Leaderboard

My first sprint event with the electric Westfield was at Croft. This is quite a long circuit so I wondered if one charge could last for a whole days sprinting? I also wondered what sort of reception the car would receive from the authorities. The MSA Blue Book has nothing to say about electric cars. In the end the scrutineers were diligent and helpful if a little bemused but they gave it the OK. On the way to the circuit for first practise all cars line up for the noise test. When it came to my turn, the tester looked around the car and asked “where’s the exhaust”. Other marshals, standing nearby, helpfully explained that the car was actually a converted hair dryer and didn’t need an exhaust. He wrote down 0dB. The electrical power systems performed faultlessly and the battery lasted all day. The handling on the other hand was a real handful. The car’s weight, including me, was 975Kgs (885+90). On the track it bounced and wallowed around the circuit. The under slung batteries gave it a ride height of 50mm so it hit the ground several times. Obviously the springs were too soft and with no anti roll bar the car leaned like a ship. After returning home I consulted Westfield and they advised that the very similarly weighted iRacer used 600 lb springs on the rear and 500 lb on the front! I duly fitted the recommended springs and set off for the MIRA sprint. MIRA was wet! My first lap was a disaster. A combination of rain on both sides of the windscreen and a motor cut out meant that I missed a red flag and had to report to the headmaster for a lesson in humility. Subsequent laps were better. The new springs transformed the handling and my times were comparable with the other Westys, mainly due to the extra traction afforded by the car’s weight in the wet. Mine was the only Westfield not aquaplaning – result. The windscreen was worse than useless so before the next event I resolved to remove it along with all the interior trim and fitted a new GRP seat and a 12V lithium battery. This saved a total of 35Kg. Car now weighed “only” 850Kg! After a summer holiday I returned to MIRA with a lighter and more aerodynamic car. Again it was a wet start but the track dried in the afternoon. After P1, I started to adjust the damper settings and tyre pressures, seeking advice from fellow WSCC competitors. Everyone was very helpful. In the end my best time was 59.16 seconds with a top speed of 101 mph (according to my GPS logger anyway) – the slowest Westfield in the dry - but not too bad. After a good run at Curborough I called it a day for this year. Only four events but all fun and I learned a great deal about the car and myself. I need more track time and the car is basically way too heavy for competitive sprinting. It’s clear I’ll need to reduce the number of batteries in the car by 50%. This should save about 200Kgs but it’s a big technical challenge to reconfigure the battery to get the same power from half the cells - but that’s another story.

Daughter and her friends (1 woman, 1 man and a reluctant father) swapped an L200 chassis on the side of the road last year!. The original chassis was so corroded that it would have been too dangerous to drive away from an MOT test so they went to a scrap yard who sold them a rolling chassis and told them it was an easy swap. “Just lift the cab, roll the old chassis out and the new one in”! That's OK if you have lifting gear but on the side of the road with an engine crane, it's "a challenge" but she did it. Proud of her and her mates!

A lot of the changes on mine cant be seen from the outside, but here is one form whe i picked her up in May 2011, IMG_0474 by andy798, on Flickr And this is what it looks like now Westfield by andy798, on Flickr

OK, so I know it's not finished, but here's my journey... I started with this (yes, it isn't a Westy, but the full Sierra donor is in the back of the car, so counts towards the build!) then saw the light and went to this on 7th June 2014: and is now at this stage:

I don't believe we can judge 'Personality' in the way most posters are using it from media communications anyway! I once met a soap star- she was a stunner, came across as a genuinely great person and I had a bit of a crush TBH! When was actually lucky enough to spend some time in her company she was a complete 'female canine' and not a very nice person. Of the very few 'personalities' I've met and chatted to. None were as portrayed in the media. Some had far more personality than depicted and were thoroughly fine people, others the complete opposite. As far as SPOTY is concerned IMO the majority of the nominated sports people would have been worthy winners, as Lewis IS

Hiding itself away behind a pay wall where people slowly give less of a toss about it. You can see it happening already. This 'Lewis doesn't have a personality' stuff is nonsense. By most people's measure he probably has the most 'personality' on the grid. They just don't like it because they aren't into all the bling, dogs and red private jets. Regardless, the word 'personality' in the case of SPOTY is from the 2nd definition in the OED as noted earlier in the thread. So what he has won is 'most popular person with people that could be bothered to vote that did a sport in 2014'.

Following on from Marto303's example of what not to do to a Westie, some of you may remember my attempt a couple of years back. Unfortunately a rebuild wasn't really an option! Before (hours before).... ...and to prove that Westfields, rain, an oil slick and trees don't mix..... Got another one 3 months later and 6 months after that my wife spoke to me again! Matt

From hereon it shall be called a stop dangler. Who says the swear filter spoils threads ;-)

They said Lewis got more than double the votes for Rory. So who voted for the lesser mainstream sports stars then? I voted for the guy I wanted to win, and he won so I'm happy.