September 2002
Saturday 28th September 2002
I've called Bruntingthorpe Proving ground, and I've found out the price for a test session. It's £50 an hour, minimum of two hours, and you pay at the gatehouse on the way out of the venue. Sounds good, so I'll try to get an afternoon booked there. One problem may be that they have a strict noise limit of 87db, which the Fiesta may scrape through. When you tell them its a Ford Fiesta that you're taking along, they don't sound too worried
I've written several new pages for the site. Theres now an Event News page, which shows the Future and Past events, including reports on previous outings, including photo shoots, shows etc. I don't know what the calendar for next year is yet. Motorsport stops over the winter months in the UK, presumably because of the weather and the lack of daylight as the winter evenings draw in. So the Fiesta will only get taken out for testing over the next 6 months.
Thursday 26th September 2002
Not much happening at the moment. Just trying to get some track time at Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome sorted out, so I can spend a quite few hours just driving the car round, at my own pace, learning how it handles, and having a play with suspension settings to get the car to handle the best. I also need to check the brakes out now I've modified the linkage bar.
Sorry to hear that Bert at www.OrbitalMotorsport.co.uk, rolled his Mk1 Fiesta at the Bomb Along Stage Rally the other week. Theres pictures of a crumbled Fiesta on his site, and it'd be a shame after all his effort in preparing the car, if he were to scrap it. The damage doesn't look that bad! I must admit, if I did that to my Fiesta I'd also be gutted, but the damage doesn't look too bad to me. Check out the latest news page on his site for photo's.
Friday 20th September 2002
What a day! Had a run in with a complete loonatic on the way in to work this morning. He decided to start brake testing me, so I drove round him, then he tried ramming the back of my car, and finally overtakes me, gets out his car and starts running down the road towards me. Now, I'm quite mild mannered, and fairly laid back about most things, but this guy fortunately didn't annoy me enough to want to run him down, as with him running down the road towards me, about about 100 feet of clear road between us, I could easily have just driven over him. Instead, I decided to reverse back up the road, and perform a J-turn, and sit and wait for his next move.
Fortunately he drove off, leaving two massive tyre marks from his wheelspin. I've reported the idiot to the police. What on earth is this country coming to? The UK used to be a reasonable place to live, but its full of smack heads and psycho's now.
Anyway, his car won't be difficult to recognise again. It was a Mallard Green N-reg Mondeo, with a 2.0 16V badge on the boot, with smooth 5 spoke wheels, mudflaps all round, two aerials, and a blue tail pipe, situated on the right of the car so I knew it was a 2.0. If I see it again in Leicester, I'll give the idiot a wide berth!!
So to cheer my self up this afternoon, I ran the Fiesta engine for about 20 minutes, to clear any cobwebs. Starting the engine when its been sat for 6 weeks is not an easy affair. I thought these fuel injected systems were supposed to start first time. Not so with my setup. About a minute of coaxing and she bursts in to life. Once running, I noticed that the fuel enrichment start map is way off, so I'll have a play on Sunday at adjusting the values. Maybe she's just way too rich when stone cold, and this is wetting the plugs, preventing it from starting.
Wednesday 18th September 2002
I'm back from my little excursion to the Canary Islands, a two week holiday in the sun, with not a care in the world, no web pages to update, no car to work on, just lots of Sun and Sangria.
I was surprised to find my inbox bulging with 682 messages this morning though, of which only 20 messages were relevant. Oh the joys of owning a .com domain name and the delights of receiving spam. Anyway, enough of my whinging. New stickers are now in stock, so merchandise is back on sale again. I've no more events to enter this year, apart from the occasional RWYB at Santa Pod over the next few months, where I can practice my standing starts.
