As promised!

After being very impressed with Gooner's standard Focus estate on the Buttertubs, I can't say I am surprised at your assessment of MIke's modified car although having never seen it go.

Looks like it was a good day out, despite the weather.

You got some really good shots there, Dan! I was quite pleased with the way my car performed. The brakes held up much better than I'd expected and I only had one running-wide moment at the first corner which was more my fault than the car's. The pedal was a bit long but I think the recent change to race-spec brake fluid paid dividends and the brake response was strong all day and the pads stood up well. In fact, they are barely any more worn now than beforehand!

The tyre graining was a worry but it seemed that it didn't make a massive difference to available grip.

Unfortunately I didn't get a ride in either of the other cars...

Excellent pictures. The Focus looks really very good.

Here are a few of my brother's doing. He's complaining that my lack of tinkering expertise means his pictures won't be properly respresented but they look fine to me! EDIT - actually, Photobucket appears to have done them no favours so maybe I'll re-post when he's done his own tweaks.

He didn't seem to manage to capture Dan on track!



Then the rest.

Being chased down by Tingtong:







The pursuer!

They're seriously excellent shots. I love those where the front offside is under load cornering.

Yes, excellent pics, you can really see the cars working.

In the fourth one up you can just see daylight under Tingtong's unloaded inside rear wheel.

Why has Tongtong got her fairy lights on?? Is it to make her a bit faster?

I know it's been said a lot, but that model Focus is so much better looking than the current model.

Awesome pics, he was brave being out in the cold for so long, my hands went blue after only about 5 minutes!

You guys were really leaning on your cars, it was good to see them really being used.

Martin wrote:
Why has Tongtong got her fairy lights on?? Is it to make her a bit faster?



There were words! It was obviously because of the fairy lights that Mike thought he was keeping up with me in places.

Although to be fair, it was quite foggy. I switched mine on on the drive home, although that was partly because they'd steamed up a bit on the track and I wanted to clear them!

How long before you get to take the yellow X off?

Oh about a week or so. Along with my noise sticker and Silverstone track pass on the front windscreen (they'd run out of Bedford ones by the time I signed on!)

Looks good. I'll try and make it along one w/end when I'm free and not running both cars on winter tyres.

The fairy lights obviously made it go faster - how do you think I stayed pace with a Clio 172 and was very much visible in Piers' rear view mirror for a number of laps!

I liked Bedford alot and it suited my car much more than Spa did - more high speed corners on which to lean on it which it coped with admirably and speeds which surprised a few out there I think. I drove it to its limits yesterday which I have never done before and beyond on a few occasions having some fairly lary understeer moments in the first hairpin - though with so much trackspace you just learn for the next lap.

So Martin, when you going to let Mrs Martin bring the MINI to a trackday then? I bet she would love it! There was a young lass there yesterday with her Blue MINI Cooper S - not being driven hard admittedly mind!

Looks great. I'll have to try a track day sometime.............even if it's just in the Bora

There were MK4 Golfs there yesterday and quite a few TDO's offer novice sessions anyway.

I even came across a Pug 107 on track at one point yesterday!

Mike wrote:
So Martin, when you going to let Mrs Martin bring the MINI to a trackday then? I bet she would love it! There was a young lass there yesterday with her Blue MINI Cooper S - not being driven hard admittedly mind!

Why does it have to be Mrs Martin that brings the MINI?

Funnily enough we were talking about track days with her brother earlier as he fancies it in the Z4, but she thought it was a really bad idea.

She doesn't have to know

Well, it is her car afterall, and it sounds like she is quite handy behind the wheel. I mean, if she can out run a Z4M in the MINI then she must be fast! Maybe if you had switched the foglights on you would have been faster...

Don't need to turn fog lights on, Xenons give you even more power

Who's car it is depends on whether you look at the logbook or who pays for it

Mike wrote:
There were MK4 Golfs there yesterday...

That black one was peskily quick. I had the edge down the straights but the driver was just mullering it through corners to an extent that I wasn't prepared to match, for the sake of my tyres! It looked awful, just understeering hugely, but it was evidently working for him.

One thing that interested me was that I decided by the second corner of my first lap that the DSC needed to be switched off. The interfering effect it had on track surprised me, as I'd left it on at Spa and it had held back most of the time. I'd barely have gone anywhere with it on at Bedford - one time when Mike had followed me out of the pits I think he nearly ran into the back of me coming out of the first chicane because I'd forgotten to press the button before setting off and it cut all my power in the following fast left!

DTC stayed on, though.