Great mix of cars there on wednesday night. A good showing of Loti which was interesting. Surprisingly cars that i expected to be much faster than mine just werent. There was a guy there in a S2 111R that should have been leaving me on the straights that just didnt. Also a superchaged exige 260 wasnt pulling much on the straights - however im not sure how hard the guy was peddaling it as i was massivly faster round the back section.
Also on track was another S1 - a lovely Scandal green Sport 160 driven by the very handy Stuart Pollock. Stuart is a bit of a racer on the karting scene and has done a load of track day work. He also owns a v6 Exige.
I had nothing for the 160. It was just pure and simply faster than mine. suspension wise both cars are fairly similar and we were running the same tyres but the 160 has an LSD and more power. He followed me for a few laps then i moved over to let him pass and attempeted to hang on to him. Just couldnt. The 160 just put the power down so much better out the hairpin and was pulling a car or two on the straights. Corner speeds were pretty similar but he was a second a lap quicker than me (We complared Harrys lap timer data). unfortunately an oil leak stopped him playing early. Lovely bit of kit and well pedalled.
Which leads me to the 2 Eleven.
Myself and scott had agreed we'd do a swap at some point during the night cos we both fancied a shot in each others cars.
The night went pretty quickly and before we knew it we only had 10 mins of track time left. So we quickly swapped and headed out.
Initial impressions of the 2 Eleven. Wow - it was So easy to drive in comparison to my S1. The controls are so much lighter. Ultra quick steering rack felt brilliant. Turn in was sharp and keen and there was virtually zero body roll. Took the first couple of laps easy. Brakes are super sharp and with the ABS assistance give you so much more confidence - Dont get me wrong the brakes on the Elise are pretty damn good but these were another level. Its running a very similar setup to mine with the same CL pads and the same callipers but the servo'd ABS just seems to give much more bite. Its now got me thinkging of a disk upgrade for mine. Im running the solid pagid disks so im now thinking some thing a bit more bitey might be good.
After a couple of inital laps the confidence was growing quickly. Still acutely aware that i was driving another mans £40k toy without insurance i was never going to give it ten 10ths like i do in the elise (What apex cone?
) Then i came up behind a 991.2 GT3 RS....Time to up it a notch.The GT3 passed the slower car in front and i followed. Lets see what this can do then! Scotts is the supercharged model but he's had it dyno'd and it was only showing 230 bhp rather than the 260 it should have had. This didnt seem to matter though. The supercharged whine is ridiculously addictive. Keeping it pinned until the shift light comes on following the GT3 a quick glance at the speedo before braking for duffas was showing around 130. My fastest terminal speed at the end of the straight on Harry's laptimer is 103mph - fuck this is fast. The Gt3 was only pulling a car length on me on the straight which was quickly eaten back up on the brakes. I followed him through the twisty sections with plenty left in the bag - Fuck this thing can corner. sadly with only ten mins left i only got a few laps behind the Porker before the chequered waved and we were back to the pits.
Quick chat with Scott and we were completely aligned with the differences between the cars. Elise is far more physical to drive . The steering is heavier. The brakes need a harder shove. The Quickshift on the gear linkage needs far more effort. But he concluded it was also great to drive - Especially the noise from the NA K-Series he said - (Mines runs a Pipercross carbon cone filter thats ducted to the side pod on the passenger side. Roof on and windows open amplyfies the noise quite well!) .
TL;DR - Epic night. Epic Car!
