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As @Julie Hall - WSCC AO Representative 'Queen of Cake' is still absent, I joined @RobH72's rabble for an excellent few hours here. @Trevor Little (Trevturtle) , what's missing from this pic? I'm not the only one with 'pink' bits on a car: @HB46443 doing his best to gain new Youtube subscribers- Here's a practise run of a bike engined Westie having to make do with circa 500BHP. It has crossed the finish line @120mph, previously. It managed 111mph on this run.

Great 170m early run out this morning with the SKCC guys in Kent/Sussex

We had a good run today, first one for a while. Meeting at the Fox and Grapes were me, @Breakable?and Debs, @francis and @johnno, we left just after 10 and went over to the Seaways cafe at Fridaythorp to meet @Never Too Oldand Judy. That made 5, a manageable number of cars to lead. We made it to the NY500 for a coffee and loo break and a chat, then on to Scarborough taking some roads I wasn't familiar with. Not going the usual way makes a difference sometimes. A stop on Marine Drive for fish and chips, but we decided it was too far to walk, so we thought we'd drive to Bridlington instead. Frank left us on the way, taking a different route home ( we did know, didn't just leave him) When we got there, it was busy. A Kite festival was taking place on the seafront and parking together was impossible. So a quick u-turn and found "The best fish shop in the UK" with a photo of Camilla in it. It was then time for fuel and loo, and start the journey home. Roger led us towards Driffield, where me and Simon turned off towards York. Good weather, cloudy, but warm and dry, with lots of bikes and cars out.

Here's a video from yesterday's local event hosted at a church parking lot in Bozeman, Montana. This is about as small a parking lot that one can effectively run an autocross in. From the camera's perspective it could be hard to follow the course....in effect the course is run counter-clockwise for 1 1/2 laps and then there is a cross over that puts the driver on the same course but going clockwise. My fastest time (51.870 seconds) set FTD over the Atom by 2.7 seconds. Despite the small size of the lot the speeds are still quick. My top speed was set at 58 mph. This course is run in 2nd gear but many will go back and forth between 2nd and 3rd. You can see the cars running on the road adjacent to the parking lot and the speed limit on this road is 50 mph. This course is very dense with many driver inputs and there's not a second of breathing room. The car is in nearly constant transition. I enjoy this type of course. The rear brake picked up a piece of gravel at the beginning of the run and made a nice skreech every time I hit the brake. You can certainly tell when I'm braking. I hope this video link works as it should. It's my first ever time putting a video on You Tube....fingers crossed! dave

Chris you have provided training for russ everytime he gets to overtake you on a trackday, so some of today's success is down to you. 😁

Glad you had a good day out, even if there are no photo's of cake @Ian Kinder (Bagpuss) - Joint Peak District AO @RobH72😄, we are now back from our hols and desperate to get out in the car so hope to see you all next Sunday xxxx

https://www.greatbritishsportscars.com/single-donor-plus-kit The Second Generation Zero Upgrade Plus Kit Includes: Generation 2 Chassis - Powder Coated & with lowered floor as standard. Wishbone & Pedals - Powder Coated. Panels - Aluminium pre folded Generation 2. (All interior & exterior panels). GRP (Choice of 9 colours) - 5 piece GRP Set - Nose Cone, Sport Front Wings, Rear Wings. Easy fit Electrical Harness Zero Shock Absorber Set Zero Radiator Lighting Pack GRP Dash (Choice of 9 colours) Bolt kit & Shock Bolts.

At St Mary’s Loch with @Apc1x on our way to the highlands with the lads

Well, spring has reluctantly sprung and my autocross season has finally opened.I made a number of changes over the long Montana winter and was excited (and a bit nervous) to see how they worked when put to the test. This first event of the season was hosted in Helena, Montana at a police and fire training facility where they learn to slide firetrucks around! The place is huge and there is absolutely nothing to hit so the speeds are high for autocross. This means that there are lots of high speed violent lane-change maneuvers where the car is moving at 80 mph and one needs to change lanes and back again as quickly as possible. Honestly this can be scary stuff and it takes full commitment and trust that the car will be with you when you flick it at 80+ mph. This past winter I installed a new Siltech +35 sidetrack front suspension, changed the spring rates to suit the different spring angle, made a new front ARB to work with the Siltech parts and lastly I made a new ultralight rear spoiler to help keep the rear end from wanting to pass the front during high speed transitions. Saturday was cold (50°F) but dry in the morning and the brand new Avons needed a few runs to get properly scrubbed in so I could tell what the car was doing. After a few runs the car was telling me it wanted a stiffer front bar and that helped with turn-in while still keeping the rear end in line. I made a small shock adjustment (one click softer) on the Nitrons and my last run of the morning felt very good and my confidence was growing. After a lunch break it got just a bit warmer and grip was improved and I felt even better in the car I was able to set the fastest time of day (FTD) over a supercharged Ariel Atom and a full-race 600hp Corvette on 14” wide (!) slicks. My winning margin was .6 seconds on an 80 second run. Not a huge margin but it proved to be a winning one. Sunday was warmer (70°F) so the grip was much better and the course was faster (different courses for each day) and after adding a bit of toe out to the front to aide turn-in on the tighter parts of the course the car felt just right. It felt planted and supple and it could really work with the surface instead of against it. The turn-in was very crisp but the rear end stayed in line even at high speeds. With my old narrow track front it would turn in well but then you’d need to mind the tail - now I can stay on the gas without having to worry that the rear end will come around. Simply brilliant. I set FTD again this time with a 2 second margin on a 77 second run. The new widetrack front is no doubt mostly responsible for the change. The rear spoiler might aide a bit at high speed but the car felt awesome even during 60 mph full throttle, long radius sweeper turns. I’m sure I have more room as a driver to take advantage of the new set up and that will hopefully come as the season progresses and I gain more confidence. I wish I had photos of the car in action but I had no one to take any so some static shots will have to do. The first is of the car loaded on the trailer to make the trip to Helena (100 miles), the next is the pits for the event with my car and a 500+ HP Nissan and the Supercharged Atom, and the last two are of my car safely back home with lots of pick up from pulling off the course and over dirty pavement with hot tires. Thanks to Siltech for helping make me quicker. Dennis went above and beyond the call of duty to answer the countless emails to get everything sorted out for my car. The next race is next weekend. Hoping for sun and warm pavement! Thanks for reading. Dave

A few of us are meeting at Curborough tomorrow morning between 930 and 10 for a couple of hours to watch some of the Sprinting and gorge ourselves on bacon butties. If anyone fancies joining us, please feel free 👍

Thanks for the reply. I would never say that the aero I have on the car is the reason it does well. However I would say that the aero is just one of 100 things that together make the car quick and easy to drive at the limit. In my mind it's an "accumulation of incremental gains" kind of thing. My aero package consists of a front splitter, fully enclosed chassis around the engine, a rear diffuser and the spoiler on the rear deck. These items all together weigh a total of 7.5 lbs (3.4 kg) and even with that I'm still under the minimum weight allowed and I need to add ballast to get to weight. The aero therefore doesn't hurt performance due to its weight and I feel confident that it adds little to no drag as a whole (front splitter, enclosed underbody and diffuser should all reduce drag while the spoiler would increase it some) so there should be no downside in having it. I can say with 100% certainty that high speed lift is reduced. On very quick courses I had understeer due to lift before the aero and now I have none whatsoever. So it helps there. I've heard some say that these cars are as aero as a brick and therefore why bother trying to improve it. I think the exact opposite way - I think that because the aero is so very bad that it's really easy to make major gains there. Does the aero help on low speed courses like I ran the other day in the church parking lot? I'd say the answer has to be yes? The question is how much? To that I'd say probably not much. I think of it as being one part of a detailed package that all together add up to make the car quick.....having very precise alignment, the ideal shock settings and spring rates, the ARB being just right, corning weighting optimized, swirl pot for fuel to allow a near empty tank (to reduce weight) with fuel starve, the fabric cover over the passenger side compartment, +100......etc. Does any one of these things make the car 2-3 second faster than a car that has a much better power-to-weight than mine (my friend's Atom)? No....certainly not. But if each little thing ends up making it lap 0.1 seconds quicker that will all add up to make a winning car. I love the little details and know from my bicycle building business that all the little things add up to be one big thing in the end and that's how a winning package is put together. It's really fun stuff. dave

I just love the fact you're using a church car park 😂😂

A few more photos from today 👍

Pretty sure my build thread repeatedly demonstrates my lack of skill and understanding! I keep at it though, and learn an awful lot.

Thanks mate - I always try and do my best to help by being super slow.

Fantastic result! Starting from the pit lane in your first ever race and finishing anything but last would be a result, but to go on to pass 10 cars is outstanding! Well done mate 👍

I actually started, last from the pit lane. I was suited, booted and strapped into the car ready to go while it was still on stands and the engine hadn’t run. Talk about close. Ended 23 out of 33 which I’m taking as a win! Biiiiiiig smile on my face! The bad news is, no go pro footage

Looks familiar

Chasing a Lambo, Bentley, Morgan and Jag 😁👍