Bianca Ratlye

[C2K]

So Monday was the day she finally made it to a track day. Like the aligning of planets, the car working and me having some free time came together. Bedford autodrome innit.

I was late arriving after jumping in the car and finding the fuse for the clocks etc had blown so couldn't see what speed I was doing on the way down. I�d had it before (see earlier in the thread) but couldn�t remember which was the right one so pulled a few fuses and couldn't find the right one but had to go, so just followed one of the lads who worked for me down there. Traffic was horrific and I was late for the briefing but tbh, didn't seem like i missed much so they must've been late starting and it�s pretty standard anyway.

Interesting mix of cars in the car park. Three or four Mk7 Golf R's (no way is my GTD ever seeing a track!), a C63 AMG mercedes with track rubber on and his plate taped up lol, a Ferrari 458 Spider, an R8 V10, a 997 GT3 RS 911, and then all sorts of mix and match machinery. New Fiesta St, track slag A3 turbo (which died spectacularly on track lol), an E92 M3 V8, a few E46 M3s including a track prepped one, standard 350Z, standard M135i brand new, your typical track slag MX5s, few caterhams, few E36 slag beemers, few evos and scoobies etc, standard Clio 197, even a 140 VVC MG ZR lol. Had the car noise tested at 85 db but no idea what revs, cat still in as i couldn't get the smegging lambda out of it when i took it off last week and couldn't risk breaking anything..

I did the sighting laps on the Oz wheels and you could tell the tyres are s**t (they�re 5 years old now), it was a bit skitty and of course i'd not set the tyre pressures as had only just arrived. Came in from the sighting laps to let everyone loose and sorted those out and my fuse. By the time i'd done that, this R33 track slag skyline had been towed off the circuit and he never made it again, so guess that was terminal. Went out on track, set myself 3 laps to get the car going, then came in and checked tyre pressures again. At that point i noticed some drips off the front of the car, so whipped off the front bumper and intercooler and found the RHS union on the engine oil cooler weeping quite a bit. Only had mole grips with me and had to use those to bollock both of them up tight. Bumper back on and out again with lower tyre pressures and really started to have some fun.

Photos have only just gone on the website, i'll work out which ones to buy later as there's loads, here's a few snaps tho.








Car was working really well, had the windows down a bit and the heaters on to keep things cooler, though the water temp was pretty rock solid all day long around the stat temp unless doing like 7 or 8 laps and then it would come up to 90. Every time i came in off a cool down lap the fans had already stopped. The 40mph (!) winds were quite useful as the car cooled down within 10 minutes every time inc tyres and brakes!!. I'd worried that the brakes were warped on the front, but having ridden them fairly normally all morning to give them a fighting chance of being useful they were getting better and better and better. Reckon i got somewhere around 30 laps in in the morning, but the tyres were barely wearing really and after 5 laps or so they were understeering really badly.

They said track was shut 12-2 but i must not have heard properly. We went off to town to get a Maccys, came back and put the track wheels on to kill those tyres off, lots less tread to roll of course. At that point (1pm) everyone started going back out, so we did too. Did about 4 laps and then noticed the fuel gauge was sitting in the red zone on corners. Headed off to the nearest shell about 5 miles away, and no fecking VPower. Lsot about half an hour there finding the next shell and filling up, should've just used the 102 octane fuel at the circuit in hindsight.

The toyos were much softer. Forgetting they were 5 years old and never been driven on by me, I turned into the first corner and the back end just carried on, nice little catch and away we went. Tortured them all afternoon, started to lean very heavily on the brakes (which, by this point were insanely good). You got to like 75m, stood on the brakes and could've stopped the car by the corner. ABS cuts in on the bumps but is gone by the time you'd react anyway, quite unintrusive on the whole. The gearing meant that exiting a few corners i was having to reach for the shifter, like coming off the 2nd hairpin which wasn't ideal but i don't mind. Started to have real fun with it by this point, throwing it around. Even with standard beam it was handling fine, could feel the rear dancing about but you knew exactly what it was doing 100% of the time. Again, you could get about 7 laps in before the road tyres just had enough, and you started to wildly understeer. Chased the C63 but couldn't catch him - his power and track rubber were too much for me and i would've ended up binning it. Here's me practically doing an endo on the brakes in the process



We were an even keel though and i'm on old road rubber!! Diff worked phenomenally well, you could really feel it sucking you out of the corners on the throttle, honestly a real hoot to drive. . That's what trackdays are like i guess, and bedford is a power circuit after all. The R8, C63, Ferrari and some Astra VXR track slag thing all came together - the latter was really quite quick but that had track rubber too.

Mechanically it worked well all day aside from the cooler weep, and only noticed a leak when i got it back home. Power steering must've started dripping on the way home as it wasn't far below minimum. It has dropped a bit on the drive though as obv it's hot and thin. I guess the hose is leaking where it sits on the pump but I was shattered so just left it for another day. Considering how long it's been in the making, i'm absolutely chuffed it made it there and back in one piece. Come the weekend or one evening i'll give it a once over, look at the brakes etc as i noticed the pedal sitting deeper in the afternoon than the morning, but of course the brakes were getting hammered. Felt like i'd done enough by the end of the day though and went home shattered.

Need to get the beam on at the very least for next trackday, and hopefully if i drive it around a bit i can kill 1 set of this dodgy rubber off, else i'll do a cheap spring day. Glad it worked well, need to find an annoying heatshield type rattle which drove me potty all day (magnex baffles I suspect), and need to put my top mounts on. Need to fix some rusty bits, find something that's rattlingg around somewhere in the back but can't be found, wire in my oil pressure/temp gauge and possibly invest in some better brake fluid after the next day.

Considering how long it's been in the making, and how heath robinson some of it is it worked well, but maybe the weather didn't help for interaction. A pretty antisocial trackday, since nobody came to look at the car, didn't feel like anyone wanted to be approached, loads of people left early etc

Missed the smell of hot brakes and rubber though!!!