MrLizard

nicely driven sir looks like good fun

haha

There was a LOT of gravel in that car after qualifying!

 

Good drive from you both.

 

David

 

Good to see you there buddy

 

Was indeed eventful, we fought back hard after my initial screw up!

 

also forgot to post this picture trying to get the camera to work but i quite like it -

 

Thanks for the input, Darren what's life like with a charged 350 on the road? I think the Mrs wants a green and black 370....

to be honest I have looked at other cars but it has to be something both me and the Mrs can drive, although the scoob has no traction control the AWD and stability dont require it... I have looked at - Monaro/lotus exige/elise/rx7/supra/caterham/porka/TTRS/BRZ/GT86/3000GT/Celica GT4 or the other potential contender another scoob...

 

The issue is they are either too difficult for the mrs to drive or just not that great in comparison, i keep looking and keep coming back to a Z, thinking well it looks stunning and with suspension/brakes is a great drive....

 

In terms of whats winning at the moment it would probably go 350, 370, BRZ, elise - utterly different cars but then i am quite odd

Hi All,

 

Long time coming this report as the race was now a few weeks ago, so firstly I apologise for that, my own fault!

 

We had a cracking weekend and shall do my usual ramblings before getting to anything interesting so please read on

 

Saturday the crew in two cars and the Mrs and I in another, all get to the Dartford Bridge and hit a 10 mile tail back! ARGH, finally get to the hotel (Hilton this time as the Thistle had no rooms and helpfully suggested that we could stay the next weekend instead...)

 

So, arrived and started the chill-out before the big day procedure, lobby look at the menu having moved rooms to find that a sandwich cost £15.... :s horrendously overpriced and tasted like rubbish but we did get to see the F1 qualifying...

 

Up the next day we get to the paddock at 7:15am! had the usual argument with the man on the gate about us losing our tickets (which we had) and thengot in to see a sea of lovely machinery which i took no photo's of at all... sorry! 2 lotus esprit's seperated by a M12 Noble... drool.

 

Abbey arrive at 7:30am with the car and we set up ready for qualification....

 

Qualification:

 

Having only driven Brands GP virtually I knew which way the corners went but that was about it, so with no practice i set out first, having cold tyres and for a change quite a bit of confidence - usually when i first go out im a bag of nerves and it takes me a while to start really concentrating but this time i felt like i could immediately start to concentrate, potentially down to the banana that i ate before hand as i used to live on Arcacia avenue in coventry.... anyway...

 

Struggling to get the car around the left hander at Surtees there seemed like there was more and more grip the further out I went, however, I ran out of grip and slid off the track and into some gravel, video's on youtube

 

 

The gravel really does slow you down quick and i was immediately trapped, tried to keep the wheels spinning but went in too deep! Some pictures when we got the car back to the paddock

 

Good view of the new gearbox cooler that worked a treat even in this really hot weather!

 

 

 

Mark asleep under the car...

 

 

 

Unbelievable team effort to clear all the stones out of the car, we had to remove the bumper and the splitter and the brake ducts to get at it, the pictures dont show the amount of work that went in really, Abbey Motorsport just went at like a bunch of well oiled nutters all the time making sure we had enough time to get Mark out behind the safety car for 3 laps before the race as he didnt get a shot at qualifying, without those three laps you are not allowed to race (unless you have raced on the gp circuit within the last 12 months)...

 

Qualified 34th as I put no quick laps in!

 

Race Time:

 

Weather is so hot, inside the car is like an over, I am ushered onto the grid completely out of position but oddly surrounded by other class A and B cars as well as some class C/D, grid is 44 cars strong..

 

I make a good start launching well off the line but immediately hitting the concatener effect of 30 other cars going into Paddock hill, 4 wide flat out in 4th gear!!! I head for the inside of the track knowing the next corner is a right hander and hope to sneak around the inside and the go wide into the first left.

 

 

I could talk for hours on this but i wont, I overtook 22 cars (8 in our class) and ended up 12th for the changeover, i was pushed off the track and onto the grass at 130mph by an Alfa that didnt want to play by the rules, i had to stick my hand out of the window to push my wing mirror back, didnt really occur to me just how dangerous this was til after i had left the car.

 

 

Handed over to Mark who I had yet again left with a lot of work to do... Mark immediately started knocking in quick times despite not actually having driven the car in anger around the circuit, he obviously had the bit between his teeth and was pushing hard making 4 overtakes having had to catch seconds each lap to get to the next car and was in fact still catching 7th when the race ended.

 

Another pass by Mark being hassled by a supercharged Integra type r (with sequential box!)

 

 

When I had come into the pits I had said that I felt the car was 'ok' but had heard something whining mid race. This turned out to be a broken reservoir to the left rear shock and one of the 2 fuel pumps had given up meaning that at the end of the race on a track with more right turns than are really necessary Mark was experiencing Fuel starvation and had essentially ran out of fuel coasting in on the parade lap!

 

A great weekend that was just mesmerizing for me, driving in a race on that famous circuit was truly an amazing experience with some heart in mouth moments and with a total overtake of 26 cars was full of action at every step!

 

Abbey dont surprise me anymore with their dedication to the cause because I have seen it so many times but no matter how large the issue is they always seem to make it work and make it work well, from having to strip the front end to rebuilding a diff in unreasonable time scales it just happens!

 

Thanks very much to all the sponsors primarily

 

Abbey Motorsport - www.abbeymotorsport.co.uk

RevMarketing - www.revmarketing.co.uk

 

and all the crew who came down and the forum members who showed up. Hope you enjoyed the show

 

Big old difference in price though surely ??

 

Not really between a 350z HR with a charger on it and a 370z second hand of course ... the HR engine is pulling me toward a 350...

Afternoon everyone,

 

I am contemplating buying a 350 or a 370 however am struggling with which would be better for the purpose of purchase... some of you may know i already own a 350z but that isnt a road car anymore so at the moment we have a sensible hatch back and Subaru WRX with PPP, love the AWD and the 270bhp feels a lot more than that of the standard zed but it is getting to the end of its life and the mrs has said we can have something a bit more impractical sooooooooooooooooooooo.......

 

Purpose of the car will be fast road and maybe some track or drift work but only lightly not seriously...

 

Have driven a 370z both on road and track with both manual and auto gearboxes, not as nice on the limit as the 350z (for me) however these were all standard and it wont be staying standard and i dont know how the 370 will improve with coilovers etc sooooo....

 

350z with a supercharger and some suspension fetling or 370z with some suspension work?

 

Thanks

Steve

excellent news

 

i have been playing iracing so hoping ill know which way round the track to go, will take a little time to get up to speed tho, be good to see you tiny

Hi All,

 

We are gearing up to a big one this weekend, Grid of 44 cars at Brands Hatch GP Circuit, we have never competed (and i have never driven) Brands GP, 1 hour race on the Sunday

 

Qualification is at 10am,

Race is at 1:30-1:55 depending on time apparently...

 

Supporting Forumla 4 and the F3 Cup

 

Any support would be most welcome, hoping to beat our last result of 5th

 

Abbeymotorsport will be running the team over the weekend and Mark shall also be driving as normal!

 

ta

Steve

that is awesome, well done guys

Thanks for the support everyone =) hope to out at brands again soon on the gp circuit potentially =)

thanks Colin, really appreciated the support and you got some excellent picture too, roll on next race

 

Video of race, 25 mins in for the pitstop

Brands Hatch

 

Back to our home circuit and this time we are hoping to improve on the 2nd place we secured in November.

 

It's quite a big event this weekend and there are American cars and European/US drivers everywhere!

 

We stayed in the Thistle with a nice 50% discount as they got our booking wrong, so after 5 minutes of working out how to hack the TV and setting the HDMI inputs to work on the TV channels we fell asleep watching a film. Being on track waking up the next day is always good! Especially when woken up by thundering v8's

 

Abbey arrived early in the morning as did the rest of the TLM crew although they had travelled from Coventry leaving at 4am!

As I am only the driver I was ushered to park about 20 miles away from where i needed to be but fortunately we managed to hitch a lift down to the paddock where we are greeted by a full team of people and the 350z

Even Colin managed to arrive before me I think..

 

The weather looked good and the paddock was filled with Ariel Atoms and big American V8's...

 

Since last Race we had introduced some stiffer rear springs to try and dial out a smidge of mid corner understeer we were seeing at Donington.

 

Qualifying:

I jumped in the car first as a nervous wreck but as soon as the pitlane opened a suitable dose of adrenilin removed the nerves and we were off. I was told to do one out lap and twice round and an in lap. Immediatley the car felt stiffer on the rear end, once there was a little heat in the tyres I could feel the car skipping around the corner inducing an unpredictable amount of oversteer each time the rear end bit, no time to change springs in qualifying meant that we would have to try and drive round the problem.

 

I did a few more laps and reported back that I felt the diff wasnt working as well in the last corner either just couldnt get on the power as early as the back felt like it wanted to slide rather than grip.

Mark jumped in the car and started to push on, he agreed with my opinion and said the car just isnt as nice to drive, with Mark's expertise in suspension he already had a good idea on how to fix the issue and to try and go somewhere inbetween the two setups we had.

 

 

 

Qualifying 10th, not where we are used to being although there is some fairly quick machines here, missed 9th by 1/1000th of a second and the 4 cars in front are all seperated by 1/10th of a second.

 

Pre Race:

 

Car back in the pits, lifted off the ground, all wheels off as we felt something may have been rubbing and the rear suspension taken out and replaced with springs midway between, Mark and Will from Abbey discussing the best setup for the race and deciding to adjust the low and high speed bump as well as springs.

 

 

Race:

 

10th on the grid and im starting surrounded by other cars with a full grid of 32 in attendance.

Lights go out and I floor it through the first two gears only to get blocked and have to come off the power ... still not a bad start and although losing a place into druids its gone fairly well, the next laps were all about trying to catch the front pack and not lose too much ground behind people.

 

I managed to make up a few positions but struggle getting past the lotus, from the pit board i can see that im slowing both of us by weaving to try and get past so decide to just sit behind him whilst we catch the people infront, at which point we did and he spins out, I manage to make a bit of an emergency move to miss him on the inside of Druids and then manage to pass the Seat Leon (that won last November) on the next lap.

 

The red supacopa spins and ends up on the outside of paddock (i didnt see the incident), the safety car comes out (bumblebee from transformers), this is the slowest safety car ive been behind, I should have chosen to come straight into the pits but didnt as i wasnt sure the team were ready for me and it was close to pit lane open - the team then told me to come in but on entry to the pit lane the safety car was going so slowly i decided to do one more lap than sit there BIG MISTAKE!

 

From looking at the timings when people came in if i had come in the same lap the board went out (considering the safety car did one lap) we would have jumped 4 places, if I had come in when I was supposed to we would have jumped maybe 1 place but lost no time, as it was I lost us a few places

 

I was also told at this point I had been given a 5 second penalty for exceeding the track limits which I thought was a little unfair given it was only 2 wheels but then as a racing driver nothing is allowed to be my fault.

The pitstop itself goes well and Mark jumps in, we are restricted to a minimum time of 1:50 in the pits which is more than is needed but it is still hard to measure as it starts on pit entry and ends when you cross the pit exit line, TLM Mark managed to get the timing almost bang on sending Abbey Mark out crossing the line at 1:50.6

 

Mark had quite a lot of work to do but was quite happy to do it by the looks of things , storming back through the field having to reovertake the people i had got passed due to my pitstop error, no hesitation though Mark managed some fantastic overtakes mostly through Surtee's and his aggresive driving style managed to get us back into 4th position (though 20 seconds behind the man infront and a lap down on the leader)

With the 5 second penalty we knew that Mark needed to make a 5 second gap to the guy in 5th a new shape Clio Cup car with a sequential box running in our 200bhp/per ton class (although we are at 180 atm).

 

 

Try as he might it was not quite to be, with the amount of cars on track the traffic was really restricting Mark from making the progress and the Clio just seemed to catch the same traffic on the start finish straight each lap. We ended up about 3.7 in front in the end but still a fantastic result with a few lessons learnt.

 

 

Abbey did a phenomenal job as always, their skill and knowledge on suspension and interpretting my inane babble into something that they can adjust and fix is fantastic, changing the rear suspension springs and essentially making a guestimate on setup because we had no chance to test inbetween qually and the race was great.

 

Fantastic day and we came away with a 3rd in Class trophy to add to the ever growing collection.

 

Special Thanks:

Abbey Motorsport www.abbeymotorsport.co.uk

Rev Marketing www.revmarketing.co.uk

 

The Abbey Family - Jon pulling me from the car one handed this time because my other arm got stuck!

TLM Crew for making the journey and being on form all day!

 

Considering the prices of these cars and how accessible this type of event is more people should come and join, the car is soo much fun to drive like this

thanks for taking the pics and vids colin, looks excellent )

Thanks guys , cheers for the support David, I shall do a small write myself later as well =) awesome pics =))

Hi All,

 

We have booked on to do the next team trophy race at Brands, would be great to see some of you down there, it will be another day full of racing with the our particular race being 1 hour long with pit stop/driver change mid way through.

 

Abbey have been working furiously on the car in order to get it ready after we had a couple of comings together at Donington, the front bumper has been rebuilt, the front headlight bracket fixed, the front splitter has been increased in size.

 

We have a lot of data at Brands so it will be interesting to see how we go, we managed 2nd place last year so really hoping for an equally good result this time.

 

Should be £12-15 on the door and I will upload the schedule later

 

Well done man =) karting is awesome once the bug gets ya its a slippery road =p

I was born with a red race suit m8

Nice little write and a great day. Bet you had a smile on your face today after that

as the Churchill dog would say oooooooooooooooooooooooooh yes

Interesting read, makes you want to have ago at a track day, what track would you recommend near London as a first, also would a standard 350z with regular brembos be unsuitable, what track pads would you use, and would the discs hold up.

Near London the obvious one is Brandshatch, it is quite technical for a small track but it will give you loads of room to learn and the onsite instructors are great and can give good advice to people just starting out, standard 350z is a decent car to start to learn in though the suspension lets it down a little, the brakes will be fine for a few laps but to stay out longer and brake potentially a little later then swapping to steel brake lines and getting some good fluid and pads in would be a good idea. Don't let that put you off though, first time just take the car as is and make sure you don't over do it for your own concentration or the cars ability (ie boiling fluids)... Of course abbeymotorsport (also near London) will be able to set your car up and give you some more advice if you need, Brands is their local pm me if you want any more advice

TLM 350z Race day ran and supported by Abbey Motorsport...

 

Once upon a time a long time ago, (friday) in fact we went testing at Donington in preparation for the race which was today. I still had some time to find on the track but with no time to do any more practice I decided to listen to Marks advice and try and use the bits which were easy to mend, I also downloaded NFS Shift 2 and hammered around that in an Rx8 to try and get my lines spot on! Not quite iRacing but still useful...

 

The day started and the Radison hotel which I must say was lovely aside from the fact that there was 2 large windows into the bathroom from the bedroom, not a problem just a bit odd...

 

Arrived at the track at 7am and we setup about as far away from the pits as you could get, but then when your supporting the GT Cup racing Ferrari's and lambo's you have to expect a walk..

 

 

Qualifying went well, Mark and I decided that as he was quicker if would make sense for me to warm the car up and do 10 minutes of qually and let Mark do the larger portion, hopefully replicating his 1.22 from Friday.

 

Started well, the car felt great if not potentially with a little too much pressure in the tyres. The weather was cold and windy but importantly the rain was holding off. Came into the pits this time taking notice of the pit board and gave Mark the car, we are informed the transponder isn't working .. Mark starts putting in quicker and quicker times though, putting the car in p1 temporarily and we ended up p4.

 

The organisers for some reason seemed to think we were trying to pull the wool over their eyes and although there was only 1.5 hours to turn the car around for the race we were forced to dyno the car, fair enough if they arnt happy but they held the car for about an hour doing multiple runs on an already hot car, there was then some confusion (as it wasn't running over bhp) and so it looked like they would weigh it as well...

 

Got the car back to the truck, Jamie and Mark(other) started to fill up with petrol and we are immediately told to go line up for the race!!!

 

 

Im starting the race so I go to parc ferme and they hold us with the engine running for about 25 minutes, not the organisers fault but still frustrating.

 

 

 

The Race

 

I decide to launch the car by dumping the clutch at about 2.5/2.7 k rpm, lights out and were off, the car leaps off the line and I immediately pull to the inside of the track to stop the quicker cars from going up the inside of me, with no green flag though its tricky as the tyres and the brakes are cold, somehow ive managed to get into 2nd place!

 

 

The important bits:

 

I lose all speed out of coppice defending and drop back to 4th

Making a move on the yellow Porsche I lock all the brakes up, he takes the apex anyway and we hit,

Manage to get past one of the tegs infront of me

Focus under blue flags cuts me up and loses the back end as I have no where to go!

Somehow ive managed to start knocking in laps of 1.22... :s

 

 

Change driver 30 minutes in

 

Mark immediately starts lapping in the 22's and even manages to slide in a couple of 21's

Teg brake checks Mark and loses the place

Just as yellows turn to green Mark puts a move on the yellow Porsche and takes the position

Mark is consistently quick and is catching the Seat(Supacopa s2000) in 2nd

Last lap - seat runs out of petrol, tries to push mark off the track, mark goes off the track keeps his foot in and takes 2nd...

 

 

Epic race with a cracking car, loads of fun The organisers force us to dyno the car post race as well... bit annoyed about that tbh but it proved that we are at 170bhp per ton not the 200bhp we should be at, so we can make more power... change in ECU lost us a little power as Mark needs to redo some of the cam control

 

Great Weekend made possible by Abbey Motorsport

 

Thanks to our sponsors

Rev Marketing - www.revmarketing.co.uk

Abbey Motorsport - www.abbeymotorsport.co.uk

Thanks man fingers crossed :0)

Thanks buddy we are hoping for a top ten, 27 cars entered in our class there is m3's, 968, turbo 944, seat leon's, clio cup car and a few others.... fingers crossed for good weather