The first support buttons are up and ready

I am working on the "any country" button, allowing you to put any countries flag on the car.

The countries with the highest view count are up, but rest assured I am working on getting every country available.

Show your support :-).

Decals look.... AWESOME!

Pictures from the Handling day, they're here, taken by Rick (awesome pics!). http://www.rick-wilson.net/Academy/2012/Handling-Day-Group-1/21977663_hkSTPf#!i=1753000601&k=SZLXFRD

A couple of me and the car, see if you can spot the rest :-D.

What a fantastic stupendous amazing day!

Today was the Caterham handling day in the paddock area at Silverstone. Myself and 27 other Caterhams turned up to hoon around a few slalom courses and generally have fun. Oh, and trophies were given out at the end of the day... more on that later in the post.

The day started with rain! Good old England never lets you down! However, before that events started, it stopped raining, and started to clear up. All of us were split into three groups, pink blue and yellow, I was in yellow. We took on the practice starts first, in the wet, which made for around 3k standing start and gentle release of the throttle. After the starts we moved to the small slalom, which were timed, but only to introduce some friendly competition. Both of those event I lead my group, so I was already pretty pleased with the day come lunch time.

After lunch we split into two groups, and did two new slalom courses. After some time practicing on those, switching after a while. They were joined together and we were told to start in our original colour groups, yellow of course last in the line...

Each car was given two practice runs around the full slalom Challenge course, then 1 timed run. That one timed run determined whether or not you got a trophy for placing first, second, or third...

And I place second! By just .08 of a second to! I'm seriously happy with that, it means I'm right where I want to be for this coming season. I know that's the amount of time for the dude with the stop watch to press stop, or going through a corner just a fraction too slow! Tristan (bloke who lives near me) placed 1st, well done! And Jason finished 3rd, .3 behind me, also very well done! So .4 of a second split 1st-3rd today, and we weren't even on a track!

I know for a fact everyone who went today had a blast, and loved every second of it. I had a fantastic day before I found out I won second. Judging by those numbers, this years racing is going to be very very close, the top 3-5 will battle endlessly I'm sure.

It was great to meet everyone today, I'm really looking forward to this season, there will be lots of competition and heated battles!

And here's my first Trophy! :-D :-D.

All sorted for tomorrow

I spent today getting my car as close to race ready as possible, in preparation for tomorrow. Tomorrow being the Academy handling day at Silverstone, Group 1 is tomorrow, and it involves hooning around in the paddock of one of the best known racing tracks in the world! i'm looking forward to it, even if the weather report can be trusted and it does rain.

The rain light and fuel sampler arrived post haste from Sean at Caterham (He was ill when I called wednesday, he must have been in yesterday and threw them in the mail, so awesome). So I installed those, both of which are simple and take less than 2 minutes. I also put fire sealant around the boot floor, and Aluminium tape, to seal the boot incase the petrol tank explodes... Oh, I also installed the hood bars. Even though I don't have a hood, they're still required, annoyingly.

After that it was time to pull the foam seat, still in its plastic bin bags, out of the car... this proved scary with the bottom half, it kept making noises like it was going to break in half. After getting both halves out, I took the bags off, and wrapped them in duct tape (preferred form of covering them). With that done I test sat, and it's oh so comfy. I think when the warmer weather hit I want to try for a bigger more supportive back, but the base is pretty perfect.

Fuel sampler installed, no leaking, no issues, still runs and drives just fine. It's the shiny piece with a cap on it.

"bag" seat all done, two pieces, it's the perfect fit.

Made sure I put all the roll bar padding on, everywhere your head can hit essentially. I also installed the "head rest", it's the square piece above the seat.

So many LEDs! According to some people, the rain light is all you can see when racing in the rain... unless you're out front ;-D

Also tonight...

Tristans brother in law was taking photos during the track day, and there are a couple decent ones of me. Good enough to share anyway :D. Now action shots, but still cool nonetheless.

In the car, all serious and ready to go.

Cameras.. got to make sure the cameras go on just right...

I believe I'm talking with someone at this time... but I think it's a pretty good shot.

All these were quickly scanned in because they're real photos (which is something I haven't seen in a long long time), hence them looking grainy, it's not a high tech scanner in any way shape or form.

Now that was fun!

Spent the evening creating the "bag" or "binliner-full-of-expanding-foam" seat round with Tristan (fellow academite). It went better than anticipated anyway! No leakages, the measuring might not have been quite right, but as a first go it worked really well. It's a really odd feeling. At first it's all warm and gloopy, then it gets properly hots and more rubbery, then finally solidifying into a foam. It's pretty crazy stuff...

I may decide to do another when warmer weather hits, since the foam works better when everything is hot, with more equal quantities. We'll see how this one goes, we may have managed to get it just right first time :-D.

However, it feels amazing to not move around, and be supported where it counts.

Pictures tomorrow! Of the seat finished in the car... didn't take any while making it, too dangerous having my camera around expanding building foam.