All looked well in the run up to the Abingdon CARnival with the car nicely fettled although there are now quite a few 'tatty' bits starting to give away the fact that we do use the old girl rather than than polish her :wink:
The weekend got off to a good start on Saturday afternoon when Mike spotted several Vees coming off the M40 in convoy on their way to FCS - you didn't even wave you miserable French toads
Abingdon is a very sociable event with most of the competitors camping overnight before the rally and last year, I had been a killjoy and left Mike, Tony and Jack on lilo's under the awning of our van while I snuck off home for a comfortable nights sleep in a proper bed. Apparently the general partying went on until 5am which resulted in all three being zombies the next day. This year they were determined that I would suffer with them and I had agreed to camp over.
I just omitted to tell them the whole story......
The early evening was spent with a fine lasagne, courtesy of Tony's wife Debs, and ably prepared by the great man himself. We then spent some time understanding my new satellite TV system so that we could watch the live Le Mans coverage - with the added bonus that we are all now fluent in German as the UK coverage is on Sky.
Later, most of the talk was about bodily functions and the inevitable consequences of who was first to break the embargo on the chemical loo. [smilie=icon_puke_r.gif]
In the morning, for the first stage, we had decided to start out the way we meant to go on by seeing if the new single-paddle gearshift really worked and, yippee, it is superb. Ever since we fitted it, the previous curly cable had made the system unpleasant to use. Somehow it always got tangled up and I spent more time unravelling it than I saved changing gear with it. The new paddle really is fingertip stuff, leaving me with both hands on the wheel and not lumping the heavy manual change backward and forward. 9 out of 10 so far Scott, but see later!
Apart from being pretty hot even by 9.15am the first stage was uneventful until 200 yards from the end when we were a bit wide on a hairpin and thumped the edge of the tarmac when we climbed back onto the runway. Instant puncture.
Back into service and we thought that a ruined tyre was the sum of the damage but look closely at the nearside suspension top mount.
Here it is in gory detail:
In actual fact, the close up is after the third 'straightening' attempt and we had obviously weakened the alloy. We even turned the plate over and it bent again, so after the forth stage with the steering all-to-cock, we gave up rather than suffer a catastrophic failure flat in 6th (130+ according to Scotty).
And, just to round off the day, on our last attempt, the gearshift packed up toward the end causing much swearing from Mike. At the moment we're not sure whether this is an electrical problem or possibly an air reservoir that just ran out of puff as a result of being overworked.
Here's one in action - thanks Gazza, whoever you are!
Our next event at Colerne is only three weeks away so it's off with the front suspension for a rebuild at Ohlins, make some new turret plates (alloy again as a bent plate is preferable to a broken shell if we go to steel tops), tidy some of the battle scars, sort the gearshift and try and find a way to disperse some of the heat from the cabin. No pressure then.
The weekend got off to a good start on Saturday afternoon when Mike spotted several Vees coming off the M40 in convoy on their way to FCS - you didn't even wave you miserable French toads
Abingdon is a very sociable event with most of the competitors camping overnight before the rally and last year, I had been a killjoy and left Mike, Tony and Jack on lilo's under the awning of our van while I snuck off home for a comfortable nights sleep in a proper bed. Apparently the general partying went on until 5am which resulted in all three being zombies the next day. This year they were determined that I would suffer with them and I had agreed to camp over.
I just omitted to tell them the whole story......
The early evening was spent with a fine lasagne, courtesy of Tony's wife Debs, and ably prepared by the great man himself. We then spent some time understanding my new satellite TV system so that we could watch the live Le Mans coverage - with the added bonus that we are all now fluent in German as the UK coverage is on Sky.
Later, most of the talk was about bodily functions and the inevitable consequences of who was first to break the embargo on the chemical loo. [smilie=icon_puke_r.gif]
In the morning, for the first stage, we had decided to start out the way we meant to go on by seeing if the new single-paddle gearshift really worked and, yippee, it is superb. Ever since we fitted it, the previous curly cable had made the system unpleasant to use. Somehow it always got tangled up and I spent more time unravelling it than I saved changing gear with it. The new paddle really is fingertip stuff, leaving me with both hands on the wheel and not lumping the heavy manual change backward and forward. 9 out of 10 so far Scott, but see later!
Apart from being pretty hot even by 9.15am the first stage was uneventful until 200 yards from the end when we were a bit wide on a hairpin and thumped the edge of the tarmac when we climbed back onto the runway. Instant puncture.
Back into service and we thought that a ruined tyre was the sum of the damage but look closely at the nearside suspension top mount.
Here it is in gory detail:
In actual fact, the close up is after the third 'straightening' attempt and we had obviously weakened the alloy. We even turned the plate over and it bent again, so after the forth stage with the steering all-to-cock, we gave up rather than suffer a catastrophic failure flat in 6th (130+ according to Scotty).
And, just to round off the day, on our last attempt, the gearshift packed up toward the end causing much swearing from Mike. At the moment we're not sure whether this is an electrical problem or possibly an air reservoir that just ran out of puff as a result of being overworked.
Here's one in action - thanks Gazza, whoever you are!
Our next event at Colerne is only three weeks away so it's off with the front suspension for a rebuild at Ohlins, make some new turret plates (alloy again as a bent plate is preferable to a broken shell if we go to steel tops), tidy some of the battle scars, sort the gearshift and try and find a way to disperse some of the heat from the cabin. No pressure then.
haha
