I traded my BMW 320d for a C63AMG Mercedes and its just awesome. The sound is the best bit. Within 2 minutes of leaving the Norwich MB dealership I put my foot down just a little and I had two people pull along side at the next traffic lights and give me a thumbs up.
2014 Season
This year we will be competing in the AMOC Intermarque Championship. The goal is to defend our class B championship win in 2013, Porsche to win the teams championship again and with some luck and a good run of results we may have a chance at the overall championship. We will be using the same 964 C2 as 2013.
There has been some regulation changes for 2014, the main aim is to try to slow down the really modified cars, so it should give us more of a chance to get results. The 2014 regs can be found here:-
2014 Intermarque Championship regulations
We hope you can join us at some of the races this season. Below is a list of dates for the AMOC intermarque, I’ll update the calendar page with news of test dates and any other racing that we will fit in with the other cars.
2014 Calendar
April 5th Silverstone AMOC intermarque
May 10th Oulton Park AMOC intermarque
June 7th Donington Park AMOC intermarque
June 28th Brands Hatch AMOC intermarque
June 29th Brands Hatch AMOC intermarque
August 2nd Silverstone (Out-round BDC) AMOC intermarque
Sept 27th Snetterton AMOC intermarque
Ruth and I went to Daytona to see the Rolex 24. I got a cannon DSLR for christmas, so I thought I’d show off some of my pictures from the race and test day. All photos are unedited as I haven’t worked out how to do that yet.
Coming into the final round of the championship we had a chance to win class B and the Porsche team could win the teams championship. We did an afternoons testing the day before to get up to speed with the circuit, and make sure the car was ok after the long summer break. We had a good afternoon and managed to scrub 2 sets of tyres in for the following day.
Race day: Going into qualifying we had the advantage of having recent running the day before, so I was confident going into the session. By the end of the first lap the safety car was deployed and the we had 3 laps not being able to go quick. Once we were back to green i got a couple of laps in and managed to qualify 12th. I was disappointed that I hadn’t gone as fast as Friday testing, but 12th was ok considering Snetterton is a power circuit and we are one of the least powerful cars on the grid.
The front row of the rolling start didn’t want to wait the rest of the grid to form through the final corner, so the start was a flat out sprint from thee exit of the last corner, which meant I had no chance to make up positions. By the second and third corners I was able to challenge the guys in front, and this lead to a good fun first half of the race. I overtook Stephen Archer into Agostini hairpin securing 1st place in class. I pulled a small gap but lost this when the safety car came out. I took this as an opportunity to take my pit stop. After the stop the race settled down and I had quite a lonely second half of the race.
I finished in 9th place overall and 1st in class. This was only my 2nd class win of the season but it secured the class championship, and the Porsche team won the teams championship.
So the end of a great season, with 2 championships and a race car in 1 piece.
Last week I bought myself a 1999 Lotus Elise S1. I have already ordered some Nitron dampers and new discs & pads. I also plan on carrying out a service at the same time, as it seems to take an age getting it on the ramp when you have to take off the under tray to do so. Its a far from perfect example, it will be an ongoing project.
So far my initial impressions of the car are mixed, the right rear damper has failed a couple of days after I picked it up, so its handling is slightly strange. The car was not used much in the last few years so me having it and driving it as hard as I can is going to throw up any potential issues, and I suspect it will continue to highlight weak areas. But apart from this I love this little car, its very willing to rev and makes a great noise for a 4cyl engine. It feels just like a race car for the road, even down to the horrible little rattles you hear on a race car when driving slowly, these seem to be cured by driving fast and drowning it out with induction, exhaust and wind noise.
I’ll keep this up to date as things happen with the little elise….
