brillomaster

but F1 are trying all sorts of crazy stuff as well, double points for the final race, weird elimination qualifying format, completely meaningless 70-place grid penalties for component changes... at least the BTCC is consistent, the format hasn't changed for the last 5-6 years.

but you've already ditched F1 by dropping your sky subscription... you should really try the BTCC again, what on earth made you stop watching it in the first place? (and don't say Jason plato is a knob, there are loads of other charismatic drivers if you don't like him)

its really not difficult to level the playing field, its just that F1 is stubborn and refuses to. its only really good to watch if you're an avid Mercedes fan and are happy to see them win time and time again with very little contest. Must suck to be a Ferrari fan at the moment. F1 is severely conflicted, they want to keep the historic teams being the most successful, but are happy to ditch the historic races and go to random far flung countries where the most popular method of getting about is an ox. I'd rather watch GP2, but you cant find those races to watch for love nor money, which is a real shame as they sound great, go really fast and have decent racing.

I watch it cos its something to watch about cars... and at the moment its free on channel 4. I also watch all the touring car races as well, and watch the DTM when it gets put on youtube. I'd watch the WEC as well, but the endurance nature means its quite a commitment. To be honest, a lot of racing isn't that exciting... DTM and Blancpain sprint and endurance only have a few overtakes going on... WEC has the difficulty of different classes on track at the same time to contend with, but its hard to get hold of for free. The only championship that offers consistently good racing is british touring cars, which has the perfect combination of lots of manufacturers, success ballast and reverse grids giving unpredictability and saloon racing where a bit of contact doesn't result in a retirement and a penalty for the next race from overzealous stewards. I mean, this season alone had 12 different winners from 30 races, that's a huge amount of variation. EDIT to add, blancpain sprint, DTM, WEC and british touring cars all have some for of Balance of Performance, which is what gives good racing. Formula 1 has lots of rules and regs, but no BoP, which is why the top three teams are always the same. but as I say, something to watch on a sunday afternoon!

i'd agree with kyle, heatsoak might be a problem in stop start traffic in Californian sun or waiting on the start line of a dragstrip, but in this country most of the year you're getting plenty of cold airflow as soon as you start moving.

oh yeah, our RSRs have split across the tread. but they've done 5 trackdays, expect to get another 3 out of them before they need replacing. hopefully the new ones wont split! but they feel fine to drive on, and are showing no bulging or anything, its just a crack appearing along the thread. I would prefer a better track tyre, but for the money (£90 a tyre in 255/35/18 size) they're working really well, and they're way grippier than the budget ditchfinder we normally run!

hells yeah £650 beemer razzing it round a track! this is a rare 'neither understeering or oversteering' shot...

Not even in the top 5 overall, according to EVO magazine. http://www.tyrerevie...e-Tyre-Test.htm Although it is still the mack daddy in the dry. So great for trackdays and summer usage, but if you drive your car year round as a lot of us do, there are other good tyres to consider! Personally i'll be giving GY Eagle F1 3s a go on the roadcar next, and stick to Federal 595 RSRs for the track car. Shots fired / flame suit on / :stir: etc.!

that's what im saying, its the unholy trinity of speed, reliability and cost. the zed actually does very well, its near 300bhp quick, very reasonably priced and reliable. to go faster you either need unreliable turbos, or a more expensive larger capacity engine. Or you can go fast by going light, but then you lose rear seats. And actually, the cheapest VX220 that isn't in the wilds of Scotland is £8k, so that's over budget. and lotus Elises start at £9.5k. An S2000 would make a nice change from a zed, in budget, but its no faster.

faster and four seats has got to be a 335i. servicing and parts aren't as bad as you might think, its just a normal 3 series with a powerful engine. Unlike M cars which have the M tax, and parts are twice the price. just watch for a rattly turbo wastegate, other that that you'll be fine. And 0-60 in under 5 seconds is not to be sniffed at! huge gobs of turbocharged torque available right across the rev range. you might be able to get a quick older audi for that money, an old RS4 for example. but i'd worry about servicing and reliability of an older RS car. would maybe an Audi S4 suffice in the speed stakes?

also more criteria would be good... number of seats, practicality requirements would help narrow it down.... fortunately Renault don't make any fast or pretty cars, so you'd never need to buy one of them

fast, reliable and cheap - pick two if £6k is the budget, the fastest reliable car I think would be a high miler BMW 335i, remapped easily enough to 360bhp. £6k would get a nice Nissan 300zx, again with bolt on mods it'll see 350bhp, but I doubt it will be reliable. Similarly you can probably get 350 maybe 400bhp from a Subaru impreza, but again it wont be reliable. and there will be al manner of big engine jags and bmws that will technically be fast (in a straight line) but again, let down by reliability.

it was admiral for me for a few years, but now its esure.

are they rain sensing wipers on a 370? the rain sensing wipers on my beemer are useless, happy to sit there not wiping in a proper downpour, but in light spray they go mental. I would much rather just pick the speed myself like in the 350.

it'll probably not filter as well as a K&N, and the metal used will be cheaper and more likely to tarnish. and something that protects the engine is probably not an area you want to scrimp on. worst thing that could happen is it breaks up on the inside and you start sucking crap straight into the engine. personally if you cant afford a proper system i'd stick with panel filters.

well they certainly can't fail what isn't there! and while its off it gives you a chance to clean it up and give a decent coat of rustproof paint before reinstalling.

Well that was an awesome day out! weather was warm and slightly cloudy all day perfect track conditions. my new track car handled exactly how I remember it did with standard (budget) tyres - playful! once the tyres have a little bit of heat in them they generally perform understeer - under steady state conrnering and applying throttle it'll gently push wide, but then again if you turn in more aggressively or whilst trail braking a bit, you can get the back to come round on corner entry, which can then be held into a scruffy powerslide on corner exit. I say scruffy because with an open diff, theres never quite the predictability on the rear end - you can feel the power spinning away at whatever wheel is unloaded at the time, so unless you're aggressive with throttle its difficult to keep both wheels spinning. My friend was having a blast - he'd done a few laps in an elise and a few laps in a nascar thing, but his normal roadcar is a fiesta S, so not used to much power or RWD! he managed a few small slides - the first was gathered up a little scruffily, the second he held nicely! he's now coined a phrase 'brown flag moment' In other news, the suspension is far too soft - through the quick left right left chicane, you have to put in steering inputs half a second before the car responds due to the weight swapping from side to side. but on the plus side with 50 profile tyres you can hit the kerbs pretty hard! talking of tyres, you never realise how much the pressures go up whilst on track. started the fronts at 31psi cold, which then went up to 36 when a bit warm. backed them down to 33, then got them really hot again, and they were up to 36 again! so that's a 8psi gain from cold to hot! settled on 33 front and 35 rear, which seemed to give a fairly neutral-ish balance - the car was running 225s front and rear. The brakes surprisingly held up ok - there are no big braking points at blyton park, but by the end of the day one of the rear pads was completely down to metal - making horrible grinding noise on the way home! but will be ordering some EBC bluestuffs in the next few days. And as for the 350z that was there, well, he overtook me round the outside of a corner and so received a talking to from the marshalls, so not that bothered to find out who it was! Next trackday is at Donington in 4 weeks, so looking forward to that!

from the Michelin Wikipedia page: "In addition to the Michelin brand, it also owns the BFGoodrich, Kleber, Tigar, Riken, Kormoran and Uniroyal (in North America) tire brands."

I think the cat is ambivalent about blue, dislikes pink, really likes yellow and dislikes green. So stick with yellow if you want to attract pussy!

it would be interesting to know what other brands the big names have, fancy firing off an email to Continental, Michelin and Pirelli?

I like it! bringing back the Tokyo drift/NFS underground look!

I work to live, not live to work. therefore i'll take the higher paid job, and have more money to spend on fun things. my work is pretty dull and I don't think its really going anywhere, but I never need to work late and it pays I think reasonably well, so i'll stick with it.

its hardly muting the life out of a car, 90db static is still plenty loud enough! I had an old 300zx which was 99db static and that was way too loud for the road - and most of my BMWs were on standard exhausts which were running around 78db static. still perfectly functioning track cars, just quieter. if you want to do trackdays, you have to make a car quiet! if having a loud car is more important than getting on track that's fine, but you cant have it both ways - its either quiet and on track, or loud and off it. problem with modern cars as dan says, they have so much sound deadening you cant here anything from inside the car. take the rear seats and carpets out, and even a standard exhaust will sound loud inside the car. I'd be quite happy with a car that sounded demonic inside, but quiet as a church mouse from the outside - I could do any trackdays I liked anywhere in the country safe in the knowledge i'm not putting the circuit at risk of closing, and yet it still sounds great to me inside the car while i'm driving.

hmmm in that case I can sympathise - that would be incredibly frustrating to comfortably pass static and then be pulled up on driveby. And yeah, have to be careful otherwise goodwood will go the way of Thruxton and Brands hatch GP - Very limited noisy days each year, which will be taken up by race meetings.

But you cant check until your out there, there are too many variables, wind direction, positioning of mics, distance from track, i knew i would be close for the static so did everything i could bar design and build a new exhaust and managed to loose 3db from my Combe reading, at that point its cost you "x" to find out. The trouble is they dont even mention drive bys, all they say is (as i know you are aware), your car must meet the noise requirements of the track which are, static test performed at half and meter at 45 degrees at whatever decibel reading. Its just all very ambiguous, i have no idea why there isnt a lets say, an industry std, so we can all get our cars sorted and surely it would just make it easier for everyone concerned, tracks, organisers, even the complaining nimbys. granted, you can't check drive by very easily. but most tracks will happily static noise test a car for you, and then if you're comfortably below the static limit then you'd be exceedingly unlucky to trouble the drive bys. But if you're right on the static limit you've got to expect problems with drive by also. but anywhos, once bitten, twice shy. now you know there are problems, you'll be more cautious in the future right? Javelin trackdays I lnow list both static and drive by limits for all trackdays, and most circuits will have extensive documentation on their noise management policy - Goodwood for example publishes a daily noise log every half hour because its that important to be seen complying to regulations otherwise venues will be shut down or severely restricted.