Croc

For those of you who are a member of Lotus Limited and receive Lotus Remarque, the newest edition just out last week featured Boxologist's Miata. Jon was written up in the LOG 30 Autocross article as being the winner of his auto-x class against his only competitor, a horse (called Dobbin) and buggy. Admittedly the horse and buggy had a massive weight handicap called Brunhilde (the driver) compared to the relatively svelte Jon. Given it was 1 hp compared to over 130hp in the Miata a slower time was always expected from poor Dobbin who was pulling close to a ton behind him. However, the time difference of 57 seconds to 31 seconds was unreasonably close given the massive power advantage of the Miata. In the interests of a fair competition next time, I would like to see what time Brunhilde (or even Dobbin the horse) could do behind the wheel of Jon's Miata. Then again, I would like to see a rematch between the Miata and the horse & buggy in the boggy paddock that Jon's found himself comfortably situated on Sunday - see here http://usa7s.com/vb/showpost.php?p=48471&postcount=6. I think the horse would win comfortably over the Miata on that course! :jester:

Hi Karl, That is a great quality video - nicely done and it took you no time at all. What brand is the unit you are using? Also does it have a facility for a remote mike to eliminate the wind noise. Cheers

Then the drive kicked on for lunch. So off we head from the airport with Jon leading and a daisy chain of Sevens behind. Jon disappeared around a left hander in front of me, I hear squealing tires, a crump and I come around the corner to see empty road except for a Europa a fair distance ahead of me – WTF! Pull up at a drive way and run back and there is Jon’s car sitting in a fairly muddy paddock. He had gone left off the road over a ditch, hump and through a hedge/trees. Very luckily he was unscathed as 6 feet to the right was a power pole. View from the road into the field http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00451_edited-1.jpg Looking back from the field to the road http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00452_edited-1.jpg The immortal lines were said - it will buff out! http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00453_edited-1.jpg Car survived its ordeal pretty well – radiator pushed back onto the anti roll bar, some fan shrouding messed up, new bumper needed along with a paint job and a leaf blower for the interior would be useful. While the car ran, it was unable to make any traction in the greasy mud so a Toyota 4wd came to the rescue: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00455_edited-1.jpg Sorry I missed Karl at the end – the misadventure separated us. I hope Bruce and Nancy made it home safely to CT without Nancy freezing herself to death. Despite Jon’s misadventure it was a great day with a great bunch of people from LEO and probably the last run of the season. Bring on 2011 good weather!

And the airport: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/vansantis_Panorama1.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00446_edited-1.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00449_edited-1.jpg

Midway stop was Van Sant airport with a couple of hundred (it seemed) biker friends to check out the planes, enjoy the views and generally chat cars, bikes, performance or whatever. L to R here is Bruce, Stewart, Karl, and Ron. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00434_edited-1.jpg Steve’s S1 and my car: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00435_edited-1.jpg Karl – the proud father! http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00438_edited-1.jpg Jon and Steve sharing an intimate moment http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00436_edited-1.jpg

A panorama of Bill’s lawn – sure beats a few garden gnomes, a flamingo and a fountain: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/WTRlawn_Panorama1.jpg The drive was through the back roads of NJ and PA. Very scenic and peaceful. There was an entertaining moment when the group broke into 3 and eventually got lost. I think I went over Beaver Creek at least 3 times. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00428_edited-1.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00429_edited-1.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00432_edited-1.jpg

JPS Europa and another Seven. This owner picked up his car the day before this drive – bought it second hand from Hemmings and lives next to Alan and Kathy – there are 3 sevens within a mile of Bill’s place. If you add a few miles to the radius then Bruce Bowker’s Seven comes in. Al Navarro might also be counted if he gets another Seven! http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00418_edited-1.jpg Steve’s S1 – nice to see you brought along Betsy for the drive – it was great to meet her. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00421_edited-1.jpg Bruce (budlite11) doing a Cheshire cat impersonation as he drives across the lawn – thanks for allowing me to the chance to meet Nancy: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00422_edited-1.jpg Other exotica: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00423_edited-1.jpg

The annual Lotus Enthusiasts Organization (LEO) Group of NJ/NY/PA/CT held its annual November Spirited Drive yesterday in Frenchtown NJ. As was the case last year, we started at William Thomas Roadsters in Frenchtown NJ. The sky was clear, the sun was shining, fresh coffee and cake was available and there were lots of tasty cars arrayed on the front lawn. Very impressive turnout of cars, not just Sevens. Here is Bill’s anniversary Seven next to Alan and Kathy’s BRG Seven. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00416_edited-1.jpg From right to left – Stewart’s Crossflow, Ron’s Vauxhall powered S3, Karl’s insanely desirable R400 (as an aside I now know why white spots form on carbon fiber over time – they are drool marks from other owners!) and mine. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00419_edited-1.jpg MG, Austin Healey and Triumph were well represented. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00417_edited-1.jpg Even a pair of Miata’s made an appearance. At this stage the green one was fairly unmolested by its owner…. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/LEO%20Drive%20Nov%202010/DSC00420_edited-1.jpg

That looked like great fun. You even looked good in curly hair!

We shared the south circuit with Silverstone’s own drive experience program where you turn up and pay your money to drive a Lamborghini, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Audi R8 or Lotus Exige for a few laps and then get taken around by a pro. There was also an R300-400 Caterham Seven running around with an insanely crazy talented driver scaring the hell out of paying passengers. It is an amazing facility dedicated to driving. The South circuit was nicely challenging – a nice mix of flat out corners and slow tights turns. Abbey into Farm was my favorite although intellectually the hardest was Stowe – much faster than you would expect from an initial drive. Despite the lack of power the Sevens were extremely competitive with the exotics as the straights were not too long and so it was only Hangar straight where a small power advantage came into play. The R300/400 seemed to obliterate anything else on the track – no straight line power disadvantage was apparent. Naturally the exotics could not beat the Sevens for general handling and braking nimbleness. The instructors were all professionals. Mine for the day was Bradley Ellis who has carved out an impressive list of racing achievements in a relatively short space of time. His you-tube video of hanging the tail out of a Porsche Cayenne medic car at the British Touring Car Championship Silverstone race meet: Initial drive session started off just circulating the course in 5th gear to simplify learning. Later sessions introduced more gears, later braking, etc. Despite being initially underwhelmed by the 1.6L engine, I was proved wrong. It was a wonderfully tractable little unit that revved freely up to 7000rpm and sounded great going down the straight. Speeds were not that high – I was seeing 7000rpm briefly in 5th gear at the end of Hangar Straight, before dabbing the brakes into Stowe corner. Later, Sudsy said that was about 110mph. Interestingly Brad was doing about the same in his demo laps. The only criticism I could make was that these cars had a small throttle opening jerkiness that made it sometimes difficult to feed power in gently plus the different pedal heights made it difficult for me to heel and toe. This was not just me as other participants made the same observations. Practice makes the problem go away as the pros did not have the same problem. The role of the instructor is critical – to push you at times to go harder and hold you back when you are being a little too wild. Brad was excellent at pushing me harder all the time - he knew exactly my issue and how to make me overcome them. For example, there was a Audi R8 V10 that was pretty slow around corners that I ended up being strongly encouraged to overtake going down Hangar Straight as the Audi V10 started to hit stride - a drag race I assumed I could not win. Not only did I find I could keep pace up to about 100mph, I ended up passing the Audi as he started to brake at the end of Hangar Straight. As for the little wild, Silverstone has a 2 spins and you are out policy – something I was not prepared to test. However, Sudsy had a group of Eastern Europeans to instruct and from appearances they had never driven a car with a steering wheel before. If coming around a fast corner to find a Seven mid racing line facing you after it spun is unnerving then think about Sudsy in the passenger seat of the spun car thinking how do I control this student! Sudsy was heard to utter later in the afternoon “I thought I was going to die today.” Fair assessment based on what I saw from that group. The SV model I started with in the morning was retired by 11am with cooling issues – a small leak in the radiator allowed the remaining coolant to boil itself into froth. This was the only breakdown of the day. Bonnets did not come up on any of the other cars that I saw. Pretty impressive for cars that were being thrashed all day on a circuit. Spare car coming up: Overall, I thought it was a great day. By the end of the day I was feeling respectably fast again - able to keep up and pass many of the exotic road cars and the other Circuit Experience Sevens circulating. I certainly felt more confident and secure in my abilities and know what I need to work on going forward – I can see that my transition from braking to acceleration was not smooth enough and needs working on, I struggled finding the right gears at times (I kept on being confused by the 6 spd gear layout compared to my 5 spd T-9) plus I could see that I was sometimes misjudging the entry by apexing too early. The width of a F1 circuit is staggering compared to any other circuit I have been on – many of the corners were flat out accelerating in a Seven. Even Village corner which felt relatively slow was still a 70mph corner(so I was told). Here is a Caterham midway through Stowe corner: (Apologies for grainy pics - I only had a pocket camera and I was a fair distance away.) Aside from my failings, the day is an impressive showcasing of the abilities of a Caterham Seven. All prospective Se7en owners should consider a day like this if it is available as it is only in this environment that you truly understand what giant killing cars Se7ens are. These days are not cheap and will never be when you consider we had a car provided, fuel, tires, full professional instruction, pit mechanic backup, spare cars, and un-crowded circuit hire for a whole day. When you consider the cost of a regular track day, the cost of this Circuit Experience was within proportion given the extra inclusions. Even if it was not a Seven event, having the professional coaching was worth it for me to correct old bad habits and help me find a groove. From my earlier discussions with David Ridley and from the Caterham Circuit Experience team, some cars have been set up for shipping to the US to kick off the drive experience program to be operated with the assistance of a US motor sporting organization. This is different to what I went through as the drive experience focuses on auto-x style slalom driving around cones. They seem to be looking closely at the New York metro area for now. They are aiming for an announcement in early 2011.

My guide was David Ridley, Caterham’s International Development Manager, who showed me the various models, features of the entire range – something we just don’t see with our smaller Seven market in the US. I was able to sit, study, admire, drool and generally be a nuisance while checking things out. It was intriguing to see the CSR with its inboard front suspension, IRS and curvy dash: I was also able to discuss David’s plans for the Caterham Drive Experience coming to the USA in 2011 (hopefully?). While I was there, a proud owner brought in his new Seven race car (I think it was an Academy). Just to show that the English have a well developed sense of humor, the Caterham sales guys were calling it the fried egg car – as it was a yellow and white color scheme (white body, yellow nose cone, cycle wings, and rear wings). To fill in time while I was there on the weekend, I had arranged to join a full day session of the Caterham Circuit Experience at Silverstone Circuit. These are a fairly big event held regularly in the UK. Other variations on the theme are the Caterham Drive Experience (an auto-x/slalom style of event) and the Caterham Drift Experience. The format for the day is to turn up at 8am, wake up with coffee and breakfast and have a 30 min briefing on the circuit, safety factors, and generally how the day will progress. Then you are turned loose on the circuit with your instructor who takes you on an initial 3 lap demonstration to point which way the track runs, the basic layout, the racing lines and give you some basics on safety protocols (i.e. when to overtake, etc). It worked out that I shared a car with 2 other guys in the morning and in the afternoon it was sharing with just 1 other guy. You ended up with roughly 3 x 15-20 min sessions in the morning and after lunch another 3 x 20 min sessions all driven with the instructor next to you coaching you by intercom. The final element of the day was the instructor taking you out to show you how a Seven can really handle in the hands of a pro instead of a ham fisted hacker (like me!). Some of you know that I had a large incident on a track many years back and lost confidence so I figured this was my way to get back in the saddle gently and regain some confidence. The cars were a mix of S3 and SV chassis. The engines were Sigma 150 which are Ford 1.6L 150 FWHP standard engines matched up with the Caterham 6 speed gearbox and no LSD. Standard seats and interior with 4 pt harnesses and an FIA roll bar. From my scrutiny they looked completely stock other than no ignition key and the speedo was deactivated (so no telling how fast you were going). Tires were the standard Avon SV3 road going tires with full tread – lots of squealing. The Caterham crew was quite large. Six cars were there of which we were using four. There were 4 instructors, a coordinator, and two mechanics all led by “Sudsy” as chief instructor. We were using Silverstone’s south circuit (i.e. the southern end of the F1 circuit). The National circuit had a race meeting on and Stowe was being used by a Drive a Formula Ford for a day program. South Circuit is the top half of the circuit in this aerial image of the full complex

Last week I was in London for another business trip. To make life fun I paid a Friday visit Caterham South showroom to check out the floor stock, buy some goodies and generally have fun. I had been to the factory about 5 years back but this time the factory was not available for visit. Not a real problem as there was plenty to explore at the South Showroom. In the lobby area was an original Lotus 7 on loan from the Nearn family (no photo sorry). There was also a bare CSR chassis to see how it differs to a regular Seven chassis. There was also the new Monaco Seven model. Inside was red carpet trim – not necessarily my cup of tea when it comes to style but I appreciate the effort to keep the designs fresh. Out back in the warehouse was where they keep the jewels. There were more Sevens in one spot than I had seen in my entire life. We think it is an achievement in the US when we get 10-15 Sevens at a major meeting. Not having been to 7-7-07, I clearly missed a major meeting but even so, the garage below was impressive:

What about a drag race down the runway? :drool:

I was concerned that it would be too cold to participate in the drive. Good to see temp is heading up again.

I found it fun too for the first day then the reality hit: - Getting the ticket out of the machine at the pay parking lot - paying a toll on an interstate. oops! The worst combination has to be the US Virgin Islands - you drive on the lefthand side of the road with an LHD car. Visibility on left turns is terrible!

Great photo Gert!

Is Betsy the monkey in your avatar picture? Or is it the better half? Or...is it the car? stay tuned for the next exciting instalment!

Did something break on the car in the second video? He started his braking, almost started a right turn but then stopped and steered for the break in the trees. Thats a weird situation. First one definitely a cold tires trick - check..done that!

Welcome to USA7's Unfortunately I am not sure you will get a good answer from anyone here as I don't think anyone on this forum has a CSR. I understand there are only 6 in the USA. Not that many given the size of the country. However, your best bet maybe to post here: http://www.csr7.com/ Click on the forum link and sign up and post a message there. It is fairly quiet - maybe only 20-30 members in total. Also the site operator, Darren, seems a really nice guy and may answer an email you send him, especially if you explain that you have a CSR on order. I am sort of surprised Caterham refused to answer given you are a past and current customer? Cheers

For some reason South Park the Movie comes to mind in this thread. In particular that catchy jingle "Blame Canada!" :jester: Bruce - you are wicked!!!

Gert - your post made me smile. As the product review notes: Loud By Nolan Poe from California. on 12/1/2009 Pros:Loud Cons:Bulky Best Uses:Making loud noises Describe Yourself:Enthusiast Primary use:Personal Bottom Line: Yes, I would recommend this to a friend Comments about RadioShack 108dB Piezo Buzzer: I replaced the buzzer in my quiet alarm clock with this thing and it works great. It's worth noting that it is a siren, not a constant tone. Maybe this is better suited as a car alarm rather than a buzzer when you forget to turn off the turn signal? At least you would hear it through the ear plugs (along with everyone else in a 1 mile radius).

Sounds like Mr Lancy has been a naughty boy? I am not sure I would be winding up my local police orificer...it can only end up bad for you.

This car was up for sale by consignment with Dick Brink about 2 or so years back. There was a lengthy post at the time by the member who test drove it/inspected it.

That is an interesting observation. Going and checking the retail price lists now, a R500 kit is $61057 and a CSR superlight is $50250. Some of that difference is going to widen because CSR is SV and an R500 is svelte (more size = more money in theory). Then I would expect the price difference to narrow as the R500 has more goodies as standard over the CSR superlight which features them as options. The CSR is not too slow as it unofficially did a 1.17.6 around Dunsfold (Top Gear track) which was faster than the R500 rover engine car. Pretty close even after allowing for weather, driver, temp, etc variables. Blatchat once had a similar discussion and one commenter mentioned that Caterham did not feel the need to go to IRS for R500 as it was seen as a track-oriented car and with a smooth track surface there was no advantage to IRS over de Dion in handling/performance and there was a weight advantge in favor of the de Dion (IRS is heavier). Not sure how true that is but it sounds plausible as I vaguely recall Dick Brink writing a similar opinion paper a while back making the similar performance assertion for live axle cars vs IRS on track cars. I am at Caterham UK next week so I will take this question away for then. Having driven a Birkin IRS back to back with the Birkin live axle the difference was significant - way in favor of the Birkin IRS Seven. It just felt like a bigger car and was far more composed on a rough road surfaces. The live axle hopped and jounced around plus gave more wheel spin trying to put power down. I felt the Birkin IRS was a big improvement over my de Dion SV. It was such a big difference that I came home thinking I needed to re-set my suspension as it must be out of whack. It was not - the Birkin IRS was just better in real world rough roads. Now in CA where I think you have pretty decent quality roads unlike NJ plus a stud driver like yourself (Mazda - want to be a passenger again? ) then the need for IRS may not be be as great.

Even better read some of the product reviews...they are classic!