Preparing the VX220

I've been busy doing some prep on the VX220 for the coming season. Nothing major - funds are likely to be tight this year. I've started with some stickering:

The obligatory ignition switch sticker:


Front and rear towing eyes with stickers:





Just in case someone thinks its a Lotus:


Then it was down to fitting the Scroth Profi II ASM harness I bought from MSAR. I've fitted the harness bar:



Trial fitting the shoulder straps showed that I really need to get the cut-outs in the seat so I've got the seat out to cut the holes and fit the grommets. That'll take me a couple of days no doubt.



I've still got the rear dampers to fit but other than that, the car will be ready to go for the test days at Kames in mid-March. If I can shift the trailer, I'll buy some wheels and List 1B tyres. Otherwise, I'm sticking to the standard Bridgestones........

Sad day :-(

Well, it finally came to pass. My trusty steed is on its way to Berkshire today, hopefully to be re-born as a trackday superstar.

I've had lots of good times with that car - several epic trips round Scotland with fellow MX-5ers, trips to Europe including an epic adventure to Italy, countless trackdays and of course a couple of speed championship trophies to boot.

Turns out I owned that MX-5 longer than any other car I've ever had - nearly 6 years!

I was sad to see it go and James was in tears - he said "But I don't want the MX-5 to go - I want to go on a run with the other MX-5s through the big puddles" :-(

I now need to resist the temptation to fill the empty void and keep the bank balance a bit healthier but I'm sure I will be back in a '5 before too long............

Long time no post

It's been a couple of months since my last post - Christmas, New Year and some snow got in the way of any meaningful news so I haven't bothered!

I attended the Wigton Motor Club annual dinner last weekend and collected my award for second in class R2. The dinner itself was great with guest speaker, Barry 'Whizzo' Williams giving an entertaining reprise of his career.

The East Ayrshire Club dinner is at the end of the month and I'm looking forward to that.

On the car front, the MX-5 is still on the driveway but I've taken a deposit and hope it will be away by the weekend.

I visited the Autosport show last week and ordered a Schroth racing harness for the VX220. That coupled with a second hand harness bar and some seat cut-outs will see me ready to compete, albeit I would rather have new wheels and tyres first. Unfortunately, I don't think my 2010 racing budget will stretch to new wheels and tyres at the start of the season so I'll be at a competitive disadvantage for a while.

I'm focussing on 2 championships this year - The Wigton Northern Speed Championship and the Scttish Lowland Speed Championship. I anticipate doing around 15 events between the 2 championships and it looks like I'll only need a couple of overnight stays away from home. The programmes and regulations are still to be published but it looks like the season kicks off on Good Friday, 2 April at Kames for a round of the Northern Speed Championship.

2010 - a year of understeer?

MSA Categories
The MSA has decreed that all speed championships will run class structures based on a set of defined categories from 2010. I personally think this is a good idea as it moves towards standardization across the country, meaning that wherever you go, you'll know which class to enter.

However, it is raising a few questions, particularly for road-going cars like mine. The MSA have split road-going cars into two categories - Road-going Series production cars (produced in quantities of over 1,000 per annum) and Road-going specialits production cars (less than 1,000 per annum). Now, I'm pretty sure that my VX220 is a Series production car because the VIN database on VX220.ORG suggests that there were over 7,000 produced in 5 years. My own car has a chassis number greater than 1,000 and it appears to have been built in the first year (2001) but trying to prove this to a scrutineer could be problematic.

Some Lotus variants, like the Exige, appear to have been produced in quantities much less than 1,000 and so will fall into the specialist production category. In many championships (including the Scottish Championships), this will not matter as specialist and series production cars will run together but in some, it means that Exiges will run alongside Caterhams and Westfields.

I guess time will tell how this is going to pan out.

2010 Plans
I've decided to cut down the mumber of events for 2010 and will probably do no more than 15. My plans at this stage include a double-header at Ingliston on 1/2 May, the mighty Doune in April, Kames as often as I can, Forrestburn at least once, Harewood at least once and a foray up north to Fintray or even Golspie.

I've decided, for budget reasons, to keep the car fairly standard with just some wheels/tyres and safety critical mods (harness bar, harness and rear toe-links). This will give me a chance to get to know the car and get my driving up to scratch without spending too much. Hopefully I can still bag a championship award at the end of the year but my real aim for 2010 is an event class win.