Croc

Doug's orange and caged R500. Doug does not come on USA7s but is local to NJMP. He is lethally fast, able to rapidly outpace even Mike. I think he found some go faster parts ideas from looking at our cars this weekend! http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/CSR/Sevens%20track%20day%20Nov%202011/DSC01054.jpg Not as many photos at Thunderbolt as the photographer was not there all day. Here I am being chased by Glen in the Exige who is entertaining buying a seven (we are trying to persuade him!!!). He is a quicker driver than me so he must being doing his offical seven track cam videographer. He has some video he plans to send me so I can incorporate it in a merged video from Tom, myself and Karl. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/CSR/Sevens%20track%20day%20Nov%202011/IMG_5625.jpg At Lightning, Tom coming off the bowl being followed by me: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/CSR/Sevens%20track%20day%20Nov%202011/IMG_6202.jpg I am getting closer.... http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/CSR/Sevens%20track%20day%20Nov%202011/IMG_6284.jpg

Picture thread started at http://www.usa7s.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7060 I will add more as the day goes on. I did not want to misdirect Mike's car thread with NJMP stuff!

Following on from Tom's post at http://www.usa7s.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7047&page=2 It was a very good weekend. Pretty sore still this morning. Karl and I had a shocker of a trip back. On Rt 42 we saw the flashing signs saying 75 min delay between exits 5 and 7 on the turnpike. Karl did the smart thing and run I-295 up as far as you can go before we came onto the turnpike at exit 6. Then it was another 20 odd miles of bumper to bumper. Then luckily I followed Karl onto the truck lanes when the turnpike divided as the car side went bumper to bumper from Garden State Parkway to Newark airport. All in a 2 hour trip took 4 hours. I had a blast on the track. After really hammering around with Mike on Saturday at Thunderbolt and the first session on Sunday at Lightning, I decided to dial it back because I just was being a risk to myself. So Tom became my sparring partner although Karl joined the party in the last session when we found him (or he found us). It is far more fun to run with a bunch of sevens around than just being on the track by yourself. And on Sunday the track was empty enough that I had most of a session by myself. Mike wins the Sevens Award for Gardening - 2 offs at Thunderbolt, one of then on the cool down lap with a bent rim and 2 spins at Lightning, both being on the left hand 90 degree turn at the end of the back straight after the bridge. As the previous inaugural winner of this this prestigious award, I quite happily relinquish it to Mike! In fairness, I think the issue was trying to drive at 10/10ths with suspect brakes. As for the tracks, both are brilliant for Sevens. Now that I have had a good day with Thunderbolt I think I prefer it for its technical challenges. It is a harder track to drive but it rewards with huge speed/time advantage when you get it right. Mike had turn 3 nailed just right and would open up 100 yards on me but I could catch Mike up 100 yards in turn 4 alone. Lightning is a gem of a track for sevens as it just great fun. In the last 2 sessions I just stayed in 5th and 6th gear all the time except for one corner where I came back to third briefly. Time to start planning a June event like last year. We have to bring back Michael D, Dermot, Stuart and Scott plus add some new faces like Steve, Jack, Dave and whoever else has a seven or similar car. Three cheers to Tom for bringing this together. Here are some still pictures of the weekend: Pit lane at Thunderbolt on Saturday. Tom's yellow Superlight R, my silver CSR Superlight 260+ in front of the garage http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/CSR/Sevens%20track%20day%20Nov%202011/DSC01050.jpg Karl's orange R500+50, Mike's burgundy and silver stripe Birkin (great color scheme for a seven!) http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/CSR/Sevens%20track%20day%20Nov%202011/DSC01051.jpg Pit lane at Lightning on the Sunday. Ron's green R500 can be seen here. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/CSR/Sevens%20track%20day%20Nov%202011/DSC01053.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/CSR/Sevens%20track%20day%20Nov%202011/DSC01055.jpg

errr.....Mike.....you forgot the other spin....you know the one in the Octopus (or Jersey Devil as some call it). It was the one that followed your tank slapper dance of about 200 yards before rotating off track in front of me. Luckily I caught it on video. :rofl: Being serious for a moment, Mike's Birkin looked great on track yesterday. I have always been a fan of the Birkin IRS model when I drove it 3 years ago and yesterday confirmed that is a very good car. It helps that Mike is abolutely fearless in the fast corners (unlike me :blush: ). It was noticeable that the Birkin was more nimble than my car on some of the corners, rewarding a different cornering line to the one I might take - not surprising when you consider how heavy my car (and me) is compared to Mike's Birkin. I can now see Mike's earlier observation in this thread that the Birkin is less "polished" as a product than his previous Caterham. It still looks like it needs another mapping session - it does not like cold starts. The brakes are another area for serious upgrade. At the end of main straight we are both doing about 123mph. This is GPS data not car speedo (which BTW says 135mph in my car...). Mike's brake lights come on at braking marker 4. I can go to braking marker 1.5 area and the instructor driving Ron's R500 in the last session was getting to braking marker 1. New pad time to see if that cures the problem. Fantastic day at Thunderbolt!

This may be the only way I keep up with Kitcat on this weekends track days... :blush:

I say that before each of my skydive jumps and I am nowhere near as high!

LOL :rofl:....and this is from someone whose only two skidmarks left in his life were laid down on the curves of a toilet bowl. I am very much looking forward to seeing it (and you) this weekend at NJMP.

That is a nice color combination - I like it. Just remember there is no shame in an off track excursion or two as you learn to handle all that power on the track I will be interested to hear the results of your track sessions. Not in NJMP by any chance?

Ok I will fess up here: Encounter 1 [Australian desert outback] Mr Plod: Excuse me sir but do you realize you were doing 230km/h in a 110km/h zone? Croc: Yes, my father [in the passenger seat] said you guys never have radar traps out here so I could go a little faster than the speed limit. Mr Plod: [To my Dad]: Is that correct? You told him to break the speed limit? Dad: I don't recall that. I think I said that you c**** are usually at the pub and too pissed to work in the afternoons. Mr Plod: Step out of the car gentlemen. Encounter 2 [suburban Sydney Australia] Mr Plod: [After a long and difficult discussion] If you had been more reasonable in this discussion I would have let you off with a warning about your speeding. Croc: Yeah and pigs fly! Encounter 3 [Maine - 1 day after moving to the US] Mr Plod: What the f*** do you think you were doing? You were doing 120mph! Croc: No I wasn't. It was only 120km/h on my dashboard. Mr Plod: You are an idiot! I should shoot you! That is miles per hour! Croc: Errrrr [sinking feeling]

Bruce you were lucky you did not go - Nancy would have frozen. I think it was colder than the prior year event. I made it. Little cool out there but I managed to give myself sun burn. It was nice to get out and clear the sinuses. The route had to be changed for the damage from last weeks snow storm. It was because of this and the difficulties in keeping a large road group together that I found it a little stop start. As it was I branched off about 3/4s of the way through to get myself back for another committment that afternoon. There were 2 other sevens there - Kathy and Al's BRG seven and Kurt's prisoner yellow/BRG seven. Neither of them are on here but they turn up at the LEO group events out in Frenchtown, NJ. I took a pic at the start which I will upload later. I was more focused on testing my video cameras ahead of NJMP this weekend - I want to catch Tom spinning off!

Hi Skip - Very ingenious! Here is to seeing your shoulders heal.

I can second Gary at Straight Roads. I used him in April to get the car from Denver to NYC. The only catch to be aware of is that he is a small operation - only 3 trucks. So you may have to wait depending on direction being shipped.

Timax - Can you tell us (me) how you made that shot. As a keen but slightly useless amateur photographer I am always wanting to try a new technique!

Having it insured as a "collector" car will be a lot cheaper than getting full daily driver insurance. If insuring it as a second "fun" car then try Hagertys as mentioned above and also try American Collectors Insurance or Grundy. Just read the fine print as to what you can or cannot do. For mainstream insurers in CA then you should find State Farm, Safeco/Liberty and Chubb most flexible for insurance.

Put a racing stripe on your car. When I did the business chat show interviews I was told to wear stripes as they make you look slimmer on camera. :rofl:

Probably not. Neither will it record the sounds of your skidding to a stop to avoid my dust cloud in which I am hiding! That Nikon seems a nifty unit, waterproof, screen for aiming and would also fit the bill. Not sure how good a GPS function would be as it only seems to read like 1 spot per second in movie mode. At speed you would travel a long way before the next GPS data point is recorded. The Contour seems to record GPS as 5 spots a second so that may be better if you want to create a track map instead of a piece of abstract art. I will give the Go Pro unit a little try out against the HD POV camera I have at this weekends LEO drive (hopefully no more snow!). Personally I am a fan of the POV unit as it is one button operation to record and has a nifty little wireless remote to wrap around your wrist. Despite this it still took me a day to work out how to record!

There is software that does this. Trackvision, RaceRender or Dashware allow you to synchronize multiple video feeds and sound tracks before then merging it with any data logging results that you have and overlaying the data onto the video. So I think you could take the footage from the old Go Pro and match it into the soundtrack from the Go Pro 2. At least this is what I am experimenting with using an old camera and RaceRender.

Well it will hardly ever record you spinning as you never get out of 3rd gear! :seeya: The external mic is now there: 1) Go to the link http://gopro.com/cameras/hd-hero2-motorsports-edition/ 2) Click on the features tab on that page - say 1/3rd to halfway down the page 3) Look at the piccy of the camera. 4) On the side of the camera is a 3.5mm external mic jack labelled

I got given a few of these to play with yesterday. Freshly released this week. Better lens and resolution of detail/lighting. Allows an external mic which remediates the biggest flaw with the earlier versions. http://gopro.com/hd-hero2-cameras/ At $299 it is a bargain compared to some other more expensive cameras.

It looks like it was a mid 60s S2 - dash, engine and details follow that period. The rear shock mounting is puzzling - have never seen it that way on a Caterham before but thats how my old S2 was done. Roll bar is also S2-like. Engine looks like the old Ford lump from the 60s - does not look like a crossflow or a twink. Not sure if it was dressed up that way or it is how it originally looked. The ad is not clear but I think we are seeing an S2 that was rebuilt/restored in 1997. I like it a lot!

I think I agree with you Bruce. He lost time one handing it through the hairpins. When he does the gearbox overhaul I would also do the dog leg gear stick modification to get it out from under the dash. I used to scrape my hands something fierce on the dash trying to find a gear in my box of neutrals on my S2. I have driven that road to but it was in a Subaru Liberty Outback wagon and it was operating as 2 way road that day. Not very sporting!

I second Karl on the recommendation. CR500s are really well suited to sevens. I have found them nicely progressive on the road and track. My car is currently running 195 45 R15 front and 245 40 R15 rear. I think Terry is importing the standard size that most roadsports run in the UK front and rear.

Text from Karl - one lap of Lime Rock then came straight in with heavy snow.

Been snowing in new york for the last few hours. Wonder how Karl is enjoying Lime Rock track day today?

I think you are jinxing us with the weather Bruce! When are you back to Bonaire? Maybe join on the Nov 6 drive as a fall back?