Cadwell Park with Mazda on Track Apr 2011

Booked a Cadwell Park day with MOT, booked a trailer and hitched it to my latest tow vehicle, a Rover 75 Tourer with BMW Turbo diesel engine (31mpg while towing). A really good car for a "daily" and pretty good for towing, bit of a surprise really.

Arrived very late in the evening and thought I cannot be ar**d to pitch the tent or find a hotel.

So I will just fold down the rear, blow up the airbed, jump in the sleeping bag and that will be that! Wrong - inside a car is like sleeping in a fridge I was f***kin freezin, never again.

The day turned out to be glorious - blue skies and hot sunshine all day :-) excellent.

It was not just Mazda MX5's but a whole mix of cars.

A gaggle of Fiat 500's with a number of them being Abarths. These cars are very rapid and

handle really well as you will see in some of the later pictures. There were BMW's, some Lotus Elise's, some Westfields and Golf GTi's.

Here are some pics of the Elan on the day - it was my first time using the Luke harneses and

what an improvement - really keep you firm in the seat, which in turn gives you more control. I am getting the passenger site fitted shortly.

The car is still rolling too much in the corners - so I think I will try the 40% stiffer and slightly lower springs from SJSportscars.

On this lap with the BMW M3 following I got it a bit wrong on the back of the circuit going into Chris's.......bit too much lift going into the bend. the back came round and I had to stomp on the power to stop it spinning, but it was quite a lurid sideways slide. The BMW driver came up later and said well caught :-)

The day just got better and better, especially

with the tyres up to temperature.

The photographer keep taking pictures of me attacking the mountain, he was hoping I would lift

the front wheels - they got very light and

squirmed but no full lift :-)

Couple of BMW M3's going into Hall Bends - couple of good guys. the E36 is owned by 3 guys who share the cost of running a track car - good idea.

The E36 was fully stripped out with a cage,

bucket seats and harnesses.......Oh! and running on slicks - GLOL

Another picture showing the body roll and the sunshine on the day, great day no mishaps, no stoppages and a good time had by all. Then the four hour journey home....................................