Bedford Autodrome Saturday 18 October
Discussion
LOL, we are a useless pair 
- we have 964RSs but neither are on the road 
So we will be driving CPA's selection of track machinery - look out for an Orange Ultima GTR, Yellow Porsche GT3 Mk2, Red Seat Leon Cupra R, Yellow Fiat Stilo Abarth etc.
I will be the tosser in a red race suit with yellow glasses, who looks a bit like one of the Proclaimers according to reports from BTaP last year
See you there
Dom
- we have 964RSs but neither are on the road So we will be driving CPA's selection of track machinery - look out for an Orange Ultima GTR, Yellow Porsche GT3 Mk2, Red Seat Leon Cupra R, Yellow Fiat Stilo Abarth etc.
I will be the tosser in a red race suit with yellow glasses, who looks a bit like one of the Proclaimers according to reports from BTaP last year
See you there
Dom
Excellent day out!
RMA, whilst a tad pricy, run probably the best trackdays I've attended - I've been to two now. The people involved in the organisation are down to earth, good sense of humour, but all with serious racing backgrounds, and they know exactly what a driver is there for. Open pit lane all day, good briefing so you understand the rules in place for dodgy driving / overtaking etc. Highly recommend them to anyone.
Whilst my Porsche is feeling under the weather, I was instead driving a rollcaged Golf Mk II Gti. This was specifically to get some practice with a front wheel drive car for a change. Only 115 bhp, but great fun through the corners. Got annihilated by everything on the straights, but lots of smiles through the twisties.
Lift off oversteer in lots of corners was great fun
Met up with the Domster who was there driving a variety of cars including an Ultima, GT3, TVR 350TC?, Ginetta something or other. Wonder how he got on with the Ultima? Missed him at end of the day.
Dom introduced me to Paul H who was driving a 964RS Clubsport - one of the nicest ones of that breed I've seen in fact. As Paul happened to be about to go out, he kindly allowed me to enjoy his passenger seat for a session. Wonderful! Running circa 300bhp on R tyres (P Zero Corsas) makes for a lorra lorra smiles. Very impressive driving as well, exploiting the full potential of the wee beastie.
I was sharing the driving of the Golf with a couple of chums, and we were running a DL90 datalogger the whole day. This is very useful for comparing performance the week after, giving info on laptimes, brake and throttle %'s, speed at various points, etc. We could see today that one driver was braking longer before corners than the others, and therefore being a little slower through some corners.
We also had Don Palmer (of "the wetter the better" fame) with us the whole day as a co driver come instructor. This was very valuable. For someone who's been teaching other people to drive for so many years, he retains an incredible level of enthusiasm for driving, and was constantly giggling every time we managed to take a corner under his instruction as he would have intended us to. It was often a case of "Go into this fast corner too quickly, then lift off the throttle, let the back end step out and enjoy recovering it!" Somebody asked in the afternoon whether we'd driven the Golf on four wheels at any point during the day - it tends to enjoy lifting its outside rear wheel through the corners
I'd like to try and do a day with Don over the winter months on a wet surface - Bruntingthorpe would be a good one for this I think. I'm sure this would be a good laugh. He also forced you to think, through lots of questioning, about what was happening to particular tyres on the car depending on what you were doing with the throttle, brakes, steering. Often came up with a wrong answer, he put you right and explained the physics of it - most enlightening for someone like me who tends to just go out and drive without thinking much about it.
Bumped into Melv after lunchtime - brilliant I thought - I've wanted a lap in the 964 Cup for a looooong time! Straight upto Melv - pax lap please? - no, it's not here. Bugger. He said he would be at Rockingham the next day and I was welcome to a pax lap there, but a look at the map and a hangover on Sunday morning put paid to that idea. Oh well - I can continue looking forward to it one day.
Euan
RMA, whilst a tad pricy, run probably the best trackdays I've attended - I've been to two now. The people involved in the organisation are down to earth, good sense of humour, but all with serious racing backgrounds, and they know exactly what a driver is there for. Open pit lane all day, good briefing so you understand the rules in place for dodgy driving / overtaking etc. Highly recommend them to anyone.
Whilst my Porsche is feeling under the weather, I was instead driving a rollcaged Golf Mk II Gti. This was specifically to get some practice with a front wheel drive car for a change. Only 115 bhp, but great fun through the corners. Got annihilated by everything on the straights, but lots of smiles through the twisties.
Lift off oversteer in lots of corners was great fun
Met up with the Domster who was there driving a variety of cars including an Ultima, GT3, TVR 350TC?, Ginetta something or other. Wonder how he got on with the Ultima? Missed him at end of the day.
Dom introduced me to Paul H who was driving a 964RS Clubsport - one of the nicest ones of that breed I've seen in fact. As Paul happened to be about to go out, he kindly allowed me to enjoy his passenger seat for a session. Wonderful! Running circa 300bhp on R tyres (P Zero Corsas) makes for a lorra lorra smiles. Very impressive driving as well, exploiting the full potential of the wee beastie.
I was sharing the driving of the Golf with a couple of chums, and we were running a DL90 datalogger the whole day. This is very useful for comparing performance the week after, giving info on laptimes, brake and throttle %'s, speed at various points, etc. We could see today that one driver was braking longer before corners than the others, and therefore being a little slower through some corners.
We also had Don Palmer (of "the wetter the better" fame) with us the whole day as a co driver come instructor. This was very valuable. For someone who's been teaching other people to drive for so many years, he retains an incredible level of enthusiasm for driving, and was constantly giggling every time we managed to take a corner under his instruction as he would have intended us to. It was often a case of "Go into this fast corner too quickly, then lift off the throttle, let the back end step out and enjoy recovering it!" Somebody asked in the afternoon whether we'd driven the Golf on four wheels at any point during the day - it tends to enjoy lifting its outside rear wheel through the corners
I'd like to try and do a day with Don over the winter months on a wet surface - Bruntingthorpe would be a good one for this I think. I'm sure this would be a good laugh. He also forced you to think, through lots of questioning, about what was happening to particular tyres on the car depending on what you were doing with the throttle, brakes, steering. Often came up with a wrong answer, he put you right and explained the physics of it - most enlightening for someone like me who tends to just go out and drive without thinking much about it.
Bumped into Melv after lunchtime - brilliant I thought - I've wanted a lap in the 964 Cup for a looooong time! Straight upto Melv - pax lap please? - no, it's not here. Bugger. He said he would be at Rockingham the next day and I was welcome to a pax lap there, but a look at the map and a hangover on Sunday morning put paid to that idea. Oh well - I can continue looking forward to it one day.
Euan
Yep, another great day at Bedford, well organised by RMA, especially the weather. Excellent cars, all sensibly driven !
Never seen so many 964 RS's in one place, they easily out numbered the Elises and 7's. Was very envious of the young man with the maritime blue / blue wheels 964RS CS, it looked fabulous, and made my purply burgandy car look even more awful, but it was bought to drive not to look at !
Agree wholeheartedly about Don Palmer, he just seems to love what he does, and has the knack of making learning fun.
Regards,
Ravon
Never seen so many 964 RS's in one place, they easily out numbered the Elises and 7's. Was very envious of the young man with the maritime blue / blue wheels 964RS CS, it looked fabulous, and made my purply burgandy car look even more awful, but it was bought to drive not to look at !
Agree wholeheartedly about Don Palmer, he just seems to love what he does, and has the knack of making learning fun.
Regards,
Ravon
Some pictures of the day here -
www.pr-photography.org/Trackdays/rmacircuit/bedfordoctober03/index.htm
Euan
www.pr-photography.org/Trackdays/rmacircuit/bedfordoctober03/index.htm
Euan
Ravon said:
Yep, another great day at Bedford, well organised by RMA, especially the weather. Excellent cars, all sensibly driven !
Never seen so many 964 RS's in one place, they easily out numbered the Elises and 7's. Was very envious of the young man with the maritime blue / blue wheels 964RS CS, it looked fabulous, and made my purply burgandy car look even more awful, but it was bought to drive not to look at !
Agree wholeheartedly about Don Palmer, he just seems to love what he does, and has the knack of making learning fun.
Regards,
Ravon
Is that you Tim from Saturday??
Hi guys - sadly I got chucked off after only a handful of laps for being to loud!! Bit miffed about it as I was recorded at 83dB there when I first went in May yet they reckoned I was running at 88dB on 3 of the meters on Saturday. And thats with a standard car. Not a happy chappy. Looks like I'll not be going back there again which is a bit sad as it's only 20 minutes away. Still, I hung around for most of the day and it did seem a very good day with a good standard of driving and manners.
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