Yesterday we went to the Bedford Autodrome. Paul and I arranged a track day at Bedford in celebration of Paul's first track day in his new car.
And low and behold there were a few of us at the track, in total 5 academy drivers were there in our caterham's and one in a Arial Atom.
It was a great day out, and full of camoradery and "non competative" rivalry with a little bit of seeing who had the stronger engine and an open sharing of tools, oils and experiences.
Having spent the day in the company of a few academy entrants yesterday i am mor and more enthused about the year ahead.

I expect to see lots of friendships and plenty of friendly rivalry on the track.

Bedford Aerodrome Turismo circuit, is 4.1miles long, and with a 1km straight means you get the top end of the car, and with two hairpins, and numerous other technical corners, it means you get to play on what i would say is a firly challenging, but forgiving track.
Forgiving because it is wide, and the runoff is wide, and mainly grass, which means that you are unlikely to take all the lovely paint of your car with kitty litter or Armco 

I finally got to take the car on track and play with what it can do, and I have to say in the dry what a car, superb. I was a little nervous about what i could do with the car, and although i had done 600 mile in it, i was not really that confident with the car yet.

At first I started a little cautiously as the track was a little damp. but once I got into stride, the track dried out and following a minor adjusted to the tire pressure (down to 23 and 25 (front and rear respectively)) the car behave with impecable character and my confidence and understanding of the car really did start to grow.

However after lunch, the rain came (and when i say it rained, I had the wipers on full for about an hour). In the wet the car was a completely different animal, stopping was a trick in itself (one it took me a few goes to master, and cornering, well lets just say there were a few twitchy moments, some from the back of the car, and some from the back of me.
however I class the couple of sideways cornering incidents and the one excursion onto the grass when I failed to make the chicane at the end of the 1km straight as a very successful day.
That coupled with progress as the day went on, to start with i was passed by quite a few cars, but by the end of the day i was passing most of the cars on the track (with a few exception). and before you ask, some of them were the ones passing me in the morning.
  
I have put a few pics below which a friend took whilst i was playing, and i will upload a couple of vid's which i took on the new "drift HD" cam i brought at the autosport show.

Went to London yesterday to help Max (group 2) put his engine into his car. I also met Paul (group 1) who popped in with his son to say hello and to have a peek at my caterham for inspiration on completing his own car.

It was a good day, drove down the M1, and through london and over Kew bridge, with a big grin on my face, and a spring in my accelerator as the weather was lovely. However on the way back it was not only dark, but raining fairly hard. I didnt have many problems and even though there was a few drops coming in from the bottom of the doors at speed the weather gear did it's job well.
It was pretty surprising how stable and happy the car was at speed in the wet, and the large puddles didnt seem to bother the car too much even at speed. I will say i was happy that i coated the windscreen with an anti water coating (it is like rain-x) as that made the water stick to the screen a lot less than it would have done, and the vision was very good even in the wet weather.

Well i am glad to say that we got Max's engine in place so it was a good day all round... good luck Max.. !!!

I have just booked the tickets to the "Auto sport " show at the NEC for the Sat 14th January so I can go and have a look at the goods ready for racing this year and to also to watch some of the great motor sports show that is put on.... Can't wait.

I am also thinking of doing the Donnington cuircuit (open lane day on the 21st) to see what the car is like on a track and to get a feel for it's cornering capability. 

Well that's the plan ... so far !!!

Went for another blat inteh caterham yesterday befor all the forcast rain. and had a couple of minor issues,
1) When i cornered around a left had bend at any speed there was a metal sound on the outside of the car - turned out to be the exhaust had turned and was now facing more downwartds, so when the car leaned in the corner the beveled end of the exhasust scrapped the floor... must have been when i replaced the engine... so tightned up and all is good.
2) I took a passenger for the a drive the other day and any large dip in the road means that the rear grounds out on to something at the back of the car... not sure what. I now need to look into loading the suspension, or looking waiting for a full car set up once the car is properly loosened up... not sure what to do here...
 ---    --- ---   --- any advise?????

Finally got some post (it was kinda obvious from the DVLA), so I have now got the stuff to get the plates made and can start to run it in (and best of all the surprise is intact for xmas).

Cool ! ! !

Well time to go and register the car today and get it road legal.
Firstly filling the forms... mmmm seems to be something missing here the V55/4 form is there, but the example is not... I called Caterham and they kindly emailed me a copy of an example form. So it is off to the local DVLA office (well not so local in Northampton, but since postal registration can take up to 2 weeks it is worth the trip to cut that down to 72 hours (ish).
the Guys at the DVLA were extremely helpful, especially since I was registering the car in my Daughters name (it is an Xmas pressie for us both).. I get to do the build and race season, she gets ownership and all the track days she wants.
Well the car is registered and all is good.. waiting for the post so that I can keep the surprise until Xmas will be the hardest part...
wish me luck !