corozin

Well done Wendy. I think we should all be relieved you came top of the class as (obviously for an aspiring race driver) as many of us are aware of your competitiveness! Remember : Second is the first of the losers! All you need is some Marlboro sponsorship for the car now :)

Presumably Toro Rosso have secured another engine deal for 2010 already?

Time for a bump.

Ferrari throw thier toys at Williams : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motors ... -test.html

Disagree with you there John, they are the rules.. and as the newbie (can't spell his name) couldn't test why should Shumie who has years more experience.. besides they'll just keep baning him out in a "mongrel" version the 2007/8 cars till he's fit enough! Don't get me wrong - I can completely appreciate why other teams would be keen to ensure MS gets as little active time in the current car as possible before he races again. I think the response of Williams & Red Bull could be a little more sporting in the circumstances, and that they should have the confidence in both thier cars & drivers to be unruffled by the return of a 40 year old former champ, even one who's won 7 titles. As it is, Ferrari have to an extent circumvented this protest by giving Schumacher lots of practice at Mugello in the 2007 car last week. With thier resources, the Fiorano circuit next to the factory and a little ingenuity I'm sure Schumacher will be very familiar with the 2009 car and as fit as he can be in the time available by the Spanish GP. In fact his main issue at Valencia may well be that he won't have driven the circuit before. Competitively, Brawn, Williams & Red Bull know Valencia is a circuit where overtaking is very difficult and that Schumacher might well get in front of them and continue the current resurgence at Ferrari. They also know that Kimi will be under pressure to perform well too and want to interrupt that momentum if possible. Politically, I suspect that the background politics between Ferrari and the other teams are being played out; Ferrari are no doubt reaping the rewards of thier own attitude (and numerous protests) to the other teams in recent years, plus thier irritation at the closeness of the relationship between Ferrari & the FIA in recent times. It's could also be an easy shot across the bows of both Ferrari & Max Mosley as they try and railroad the election of Jean Todt as next FIA president - just a little something to keep them on thier toes. My prediction is that Schumacher may well post 6th-8th on the grid in Spain but that Kimi will use his experience in the car to go faster than that. In the race Schumi will probably not be quite fit enough or quick enough to trouble the current hotshoes but may possibly be quick enough to keep the likes of Kovalienen, Alonso, Barricello and -dare I say it - Button behind him. It will certainly be interesting to watch.

To be honest with all the weight you're removing from the car you may find the 288mm discs are ok for a while but the grip from the sticky tyres will encourage you to brake very late indeed. I run 323mm Brembos which generated 1.12g under braking at Castle Combe in what is an unlightened road car with two people on board. A lighter car would brake with a lot more force than that but frankly it's still not in the same league as what a properly prepared racing car makes. I was lucky enough to get a passenger ride in Ken Lark's VW Cup Corrado at Snetterton a number of years ago and the brakes he run were around the size I mentioned in the earlier post. Even in the wet the braking force of that car was something. That car ran (at the time) only around 220bhp but we were lapping hard driven Ferrari road cars as if they were Ford Fiestas. The point of that you don't have to have a car with a zillion horsepower to be very very quick indeed on track. RWD would just eat up time & money and wouldn't necessarily give you a quicker car at the end of it. If you wanted a RWD track car then you would have just bought an E36 instead? For what it's worth I think you're taking the right approach; removing weight is the cheapest and best modification you can do to a track car. I've have a think about KevHaywire's suggestion on the camber settings too as that is a good point. Using midrange coilovers for starters is also ok, but honestly I think you may quickly want to go beyond those so something with a better spec as road springs will compress more than you want on a track, especially with those sticky tyres fitted. You might find it interesting to have a read of the competition rules for VW Cup Cars (used to be downloadable from the VW Racing Cup website). You might actually be surprised at how limited the modifications allowed are. Certainly no Quaifes allowed, or glass removal, or carbon bonnets! If you think about how quick those cars are within the rules then you could eventually end up with a road legal trackday car that's quicker than they are in the right hands. That's an encouraging thought.

Haha - just budget £5k-£7k, or £9k if you want the Alcons.

Personally I don't think you can have 'too big' brakes for track work. The bigger the discs, the more stopping, the better heat dissapation, the less chance of locking up. The brake size I mentioned was basically the same as Ken Lark ran for many years (and still runs) on his VW Cup race car, which also ran stock rear discs & calipers.

Here's an update on Shumacher's return. It's nice to see some of the F1 teams still acting like childish pissants when perhaps a spirit of sportsmanship would have been more appropriate (especially with all the childish politics recently going on) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motors ... 9-car.html I say this because IIRC these two same teams were the ones who kyboshed plans a year or two ago to allow customer chassis in F1 to allow outside teams to come in more cheaply.

Well if you're building a dedicated track car then you can dispense with the compromises imposed by road usage. Wheels : Go straight to 18's as you'll need them for the brakes. I would personally convert the hubs to studs. R888 tyres or similar almost mandatory. Suspension : H&W do a range of trackday coilovers which I understand are impossible for road use but will be fine for the track. Stiffer the better. Polybush everything and replace all the arms etc with new ones - take no chances on old parts. Bonrath do (or used to do) a nice line in tough top mounts which you also need. Check your steering rack. Brakes : No sodding about. Audi RS6 monoblocs with 365mm front discs. Ferodo DS2500 pads. If you can afford them dump the Audi calipers and get some Alcons as they're just the best and will save weight compared to everything else you can think of. Gearbox : A standard box is ok, but a Quaife/Peloquin is a must, and a lower final drive will help a lot, as will a quickshift ARB : If you run hard enough suspension you don't need to worry about this too much, but options on ARB upgrades for the Corrado are a bit miserable these days. I think most only tighten up by around 25% but you might be ok with that much given the weight reduction. Don't forget your cage will stiffen the car a lot provided you fit a full cage linked to the suspension areas. Don't forget to have your engine subframes all seam welded as the OE parts only have spot welds - fine for road but not enough for extreme track use. Oil Cooler - fitted/ducted from full airflow source. You might also want to cut a hole in the numberplate recess to get more air onto the radiator. Engine - with all the above you don't actually need to go bonkers on the engine as it will be proper quick with little more than stock horsepower, but I'm sure you've already thought about the lump. For hard track use avoid superchargers & turbochargers unless you are confident with how to deal with all the temperature issues concerned. Instruction - essential, and always more useful than a big set of balls. Have fun. Would be interested to see how the car turns out. John

1) I thought the final segment with the Aston was one of the better pieces they've done on TG in recent years. It makes a real change just to dwell on the car in some beautiful scenery and have Clarkson showing some restraint with the old witicisms. 2) The Scirocco piece was a little bit padded but still funny in places. I thought the revision of the old VW ad (including suicide) was pretty good and it made me laugh, as was the bit where they stuffed the coffin in the Scirocco's boot. The irony of course is that VW's historically clever marketing department pulled off another masterstroke didn't they? That was almost 20 minutes of uninterrupted Scirocco advertising on the best watched car programme on the telly... 3) My VR6 is still better than a Scirocco (well it is in the parallel dimension I occupy where all decent and interesting cars stopped being made in around 1998), and even more so a diesel one :) 4) Those Aussie V8's are for girls and bed-wetters! A few months ago I was car scouting in the Auto Trader and there was a 2003 model of one of those Holden Utes with a stage-2 Vortec charger fitted... 720bhp no less... that's the one you should aspire to (even if it does probably no more than 6mpg)

I'm wondering if Lewis will try and upset Schumacher's mojo on the grid by getting his girlfriend to sing to him. Schumi had better have his earplugs in early because I expect it's very hard to drive with broken eardrums...

Having been to a couple of GP I can fully understand why he does leave after the first couple of laps. The racing is usually dead boring, and you get to miss all the traffic leaving the place, LOL

That's being strongly appealed right now. As you might imagine, the Valencia promotors (not to mention the Spanish public and race sponsors) aren't exactly happy at the thought of Alonso being banned from his home race. Mind you it's arguable that perhaps Alonso might have considered a potential outcome like that when he realised his wheel was getting loose coming out of the pit lane then decided to try and drive a whole lap.. especially considering what happened to young Surtees and Massa in the preceding days.

hmmm....let me see....Badoer or Schumacher....who would I chose! :cuckoo: :lol: (He must do something right as a test driver though) That's absolutely correct. Badoer may not have achieved the most glittering career statistics as a racing driver but you have to be very special behind the wheel indeed to have the test driver job at Ferrari for as many years as he's been doing it. It's easy to be dismissive of some of these lesser known guys. Some of the most talented drivers never achieved thier potential success as F1 drivers. Pierluigi Martini, Raul Boesel and Yannick Dalmas spring to my mind as some of the best examples of this. I was going to mention Olivier Panis too but he did at least manage to scrape a win at Monaco from a car that had no business being in the top tier at the time.

Schumacher & Alonso in Ferrari together!! Would be very entertaining, to say the least! :clap: :clap: 8) 8) 8) interesting maybe, but I think the fact that Ferrari are prepared to bring Schumi back in over any newcomer, or former F1 driver screams 'team stability' as the key so much that I can't see any other personnel changes before the end of the season... It's almost the worst kept secret in F1 is that Alonso is going to drive for Ferrari next year. Raikkonen is going to be shown the door anyway, as he's coasted most of the time since he won the championship. It's less a question of if Alonso replaces him, rather than when. If Schumacher embarrasses Raikkonen I expect to see quick changes. You are right though, it is interesting that Schumacher gets the seat over the test driver (Luca Badoer?) - I put that just down to the amount of sheer publicity that the German will bring to Ferrari when he sits back in the car. Let's face it - everyone will watch the qualifying to see if he still has the magic.

Couple of random thoughts: a) It's interesting that the FIA seem so willing to issue a superlicence to a guy who hasn't raced anything significant for almost 3 years. b) Schumacher has continued to do the odd bit of test driving and helping develop the car so his pace may very well be good. As the article above says though, his fitness over a full distance might still be an issue, but they are correct to point the finger at Kimi. c) With Ferrari's form in the bucket this season, I can't think of a better option to pull the media spotlight onto Ferrari and it's sponsors. Schumacher can't lose - if he's slower than Kimi we expected it anyway and if he turns out to be competitive then "what a guy..." d) Schumacher was the king of qualifying laps. He may prove to be a massive influence on the grid lineups, and introduce a bit of randomness into the events. e) I bet Schumacher tries to tangle it with Hamilton. Lots. f) If Schumacher is significantly faster than Kimi then Ferrari may very well sack the Fin in favour of Alonso before the end of the season, especially with Renault's future involvement in the sport being questioned at the moment. Any thoughts on any of of the above?

and still is. Nothing wrong with removing some weight from your supercar. Ferrari charge an extra £80k to take 120kg out of the F430! I think the whole car is just outrageous and a suitable poke at the pomposity and pricing of the modern Ferrari.

How about this for a modified car? A Ferrari/Citroen 2CV van hybrid Something a bit different : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... ybrid.html

If anyone's in doubt about what the rules are you can read them on the DVLA website. While I sympathise with the OP's annoyance at getting the fine (especially since they've increased it recently) German style plates were illegal with UK registrations even before the regulations were changed, so it's pointless to complain about being nabbed if you run them.

As an outside observer can I say that I think it's pretty poor form to keep making open posts cajoling people to get a particular person to contact you. Surely a quiet PM to someone who's already helped you would be a more subtle. If you failed to get contact details the last time around for someone you seem to need to speak to so frequently and urgently, then who's fault is that?

I'm with Toad on this one. Not many Japanese cars really do it for me but I've always had a soft spot for the Supra. From a styling perspective what your neighbour has done to that one isn't really my cuppa, but I liked the superman badge. In my view the Supra is similar to the Corrado in that it's one of those cars that doesn't really wear after market bodykits that well. All they do is ruin some very pure lines. From a performance point of view you're not really being very fair. If that was a Supra Turbo it would trample over a VR6 and I suspect still give your supercharged VR6 a kicking too even in standard form. As we all know there are plenty of modified Supras out there with 500bhp and upwards. Although (obviously) I still prefer the VW, credit to your neighbour for looking after his Supra. Like the Corrado there really aren't that many on the roads now and both models need enthusiasts to keep these interesting performance cars on the road.

My Dad once had a Honda Civic 1.6 with the continuously variable tranmission which regularly returned 55-58mpg on regular petrol. Might be worth looking into, although I suspect Honda residuals are still strong-ish. The Honda may also have an advantage in that they have a well deserved and excellent reputation for build quality & reliability. As another suggestion you might want to consider a Ford Ka. They're not fashionable I know, but you can buy a new one for under £8k with a full warranty & servicing included, they make >50mpg all day if you buy the 1.25, are well equipped, can fit a surprising number of people & stuff in them, and the one my friend Paul has has proved utterly bulletproof. The Ka also has a bonus in that the Ford Ka owners club appears to be populated completely by pretty young women (again dfrom what I've been told) but I would understand it if your wife ruled it out on those grounds. If you need more space I'd look at secondhand Audi A4 TDi. They're a lot less money than a Passat (or even a Golf) for some reason, and the estate might be worth thinking about if you need to put a big pram in it.

I've seen that video before. What they don't say in the video is that the monster 9ff engine needs to be rebuilt every 30,000km, at a cost of over £50k...

Don't forget that DVLA will not only charge you £105 to put the cherised numberplate on retention, they also charge you to issue you with a standard numberplate (varies, but the assignment fee part of that used to be £78) and also the new plate owner has to pay DVLA a £78 fee (on top of what he's paid you) to have the cherished numberplate assigned to him. Basically the DVLA have got themselves a proper little racket going. You need to factor all these costs into how you approach selling/buying a cherished plate. BTW the best cherished Corrado plate I've known was Mr Brookes' legendary G60 GO (G6 OGO) which he had about 10 years ago & then sold to a MkII Golf owner. There's currently an Aston DB9 in Bournemouth with FA51 CAR on the bumper which I think is one of the better "new generation" cherished plate combinations