Post #98
Bedford Autodrome
Work is slow today, so thought a get a few words down about my recent experience at Bedford Autodrome.
It was an evening session, and the weather was good to me, being dry, cool and crisp. Despite the wincingly low autumnal sun, the dramatic illumination of the evening cloud was a quite a spectacle too! I'll pop up a vid of a lap when I get home later so you can see. Oh and the lap too if you're interested, but this is predominantly and "evening sky" forum right?
So Bedford. I was on the SW circuit, which has a few nice twists and turns, but being built on an airfield, its characteristically flat. I didn't realise it until doing this track, but robbed of the depressions and cambers associated with the Y-vector, I was left wanting slightly. Only a minor gripe though, and certainly not one which stripped away enjoyment. It was quite an exotic carpark when I arrived (late) for sign on. Quite a few Porches, an Atom, a Caterham and a whole host of heavily, and I mean laptop plug-in heavily, modified cars.
I couldn't help but feel a little like the work experience kid in my compromise rife road/track Peugeot, but once out on track the oh so common negative relationship between bank balance and ability presented itself so I wasn't too embarrassed come close of play.
As hinted at in another thread, Bedford was pretty hard on the brakes, but that again is no bad thing, and a few bends in particular allow you to really explore the size of your late braking balls.
In said vid, you'll notice (ignoring the GT3RS streaking away from me at the start) I was chasing down the Ariel Atom and a Golf GTi. Now let me just say, that unusually during the briefing, there was no mention of the prohibited use of filming, so when my track novice passenger pulled out his phone, I thought what the hell, it might be nice to get a bit of footage. However, no sooner had I reeled in the Golf, and set myself up to pass out the bend and get to work on the Atom, that I notice a black flag being wafted in my direction. Moments later, you'll hear the only spoken word of the whole feature.
We did later time a few laps out of interest. Pretty much useless as I have no Benchmark but I was consistently getting round between 2:19 and 2:21 which felt pretty decent even if the stats don't back it up.
One little surprise on the day was fairly rough looking Toyota Starlet turbo. It was pretty lazy through the bends, but point that thing at a bit of straight and it showed the cammed Rallye a clean pair of heels and fire spitting exhaust. What's not to like...
________________________________________
Rallye-R
Nurburgring article
braymond
Posted 13th Jul 2012 at 12:35
[Fun car] >>