Went for a blast in the Elan on Friday 27th - to pick up a sway bar for the A8 for towing. Got to near Milton Keynes and could not select a gear :-( - thought cables have gone.

Sat in a BP Garage while ADAC/AA sorted out the recovery and hire car. Left home at 1pm got home at 9pm :-(

First time the Lotus has let me down in over 7 years of ownership.

Garage called - the cables are OK :-) the problem is the gearbox and clutch are F**ked :-(

Sourced a 2nd hand gearbox at a reasonable price and getting it delivered to the garage in Northampton in the next few days. Just got to find a clutch kit - SJSportscars are closed and can not ship until the 6th Jan!!!

Will update with progress over the next couple of days.

December 2013 - too long between updates :-(

Work is just chaotic so struggling to update the blog. :-(

So since April I have done a number of track days in the BMW M3 and the Lotus Elan:-

1. Lotus Club day at Castle Coombe
2. Lotus day at Goodwood
3. Northloop day at Goodwood
4. DN days at Spa and The Ring
5. Charity Day at Castle Coombe

The Lotus Club day was quiet again - I don't know if they will be doing it next year - too few cars.So few of the club members venture on to the track with their cars :-(

My Daughter,Louisa, loves to come along as she is a Petrolhead like her Dad. She is a good passenger as long as the circuit is flat - she does not like elevation - like Cadwell Park.

She loves to pax with other cars and this year it was a supercharged Exige and a race prepared Elise.

Lotus Day at Goodwood - only 49 cars but they had to be all Lotus, but they did allow VX220's :-)

A good day well run and nobody tripped the noise meters - so we all got lots of laps in :-)

Forgot the camera so no pics or vids.

Northloop day at Goodwood - this was superb and we all had a lot of fun here is a vid with Louisa as Pax.

One of the highlights of this is a plane coming into land across the track.!!!

Lots of friends were on this trackday and it was good to meetup with them all. this time Louisa and Marc came along.

Some pictures:-

Quite a few friends came in their MX5's 

Next up was the DN - Destination Nurburgring days at the Ring  this was a 2 day trackday in the Eifel region of Germany with the BMW M3.

As you might have noticed in past blogs the Ring is my favourite place on the planet. The track is the longest most challenging one in the world, but we all love it. 

DN is a collection of many 000's of Petrolheads and about 200 of them come on the DN trackdays. These are very well run and the people on them tend to be experienced so the days run smoothly with few incidents.

We got some variable weather but this was typical for the Eifel region - snow, sun, cloud, rain :-) but in the main it was dry.

Couple of guys drove over in their C and D types through all sorts of weather and then blasted them round the Ring - fairplay and much respect.

It was a fantastic event and James and I did some follow/chase on video sessions - with him in his 968CS. One of them ended quite dramatically at Adenaur Forst - see the video.

https://vimeo.com/72337957

This was on a fastidiously maintained car so just never know - fortunately I was behind and got James to pull off as soon as possible - saved the engine. He was unaware of the problem and could easily have carried on for a couple of miles and lunched the engine.................

Funnily enough the guy in the white focus RS/ST? - Oli - sorted it out for James later that evening. I hooked up the trailer to the trusty A8 and went and got James and the Porsche from Breidshied bridge car park and took him round to Oli's workshop.

This is a fantastic shot by Andy - Frozenspeed of the famous Karrousel showing the full downforce effect of the banked curve.

two generations of M3 in the one Pic - E36 on the Karrusell and E92 in it :-)

Following Sam in his Schirminator E46 M3 into Wipperman - he is getting really quick in that car :-)

Great event and cannot wait until DN10 in July 2013.

Next up was a Charity day at Castle Coombe for the Stroke Foundation - this was a very wet and cold day. I tried the orange wheels with the R888's but even with careful smooth driving and judicious use of the throttle I spun at Druids!!! so I changed to the Black wheels with the full racing Wets - chalk and cheese...

Some very interesting cars there on the day ........................drool :-)

 Now that is a V12 with character - sounds lovely as well and the guy was giving pax laps for charity!!!

The Aston V12 is lovely but the modern take on an engine all covered up does not have the "presence" of the old Ferrari Colombo engine.

Long Overdue Update

Been busy - moving house,  new track toy, lots of track days and trips, sold the blue Lotus Excel SA. It went to a good home and I am sure Gary will look after it and his young family will enjoy travelling in the back. :-)

Still got the Lotus Elan SE, but it has been "retired" from track day duties since the E36 M3 has joined the stable. So I took the harnesses out of it to fit in the M3.

This was it's last overseas trip to Spa in Belgium with my sister, Paula in the passenger seat. She is virtually blind so couldn't see anything clearly but could feel the speed and a few slides :-) She thoroughly enjoyed it. The only track days the Elan will see is a couple of Lotus days - Goodwood and Castle Coombe.

since putting the M3 into service I have done three Ring trips, two Spa trips, Croft, Cadwell, Donnington, Brands and Snetterton. M3 is superb and I am really getting to enjoy it on the last Spa/Ring trip in April 2013 I did an 830 BTG. Here it is at Spa.

It was snowing the day before and there was a lot of grit/salt on the track which made it very slippery, but the sun was shining and there was blue skies.


We all then de-camped and went to Germany to Nurburg for two days at the Ring. Unfortunately we could not get the Nordschleife for day 1 and we had to use the GP sprint circuit. I hate this as it is short and boring and just wears out your tyres and brakes (more later).

Here it is on the GP Circuit - I did four laps and that was more than enough - so I parked it up in the garage and went and socialised and looked at other cars.

A real mix of cars from a Ferrari 360 CS to Clio's which are actually fast and nimble.

That night we had a smattering of snow and the odd flakes were still coming down in the morning when we arrived at the Ring!!!!!

In this pic at Steilstrecke (just down from Karrussell) you can see the snow drops falling, there was also a lot of salt/grit down so this made it slippy as well - yikees..............

More to come over the coming days/weeks/months.......................................................