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2002 Lotus Sport Elise 190 (Series 2)
My track day/weekend toy of 2002, before I destroyed it! Videos all my own work.
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Not terribly interesting, but since a lot of people have asked for some noises I've thrown this together. Starting up, a couple of blips of the throttle and shutdown. More interesting stuff coming soon! |
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My first track outing in the Sport 190, at RAF Bentwaters with bookatrack. This 1 lap clip shows me chasing my friend Peter in his Porsche 964RS. Unfortunately the clutch hydraulics failed on the next lap, so an early bath for me this time out. |
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Cadwell Park, May 1st with bookatrack. This was my fastest dry lap of the day, having a great time chasing a pair of well driven Caterhams. I would have gone quicker still on a clear lap as I had backed off much earlier for Charlies in order not to hound the driver in front. I eventually passed the lead Caterham on the next lap. |
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Cadwell Park, May 1st with bookatrack. This is the next lap from the clip above. Another fast one as my confidence in the car and it's huge levels of grip grows. |
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Cadwell Park, May 1st with bookatrack. Another of my fastest laps, catching up and passing an interesting looking stripped out BMW M3 and a Toyota Celica. |
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Cadwell Park, May 1st with bookatrack. This was how wet it got - very! An interesting 'moment' coming over the mountain to start the lap, passing an Elise and one or two other minor tail slides. |
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Cadwell Park, May 1st with bookatrack. It rained very hard over lunch and continued raining off and on when play resumed, making for much fun on my Yoko A048 Advan tyres, which don't really like a wet track. My one mistake of the day, carrying a little too much speed turning in to Park corner, and not being smooth enough with the controls... |
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Rockingham Motor Speedway, May 10th with bookatrack. My first time at Rockingham. A very impressive facility, gorgeous weather and a free lunch courtesey of Lotus - a good day out. This is lap 35, my very last one of the day and the fastest (just) of all I did. It looks a bit ragged through the infield, but the Sport 190 seems to like it that way. 113mph through the banked curves was fun! |
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Rockingham Motor Speedway, May 10th with bookatrack. Lap 28, gooning around whilst giving a passenger ride to Scott - sounds like he was enjoying himself... |
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Brands Hatch Indy Circuit, June 17th with bookatrack. I was having a great time following Nigel in his 996 Cabriolet when a Sierra Cosworth some way in front of us broke an oil line, and proved Porsche's excellent PSM system isn't totally infallible! |
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Brands Hatch Indy Circuit, June 17th with bookatrack. A complete lap of the circuit, this was Lap 27 in my 3rd session of the day, and the quickest I did all day. |
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With nothing better to do for the afternoon, I thought I'd try attaching the camera to the outside of the car for a quick run up the road. The rear facing view is attached to the underside of the rear diffuser, as close to the road as I dare. I like the sound of the exhaust from here, very raspy. |
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Oh well, these A048 tyres are nearing the end of their useful life - may as well see them out in style... Following on from the successful trial of the rear diffuser cam (above), here's a little more action. Dumping the clutch at 5,000rpm the quaife automatic torque biasing differential was working overtime! |
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RAF Elvington, York. 4.2 mile circuit, August 3rd with bookatrack. The wide open spaces of Elvington are a good place to explore the limits of your car. Here's me getting it all wrong and spinning at around 70mph. The spin had overheated my rear tyres and I managed a repeat performance at the very next corner! |
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RAF Elvington, York. 4.2 mile circuit, August 3rd with bookatrack. Yet another spin, this time caused by trying to take the first right-hander with the throttle nailed in 2nd - a small bump on the exit upset the fine balance and around she came. |
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RAF Elvington, York. 4.2 mile circuit, August 3rd with bookatrack. With a three quarter of a mile long straight to play with, it was a good opportunity to stretch the Elise's legs. 7,600rpm in 4th, 127mph before braking for the 20mph chicane that followed. |
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RAF Elvington, York. 4.2 mile circuit, August 3rd with bookatrack. This chicane was one of my favourite sections, building up speed on each lap I finally convinced myself to ignore the BRAKE! board and blow through it without lifting off the throttle - 120mph in 4th. |
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RAF Elvington, York. 4.2 mile circuit, August 3rd with bookatrack. A complete lap of the circuit, passing a really nice looking RenaultSport V6 Clio and the bookatrack BatCat on the way round. |
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RAF Elvington, York. 4.2 mile circuit, August 3rd with bookatrack. I'm not sure what was going on with this Astra, but he really ought to have moved over and let me through, or at least got out of the way after he got it all wrong into the chicane. The only example of discourteous driving I saw all day, and pretty unusual for a bookatrack event. |
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1996 Porsche 911 Carrera (type 993)
I owned this car between September 2001 and April 2002, videos all my own work.
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A full 360 degree spin at a book-a-track airfield day at RAF Bentwaters. I turned in before the car had settled and this is what happened. Speed was approximately 70mph. I had been fiddling with the tyre pressures and they were too low, which didn't help, but ultimately it was my fault. |
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Another spin at the same bookatrack airfield day as above. I deliberately turned in too hard and backed off to provoke the spin but it didn't quite work, then did, then gripped and threw me round the other way! Braking from 115mph down to 55mph for the corner, the spin itself was probably at no more than 35-40mph. Note how the pendulum effect has thrown the lens elements out of focus! |
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A very wet bookatrack airfield day at RAF Bentwaters. First outing since the Big Red brake upgrade and a good demonstration of how effective Porsche's 993 twin turbo brakes are. 100mph down to 20mph in the time it takes to say... |
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My Hague suction mount will stick anywhere flat and non-porus, so I thought I would try attaching it to the outside of the car for a short journey to the end of my road and back, to see how it held and what the footage was like. Shame about the wind-noise but I think it's a pretty cool angle. |
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1990 Aston Martin V8 Vantage
This beautifully restored Aston is owned by my friend Jon Honeyball. Video clip produced by myself.
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Chasing my good friend Jon Honeyball in his Aston Martin V8 Vantage at a bookatrack airfield day at RAF Bentwaters. I couldn't catch Jon down the straights, but my 911 is a little more nimble around the corners! Just listen to that wonderful V8 wail audible even over the sound of the 911's flat-six from within the car with the windows closed! |
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The Nürburgring
Taken from the inside of my current daily drive, a Mercedes A160 Avantgarde.
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I was on a business trip to Cologne and it occured to me that the Nürburgring wasn't very far away. I was in my Mercedes A160, but it was still great fun and well worth 22dm. The electronic driver aids died after hurtling through the famous banked Karussell, I think it thought we'd crashed! My extrapolated lap time was 11m17.7s - not bad for my first ever lap of the infamous 'ring! |
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This short clip from the bigger Nürburgring video above shows the 'Ring Taxi blowing by as if I were stuck in reverse! It's a BMW M5 that gives rides to 3 passengers at a time, driven by Sabine Reck. She doesn't hang about! |
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Another clip from the bigger Nürburgring video above shows how quickly some bikes get around the place. He must have left the gas on at home... |
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The 180 degree banked Karussell corner at the Nürburgring is a real challenge. However my Mercedes A160 got a bit confused with the sudden change in attitude and shut down the ABS, TC & ESP. The rest of the lap was a little more entertaining with no electronics to sort out my duff driving! Shortly after I exit the corner, a Porsche Cup GT3 race car comes flying past with a sports bike in hot persuit. |
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2001 Mercedes A160 Avantgarde
My current daily drive. Video clip produced by myself.
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Muppet! I was out in my Mercedes A160 with friends from the EVO magazine forum, enjoying some good roads around Cambridgeshire when we happened upon this impatient idiot. He was behind our little convoy for a while, but doing 28mph in a 30mph limit was obviously too much to cope with so he overtook us, despite the parked cars, houses, side roads... |
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Dodge Viper GTS
Owner of this car and video clip is currently unknown - if you know whose it is please let me know so I can credit them.
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Ouch! Nothing to do with me this one I'm pleased to say. The brake master cylinder failed on this Dodge Viper GTS and this is the end result. The airbags worked as you can see nicely from the thumbnail pic. The person who owned the car was in the passenger seat... would you be this calm?! |
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TVR Cerbera 4.5
Vehicle owned by Danny Luhde-Thompson, video taken by myself.
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Another bookatrack airfield day at RAF Bentwaters. I was in my 911 following Danny's TVR Cerbera 4.5 that was launching itself out of the 'roundabout' they had set up and leaving huge darkies and a trail of smoke. Sounds great too! |
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BMW Z3M Roadster
Vehicle owned by my friend Tom Orton, video taken by myself.
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Another bookatrack airfield day in the 911 at RAF Bentwaters. A bunch of us from the EVO forum were there having fun, especially Tom in his new Z3M! |
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The same bookatrack airfield day at RAF Bentwaters as above, Tom has another 360 degree view of the countryside! |
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2002 BMW M3 SMG Coupe (E46)
Vehicle owned by my friend Jason Taylor, video taken by myself.
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Jason's new toy! A demonstration of the M3 SMGs launch control facility. Simply select nutter mode, hold the gear stick forwards and floor the throttle - the computer holds the revs at 3,000rpm and when you let go... |
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Ferrari F355 GTS
Vehicle owned by my friend Dan Scott, video taken by Andy Cohen.
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Dan's utterly gorgeous F355 GTS does it's stuff at an RAF Bentwaters bookatrack airfield day. Look out for the 720 degree spin! A big download but well worth the wait. |
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Ferrari F50 & Lotus Elise S1 Sport 190
S1 Sport 190 owned by Dennis Palatov, video taken by Dennis Palatov. Dennis has some great pictures and videos on his web site.
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"I've put together a video from the Ferrari and me following him through a section of the track. He was being rather conservative and running about the same lap times as myself, maybe a second faster. But his power and speed on the straights are in a totally different league from the Elise. Ah yes, $500K+ still buys you something ;)"
- Dennis Palatov. |
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