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Its first tootle in sunny Devon

I will be there

Meet at Carsington Water, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, DE6 1ST, 10am. As you enter the site park in the large car park to your right, it is the quietest one. If you want to be guaranteed to be fed then please book with New Leaf Catering on 01629 540 363, or you can chance it, as normally at 10am it is quiet. The Burton Car Club will be joining us as usual with an array of replica Ferraris and classic cars. If it is raining then we will swap to the MX5, if it is dry we will be in the Westfield and will go for a run out afterwards. Come in whichever car you choose, but no tin tops on the run out please. Who is joining us?

This is a "stalled" rebuild by my late brother-in-law from perhaps ten years ago. It is a rolling chassis with a "scrap" 1650 crossflow engine and a partly fitted set of body panels following a Weber blow-back fire (limited to side of engine bay). Westfield would only sell full set of panels at £700. Parked in Dewsbury under a waterproof cover which failed some time ago. Many used parts. Selling on behalf of his widow.

@Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman @David Bennett is coming (and may bring his car twin Brett- He'll advise after Sun)

Well, the snows of have winter have arrived in the Northwest region of the USA and this makes it a good time to look back on this past season of autocross competition in my 2014 Westfield Mega S2000. I had a good set of results this year so I apologize in advance for the following humble-brag. I made some changes to the car before the season started that really made the car quicker and easier to drive at the limit. The biggest single change was the installation of the +35 mm wide track front suspension kit from the good people at Siltech racing. This really made the car easier to drive and more intuitive at the limit…the place it was really felt was that I’m now able to stay on the gas during rapid lane changes or slaloms. In the past I’d have needed to mind the tail coming around and eased off a bit to keep it in line. With the Siltech wide A arms and a ARB that I made the nose turned in very sharply but the tail stayed in line even when on the throttle. Stay on the gas, turn in violently and everything does what one would want it to do. It’s wonderful. I also changed the alignment some to deal with the inherently high slip angles of the wide Avon slicks I’m using. I now run 2mm of toe-out on each front tire, 2mm of toe-in on each rear tire and 1.2° of camber all around. This really aided turn-in without having to keep the tail in line and combined with the new front suspension the car went from very good to great. Here’s a few of this year's stats - 17 days of competition 17 times setting FTD (Fastest Time of Day) 172 runs in total over those 17 days 1 set of Avon A15 compound slicks used to the full 0 mechanical breakdowns 2 times setting fastest PAX time (a handicap factor based on the car’s potential/class so that cars of different classes can be compared) 3 second place PAX finishes 11 top five PAX finishes Largest winning margin over 2nd place - 6 seconds. Smallest margin - .6 seconds Lastly - I set a new fastest ever time on our club’s “Index Course” where we can compare times to those set all the way back to 2012. I held the previous fastest Index time and beat it this year by .4 seconds on a very hot (slow) day. I’ve got some plans to make the car better balanced next year which should help the handling even more. I’ll be modifying the fuel tank so that it will carry nearly all of its load on the passenger side of the car which should benefit the handling. I’m already at the minimum weight for my class (1420 lbs or 644kg for the car with me in it) but I’ll be taking some more weight out of it so that I can bring it back up to minimum weight with ballast on the passenger side to further help with right/left weight distribution…in effect I’ll be shifting weight to the passenger side of the car. And lastly I hope to install Siltech Mirco Adjust rear A arms to get rid of the one rubber bushing left in the suspension and to make toe and camber adjustments more precise and easier. Winter is long in Montana so I have plenty of wrenching time over the coming months. If anyone is interested in Autocross and I can help in any way please let me know. It's so much fun. I'm already excited for next season...it's only 6 months away! Thanks for reading, Dave