santa pod coupe day?

God i hope AUTO ITALIA do do another day there!

For those of you that didnt come/make it last year you could literally do a run then drive around and sometimes go straight away at the worst case senario i think i was waiting for about 5/10 mins then when i went to one of the RWYB days after that i couldnt believe the queue SOD THAT!
By the time you get to the start your cars either overheating or yours arms are aching from pushing it!

BRING ON THE AUTO ITALIA DAY!
Might have to look into that further to double check they are not doing another day

Yes just chesked the Auto Italia website they dont have many dates up there for shows/meets in 2007 yet
Altho if you look at the gallery and the pictures from the santa pod day in 2006 you can see Angelica's bottom lol

I don't reckon they're going to do it again then as last time it was on the Santa Pod listing well in advance and there isn't much space left

Shame.

Anyway the test&tune days although expensive do give you the same sort of tracktime. There's one on Sat 31st March...

What are the prices for test&tune ?
Could cars turn up as spectators only ?

It would be good if we could all park together like the Forza Italia day.

£50 last time i went to a test and tune day

Think specators would still have to pay the £10 entry fee

I might go on 31st March, but if I do I won't be attempting any fast times, just setting up.

Test and Tune at £50 for "unlimited runs" is always the best option. I think these days are limited to 100 vehicles, hence you can usually get upto a dozen runs which is more than enough for most people. To book a "private day" you have to put £5000 up front to Santa Pod and then you need to ensure that you get at least 100 takers at £50 a piece. Austec Racing did this for the TVR Community last year and we had just over 90 cars turn up, it ended up being a great day out with even the strip virgins thoroughly enjoying their time on the strip.

Always makes me laugh to hear the "big boys" brushing aside Santa Pod as a disappointing or should I say frustrating day out, yes the RWYB days are just pot luck and 9 times out of 10 you queue for ages and may be lucky to get as many as 5 runs, but thereafter just stick to test and tune days.

Final point is that there is no point in having big power if you can't use it, e.g Off the line, through the twisties and accelerating once rolling are the three categories that most judge their cars by, take my old Cerb, it wasn't the best through the twisties (not by high powered Scooby or Evo standards), but it made up for that by being awesome from a standing start and brutal once rolling. Most of the high powered Coupes are useless from a standing start (JohnS and Flea are testiment to this, although Mavric can launch), average at best in the twisties (although Nigel did well in FWD class at TOTB but was well behind the 4WD mob), but are superb once rolling.

so 5000 for the day, 50 each for 100 cars thats not a lot to muster really and 100 isnt a lot, everyone would get plenty of runs

Don't be so cheeky! I choose not to launch my car. If you had a gearbox that doesn't readily go into 5th or 6th and a single plate clutch you wouldn't try to launch it with 500BHP. I did do a 2.0s 60ft at York when I was testing/setting up at 0.8 bar boost.

Every time I dumped the clutch on my car at TOTB, I was ready for the expensive noises that threaten to call a premature halt to the day and turn the normal two-hour trip home into a five hour marathon, sat alongside a sweaty recovery driver in a noisy, greasy pick up truck.

I'm pretty sure the last time I did a standing start where I was trying to pull away as fast as I could was at TOTB. I can't recall doing one since. The next one will probably be at Santa Pod in order to qualify for TOTB V1 and the next one after that will be at TOTB V1 itself (assuming the Santa Pod one goes OK!)

We've said it before, but the TOTB handling circuit is not FWD friendly (in fact the FWD class didn't even make it onto the poxy TOTB DVD last year - shows how the organisers see us as second-class runners to make up the numbers). Too many slow corners followed by fast straights. The course shouldn't be a test of traction, it should test handling, which as far as I'm concerned, my Coupe is pretty hot at. If the circuit length was trebled, the corners would go from tight twisties to big open sweepers - a true test of handling and nerve, especially on bumpy concrete.

Also, you have to remember that at last year's TOTB, I was running on standard Toyo road tyres. Everyone above me (and many below me) were on proper trackday tyres. I was only third by 0.02 seconds (although I was a long way from 1st place)

Maybe this year....

Maybe you should change your sig to 'Its only cost about £5k - £6k A YEAR, honest.....

You know where I come from though. The strength of the Coupe is not in its ability to launch although like you have said you've done a 2.0 sec 60ft and Mavric has done a touch lower, I would say that this is as good as it gets (which is bloody good for a Coupe), thereafter the Coupe would still lose out through first and second gear from a traction perspective against any comparable 4wd car, so again valuable chunks of time are lost, where the Coupe does excel is when it's on the move, for me this is what the Coupe is all about (along with the looks and still amazing VFM). I always like to chuck in the odd none biased point of view from time to time especially when it comes to the Pod, for me there have only been a few Coupe Stars at the Pod and these have been Mavric by proving that the Coupe *can* be tamed on the strip, Dan20vt for the same reasons as Mavric but with nearly 200bhp less and Markus for breaking the 13 sec barrier regularly.

I'll always take my hat off to you for being the first to truley explore the potential of the Coupe from an output perspective and a lot of what you have done has paved the way for the rest of the pack to do likewise. I still revisit this site regularly yet I haven't owned a Coupe for 4 years now, it's just one of those cars and the sign of a good forum.

There are also a few level headed and knowledgeable owners still posting such as yourself and Nigel among others, whose posts are always well balanced, however, like with any forum there is always the odd person who likes to be No.1 and these posts make me chuckle.

Jules.