What a great day, shared with Senny Dave, Dave_t and brilliantly organised by Easytrack (great to see you Tim!).

My first time (and definitely not the last) drive at Oulton, first impressions were that it was a very narrow tight and technical circuit, and as the day wore on I was able to really push the coop through it's paces. Deceptively quick circuit, and with the afternoon shower changing conditions quickly, it was VERY enjoyable!

Probably the finest collection of machinery I've ever seen at a track day, and some extremely competant drivers, from memory I remember 5 Ariel Atoms (one a carbon supercharged 330 brake), around 10 high spec Porsches, from classic 70's 911 flat 6's through to GT3RS's, a monster of a Morgan with a V8 BMW lump raced by Tom Andrews, a TVR Sagaris, Lotus 2-11, Noble, and some very nice Caterhams, Westfields and some very highly tuned and prepared others, the focus and M3 were really going well. The coop was definitely the cheapest book price car there. Great for punching above it's weight I thought

Here's a couple of vids from the day, taken in the afternoon after I'd begun to learn the circuit and started to wind up the pace, blatting past a mere Atom and Ferrari, and keeping 3 competitively driven quick Porsches a good distance behind me for 20 minutes. Gutted that the 10 minute limit on my camera expired about 5 seconds before my passing move of the day on the Lotus (blue one at the end of the Pt2 clip). 2 wheels on the grass, resulting in lots of squirming whilst squeezing round the outside of the Lotus. Foot stayed planted, the red mist had got me by this stage

Oulton Vid 1
Oulton Vid 2

And a vid of the work I put my carbotech xp-10's through.

Shhhhmoking!!!

Nice to get some favourable comments from some of the Porsche drivers about how quick the coop was. "It's only a little fiat " Always enjoyable to upset the odds

Can't wait for the next one...

Marco .. I managed to get there, get round the track and get home ... all in one piece (despite nearly collecting a large bollard when spinning on track )

Thanks Jonny. We had a fanatastic day. The weather was great apart from a couple of slight showers in the afternoon

Firstly a big thank you to alfatim, for all his help before and on the day
I must say that I was very impressed with EasyTrack .. the day ran really smoothly and there were just the right number of cars so that queueing was never any issue

It was great to see Dan (and my old girl ) and Senny Dave there ... and to have a little side by side track test with my new vs old toys

I'd taken my dad along for his first track day ... and he managed almost a whole lap (apart from his sighting laps) before spinning at Lodge, and being black flagged to come in and cool off! Tim was very reasonable with his 'just take it easy' talk ... and my dad managed to get quite a few laps in later on which he really enjoyed

There was quite a lot of nice cars out there ... lots of GT3 / RSs, a Ferrari, plenty of track ready Caterfields and a lovely race prep'ed Morgan Aero 8. Plenty of fun to be had (including Dan chasing a GT3RS round, with the driver then coming to us all in the pits saying "that can't be standard .. it's only a Fiat!" )

I am still very much learning my Westy and was slowly building speed and confidence through the day. And it was good to go out side by side with Dan in my old Coupe, to see how I/ my Westy performed. Each lap we went round, I'd slowly pull a lead (nothing in it on acceleration on the straights ... but me slightly faster through the corners especially Cascades) ... and then Dan would reel it all in at Druids! I soon realised how much faster I could go through there! And I also realised that I need to get off my road rubber and on to some track rubber!

Sometime after lunch, I took Senny Dave out for a few laps. And a Atom came out and slotted in about 200m ahead. Dave gave me the "let's catch them" sign and I tried to reel them in. I was trying harder and harder, but the spacing was remaining pretty constant ... til I tried too hard ... ending in me badly controlling a slide and heading us into a big tyre bollard at Hislops

No video of this .. but well captured by the photographer on the day ... YouTube slideshow of Senny Dave and I watching a bollard approach at high speed!

So all in all, a great day ...

Dan in my old Coupe, following me through Cascades ...


On my own, through Cascades ...


My dad driving ... and me giving him a for nailing the apex ...

Great video's Dan! I really must get something sorted myself

And those Carbotech pads are something else! I thought I'd got a pretty good set up on the Coupe, but the way you could haul that thing in from high speed was amazing

Thanks for the trip out

Some video of my Westy out on track captured by a guy from the Westfield owners club (driving a 190bhp Megabusa on slicks ) ....

You can see me from about 1:00, and he catches and overtakes me by about 3:20 in ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr0LgzgYAiY

I'm amazed at how much my Westy rolls, given how hard the suspension feels