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Sunrise Sevens Scramble (29th March 2009)Big Boys Toys !
6.30am - Awaken, I look at the clock "You are effing joking" I mutter as I haul myself out of bed - feeling I've only been asleep for an hour,and now I'm going to miss the first Grand Prix to freeze my bits off trying to keep up with "Carrots" on another legendary Sunrise Sevens Blat (This is impossible, and should only be attempted by trained professionals in a controlled environment !)
Screaming along empty roads , hoping that Jenson and Rubens were doing the same (they were), I suddenly remebered that I'd sent off the pedal box cover to be powder coated and hadn't had it back.....the icy blast made me wish I'd put on thicker socks !!!
Pressing on I reached Farnham station for the 7.15 rendezvous with Carrots, where we were joined by a third wingman in a very nice polished Ally and Carbon-winged Superlight.
 When's Breakfast
Our Squadon leader lead us out and we peeled off from the station car park, and into 'blattle' in a 'missing man' formation as Cannonball was unable to join due to adverse weather at Amazingstoke Airfield.
Once onto the route Carrots adopted his usual position - a small dot on the horizon ! , the only method of tracking being to follow the oily mist and pop...pop...pop of the overrun .
Halfway through we stopped for breakfast only to find the whole town deserted and all hostelries with closed doors. A few minutes later 8 TVR's thundered in Nice to know other people have the same idea as us.
We stopped at ???? to find the whole place deserted,and decided to press on to the end point in Guildford, where we sat in the cafe under the bridge, and the finish to a perfect morning....
....a nice cup of Tea, follwed by a blat home to find BrawnGP had cleaned up at the Melbourne GP .
A nice cuppa...and a large greasy breakfast to follow. 'Getting to know your Se7en' at Caterham CarsFinally, after 3 years of trying, I got onto the much-oversubscribed 'How to keep your Caterham alive for the compleat beginner' course, very kindly hosted at Caterham Cars Garage in....surprisingly, Caterham !, by the Lotus Seven Club.
What a fantastic place, the workshop is actually an old theatre that just oozes patina , and the walls of Caterhams showroom are adorned with famous owners like Johnny Herbert and, Chris Rea. Caterham had their entire range ut on display, including the Top Gear Car of the Year R500, which has a very coolcombined radiator and oil cooler. They even have a replica Top Gear lap time board
 Jill Judd showed her new fitted trailer cover - How good would this look in my Garage ??? "Damon Hill makes me Sick !"Superb video !!!
PH Breakfast Run to Loomies (Feb 2009) The menacing Ducati mob surrounded me..........
Meant to post this a while back but didn't get round to it (quite a feature of my life !!!!)
It was a cold Sunday morning as I donned as many layers as would fit under the harnesses of the Seven, and ventured out to meet the Pistonheads Sunningdale & siurrounds Pistonheaders for a 100 mile run to Loomies Diner at West Meon hut.
VerySideWays organised a fabulous route through forested A-roads, breaking out onto fast open roads as the sun came out to welcome us to a thundering soundtrack thanks to the TVR's Some impressive machinery came along for the ride , the prototype Morgan Aeromax was lovely, along with about a squadron of low-flying TVR's !! Hello to Shabs and BrightYellowTVR !!
All-in-all a superb run that I will be repeating !!!  7 Upgrades : Nearly there !Missed a fantastic blatting weekend ....BUT .....
It's nearly finished.
Rear lights all finally wired in. Just waiting for the bulbs from E-Bay !, grilles re-sprayed , antirollbar painted and ready to fit. 5inch headlamps and mountings sprayed and rewired, ready to go on.
so hopefully , the final pieces of the puzzle to finish.....paint suspension, refit ARB, wire in the lights - after ditching the spade connectors for some nice 5 way connectosrs from Vehicle Wiring Products.
  7 Upgrades - LightsNext up its the lights. SiCrad kindly donated his chrome 5inch headlamps, which are now a nice satin black. The 7inch lamps are ready to come off , and a broken indicator pod replaced. The wiring harness is a little messy with bullet connectors , so am ordering some 4-way connectors from Vehicle Wiring Products , which, after a bit of soldering should tidy things up a bit. The painter has called, and will be able to re-paint all 4 wings shortly too. Anti-roll bar now removed and ready for repaint and re-fit.  7 Upgrades4 weeks to go to WightBlat , so probably the best time for me to start the upgrades to the 7 I should have started back in November,
but as the garage was too bloody cold and the TV, and Living room too cosy, my favourite pastime, procrastination took over....
....Anyway , back to the present !
3 years ago , Steve Foster one of the local Lotus 7 Club members , made a limited run of aluminium light blocks to
replace the Caterham solid rubber blocks, and if you were watching the new R500 doing its superb lap of the Top Gear test Track ,
coming in a very creditable 4th fastest (The other 4 are worth over 1 Million each)
Top Gear Lap Times (mins)
Gumpert Apollo - 1.17.1
Ascari A10 - 1.17.3 Koenigsegg CCX (with Top Gear spoiler) - 1.17.6 Pagani Zonda F Roadster - 1.17.8 Caterham R500 - 1.17.9 Full Top Gear Power Lap Board : http://www.bbc.co.uk/topgear/show/powerlaps.shtml
...Back to the blog, so in a nutshell, out of all the jobs I had to do , with a complete Saturday to do it, I managed
to get the front grilles resprayed and the rear lights changed !!!
  I better get a move on...!
Next up is replacing the 7inch lights with the sleeker and lower , 5inch units , which were chrome, and are now
black-packed in satin paint !!! |
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