Blitz Krieg - mission accomplished - Ring and Spa Nov 2010

[ceejam]

I SO have to go to Spa next year!!!!

Was laughing out loud reading some of the stories - one shoe Caterham driving partuicularly!

[mckeann]

I love stirring up a good controversial discussion on a Sunday night!!!

You might be quite right in some circumstances but I was home in my bed at 2.30am. If it had been 6am like some, i might have struggled

[campbell]

For the sake of £49 in a travel lodge on the way home, what are you guys trying to prove?????? You are all bloody lucky to complete the journey without falling asleep at the wheel!
...
Campbell ( mr sensible personified) I was most surprised with!!!

Well, Paul, not like you to be so forthright and animated!

I confess, from the outset when Wing Commander Iddon said we were running both directions through the night, I gulped a bit. But as he's said on here, he's done it a-plenty and whilst I wouldn't pretend to be able to imitate Robin's wakefulness and concentration abilities (Jedi-like as they are!), I was happy enough to give it a try since we were sharing the car.

The crunch came, however, when en route home with Tut (who was originally staying at Spa until Sunday, remember, therefore otherwise it'd just have been me and Fisics in the one car ourselves to worry about). Robin was rightly thinking of Tut's extended journey onward to Aberdeenshire, and it was this which prompted a Pikey Lodge Wheeze for the Knutsford area.

Sadly, despite throwing our strongest tractor beam and also slowing to just 45 Tuts near the M6 toll in order to sweep him up, Tut escaped the Mother Ship and we got split up. Attempts to raise him on the electric telephone failed, so understandably we looked at switching back to Plan A - driving right through. I can't deny the lure of my own bed was strong!!

Turns out, based on back-calculations, that he was probably only minutes behind us as we entered the Border Mountain Country and the snowy wilderness...had we re-connected after the M6 Toll, there is no doubt we'd have called it a night and stayed at Knutsford.

So there you have it!

Obviously I can't speak for Tut, but he's provided his own defence already

What is particularly hilarious is that McKean left Spa barely 5 mins ahead of us, was only 20 mins ahead at the exit of the Shuttle, yet got to deepest darkest Bo'ness about 3 hrs before Robin and I reached Iddon Towers Coffee breaks, Monster breaks, pee breaks and regular refuelling probably accounted for a lot of it. The rest is clearly raw talent

[campbell]

Spa turned out to be even wetter than the ring, and on the racing line it was almost as slippy. I've done alot of laps round Spa, but thoroughly enjoyed finding where all the grip was.

As a newbie there, I think starting with normal racing lines was a very good place to start. In the absence of The Mad Welshman to instruct me any differently, I was happy to stick with that! I enjoyed "following" you for a lap and a half on the wet lines, but I reckon I'd have ended up confusing the two approaches and having an expensive accident as a result...so I reverted to the snowplough technique and just got on with it

I was grateful for Robin's guidance (I hadn't noticed that he was sleeping between corners, but given how long I was taking to go from one to the next, I can't blame him). I particularly enjoyed a couple of opportunities when I went out on my own and just tried to apply what he'd pointed out, and what I'd learned with Walshy on the Thursday. At the point when they red flagged the session due to Biblical Rainfall, I was actually buzzing and desperate to stay out - UJI was in the zone on the Uber Wet Setup and I had the place to myself.

After an "intermediate" review by Robin, I started trying to work harder on things like downshifting finesse, balance through the Bus Stop chicane, and the McKean line through Eau Rouge It was at around 3.30pm that I "hooked up" what - for me - was one really good lap, and so it was with a wry smile on my face that I called it a day and set about working out how to squeeze everything back into the car for the home sortie

I'll probably think of a lot more to say about Spa itself in due course, but what strikes me the most is this. The wet conditions were probably actually an ideal basis for a Spa novice (not a trackday novice...I think you need to have found your way around some simpler circuits first). On road tyres, grip was high, speeds were relatively lower, and maybe the sense of caution was heightened.

I had a ball - on track and off, and feel I made the very best of the limited opportunities I've got for trackday action. I left the place really satisfied. Not just with what I'd done on the day, but also that I'd prepped the car for it, from a standing start only a couple of months previous, and as I write this it's back in the garage, washed and cleared of high-energy drink detritus, in no worse shape than when it left on Thursday morning For me, that's a total result.

Thanks to everyone involved. You all know who you are.

the drive home was pretty uneventful until moffat, when there was a huge dump of snow on the ungritted motorway. At one point, i was following the tyre marks of a truck and the snow in the middle was hitting my front clam the scary part was the heaters inability to keep the windscreen from fogging up and having to contend with that aswell as no grip in the snow.

Ah, so it was you that smoothed it down a little! When Robin pointed out that it made more sense to help the trucks to get past me (scary stuff) as they'd help clear a path, it all started to make sense. And I had Walshy's fingertip steering tricks up my sleeve should it all start to get lairy

PS - our screen was clear as a bell...when is the last time you chamois'd the inside of yours, out of interest? Or does your heater just not heat...!

[kenny]

Camera packed in half way through (blaming weather) but still got some clips.

McKean showing me the wet weather line
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqI6MlNzE14

[Mikie711]

. Glad I didn't go now, damn it was wet

[Mike Scib]

Sounds like a awesome trip guys!, keep the stories coming

[mckeann]

campbell, i was 20 minutes ahead at the tunnel, filled twice between tunnel and home, only stopping 10 mins each time. I stayed below 80tut until the M6, then did a full tank at 90-100tuts, then only slowed to 50mph in the snow. P

p.s. The snow hitting the clam was only when i was in the outside lane overtaking trucks

[Dominic]

Camera packed in half way through (blaming weather) but still got some clips.

McKean showing me the wet weather line
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqI6MlNzE14

Great video!

[campbell]

Yep, good work Kenny.

Incidentally, anyone know how to preview the Bookatrack photographer pictures before throwing £20-£30 at a download set?

[Mikie711]

You have to book them before you go AFAIK. Least that was what I did at KH else they won't know to watch for your car. They don't take photo's of everybody just those that book.

[Dominique]

I've purchased a stick with over 200 photo's from Saturday, and had a look on their computer when they were sorting the pics. Almost sure that they've taken loads of pics of every car on Saturday. The small number of cars attending might have made it an easier job for the three photographers.
They assured me however, that the sets they would offer from the site would not contain all pictures taken due to download size/time.
Saying that, you're probably better of with a downloaded set. The stick contains photo bursts: series where there's very short time between the photo's taken.
Resolution of the ones I've received is 3552x2368, and do not worry about the quality. Taken the bad weather in account I can only compliment the photographers of the nice result. See the resized examples below :
(note the rivers we had to cross on the last pic! )

[tut]

I was on track less than the others but she told me that she had taken 130 pics of N3, some even in a straight line.

tut

[campbell]

Thanks Dom.

I think since Robin booked our place (albeit didn't drive much!!), he'll have a login and can easily pick them up. Will check. The quality looks excellent.

Mikie, I know what you mean about pre-booking, however a snapper was very clearly catching UJI at La Source hairpin (a la Dom's pic above - cool!) so I am sure UJI will be in there. And at the briefing we were clearly advised of lots of photography going on for all participants and not to showboat

Can't deny was tempted at la Source though!

[Scotty C]

Dom nice pic and your only 3ft from the Apex