So with the car finally finished and ready for its first competitive outing it was time to have some fun after a very long winter of rebuilding the car. For those who haven't followed my project thread it has been a full strip down and rebuild to try and ensure a reliable car for the 2013 racing season. It has been a stressful, expensive and time consuming job but i'm really proud of the end result so before going out and potentially ruining it I thought it might be a good idea to get some professional photo's of the car!
The Good:
Very kindly RiadArianeMedia had offered to take some photo's so I headed over to Manchester and met up with Riad and Naith! Naith managed to hook us up with Daytona Karting for a location. Had a really fun day and really appreciate them taking the time to take the shots
I can't believe how well the pictures have turned out! Below are a few pictures
The Bad:
After my day out in Manchester it was time to head to CSS 2013, I have never been to a CSS before but last minute I decided to take a day off work and come down. I met up with the convoy at Woodall services and then down to LFE. Driving along the A14 and towing the clio behind on the trailer my 2012 luck kicked in and had a blowout on the tow car. The car and trailer got a bit of twitch on but luckily nothing major happened, the noise was very loud and I needed to stop the car asap but the A14 has no hard shoulder in the corner of my eye I spotted a small lay-by but I was still in the second lane and doing 60 so anchored on and got stopped. 20 odd minutes trying to get through to RAC and I explain the problem, unfortunately I have a BM with 19" wheels designed for Runflats but they used to cause no end of issues so I swapped to non runflats and have the foam kit. Trying to find a suitable tyre at 9.30am on a Saturday was proving difficult with only Kwikfit offering a solution for £1000 but I would of needed to wait until Monday! I found one tyre up near Nottingham but the tyre shop were closing at 12.30 and RAC had been faffing around so I was never going to make it there. I was on the phone to Chip just letting him know I wasn't going to make it and he offered to drive up from CSS to Nottingham and then bring the tyre to me, He really was a life saver and it's not the first time he's gone well out of his way to help me.. a true legend! We finally got sorted and at 2.15pm we were sorted and hooked back up with the trailer albeit still 60 miles away from CSS. I couldn't decide weather to bother still going but we decided to as we should arrive just after 3. As we approached it chucked it down with rain so we saw flocks of Clio's leaving and guessed we had missed most people. In the end there was still alot of Clio's so glad we came down and had a good catch up with a few people and also met a few new people! A bit of a disastrous and expensive day but these things are here to try us!
The next day after a couple of hours sleep was time to head upto Croft to go and watch the touring cars and to go and show some support to fellow CS'er Josh Cook. Met up with a few other forum members and had a great day, Massive thanks to Josh for the hospitality and was a nice positive end to the weekend
So now it's time for me to stop making lists of jobs to do on the clio and stop adding insult to injury with the Clio's expenditure excel document and finally start driving! Testing is starting this week and can't wait to get behind the wheel
Plan for the season is lots of testing plus:
Mallory 3rd August French Trophy
Donington 24th August Tintops
Oulton 21st September Tintops
Oulton 28th September French Trophy (Not sure i'm going to do this yet as 2 consecutive race weekends at the same circuit might be a bit repetitive)
Donnington 20th October French Trophy Winter series
Thanks for reading and hopefully look forward to bumping into some of you this year
James
The Good:
Very kindly RiadArianeMedia had offered to take some photo's so I headed over to Manchester and met up with Riad and Naith! Naith managed to hook us up with Daytona Karting for a location. Had a really fun day and really appreciate them taking the time to take the shots
I can't believe how well the pictures have turned out! Below are a few picturesThe Bad:
After my day out in Manchester it was time to head to CSS 2013, I have never been to a CSS before but last minute I decided to take a day off work and come down. I met up with the convoy at Woodall services and then down to LFE. Driving along the A14 and towing the clio behind on the trailer my 2012 luck kicked in and had a blowout on the tow car. The car and trailer got a bit of twitch on but luckily nothing major happened, the noise was very loud and I needed to stop the car asap but the A14 has no hard shoulder in the corner of my eye I spotted a small lay-by but I was still in the second lane and doing 60 so anchored on and got stopped. 20 odd minutes trying to get through to RAC and I explain the problem, unfortunately I have a BM with 19" wheels designed for Runflats but they used to cause no end of issues so I swapped to non runflats and have the foam kit. Trying to find a suitable tyre at 9.30am on a Saturday was proving difficult with only Kwikfit offering a solution for £1000 but I would of needed to wait until Monday! I found one tyre up near Nottingham but the tyre shop were closing at 12.30 and RAC had been faffing around so I was never going to make it there. I was on the phone to Chip just letting him know I wasn't going to make it and he offered to drive up from CSS to Nottingham and then bring the tyre to me, He really was a life saver and it's not the first time he's gone well out of his way to help me.. a true legend! We finally got sorted and at 2.15pm we were sorted and hooked back up with the trailer albeit still 60 miles away from CSS. I couldn't decide weather to bother still going but we decided to as we should arrive just after 3. As we approached it chucked it down with rain so we saw flocks of Clio's leaving and guessed we had missed most people. In the end there was still alot of Clio's so glad we came down and had a good catch up with a few people and also met a few new people! A bit of a disastrous and expensive day but these things are here to try us!
The next day after a couple of hours sleep was time to head upto Croft to go and watch the touring cars and to go and show some support to fellow CS'er Josh Cook. Met up with a few other forum members and had a great day, Massive thanks to Josh for the hospitality and was a nice positive end to the weekend
So now it's time for me to stop making lists of jobs to do on the clio and stop adding insult to injury with the Clio's expenditure excel document and finally start driving! Testing is starting this week and can't wait to get behind the wheel
Plan for the season is lots of testing plus:
Mallory 3rd August French Trophy
Donington 24th August Tintops
Oulton 21st September Tintops
Oulton 28th September French Trophy (Not sure i'm going to do this yet as 2 consecutive race weekends at the same circuit might be a bit repetitive)
Donnington 20th October French Trophy Winter series
Thanks for reading and hopefully look forward to bumping into some of you this year
James
