[UK Paul]

Track time at Bedford Autodrome yesterday, What a fantastic spectacle, with some real pros turning up with Rally prepared Cosworth, Hill climbing Porsches and someone in an Ultima Spyder . Caterham sent along a R500 for Autocar to lay down a time.

All times were up against Palmersport Exige previously driven by Justin Wilson of F3000 fame.

Initial practice to try and work out the track was great fun but impossible, the 3,6 mile version just has so many turns its unreal!! Then satelite GPS equipment fitted with Racelogic software (or some gizmo like that for your warm up, big run then cool down 3 laps). Palmersport driver came across and said I was 'his opposition' as he had an S2000 to rip round in, I inquired about its mods as I noticed their AudiTT had a huge brake upgrade compared to someone who turned up in a regular 225, he reckoned 'just harder pads' but I noticed the race rubber he was on also;) ;)

Anyway he set a time of about 12 seconds faster than me, but I could have been quicker by at least a second, if not two:mad:Some old duffer on his warm up lap in a TVR Griffith, ambled around the end of the straight, the long curve around the pits and then only started to speed up on the pit straight (if you've been there you know where I mean), you can clearly see it on my trace slowing right down and being 25+mph slower than should have been:mad: Your trace overlays the exige and it is soooooooooooooooooo noticeable I had to lift off :mad: otherwise it mirrors his (but I brake a bit earlier and don't seem to get around the corners as quick :p )

Best part was back in the suite comparing the results on the big screen and only being a second behind a Tommi Makinen EVO6 on Race rubber, he was mortified, even more so when I said I should have beat him and explained about the Griffith. Ony saw the first 34 results (I was 16th at this point and with the cars there don't expect to be above 50 out of 100) but I was ahead of other regular TT's, another Evo6, Evo 5 and some Subaru's :). A Palmer SLK 320 thrown round by the instructor was just behind the Palmer S2000 :eek: I did 3'08.90. (Stripped out Porsche GT3 with 500 ish BHP!!!! was top when I left with 2'44 and bits. Palmer S2000 was 2'54 ish

For your INFO. Sutcliffe of Autocar fame piled the R500 in one lap after the Caterham boys had spent about 4 hours setting it up, tried to dive down the inside of an Subaru on the left / right left chicane before the long sweeper (like your told not to do!!!!) and ripped off half the bodywork! Lets see if they print that in Autocar next week!!

More tomorrow if anyone is interested.

[SimonJackson]

This is Sutcliffe the Autocar race driver. His credibility is pretty low in my book as a driver as I only ever hear about his crashes.

Paul, Do you work nowdays? Or are you just doing road testing for Honda???:)

It souds great fun.

Sam.

[AnDy_PaNdY]

Quote

Originally posted by UK Paul


More tomorrow if anyone is interested.

Sounds like a great day:D

[Turtle]

It will be interesting to see what gets in :)

Did you check this weeks Autocar? The S2000 is their secondhand recommendation - buy for

[UK Paul]

Quote

Originally posted by SimonJackson
This is Sutcliffe the Autocar race driver. His credibility is pretty low in my book as a driver as I only ever hear about his crashes.

Paul, Do you work nowdays? Or are you just doing road testing for Honda???:)

It souds great fun.

Sam.

The very same Sutcliffe, it was such a great day as when you were laying down your time (excuse the probably misplaced jargon!) there should have only been 3 cars on the track, so in theory you should not catch up with anyone :mad: :mad:, then you could go back to the hospitality suite and watch other people going around, however on this occasion the R500 and others were out on their practice that they missed in the morning (and photo opportunities of the R500), and we all saw it coming, must have been about 50 of us there, the rest were waiting to do their run or stuffing their faces free inside, there was a big woah went up about 2 seconds before impact!! Prior to this, talking to someone inside when viewing early results, he wondered what happened on my run as people were timing them on their NEW AUTOCAR SUPPLIED stopwatches, and he thought I was really going for it and thought I would be just over 3 mins (please stop it:o )

[Kobe]

that sounds a great time - I bet you had bucket loads of adrenaline on tap as you started the quick lap.

what does the GPS trace give you - actual racing lines - or just relative position round the track compared to time?

did you see when they did a ghost video overlay of the 2 schumis when they qualfied for the France GP - only then you can see where one car/driver is quicker or time lost with a mistake - overall times are difficult to judge,

[UK Paul]

Quote

Originally posted by Kobe
that sounds a great time - I bet you had bucket loads of adrenaline on tap as you started the quick lap.

what does the GPS trace give you - actual racing lines - or just relative position round the track compared to time?

did you see when they did a ghost video overlay of the 2 schumis when they qualfied for the France GP - only then you can see where one car/driver is quicker or time lost with a mistake - overall times are difficult to judge,

Easiest to describe it as your time overlaying the exige's, down the left is 0-your top mph(if its faster then the exige's anywhere on the track, I was at one point :)) along the bottom the track length in feet i.e. 0 feet is the start / finish, ~19000 feet the finish / start, wow just realised, a third of the way up Mt Everest in 3 minutes!!! :)