Croc

This pic summed up the day at Lightning - a gaggle of sevens and a Fisher Fury beating up some poor Corvette: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_IN1_4763.jpg Why is it that Tom is always at the back of group photos? Does he like looking at rear ends? And some gratuitous pics of me - I look sooooo good :cooldude: (LOL) http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110628_NJM_IN1_6275.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_IN1_5393.jpg

Me chasing Scott: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_IN1_4819.jpg I liked exiting this corner on to the straight - I could really put the power down catch up on people: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_IN1_5854.jpg

Here is Stewart holding off the Cadillac CTS V. I nearly wore the rear bumper of this Caddy trying to get past with non-existent point bys. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_IN1_5819.jpg As Al Navarro said on the day, "You look like you are dressed for an office meeting" Pah! Who needs a fancy set of racing overalls when you are going to be faster than the fancy show ponies! http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_IN1_4820.jpg Hmmm....A little too much shoulder movement from me: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110628_NJM_IN1_6577.jpg A nice shot of Tom being slow: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_IN1_5465.jpg

Another angle to the group photo: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_MSC_4906.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_MSC_4899.jpg Kitcat leading Scott: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_IN1_5373.jpg Me leading Karl with the yellow rear wing of Tom poking out in the background: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_IN1_5377.jpg

A couple of nice pit shots at Lightning: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_MSC_4381.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_MSC_4385.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_MSC_4743.jpg The nicely laid out cockpit of Dermot's Fisher Fury: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_MSC_4744.jpg

Here are some more from SDCA site: Tom being led by the Aston mobile chicane at Thunderbolt: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110628_NJM_IN1_6571.jpg A nice shot of Michael diving in to a turn at Lightning: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_IN1_5466.jpg A study of cornering styles - front to rear is Mike, Michael and Mike: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_IN1_5852.jpg Is it a gaggle of sevens? From front to back - Michael, Mike, Mike and of course Tom struggling to keep up on 10 inch slicks on the sweeping lefthander at Lightning leading on to the straight. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/june%202011/20110627_NJM_IN1_5873.jpg If people want the hi resolution image for your own picture albums let me know your email in a PM

Ron - You would be very welcome next time - the more the merrier! As a sad postscript to the event, you all may recall the diesel Nascar pickup driven by one of the instructors with the matching blue/green motorhome and trailer. On the way home north on the NJ turnpike, a tractor trailer hit the motorhome/trailer rig at 60+ mph leading to the crash and the total consumption of the motorhome, trailer and racecar in flames. From following up with Ian today to say thank you for a well run event, he confirmed the instructor and his wife escaped without injury, which is a relief.

I like the color scheme. What engine spec are you putting in here? The R400 220hp duratec?

The photos from the Lightning Day on the 27th and 28th (search SDCA, 27th/28th and Intermediate) are posted at: www.tracktimephotos.com There are some brilliant pics there of the sevens together on track or attacking some poor Corvette or Porsche. A great pic of Karl coming out of the sweeper onto Pit Straight with rear suspension cranked down as he powers out. There is also one of me in a dust cloud :blush: (but it is not when I spun so not sure it was my dust!) Not so many of the Thunderbolt day due to the weather. There is a good one of Tom following the Aston Martin mobile chicane. A suggestion - If anyone wants pics then put an order through me with the picture file name as I will make one big order for all of us to get the bulk discount. I was going to order the high resolution. I can then load them onto memory sticks and mail them out to you.

I thought I did a well executed stuff up. I was probably lucky I did not dig two wheels in and roll it. I only got the car back under control when it decided to go back on the track and I could reverse the spin. I had no idea where you guys where thanks to my smoke screen....err....dust cloud raised by the spin. We also have a few posts and pics here in a pic thread: http://www.usa7s.com/vb/showthread.php?p=55506&posted=1#post55506 I definitely want to do this next year - It was a great time.

Owww Tom! I just passed him on the back straight at Lightning before the ninety degree left. He was on slicks too I will have you know! :toetap05: It was a brilliant couple of days. I had a simply great time with a great group of guys. I definitely want to see this become an annual event. We all got on so well socially and it was a delight to run with so many sevens on the track at once. The memories of the event are many: · Following, Michael, Mike and I think it was Tom (or was it Scott?), all ahead of me on Lightning, crawling over the back of some Corvette Z06. No matter which mirror the Corvette looked out of he would have seen buzzing sevens darting around behind. · Trying to catch Tom on the big long curving sweeper at Lightning and realizing he had slicks while I was on Cr500s. · Beers in the paddock on the Sunday evening setting up and after the day at Lightning. · Following Michael with car positioned up the tailpipe of the silver Infiniti (or silver corvette) with hands waving frantically as they would not give him a point by. · Being amazed at Kitcat driving totally committed, holding momentum and just flying past cars everywhere. It may only be a 135fwhp crossflow but it just shows that well driven they are lethal on a track like Lightning which suits a seven so well. · Following Dermot in his Hayabusa Fisher and watching him just flick the car into corners seemingly without brakes · My rather large and extremely dusty spin. · Getting fast enough to be airborne over the hump on the back straight at Thunderbolt. Scared the hell out of me. My video camera worked only at Thunderbolt but I will edit something down on the second half of the second session when I really decided to see what the girl could do and found to my surprise that I was just passing everything on track. Hopefully that shows something good. The car was as close to perfect as a seven gets with 700 miles on it. Chassis and suspension set up felt great. Brakes were running nicely with no fade even when trying hard. The 6 speed gearbox is starting to lose its notchiness and the shifts are starting to come smoother. The engine was just brilliant. I could stay with the fastest cars down the straights with a good exit from the previous corner and a little slipstreaming. Fixes needed for the car following the track day: · A proper oil catch tank with filter vent. I have oil breathing heavy out of the washer bottle....errr...Caterham oil catch tank. · A diff breather catch tank - I was getting a smallish amount of diff oil being breathed out. I have also decided to call my differential "Tom" because it whines so much! · New windscreen. The current one took 4 stones in one session at Lightning and it is totally gone. · Speedo needs fixing - it went erratic on the track when I went over 100mph. An old well known problem. · A new set of rear tires would not go astray. · Skate tape on the floor of the pedal box where it is polished ali so the heels of my shoes have some grip while working the pedals. My journey home was not a good one. I got hammered in a monsoon on Rt55 and took refuge under overpasses twice when the car started to miss (no trailering for me). I had hazards, rear fog light and headlights on yet a kind soul from the track day who stayed behind me on the drive to keep guard said I was invisible in the rain. Also with the NJ Turnpike, the Garden State Parkway and I-295 all parking lots headiing north, I ended up driving over the Ben Franklin Bridge into Philadelphia and picking up I-95 towards Trenton to get back up to NYC. Traffic was so bad that it was a 4 hour trip when it should have been 2-2.5 hours. Until next year!

Hi Jude, Here you go: http://www.tousleyfordparts.com/ Looks like online ordering is easily done. Cheers

Great photos! Do dogs need eye protection? I know my eyes suffer with the buffetting and I wear glasses all the time.

Great to see everyone here today. Al N made a royal appearance which was truly appreciate. Steve Novelli (S1steve) joined in the good natured ribbing that has been going. It was good to meet Ryan (Proj217) in person and the Boss 302 he is crewing for is one of the best sounds cars on the track. And of course to meet Dave and his wife with their orange S1 (forgotten her name already - I am useless). George Alderman of MidAtlantic Caterham stopped by for a visit and was good to see. Jack VB is staying with us for the track days even though his seven is off the road. Drivers are: - Tom G (Yellowss7) - Stewart (Sabbot) - Michael (MichaelD) - Scott L - Mike M (Kitcat) - Karl (Blubarisax) - Mike (Croc) - Dermot (ottcycle - driving his Hayabusa Fisher Fury) Lightning is a great track - fully a momentum style of track that suits sevens so well. We were literally eating every other car up. Corvettes had us on the straights but at least I could hang on to them. Kitcat was a man alive just monstering every car out there - truly inspriring driving in a 135hp crossflow. Truthfully the track suited sevens so well we were all driving above ourselves. I will have an open kimono session now to get my dirty laundry story in first. In the 2nd and 3rd session I was trying to push very very hard to see what the car could do. It is touching 140 mph at the end of the main straight and getting through turn 1 on what feels like 2 wheels but is about 104-105. in the second session I tried getting through at 110mph and bounced the apex curve which bounced me wide and two wheels off into the dirt which was fairly easily recovered albeit with a large dust cloud. In the third session, I again tried very hard. At turn 4 I cocked up pushing too hard. Missed the apex by a foot and dropped 2 wheels off the track on the exit by about a foot. And then I went for a little ride through a few spins off track, coming back on where I could get some semblence of control and reversed the spin to back off and wait for the slow cars to pass (Tom?). Unfortunately, I created a little...errr...large... dust cloud from which no one could see through to see where I was hiding. I slowly trundled back to the pits to check out the car (fine just dirty) where the pit marshal uttered the immortal words - "You have a tree in your visor." And so there was. Unfortunately I have had a bad tech day - my digital SLR went on the fritz. My video camera cut out after 30 seconds in the 3rd and fourth sessions (thank good no spin pics to immortalize me). I will need others to post pics sadly. :svengo: Car is fine - diff is breathing oil...fairly normal. Engine is breathing oil...fairly normal. Feels fantastic handling and braking. Absolutely filthy from my gardening excursions. :jester:

Oh dear...the posting of upside down pics is symptomatic of Tom failing to have his mid-afternoon old persons nap. And he says I am off my game...hello! Also the carbon cam cover joke is pretty old now. For those confused, I ordered a carbon cam cover from Reverie. When I rang to inquire about it I was told it had already shipped to NJ to me. They confused me with Karl who shares the same last name as me and had placed an order at the same time. So he has "my" cam cover - and it looks very nice too! For those stopping by, I have reserved garage G113 at Thunderbolt for us for the two days. Five sevens fit into 1 garage just fine. Won't get much use tomorrow as we are over at Lightning but we will be back at the days end and will be perfect for day 2. I am looking forward to taking my show pony on the track for the first time today.

Mike - you are so right. The testosterone in pit lane was pretty strong. Almost as if it were a true championship race. I left my ego in the trunk of my rental car and tried to go out there and get some circuit time experience plus get a small taste of what it must be like for Formula 1 pros when they race at this track. I will pick my circuit days a little better next time to exclude the big money competition teams. Because the circuit is so wide you do not realize the speed you are going at the time. It is only after when you realize you're turning into the high speed corners at 6000rpm in 6th gear and are complaining that you do not have enough power because there is more track than you can use. I am not a top flight stud of a driver but I can have a taste of what they must experience. Now I am warmed up and ready to not completely disgrace myself at NJMP on Monday or Tuesday.

Stewart - Mine will be staying at the track off trailer (cause I dont have one) overnight. Just put it next to mine and go off to your hotel room wherever you find it. Feel safe that the more expensive car will be victimized if some scum come across them. See you on the NJ Turnpike on Sunday afternoon!

Luckily for the flight crew they were not onboard at the time. It occurred at the Paris Air Show and the plane was being towed by a round tug team of two - one to drive and one to check that it was not going to hit anything.... This cancelled the flight demonstrations of this plane at the Paris Air Show.

I enjoyed the day so much that I am exploring going to Spa with Bookatrack as I have always wanted to experience that circuit. Then there is Monza and....

Turning into Copse Corner at the end of Pit Straight. And I think this was entering Chapel corner. I have a serious love affair with the Alfa behind me – absolutely beautifully restored race car.

The casualty count was not as bad as it should have been. A Porsche 911 lunched the gearbox on the exit of Chapel leading onto Hangar straight which shut the track to clean up 200-300 yards of oil. A few Radicals blew up engines – one in front of me. A Porsche GT3 late passed me on Pit Straight only to muff his braking into Copse Corner and go straight ahead into the kitty litter (gravel trap) and bury himself up to the axles. There were a few red flags to close the track and pick up the mess/broken thing. I took the time to slow down and follow a lovely restored Alfa Guiletta sedan historic race car for 2 laps. The various wheel angles and drifting style were a joy to study. Mobile chicane award went to a superseded model Nissan Skyline GTR. Even I was passing it on the straights. Regrettably, with so many fast cars, I too descended into red mist land trying to keep up with the faster cars on slicks. I followed a Radical through Maggots and Becketts just in awe of how flat and quick the car was. I then tried chasing a Ferrari 430 race car on slicks into Stowe. Unfortunately I was on CR500s. To keep up I thought I would brake a little less and carry a higher gear through the corner to avoid having to change part way through. Dumb move. Too sudden on turn in, car was unsettled, the tail got light, I tried to stop it was full throttle but it was all too late and I was off for a ride. Recalculating the speed from the RPM shift lights showed that I was around 115mph when I lost it and spun it a few times before ending up on the grass at the apex. My tire marks were fairly prominent on what was until then nicely manicured grass. I am looking forward to seeing them on TV in 2 weeks when the F1 race is held. Due to my stupidity with the video camera there is no footage to share. However there I bought the photo set of me on the day that flatters my ego. Just before the last apex in Vale: Following the Ferrari, this was me just before spinning… The red box on the track in front of the Ferrari is actually the front cycle wing and stanchion off a seven! No idea where I am here. Out for a Sunday drive with my instructor. Street clothes look so wrong. I should have also brought my gloves.

The Silverstone circuit was modified in 2009/2010 to lengthen it for F1: What the track map does not show is how staggeringly fast this circuit really is. It is massively wide and really suits power cars with a high top end speed. So a Seven was never going to be well suited to this track as it just does not keep up with the more fancy exotic cars with top end speed. Mostly I was in 5th or 6th gears and letting the torque work for me except for dropping down the gears at Vale, Village Corner and the Loop. Some of the corners were just bendy straights. For example, at the end of Pit Straight, saw me at redline in 6th gear, you tap the brakes very briefly to get enough weight on the nose to turn in without understeer and then instantly back on full throttle driving through the corner. It was so wide on the exit that I could have gone faster had I more power. Continuing down to the esses of Maggots/Becketts/Chapel you would think you need to slow down more than you really have to. In reality it was full speed late entry into Maggotts, brake on exit of Maggots to turn right, run way out left and hug the inside line through Becketts with a tap again on the brakes for the apex, keeping it on the left to give you a wide right entry and the straightest possible exit to build up speed leading on to Hangar Straight. It was not the intuitive racing line for me. My instructor taught me that this was the fastest line and it was noticeable that I easily caught the very fast cars through these corners if I used his recommended line and the other cars were doing the traditional in/out cornering line. Stowe corner was another fast one. I ended up taking it in 5th gear simply because I would be hitting the rev limit in 4th before the apex. Vale and Club Corner were satisfying when you stitched them together right as the exit out of Vale set you up in one smooth corner where you were accelerating through the whole way. You would not want to mess up Club Corner though as overcooking the exit would spin you into the new pit wall on the right with no room for error. Abbey corner was a brief tap on brakes to settle the car and then full throttle through. The width of the track on the exit is something like 6-7 cars wide so I never could run out of room no matter how fast I went through. The bigger issue for me was the turn in with high speed understeer on entry if I tried to go through too fast. The corner was fairly safe to experiment so I tried a few no taps on the brakes in 5th and then 6th to see if I could get the car through quicker but it came back down to no go – I needed the brake tap to turn the car in with some precision and I simply did not have the power to use the all the road available on exiting the corner. I was always finding the rev limiter in 6th on Pit Straight and Hangar Straight which translates to 135mph area. Given the big money cars there, I was in the bottom half of the group for straight-line slowness. Speed differential was a major issue. You had the few pedestrian cars – a Ford Focus hatch, BMW 5 series wagon (I think it was a diesel!), Alfa hatch thing, then there were the classic race cars of a couple of Alfas, a few 180-200hp area Sevens before heading up to high end Porsche GT3s and then up to full on race cars like Juno/Radical. I would look in the mirror and see nothing only to suddenly glance again to see a Radical in full flight trying to pass me. They were so fast they came from nowhere. Naturally, the “red mist” of racing had descended on many of the drivers so despite the safety briefing of no passing in corners, no burning up the rear bumpers of slow cars with flashing high beams (yep – some cars were good for this and I can confirm it is unsettling to your driving), it became a bit of a free for all. At one point I turned left into the apex of The Loop only to find a Renault Megane very hot hatchback had decided to pass me on the inside and I ended up all messed up trying to avoid hitting him. Next lap while following the Renault, I saw him and a Radical simultaneously passing a Miata three wide on the outside line through Village Corner. I had a personal near miss when the Mercedes SLR race car worth about $500,000 (pic below) decided to late pass me then have a maybe/maybe not moment with passing the slower car ahead into Farm corner which freaked out that driver to slamming on his brakes. So the Merc jumped on his brakes in front of me. Visions of fat assed Mercs were horrifyingly close as I locked up trying to avoid the now two slow cars suddenly presented to me. With 600-700 hp he disappeared 2 seconds later.

The ladies were well represented – here is a Fiat 500 In the ‘are you for real’ category, there were a brace of little Smart cars. The engine was transplanted with a Hayabusa bike engine. I believe the gearbox was also changed over. So they now had a little more than the original 3 gear semi-auto thing which was Slow, Slower and Even Slower. On the track I found them fairly rapid in a straight line which was disconcerting when I wanted to pass. Cornering looked like a horrifying new way to die as they are so top heavy. I also half expected them to tumble roll forward under braking.

There were a few other sevens – a race Westfield, an orange and carbon Caterham Superlight and this well driven Caterham K-engined car: A Palmersports JP LM Ferrari series race car. Neat jacking system:

A Juno: A top line Radical race team – one of at least 10 running around. Here is another Radical with the nose cone removed. Given the highly stressed engine I counted at least 3 blowups during the day as the pace lunched the motors. Some assorted pit traffic of the day: The chassis flex on track for a Morgan must be interesting? No surprises for a British Leyland product here.