. I guess the poster above will need to add his mate to the road insurance then?

Chris, I didn't know road insurance would cover you for this? I don't buy trackday insurance becasue the risk of hitting anything bigger than a cone is very very very very low. Therefore as far as I was concerend I was uninsured. (As I didn't expect road cover to cover me.) If this is the case (and road insurance wouldn't cover you) then unless you want your mate to drive to/from the venue there's no need to add him? Is there?? He doesn't need road cover as he's not on the road and track cover is ALWAYS optional (as it's only 1st party) and I personally opt not to have it on these particular events.

B-B-B-Bump

It doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile; winning's winning. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) ETA - Chris does actually make a very good point about being smooth and kind to tyres. Watch the in car footage of Jensen Button for a real masterclass in smooth driving and looking after tyres. ...However as I mentioned about I've got a (basis of a) 'rally car' and 3 sets of spare rubber to use up, so sometimes I try to go sideways for the fun of it.

Melting tyres Um... yeah.... Ok, so what happened was I had always hard FF cars in the past and cornering them quickly involved using power to pull the front of the car around. However I went to Bedford in my Evo shortly after having bought it and I hadn't adapted my technique appropriately... so what happened when I applied power (as I would have done in the FF) was the front end got pushed out wide because I hadn't got it into a 4 wheel drift before applying power. The result was VERY melted tyres! Imagine you have a tray of paint, and then you put your hand flat on it and then lift up, the surface puckers up. Well the tyres looked like that. I've since learned to drive the car properly (or at least a better approximation of properly!) so tyre wear is much better. I'm still using the same set of tyres as it happens as these are my spare wheels I use for trackdays. I reckon I've got one, maybe 2 days left on them. (I don't scrap my road tyres when they need changing, I put new rubber on but retain the old ones for trackdays. So I've got about 8 more spare tyres which I can put on the rims when these run out.) North Weald Format To echo what Chris said, basically in the morning you do a 'high speed bend' exercise. This basically involves queing up and then when its your turn you sprint down about 200m of service road onto a WIDE tarmac apron and attempt to get the highest speed onto the apron without turning too wide or spinning. The instructor checks your entry speed with a radar gun. You then return to the back of the queue. It's pretty good fun and gets quite competitive as they keep a leader board of speeds on a white board. Then in the afternoon they set up two 'sprint' handling courses. This involves queing up again, then when its your turn you drive forward to the start line. The instructor then counts you in and starts a stop watch. You drive a short course around some cones and then return to the start line and stop in the 'finish box'. The guy then records your time and gives you some tips and you join the back of the queue again. The first course is shorter than the seccond course. Sometimes, if there's time, I've heard they also setup a beast course which basically combines the first two together. Driving time is about 1 min at a time, roughly. But you get lots of goes. Again, gets competitive, but it's all very good natured and safe IMO as there's only one of you on track at a given time and there is LOADS of run off. You're on a tarmac apron surrounded by flat grass. The only thing you can really hit are the cones and they are rubberised to reduce potential damage. Here's a link to a video of me messing about in the wet. I know that I 'over do it' on a couple of the drifts but I'd given up on trying to get a good time (as some decent DRY times had been set and once the rain started those times were going to be unassailable) so I'm just trying to provoke the back end and have a bit of fun with it. As it happens I was the only 4WD car in the group (mostly RX-8's, MX-5's and 350Z's) and I set the fastest 'wet lap' while messing about. Not surprising really, as they had a LOT more trouble controlling the rear end, whereas I had to try hard to get the back end going! Should be a good day. However power isn't everything. There was a young lady in an RX-8 who gave me a good run for my money on the sprint courses. I just about won in the end but it was very close and we were trading personal bests back and forth for most of the afternoon. Technique has a lot to do with it and I only felt like I was really getting to grips with the 'lines' towards the end of the day. Really enjoyed it last time and I hope we get a little sprinkling of rain on Aug 16th... will make it that bit more 'interesting'! Cheers guys, hope to see some of you there. Ben

Hi, I have an Evo 8 in which I have fitted a mini digital dashboard intended for a bike. It has an RPM graph and dual stage shift lights. It was intended to pick up the RPM signal by induction from the HT leads but this signal is unreliable on the coil packs of my Evo. So I'm looking to be able to convert the RPM signal on the RPM wire of the ECU into a pulsed signal which my digi dash can use. Anyone got any clues on how to do this? Is there a product that does this or will I need a custom circuit or what? Does anyone have any info on what format the signal will be in from the ECU? All help apprieciated. Cheers.

I know of several firms where the partners are banned from bringing their Ferrari's into work as they give the wrong impression to clients who see them in the car park. An orange Lambo would fall into that category too. Imagine trying to quote for a piece of work when you've just turned up in a £100k supercar... I know the Evo isn't in the same league but it's still a bit of a 'flash car' becasue it's loud/powerful/antisocial etc. Being yellow as well would take the biscuit! Accountants themselves are not boring per se (certainly not doing the CF that I do), but we have to try to maintain the illusion that we don't make masses of money so people keep paying us decent rates. When you're pitching for work it is about image to a certain extent unfortunately.

(Probably true though... you need something bright to make up for the dull weather up there...) To an extent, yes. Although I travelled almost 300 miles (round trip) to get my Silver car for the very reason that I couldn't very well have a bright yellow one, doing what I do for a job. (Chartered Accountant)

Yeah they do! I was jesting with them about it, but silver is more popular in the Evo circles than Zeds! There was a yellow one later on and a red one, and even a black one Just strange to see it there! There are loads of Evos up here but I don't see so many in silver! It's an interesting question as to why there were so many silver Evo's present that day. I was discussing it with my Dad and I concluded that it might be demographic related. I.e. is there something in common amongst the people there on the day which made them more likely to choose a silver Evo. Chris and I live in the South, where there tend to be more professional service industries. So the owners here are more likely to be professionals who would be reasonably well paid [hence all the cars were 7/8/9's i.e. later models (except the one TME)] and who may need to use the car for work [hence were subtle colours like Silver for the most part]. There are a lot of Evo owners in Scotland, many of whom work on the rigs, so don't need the car for work - they just need it for entertainment while they are on the mainland! Just an idea.

My fault I'll get it up on youtube soon.