We took the Golf to Colerne last Saturday for another trackday, the weather was awful with rain most of the day and lots of standing water on the track.
Mods since last trackday were removal of the charcoal canister and a cold air feed installed from the fog light to the standard airbox with holes cut out in the airbox.
The car ran well all day and we completed 10 track sessions without any mechanical problems. The track was very slippery in places and the standing water made handling interesting to say the least. We managed to lose the back end on one tight left hander and had an off road excursion across the grass, luckily we were going straight when we hit the grass which was very boggy and uneven. My wife was driving at the time so I'm not taking any blame. Quick check of the car showed plenty of grass underneath but no damage apart from one of the ties holding the Astra wishbone brake cooling ducts had snapped.
Some nice cars on the day with a very nice race prepared Ferrari 358GTB which we managed to overtake on one session in the wet.
I was trying to keep up with my brothers 306 S16 which was OK on the straights but he could corner a lot faster than us, if we tried to follow his speed through the wet corners we lost grip and were all over the place. His car is set up similar to mine but had better tyres, he was running 195 section Toyo Proxes and we were running 205 section cheap Federals. Going to invest in some Toyos for wet weather use but just need to decide if its best to stick with the 205's for the wet or downsize to 195's, anyone got any opinions on running narrower tyres for the wet? Is a smaller contact patch better in the wet?
He had a cambelt disaster at Castle combe in June which turned out to be an exploded tensioner pulley which put the timing out and also embedded ball bearings into the belt, made some intersting noises but he still managed to limp it home, new belt and tensioner seemed to have cured his problem without any ill effects to the engine. After his 7th session on saturday he either lost a valve or a big or small end bearing, the car lost some power and sounded like a demented sewing machine. Looks like he's investing in a new engine now!!
Off to Castle Combe on the 29th so should be able to give the car a better workout on the faster Combe circuit. Going to lower the car a bit more next weekend to see if this improves the handling on the corners.
Cheers
Paul
