Castle Combe - Classic, Kit & Retro Action Day 2015

Saturday 20th June 2015

Yesterday I took my Cobra to Castle Combe as a guest of Gardner Douglas, for the Classic, Kit and Retro Action Day. This is basically a big car show with lots of track sessions available, including some weird and wonderful stuff from Vintage Double Deckers to Drifting Displays.

Andy had asked me if I would like to have my car on the stand and take some customers out for test rides and I was more than willing to oblige.

The forecast on the Friday evening was awful but as luck would have it it remained dry throughout and towards the end of the afternoon it was sunny and 22 degrees.

This was the first time I had taken the car on the track with it all set up correctly so it was great to get over 200 miles of track use under my belt. After some initial tweak age to the damping by Andy the car was running really well and my times were getting better and better as the day progressed. Cant wait to get to Blyton next month now.

Here are a few pics of the GD stand and some of me on the track.

Potential Customer Demo Ride

Keeping the 600bhp AK behind me :)

Another Customer Demo Ride

Gardner Douglas Stand with my Cobra, Andy's Mk 3 Demo and Darren's T70

Track Day at Blyton

Another great thing about the London to Brighton trip was news that a track day has been planned for Sunday 19th July

This was the first place my car ever ran so looking forward to taking it back to see what it runs like now its all properly set up

Prescott Revival (2)

Meant to upload these photos when I posted the GD ones at Prescott Revival...

Not really a huge fan of the Marcos but these were two really nice examples. One a classic coupe and the other a prototype Marcos Spirit 220 which new Marcos owner Tony Brown was proudly displaying.

Classic Marcos Coupe

Marcos Spirit 220 Prototype

Prescott Revival

Sunday 10th August 2014

This weekend is Prescott Revival arranged by the Marcos Owners Club. Had been planning to take the C~obra and had pre-booked 6 runs up the hill.

As seems to new typical of the Britsish weather it was torrential rain all through Saturday evening and Sunday morning. It seemed pointless to take a rear wheel drive, open top high performance car so I took a modern Golf GTi Mk7. This meant I could at least have some fun up the hill.

Was good to see some other GD'ers braving it though, with Andy, Darren and David in their T70's and Charlie with BAM. Managed to get some decent photos of the guys - must figure out how to start posting to Facebook!!)

Trackday - Donington

Sunday 16th March 2014

Had a phone call from Chris Morgan, a race instructor friend of mine on Thursday evening saying he was involved with a track day at Donington on Sunday and he wondered if I fancied taking the Cobra for spin... Really? It took me about a nano second to say YES!!!

The track day was being run on the full GP circuit and Im a big fan of this track although I have never driven around it before. As I wasn't able to get on track til the afternoon session, I wanted some sighting laps before taking the Cobra out - there was some seriously fast kit on track including M3's, Clio Cup Cars, Caterhams and the like and I didn't want to be getting in the way - I got Chris to take me out in his mate, Pete Edwards, Clio Sport. With a couple of laps completed it was back to the pits to warm up AC62COB, affectionately known as 'Cobie'. And then it was me in the driving seat with Chris sat next to me giving me the racing lines to get the most out of both car and circuit.

Cobie in the pits waiting to go...

Some last minute tweaking

Lights are green which means... Go! Go! Go!

Pulling away from Type R on the Straight

Returning safely and in one piece

With a few laps under my belt, I was beginning to feel more confident and was happy to take the Cobie out with Chris by my side, replaced instead by a couple of friends. Will from work and my co-builder Ali had come with me and were desperate to get out on track.

Will was the first to brave it and we had a good few laps seeing lap times falling but as confidence builds as does exuberance and with that comes danger. On my penultimate lap with Will, having exited the Melbourne Hairpin safely, I built up a fair bit of speed heading to Turn 11, Goddards (the last turn before the start finish straight), and I left it a bit too late to brake. Standing on the middle pedal for all my worth, all four wheel locked up and I got into a bit of a wobble. Fortunately my season karting has given me some valuable experience on track and I was able to get the car back in a straight line and through the turn without coming off circuit. This could have been pretty nasty as there isn't much run off on this slow turn.

After that it was time to return to the pits to calm both myself and Cobie down and to do some vital check on engine oil and brake disc temperatures. All ok there, in fact Chris suggested I wasn't trying hard enough as the brakes were still way too cold to be effective.

Feeling all sensible again it was time to take Ali out on track. A half dozen or so fast laps followed and apart from a mild drift at the Esses there was no drama. Back once again to the pits.

Chris then suggested that I let pro-driver and instructor, Pete Edwards take me out in Cobie so he could give me some feedback on its set up etc. Somewhat reluctantly/apprehensively/nervously I agreed. I gave Pete a safety briefing - its an expensive car, theres no insurance, its still being run in, I need to be able to drive it back home, etc , etc - and we were off. I soon discovered that unlike being a passenger in other track day cars its much more scary being a passenger in my own car. Also Cobie has nothing to hold onto which makes life more interesting. Approaching the Melbourne hairpin for the first time with Pete at the wheel I was beginning to think oh well 1 lap out of 3 nearly done, soon be back safely in the pits when the unexpected happened... yup you guessed it, Pete lost it on the exit putting Cobie in a 360 spin, off the track and onto the grass, ending up about 4 feet from the wall. Impressed... I was not!!! Two slower laps followed and Cobie was back in the pits - safe but shaken.

Look closely and you can see the grass in the oil cooler following the 'off'

I had been advised previously that it makes sense to trailer your car to a track day - I never really got this until Sunday afternoon when, after an adrenaline packed session came to a close it was time to head home. The last thing I wanted to do was drive Cobie back down the M42 for an hour. Next time the Race Shuttle will be attached to the Range Rover and we will enjoy a more serene return.

On arriving home, seeing how dirty my pride and joy had got, I did wonder if I had treated Cobie badly by subjecting it to such harsh driving. But, its a 400+ BHP super car that was built for speed. The best place for speed is on a race track so...

When's the next track day??

Track Day - Blyton

Blyton Track Day - 29th June 2013

When I received the email from GD at the start if the year suggesting a GD Track Day at the end of June I jumped at the chance. After all it was months away and my car would have been on the road for a while by the time it came around... How wrong could I have been??

Despite committing several man hours to the project, including a few days off work to spend the whole day working on the car, I was still miles form being ready at the start of June.

The most difficult task to complete was probably the engine wiring and trying to figure out the engine loom connections. I called in a local garage we use at work and asked for their help (the owner has previously built a Dax Rush so has some relevant experience) but his comments were "I'd love to help, but I couldn't begin to estimate how long it would take and if you think you are getting that on the track by the end of the month you are having a laugh!!!"

Whilst this was extremely frustrating, I was determined nt to be beaten and Ali and I got our heads together and put a project plan together, detailed the must do's to get the car mobile for Blyton.

At 530pm on Friday 28th June 2013, my car, the car I have built (with Ali) in my garage finally moved for the first time under it's own power. I hope to upload the video of this here soon :)

Unfortunately the joy was short-lived. The throttle was sticking as we hadn't got a proper return spring set-up and it had started raining heavily making the trailer really slippy. The next problem was trying to drive up the wet ramps and finding out that the exhausts were going to smash into the floor as there was insufficient clearance.

Some hours later, after adjusting the suspension as high as we could without having a proper adjuster spanner, putting some timber under the trailer ramps and after several failed attempts to get the car on the trailer (including a near miss with it falling off when the ramps collapsed) we finally got it loaded and covered with a tarp and set off at abnout 815pm for a 3 hour drive to Blyton.

15 minutes up the road the tarp started ripping and it was clear that it would have to come off, so a roadside stop saw to that and fortunately no more rain came down on the way up north.

We finally arrived at about 1130 and set about putting up the tent. Again not a straight forward task for a non-camper in the dark.

The car was off loaded and put in the hanger overnight and we had a chat with Andy from GD and a couple of the other owners about some of the problems we still had with running the car and got some good advice.

The next morning we were up early and had the car up on stands by 800am and set to work on final jobs before taking the car on the track. At 1130 we ran the car to the site entrance and back made. Andy made some tweaks to the carb and we got our first laps in just before lunch and WOW what an experience. Even keeping RPM below 4000 and not flooring it the car was awesome.

A few technical glitches were uncovered during the shakedown:-

• Fan - set up as pushers not pullers and blades need to have orientation switched
• Water and Oil Temp - gauges reading really high. Need to check if accurate and check voltage stabiliser
• Throttle return spring - need a proper set up
• Carb set up - need to talk to Ken at EDA about idle issues
• Clutch - started slipping so need to look at adjusting
• Road wheels - rubbing on inner arches need to be adjusted
• Brakes - need bedding in
• Mirrors - driving without them was a nightmare

All in all a great weekend, glad we made the effort and glad we got the car on the track and got in some useful driving time.

Was also really nice to meet Ryan Flook who's blog has been invaluable to me in my build, Tim who has bought Simon's red Cobra and has promised to share some useful info re iron block build accessory suppliers.