HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I've been for another drive, and the beast is now at a cool 470 miles. Having driven it harder for a couple miles... still only 5/8ths throttle and not above 4500, I am ready to have this thing on the track! The list of things to do in order of importance: find a job, go to wales to buy racing gear, attend track days. I really hope I manage to get this list taken care of in the next few weeks. The ARDS day is coming up soon, at the end of February, so I want to be settled and set gear and job wise by then.

Wish me luck :-).

Tomorrow will see the final oil change of the break in. I wont be changing the oil again until the day before the first event... well, it depends on how many combined track/road miles I put on it I suppose.

I have to watch myself on the road though, this little beast is too fast for it's own good :-D.

Break in is 72 miles from completion!

Odometer changed to over 400 miles on my drive home from Verwood today. 428 to be exact... 72 away from finally being out of this break in time! I'm not sure whether or not I'll make those 72 happen before christmas, I do need to get some shopping done though...

Anyway, happy holidays, Merry Christmas everyone!

VIdeo #2!

Here's the second video from the footage I got Saturday. It's still slow, but the scenery is way more interesting to look at :-D.

Enjoy! :-D

First drive video!

Yes it is here, the first drive!

It's super exciting, i go from the factory, past a truck, and into a petrol station! In my car, that I built!

Anyway, the video! View at 720 with good speakers, the bass is aaawwweeeesssooommmmeee!

Hopefully a couple more will follow, but looking through the rest of my footage, it's pretty rubbish!

Some post journey pictures

Here are just a few of the mud from yesterday (do not worry, all of said mud will be washed away today!)

:-D best time I've ever had getting lost!

I'm home! This car is a blast! I got lost, maybe subconsciously on purpose a couple times, well, 4 to be exact... turned out to be a 5 hour drive home, not too shabby! I must say I was cold... it was full blown snowing at one point (the first time I got lost...). Motorway merging in this car is the easiest thing to do in history! 1/4 throttle changing gear at 3500rpm and this blows some BMWs! I know it's much faster, even under those conditions, than my previous cars. I'm not hating on the e28, I love that to bits, but, this is just... it's a GIANT go kart, I can't wait to be passed the run in and be able to put the hammer down a little bit... It's insanely strange to have my eye level BELOW the bottom of the windows of a normal car.

I missed my 6:30 train, so I caught the 6:59. 1 stop at reading and I was in paddington, asked a nice helpful man where on earth to go... then went to the tube, switched tube at baker st. and went to london bridge. Got on a train at london bridge and cruised on down to Slade Green, hopped off, and had a nice brisk (probably 1* or 2* C) walk to Caterham. All told it was about 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Got met by a great nice guy who showed me around (sorry no pictures, I was too busy ogling and later he said no). But the building isn't big, they house parts, and have a two lane assembly line. One side the body arrives ready to go, it gets drilled and prepped for paint, then it moves on to front suspension and engine, then on to rear suspension, then fenders, moldings, final prep on the ground, then final checks and testing and driving etc.

That was just the start of my day!

I left dartford at about 10:15, started heading for my country road out of town... just a couple wrong turns later, I break out the map book, turn around, and find my way back. That was #1 (keep count...) so then on my nice country piece of road, driving having fun, getting use to the feeling... I suddenly realize i had taken several turns from the main road... :-D well... anyway, I pull over, look around... grey skys and... white fields? SNOW! I thought it was cold! So I start looking through my map book (really really need something with way more detail...), kinda sorta not really find out where I am, then look up to see this white thing fall into my car and melt... hmmmmm time to vacate the snow strom... Before I moved off I decide to trace my steps back to where I stopped turning (good thing I remember roads very well)... Eventually I found my way to the M25 and decided to blast up there to get to the M3 like I planned.... After getting a face full of COLD, there was a jam at the A3 (heaven, my face could warm up again). So I get on to the A3... some miles down the road I get lost, again... No idea how, anyway, after many a turn, and map reading (while stationary) I made it back to the A3 south. Eventually making it all the way to the M4, by this time I had spent another hour getting lost (so not a bad thing) but it was also 2 PM, and if I took my planned route I'd be home after dark... didn't really want that, so blasted down the M4 to the A34 and home.

The muffler saved my right hand! It's like they knew you'd be cold, so they put this heater beside you!

Yes, lots of words, words words words... Videos up soon, and lovely lovely pictures of the car resting in the garage after a wonderful first day of driving. I am very very glad to know I can drive the car for 5 hours straight and be full of energy (albeit bloody cold) by the end of it. no aching bones. No def ears (I think :-P) and I can NEVER get tired of the noise, it's amazing, majestic, a symphony of highly tuned epicness blasting forth from a metal heart.

I will do my very best to get the video uploaded ASAP, it will be by then end of my night (4pm for my many many US fans :-D). The video starts in dartford, leaving the caterham factory, then runs from ummmmm there till... somewhere... sometime... not really sure when the batteries died and the cards were full, but it was after all the good bits, and after I had decided to find the M4 and head home the "boring" way. But I tell you, when your eyes are at the exact right level to read the wheel size of a big rig, nothing's ever boring!

I seriously can't stop smiling, I'm so happy :-D :-D.

Now I just need to collect my uncles golf from the long term train parking...

Will be sooo awesome!

Planning my route home... :-D. I know I wont be able to sleep a wink tonight!

Collecting....

:-D tomorrow! Woohoo! Tomorrow's collection day! yyyeeeaaaahhhhh!

:-D :-D :-D :-D

Still waiting...

Really hope they arrive tomorrow, that way I can go down saturday morning and have it for the rest of the weekend.. We shall see!

At least now it's like a giant christmas present! The most I've done is sit in it making brum brum noises, so that first release of the clutch will be a magical one!

Tune in tomorrow for more news... :-P.

Collection week is here!

The tension is intense...

Just a bit of fun

For fun I played around with an old video, to see how it sounded when sped up... Turns out you can turn a rather mundane 8 minute trip up a road in an M6, into a fast paced rally up a mountain in a supercar!

I sped this piece up 300%, and well, see for yourself, sounds pretty awesome! Anything more than 300 and it started to sound a bit, well, fake. The video of course doesn't make it look real, but I think it's pretty fun to listen to!

The waiting game...

Waiting is the worst thing in the world! At least my uncle has given me a couple things to be getting on with while my car isn't here. He joked yesterday that I'll have to be prized out of my car once i have it back... and that's 100% true. I figure I'll have 500 miles on it within the first week of having it back! :-D.

Also, took a look at my blog stats today... 4,400 views! Not too shabby, cheers everybody!

Car PASSED!!

My little beast of a car PASSED IVA and now all that is left is registration! :-D:-D!

Registration papers are going out today, and if all goes smoothly I'll be able to collect it early next week!

:-D

IVA tomorrow...

It's exciting, and nerve wracking at the same time...

Some shots from Stonehenge

Adrik and I went there with my Uncle a little after we arrived, here are (finally) a few of the shots I took.

More here: http://s260.photobucket.com/albums/ii19/320bimmerman/Trips/Stone%20Henge/