Modified Live 2014
Followed andy over to cadwell park at 10am, wondered through the field to look at various stanced hondas, VW, escorts, cosworths, nobles, skylines and andys favourite sweet shop, the stickers booth
there was a pair of F2000 & old F1 racers goind round the track, luvly sound. had food at cafe.
went off venue office to book a track session at 3pm, £20 for driver, got own helmet, andy £10 passenger & £10 helmet hire.
moved my gear into andys boot, checked tyres and stiffen dampers.
waltzed through the shiny bits motorsport penthouse paddock for car porn.
was already 3pm, driver briefing at office, drove to paddock to wait and we begin the sighting lap
warmed up the car, track was hot n dry n grippy n nice. beemer in front pitted after sight lap. I followed the clio through mountain hill, was about to pass down the start finish, max power, rpm, boost, upshift then all of a sudden hear a starving PAS pump or crunching gear-like sound with a big loss of drive, zero power, rich AFR.
oh feck I hope its not the valve train. trying to see if I can nurse it back, nope no power, more throttle makes it worse, badly misfiring, barely makes it up the hill.
no marshalls to the RH field, looked to go to the marshal post on the top left field, all cars passed on, looks clear, c'mon please make it, thats it no more juice.
bugga didn't even get to take andy out for a single proper lap, a wasted session
cant check the car on track obviously.
left car while session resumes, we watch from the trackside. damn
session finished, had to wait for tow truck to pull us back.
my front towhook is only bolted at the sides, no bolt holes under the replaced crossmember so I was hoping it the truck wasn't gonna rip it off like hammonds mini cooper in the topgear India special lol
keep the rope tight by braking. but now the embarrasment starts as we pass the grand stands up to the paddock (just as bad, but worse, as being towed home by dad through home town last yr when the loose big ends almost grenaded the new engine), windows were slightly open, I could hear em boo-ing and slating its a friggin micra thats held up the session, sorry.
now it's bad enough that the micra is socially pre-conceived as a granny car but for kasandra to breakdown in such public event amongst nobles, porsches, hondas etc I feel embarrassed to be seen as a laugh to the crowd, feel I've let the micra scene down and although I always try to be positive n block the negative, the boo-ing upsets me and also upsets me I wasn't able to take andy around and wasted our money.
return back to the paddock inspection bay area, opened bonnet and BAHH friggin TB silicone elbow between the GTIR MAF and TB had popped off, so the metered turbo air simply escaped whilst the injectors still dumped the massive fuel in hence too rich and zero power n black smoke n oil smoke. I thought that mikalor clamp was tight, guess not
reattached the pipe and yay she runs completely fine. bloody heck kasandra what r u like eh
ok so perhaps I embarrased myself n kasandra n lost track time BUT at least she's not damaged at all (except her ego) so she can still do trackdays another time and we're safe.
throughout life I found and believe that there's this conspiracy amongst computers/software & cars I operate that they are often socially shy/nervous
in private moments between you n the machine with minimal observers, it works perfectly fine as expected.
but once its under public observation and you tell it to perform as practiced and show to ppl ur work, something/anything is bound to go wrong
was tempted to just tighten all clamps and go back out at the last 5pm session to annoy the haters
but thought not worth the bother nor money and rather just save up for a proper private trackday event at cadwell with andy n ross n collin