No cones were hurt in the making of this day
13th April 2007
First off, a little update on the CRX. I've decided to finish the car and do a full season with it and see how I get on. I'm aiming to get the car finished and ready to test for August, with the intention of doing a full race in September.
There is a huge amount of work to do to get to that point though. Task 1 is the roll cage so the car has been stripped down to a bare shell, leaving only the steering column, pedal box and suspension. I'm taking it up to Custom Cages shortly for a multi-point weld in cage which although expensive, is going to offer the best crash protection and shell strength.
Here's how it looks at the moment:
Taking the wings, doors and sill covers off revealed a little rust that needs taking care of, but all in all I was relieved to see that the shell is in fantastic condition considering the 170k miles it's seen! Once the cage is in I will have the rust sorted, the inside and engine bay sprayed and some new body work fitted, and commit to my colour scheme (you'll have to wait and see how that's going to look!). By then my new engine will hopefully be ready but there are some issues to work out first with that.
In the meantime, I've been helping my dad to run in his new toy - a shiney new MX-5 Roadster Coupe!
My dad and I took the car to North Weald today for another Hondas-On-Track activity day which was great fun. Similar to last Novembers' event, we were faced with a high speed bend, slalom course and two handling circuits. I wasn't sure how well the Mazda would do but after a couple of times round the high speed bend, I was 100% impressed by the chassis. This was my first taste of rear wheel drive and what a great way to start. The car is so easy to control on the limit, it's very similar to the CRX in that you just need to be delicate with the steering input and throttle and you can correct a slide with ease.
We moved over to the slalom and this was where I became a little nervous. Last time (with the CRX), I managed to hit pretty much every cone! This time around I knew I had to take a step back and drive with caution seeing as it was a) a brand new car and b) not even mine!! Anyway, the car was once again a joy to drive, flicking left to right very happily and the rear end behaving well. I found it so easy to drive fast, the steering was weighty but super responsive and was telling me exactly what the car was doing.Finally, the handling courses. The high speed course was very enjoyable and I was able to stretch the legs of the car a little, even having a bit of a power slide around one of the turns! The shorter course was quite tricky but just as fun, particularly with a hair pin turn which was best taken with a large helping of throttle in first gear!!
The weather was fantastic and it was a really fun day. Huge thanks to my dad for letting me play with the car, and the other guys that let me drive their cars which I also really enjoyed. I've edited the video my Dad took which includes most peoples cars. The camera had a funny moment early in the afternoon so sorry if we missed you. You can see the video here. There are also some fairly static pictures which can be found here (I'll add some better ones as they become available).