Marham - Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th April 2010

[Ben]

Had an awesome day - write up to follow - Enjoyed Gareth's Gran Turismo style .. lol .. I'll leave that for him to explain :P

[RX7]

Right then.......Ben asked if I wanted to share the driving of his Golf today at Marham.

I woke at 5:30 excited but a bit nervous.....what if I bent it, what if it broke down, what if, what if what if....
But put all that aside and was replaced by anticipation and excitement when Ben turned up

Anyway wont bore you with the travel there, signing on etc but it all went smoothly and was impressed at how organised the base was for the signon and briefing.

Onto the sighting laps as a passenger with Ben driving, midway through the second lap we were overtaken by 3 Honda Accords absolutely flying....yes the safety car had come off and it was full speed ahead. Ben handled the car well, flinging it into corners and creating a nice amount of tyre screech we came in and swapped and it was my go. I insisted that Ben come out as a passenger with me to start with......we pulled gingerly out of the pits, through the first corner and then accelerating towards the next corner. I started to slow down and turn in.......Oh my goodness how FWD cars drive differently than RWD with the back end stepping out. I of course say it was my way of exploring the limits of the car and a carefully timed drift.......Bens version is closer to the truth that I flung the car in and oversteered causing the back end to come out. Luckily I held it and we carried on. A few more laps and I started to build confidence, we changed a number of times and then it started to rain on the 2nd or 3rd session when I went out. Going into the tight left corner after the main straight I went in too quickly and ended up going sideways through the apex taking a cone with me Needless to say I drove off as I couldnt hear anything only to be flagged in by the marshalls and got a roasting as I had failed to notice said cone wedged under the car cone removed it was back for lunch. I 'manned up' after lunch and went out (confidence had taken a bit of a knock) being much more careful and slowing for corners and trying to be more smooth in my lines. It certainly helped and was getting quicker and quicker and managed to overtake a few cars also.

The other guys were flying, especially Les and Sasman, that green BM really flew.....especially with the new more aerodynamic bumper design

A good mix of cars there with drivers of all abilities and talents nice to see so many Bigpower members there also.
Overall it was a brilliant day, I realised that although I might be better on a console driving game Ben was much better than me in real life and I felt humbled as a result.
This made me laugh, it wasnt this one that rolled was it ?


Thanks again to Ben for today, that Golf is such a fantastic little car and handled all of our abuse very effectively !!

[Stuart]

I'm delighted to hear that you had a good day out Gareth, and yeah, front wheel drive cars are a totally different kettle of fish to drive than anything like a Rex. Golf's can be driven very quickly indeed but they are easily 'over' driven, scrubbing off valuable speed and momentum. I should know.........I've got to learn this stuff all over again.

I had a feeling that SASman and BigBimma were going to have fun today. The banter was flying yesterday between them so it was always going to be competitive

[Ben]

Ha ha - very good - the Golf was a hoot - a minor issue with cooling but nothing to stop us - running out of go go juice did that - The golf suspension is incredible, the tyres terrible, which made for a very unusual driving style - never got a FWD car sideways that you have to steer into the drift to come out! .. really controllable, awesome brakes and fantastic fun.

Gareth you are more than welcome, I guess like when Stuart leant me the car, you realised that I wasn't going to worry if anything went wrong!.

Great to see everyone else driving - the big bimma - Sasman head to head was fun to watch.

[Tk]

sounds like the bp crew all had a blast
i cant wait to get out and have a play soon , although i have nothing booked atm

[andrea@occ]

Glad the Golf went well, it likes the cones at Marham. It ate one for Breakfast last time I drove it there!!

Andrea.

[russ979]

Yes thank you Ben for your organisation. The skyline that rolled was the dark grey one with the very shinny wheels.
Sorry for the very poor photo, but i think the poor sod was just trying to make a quick getaway as he came straight off track and out the gate.

And this was very much the good side!

Anyway Harry and i had a supurb day/arfternoon. the morning was not to cracky because i was so concerned that my back was going to upset my day that i did n`t play much. Then mid morning with Harry at the wheel going down the runway the scoob had a lurch and the "check engine" light came on, A little head scratching latter and the penny dropped that this is what happened to simmion at bentwaters sprint last year! And yep sure enough the speedo cable had come out the gearbox which meant we were limited to 112mph and had hit the limiter! Then the rain came. But the afternoon was spot on and the car was so much fun lap after lap (thank you Harry i needed that) As has already been said it was good to properly put more faces to user names. Ben and gareth seemed to be bantering with each other everytime i saw them. Bigbimmer and sasman were also bantering well even after sasman had made bigbimmers front bumper into a light weight one.:smilielol5:A top day just not long enough.

[Stuart]

Great to hear that you boys had a great time Shame about the GTS-t. Off to read about the car and whoopsie on their forum.

Everyone well behaved this time out?

[RX7]

That Skyline was going slowly earlier on, wonder how that happened ?

[russ979]

from my point of view the standard of driving was very good. I think i can honestly say that the only two cars that came past me all day was a black m3 and a caterham style thing that came past me on the bend past the pit exit then spun in front us! ( laugh when this happen? yes we did lots!:)) We think he messed his pants because he went straight back to the pits, loaded up and went home! Otherwise we had not one single issue with any of the drivers.