Be Excellent To Each Other

Excellent stuff.

Fantastic!

What were your racing tunes?

Nice! I like the one with the wing. I assume that is yours.

We don't have a Dimlie for :jealous: so I'll just have to go with instead.

We are done, all cars are still alive!

Fantastic stuff! More pics plz

what an awesome thing to do. Its now on my "list"

You might want to really hurry up in that case.

That sort of thing then

.

The Trooper has landed. Everything still intact.

Almost everything is still intact...

Poor Bee-atch!

Did you video your laps?

I did. Not sure if Trooper did or not.

Not sure when I'll have time to do anything with them, though.

Yeah, we didn't bother videoing, as everyone else seemed to have a million cameras on the go
I'll do a proper post about the experience later.

I may have just put down a deposit on a BMW 650i.

Yay thread?

I'll wait and see how long it takes me to get buyer's remorse, first

In theory, it should be great. 4.8L V8, 360-odd horses, ~25mpg. Very close to M6 performance but without the ruinous running costs.

In theory

I like the way you make it seem like the sensible affordable choice....

Well, it is! Compared to a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

He certainly has a way of making the extortionate running costs of his cars sound reasonable.

...ManMaths(tm)

Yup, we all do it.
(Nice wheels btw Gaz. You're a man who loves his big Beemers!)

Right, so what happened this weekend then?

4 Pumas met up at the channel tunnel on Thursday morning, we all exchanged "gifts", which included fluffy dice, headlight eyelashes, "rude girl" "Powered by dust" and "fairy" stickers. Along with some lovely panda face door handle stickers.

Puma 1:
Grim... and Nase.

Cherry bomb exhaust and kickin stereo, complete with sub in the boot.

Puma 2:
Suki and Prub.

Cherry bomb exhaust, strut braces, lovely white wheels

Puma 3:
Trooper and Toad

Bumblebee aerial addon, PA system with sirens and animal sounds.

Puma 4:
Fitch and Files.

Cherry bomb exhaust, stupid amount of rally stickers.

A quick jaunt across the tunnel and a 300 mile drive to Adenau. No dramas, a bit of larking about on the motorways, a bit of traffic, all cars made it fine. 5 countries in one day...
Next day was the ring. Got up reasonably early and the ring was closed due to mist, we had to wait about 30 minutes, but were soon underway. Each car did 2 laps, once with each driver. The only issue was that my puma decided that braking was so old fashioned, and they gave up after 3 minutes. While I was heading into a tight right bend, with a GT3 overtaking me... That was amusing... Took it easy for a few minutes and the brakes came back, and were fine for the rest of the trip.
Then we went to a viewing position, and while we were there, the track was closed due to an accident, so we buggered off for lunch (currywurst and pomme fritte, lunch fans).
Headed back to the track when it opened, and we all went out again. Just as the last of us were coming in, the track got closed again due to another accident. Another 30 minuteish wait and it was open again, for the final run of the day. While we were out we passed 2 more accidents...

All good fun, 4 laps done, all cars still alive

A few beers in the evening and then the drive back the next day. Bit of traffic, no real problems. One of the pumas had the brake lights stick on for a few minutes, and another one popped a plug lead and ran on 3 cylinders till it was replaced.
All home safe and sound

Bloody great fun, everyone should give it a go once in their life. The Ring itself is way hillier than I ever expected, and the afternoon laps were crazy. Really busy and you spent all your time looking in your mirror and indicating right, but it was still great fun.

A few vids and photos:

You can see us about 2:45 in:


and about 4 minutes in on this one:


Short compilation of stuff:


Sped up run to the ring:

... Awesome!

Bored? Watch me doing my last lap of the ring, which is basically just a car show of exciting things overtaking me.



Still bored? Watch my mate doing the same thing.

Did you find that getting out of other people's way meant you spent most of it out of position for corners?

Very much so, and sometimes you were going far too fast to be hugging the inside of the track

Aye. The morning laps were better though.

It's weird how slow it looks in the video, I can assure you it doesn't feel like that in the car

One interesting point about the ring, currently UK cars are uninsured while you are on it. There is a precedent case that has just gone through that challenges that, so it looks like that is changing and insurance companies have to pay out if you have valid european third party cover and can't chase you for the costs, but until that is confirmed the insurance companies will chase you for all costs for any incident, which is nice of them.
All the German cars on the ring have valid insurance and are covered, as the German insurance companies actually abide by the european regulations, that combined with them knowing the circuit means they will crush you time wise. We all got overtaken at considerable speed by a Volvo 740 GL Estate with German plates

I once drove an Audi R8 at one of those 'experience' things. I was doing upwards of 140mph and braking was terrifying.

The video: Dull as fuck. Might as well be a granny in a shopping trolley. Perspective, innt?

Yeah, watching back videos of my car on Curborough sprint course and other tracks (both inside and outside of the car) make it look as dull as all hell. Lack of field of view, perhaps?

I found that putting a camera behind you on a roll bar, so you can see the wheel and the driver makes a huge difference in the feeling of speed.

Awesome!

Brilliant!

Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn

Excellent. Are you going to sell the Pumas (Pumii?) now or keep them for a return trip?

Anyone want to buy a puma?

Yours is the yellow one, right?

Paging Jem to the thread...

Funnily enough I wrote a reply saying EXACTLY that and then I remembered the Very Big Life Decision I made this morning that prevents me from purchasing anything for the foreseeable future so I didn't post it.

How much are you selling it for, Troops? Maybe I can buy it for Jem as an anniversary present

The blue one has a better stereo.

And, like, 1/3 of the milage, but give a fuck, it's got a better stereo.

The yellow one has a PA system and you can make it moo like a cow.

We're going to try and flog all four as a comedy road trip package listing on ebay first, I think
But if that doesn't work, we'll be flogging ours for £500.

I'll give you £300 for it.

Sold. When do you want to pick it up?

Ford Ka list of woes:

2 large thumps from front right wheel
abs light on
check engine light on
battery light on intermittently
speedo dies regularly
fuel gauge goes to zero with speedo.

faulty earth I think is causing this. The thumps could be a bizarre abs self test I guess.

£300 puma sounds nice...

It sounds very nice. Although for £300 I'm taking the stereo back out and not bothering to MOT it.

It's all yours.

Mine is faster.

When stationary, turning the steering wheel of the Ka makes a loud CRUNK! noise from under the bonnet

Steering rack or cv joint?

2 snapped coils springs
failed emissions - suspect cat
abs light on
passenger door does not open from outside

Ouch