Club Arnage

What a great track day our last one of the year was! (http://trackdays.dreamracers.net/gallery/20041024/index.php)

Wishy & Burgundy - great fun lads!  Will upload a movie soon!


(corrected the link.,....sorry)

For my 50th birthday some friends of mine have bought me a drive in Ferrari 308 QV, at Goodwood.  Probably going to do it mext May.  CA overalls anyone?

What? Overalls not on the CA merchandise list?  What about CA condoms?

Ooooooooaaaaahhhhh....firkin'ell
H

You'd need to be a Full Member to be able to properly show off the slogan Real Men Do It for 24 Hours (or a small font I suppose...)

I'll take the small font then Smokie.   ;)

Looking at the piccy of the Shed from the rear....looks like I just about managed to lift the rear wheel again!!!

Fantastic day again.Nice to see such a good variety of machinery ,and the kids enjoyed the rides. ......next time I will be down in the Alfa!!1 ;D


Wishy

Thanks for a great day Mark, well done.
My thanks,also, to Wishy for allowing me to sample such a wonderful piece of french engineering, very interesting.  It's what Espaces were really designed for  ::)  ;).
Apologies, Wishy for scrubbing the markings off the tyre sidewalls ;D

"The Nutty Bus Driver"

Just picking up on the Shed Theme....


Came home from work a few minutes ago after a fantastic pursuit..

I was driving a Peugeot Expert van with 80000 miles on the clock, and 3 other boys in the car....


I managed to keep up with the fleeing car, round all king of twisty stuff, and it had a great bit of compsure on the roundabouts, surely a better track car than a caterham 7 ? ( maybe try to bring it to the next track day )

Brakes faded badly (.started to go on fire...)

When i finally stopped, smoke bellowing from the brake discs.... The cavalier was dead too. And the little turds lost their human rights for a few hours.

Bloody hell Robbo, I just looked at the time of your last post . Having trouble sleeping are you ?

Nice pictures Mark, but I'm a bit worried by what seem to be the occasional random tyre sitting in the middle of the track

Well Gibb,

I lost my bearings twice and had to ask the nice man at the gate......which way to go!!!!!

It's difficult driving a bus round the track ;D

Wishy

They arent ones that fell off various cars as they past, we can change the layout through strategic placement of tyres, so do 4 differant tracks in one day  ;D

VIDEO OF SUNDAY!!! (http://trackdays.dreamracers.net/gallery/dr_trackday.wmv) (16.5mb .wmv vid file)

One of my first attempts at a vid. edit. - only a £50 piece of kit to do this with, and I am pleased with the results! Wishy, Burgundy, and myself appear

Full of adrenalin !!

Oh great video Mark, how many sets of tyres did the black MR2 go through ?

Thanks Robbo!  Not a single shredded tyre in sight!

Just done a version for dial up - only 2mb this one IT IS HERE (http://trackdays.dreamracers.net/gallery/dr_trackday_lo.wmv)

great video Mark.  You might have a second proffesion in the making there.  ;)

I WISH!!!!  :'(

Mark ....

What an excelent edit....shame you did'nt catch the shed in action ,apart from the cockpit view that is.

When will the complete movie be released??,and what will be the title?

Wishy

"On the Buses" of course!! ;D ;D

 8) Excellent......

Much interest in an exclusive CA Track Day sometime next year?

Just seen video clip, brill.  a CA Track Day sounds good.  Can I bring the "Beast", if I havn't sold it? :o

Sorry Ian

No kit cars or plastic bodied cars will be allowed!!!!!

Wishy

Bugger!

Hi Mark,
Tell us more about the Gulf GT40 replica!
H

PS Does this look a hoot, or what?!!

www.motorbox.com/Moto/ApriliaMagnet.html?mmc=49

Mr Brown - I think Wishy was being a tad sarcastic...  Should take hi to task over flapping fibre glass & filler  :P

The GT40 is a GTD40 and was driven down to the track.  Its owned by the chap I bought my latest Sud from, but dont know a lot about it I'm afraid  :'(

Got a case of the "I wants" for that Aprilla tho *drool*

H,

The GTD ,according to the owner the GTD40 is purley for pleasure and not competition....he said he had just bought a Formula Renault to compete in.

Alright for some.....Huh!!!!


Wishy

'scuse my ignorance chaps.
What's the 'D' for? Surely not Diesel. Maybe Disastrous, possibly Dubious? Even Dastardly. Is it the initial of the company who built it?
H

supposedly the best GT40 kit out there, and the fact my 16stone (ahem..), 6'3" frame into it for a few cosy laps was a bonus!

Just asked"Burgundy Beast"....He is going to check with our local GTDF42 owner as to what the"D" means.

A GTD42 is built for drivers over 6'6" tall and looks nothing like a GT40 replica.Mind you it does put out 550bhp with the Chevy lump fitted instead of the ford 402.

Wishy

I thought the "D" was Developments?

Having just had a quick surf around....You are correct Mark..... it is actually GT Developments.

 ;D
I may well be able to talk some of our merry band into bringing their small bodied / large engined cobras along.

Oh, new development - Andy "2 cobras" is now Andy "3 cobras" - the bastard  :o

Oooohhh... this could be a fun mix of kit!

Looks like it could be quite interesting......an Alfa/Cobra day.

Although I did suggest that no plastic bodied cars can enter for the CA Day........I might just be wrong in this case :)

Wishy

seeing your pics and vid make me want to bring the Transam for a blast.Looks a bit narrow though and the run off looks non existent
PM

I've taken a Camero round there....  My god they dont build those for corners do they  :o

no but mine has been modified to go round corners!!

Spoke to the guy I know with the GTD R42.  The D, as Mark says, stands for Developments.  Incidently, this guy also happens to be the GTD40 Club Vice-Chairman!  There website is worth a look, www.gtd40club.co.uk .  For those not sure about the GTD R42, see below.

PM, definitley narrow and nowhere to hide on the outside if it all goes wrong :(  A bit more space on the inside sections though. The track is short and requires above all else a good set of stoppers if you give you car any sort of real stick.

I managed to ruin one set of fast road pads and a pair of front discs in a day there.

GREAT fun though  :)

Thanks for the info guys.
The GT40 has to be one of the greatest sportscar designs, it still looks fabulous to me. How the owners get around the supermarket car park I don't know, and where do they put their kids, golf clubs and prescription medicines?
It raises a question I've pondered on for a while; well, at least during moments of intense constipation. Moments, if only. When's a kit car not a kit car?
A few years ago a kit car was, to me at least, a synonym for lash up and/or death trap. I remember seeing "Cobras" based on Cortina chassis with XJ12 lumps and other variations. I recall giving a lift to a guy at Calais one year, his "Cobra" had stripped the diff and drive shafts when he tried a burn out...
As the market matured the term kit-car seemed to get phased out, and now we have 'replicas'. I think I take the line that unless something has been reproduced bolt for bolt then, by definition it's not a replica. A couple of the cars on that GTD40 site looked a little like 'replicas of kit cars' to me, and I don't think I'd be a comfortable passenger. But there's so much money and time put into replicas now, you've got to give them some respect, both for the dedication of their owners and the quality of the end result. There's no answer of course, but I got a -ponderin' when I saw an ad for a D-Type which looked like the donkeys undercarriage to me. The detailing was spot on, and it looked like a proper job. Mind you, it was on an ally back-bone chassis, so it probably handled a little different from the real thing. Probably better. I was seriously tempted but didn't go for it in the end, I think it was the thought of all those 'is it a real one mate' situations, but I'm used to getting those, in the Gents at least.
I can't help thinking though, that I probably missed out on a bit of memorable motoring ownership.
H

Good points H,
The kit-car industry likes to call them 'component cars' now!

I know how much my Dax Tojeiro (cobra) cost me to build and it would approach the GDP of a small country!  There are no Cortina bits in it, the suspension, steering and axle components come from an XJS V12 Jaguar which are built like a substansially fabricated outdoor privy and the engine and transmission are pure Detroit iron (Pontiac specifically).  The chassis is considerably stronger in flex and torsion than an original being made from parts of the Forth Bridge and the body is fibreglass.

On that note, this is obviously not a replica in the purists eye as I don't have a flexi chassis with hand fettled aluminium paneling.  Also, having a Pontiac V8 (6.6 litres) rather than a 289 (4.7) or 427 (7.0) Ford could be seen as sacrilege to some people.

Also, I have (horror of horrors) an automatic transmission.  However, this was sitting on the back of the Pontiac engine in our old Trans Am and, as the Pontiac motor develops wads of low down torque anyway, who needs a gear box.  My left leg gently rests on a platform in the footwell (and invariably goes to sleep).

To cap it all, I don't have any of those 'cobra', 'powered by Ford', '427', 'Shelby' or other pretend badges and scripts on the car, just a descreet badge that proudly proclaims 'Dax'.

(http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/east_anglia_crc/images/6-picture2.jpg?0.679105975697554)

Hi Steve,
Small countries GDP, I think we've been there...
There's a Cobra specialist not far from me (he did the repairs on my car after the shennanigans outside of 'Hells Gate'), and when I was down there one afternoon he pointed to the corner of one garage and told me he had the chassis from the first racing Cobra and was about to do a full restoration on this historically important car. I wandered over there and started looking around in a lost manner, I had a look out of the window incase he meant outside, but still couldn't see anything. He had to point to what looked like a couple of rusted out old drainpipes before I realized that that was what he meant! -Talk about well gone. I believe it's now finished and racing again, and I'm sure he made a good job and a few bob.
The site of the AC workshops is only a few hundred yards from me (the bloke mentioned above bought a lot of the original jigs and bucks from them when they closed), there's a typically modern housing estate there now, with a pretty pathetic little plaque on the wall of one of the houses declaring AC's successes at Le Mans. A shame really, as the village is still pretty well intact, except for this boil of a development in the middle.

What was John Tojeiro's connection with Dax?
H

A long, long time ago, in a land far away, I lived and worked in St Leonards-on-Sea. In that sh*t-poke town is a truly wonderful business called Lynx Engineering. These guys make better than original C, D and E Types - excuisite works of art - but replicas, none the less.
I remember driving past one morning and they had 2 - count 'em, 2 ex TWR XJS's, which were being restored for the owner (of both of them!)
One had W Percy's name above the door frame, the other, Fat Tom himself. The guys a Lynx were quite used to rubber-neckers like me gingerly edging into their carpark for a quick shufftee and were very welcoming and informative.
I don't even know if they are still in business, but all I remember is genuine hand-formed and lovingly produced craftsmanship that reminded me of a visit I once made to an outfit in Newport Pagnell who did similar magic with sheet aluminium.......

The newport pagnall outfit have a new factory somewher near Daventry i believe !

Brian John's of Dax signed up John Tojeiro about 10 or more years ago as their 'Technical Director'.  Probably a grace and favour title so that they could call the car a Tojeiro.

As we all know Ford (and Shelby) are fiercely protective of the Cobra name (allowing AC to still use it) and anyone else cops a law suit.
Hence, Dax Tojeiro, AK 427, GD 427, Hawk 289, Pilgrim Sumo etc.

The same situation exists if you call your small open cockpit sports car a 'Seven'.  Caterham sued Westfield a few years ago.

Dax are here http://www.daxcars.co.uk/ (http://www.daxcars.co.uk/)
and Lynx (makers of authentic C and D types and the XKSS) are here http://www.lynxmotors.co.uk/ (http://www.lynxmotors.co.uk/)

There is still fall-out, even today if have you own one of those early Westfields.  They are known as pre-litigation models (Westfield 7's).  Apparently, Westfield are under orders to destroy any replaced parts on these old cars!  The owner having to send them to Westfield before replacements are sent out.  Strange thing is Lotus, I don't think, ever sued Westfield over copying the Lotus 11 with the Westfield 11, which was Westfield's first foray into "small volume production" cars.
Unfortunately, Dutton did the "kit-car" market a world of favours.........not! :o

uuurgghhh Duttons.....
 :-X

One of our marshalls was on about getting one...

I remember him saying.  Duttons are cheap and cheerful, but that's about all.  If he wants to get an inexpensive kit-car, then he should try and track down an older (1989-94) x-flow engined Westfield.  Could get one for about £3 - 5k, and still get reasonable support from the factory, as far as spares are concerned. :)  The Westfield Sports Car Club is a good place to start looking.  
www.wscc.co.uk