I had the luxury of trailering the Caterham up to Donington Park early on Saturday morning. Alarm was set for 5am and I can assure you, it wasn’t appreciated.
I’m new to this towing lark as well and at that time in the morning, my eyes were on stalks to begin with. I did make it in one piece, although my average fuel consumption wouldn’t have been out of place on a big block American car.
The track was damp and cold early in the day and was therefore slippier than a vets arm just ahead of foetal checks. That’s not exactly confidence inspiring on a fast track, in a car that you’ve very little experience of, on tyres that don’t heat up!
It was more a case of survival early doors. However, it did dry up and as the drying line appeared, things started getting a lot more fun! It was a day of learning and chatting to fellow group 1 driver, Henry and Group 2 driver Dan. The class of 2012 were also in attendance with their newly upgraded Caterham Roadsports. Had some great banter with them and appreciated the advice.
As for the car, it behaved impeccably. It’s not put any more oil into the catch tank and it never missed a beat all day. I’m now using full revs and chucking it about a lot more. I’ve still got a fair chunk of time to find – Henry was around 4-5 seconds clear of my times but looking back at the footage from the end of the day, where the track was a lot drier, I never got a clean lap in. I’m therefore working to around 4 seconds to find and I feel like this is achievable…
Found a heal-toe technique that seems to work OK – although I’m not good at it! I had one full lock correction down at the hairpin and a couple of run wides – but no totally off track excursions!
Can’t wait for more of the same… would say it might be new year before I get out on track again, but never say never!
PistonHeads and Caterham have announced that this years Media Partner will in fact be a competition winner! That competition is open to anyone who buys a ticket to Autosport International Show.
If you win, you get the car, ready built, and entry into the Academy in Group 1. So, you save £25,000 and I promise that we won’t hold that against you… (much).
You do have to give the car back at the end of the year though, and I think it’s only fair to point out that there are still a fair few expenses that you need to cover (transportation, insurance, fixing the car if you break it) but why not give it a go!
So, having picked up the car on Thursday evening, and having had an induction of fire into just how cold it is to drive a Caterham in winter, with no heater, no roof and no doors, I felt it was only right and proper to get out there and get going on track!
I chose Keevil Airfield as my first track day for a number of reasons. 1. It was far enough away that I could get some more running in miles on the clock ahead of raising revs and using brakes more fully on track. 2. It’s a great track as far as run-offs are concerned should anything decide to not function properly (including myself). 3. Grubby, James H and Pete B were all booked onto the track day as well – and this social side of things was probably the most important of the lot for me!
So, firstly, the drive up to the circuit. It was a beautiful Christmas scene as I travelled from Reading to the track. Idilic vistas of frost bitten trees and grass. Mist and fog caressing the hills and dales…. and me freezing my butt off in a car that couldn’t give a shit how cold its owner is! Dad chose the only sensible course and decided to travel up in convoy in his nice heated and insulated car…
Sign on, obligatory safety briefing and sighting laps out the way, and it was onto the first forays out on track.
Tentative to begin with – not knowing how the brakes and engine were going to take to being more robustly used – but then gradually gaining the confidence and starting to push on a little more.
I didn’t use more than 6000 revs through the whole day to try and bed things in but everything felt nice and solid. The brake pedal did get longer through the day as things settled in and I never found a good technique for heal-toe with the pedals, so gave up for the day and concentrated on having fun.
Initial impressions of the car are great. It’s spritely, eager and is progressive and communicative. The tyres let you know what they are doing, or about to do and give you ample warning if they don’t like a decision you just made. Kind of a conversation ‘Errm, Cheesy, I think that you might want to think about not trying to get to that apex right now, I’m having a few difficulties…. no really, I think you should stop that now…. you’re still going, I’ve told you a couple of times, I’m not going to tell you again… I warned you…’ and all in the delightful screeches and squeals coming from the tyres. Sure, they don’t have oodles of grip, but they have enough (for now!).
The only two slightly worrying aspects of the day were a catch tank rapidly filling itself (although this seemed to calm through the day, but it never stopped fully) and the oil pressure gauge reading low when the engine was hot but just at idle (on throttle, and cold engine, it’s a very steady 4 bar.)
Speaking to James and Pete lowered some of my concerns as James initially had a catch tank fill itself a bit and Pete had been told by his instructor that any overfill of the engine will end up in the tank… Dad did warn me that we may have overfilled a bit during the build, so that may well explain things.
The oil pressure I will confirm with Caterham that this is expected on a hot engine at idol but again, speaking to James, he had lower pressure once the engine was hot and only idling.
Massive thanks to Steve for sorting me out a temporary in-line solution to getting a ligher socket into the car for my VBox. The box itself seemed to work great through the day. It captured all its data, which I’ll have to start to learn how to assess.
I only attached one camera for the day and hadn’t set up the box to show timing or map overlays. Again, more learning so I can prep this properly going forward.
Now, I just need to make a decision about Donington next weekend. I’ve very tempted and now I’ve got the car fairly run in, I can even trailer it! Luxury.
