Nurburgring Changes it's rules?

Having recently starting planning next years trip to the legendary Nurburgring I got a bit concerned when I was sent some information about changes to the system by its new owners.

Basically you can no longer take a car on the Tourist or Public driving days that has: Full bucket seats, a non padded roll cage, installation for HANS neck and head restraint devices and snap-off steering wheels.

I'd imagine that most people who have a car this is track usable and road legal either have done some of these, or are planning on installing something in the near future. So if you want to hit the 'ring this could be a problem then....as could the 250 Euro fine for breaking the rules.

However, Bridge-to-Gantry.com went on to explain the new rules in plenty of detail and they made sense

It's all in the detail, it says "Full" bucket seats meaning ones that only allow straight on vision, used in proper, dedicated race cars kind of like that Bride seat there. It restricts vision, simple.

 Roll cages, HANS devices and the full bucket seats are things that indicate your car is in a different realm of use. The open days at the 'ring are for anyone: cars, bikes, MPVs even camper vans and buses - it's technically a toll road, not a test track for a semi-race car. The Nurburgring management believe that these sorts of equipment are going to encourage potentially dangerous race-type driving around others and I think that's fair.

As for the snap off steering wheels -supposedly it's because of the likelihood of people using unreliable, fake eBay type items causing an accident, on top of the race-type driving. Of the banned items I already know a few people with these, so it could be a problem for many

So it's not all doom and gloom, you just have to read the fine print and understand it. I hope others are as cool about this as me, it make sense.

More on our Nurburgring trip soon no doubt!

Chris

What a year!

It might not seem like it from here anyway but it's been an event filled year for TrackWeapon!

I did Autosport International in January (and it's nearly time again!), several track days and bigger eventsat Knockhill, got introduced to the new grassroots drift scene in Fife with Jumanji Nights and even managed to squeeze in a trip to Spa for the Total 24 Hours and a couple of laps of the Nurburgring!

Oh and I got a new track weapon of my own - upgrade from Celica  to Celica T-Sport, and let me tell you it certainly carries some of the traits of a track weapon out of the box. Daily driveability but the extra performance edge when you want it compared to the VVTi (140) model.

Needless to say it's rocking most of the same upgrades as the 140, they all transferred over! The extra power creates extra demands for next years track season, new brakes are here and suspension is coming in January. Going with a kit of Mtec discs and EBC Yellowstuff pads, some DOT 5.1 fluid and HEL Braided brake lines and MeisterR coilovers

You can take a look at some of the photos from August and September featuring some shots from the British Drift Champs finale at Knockhil on the Flickr here

Promise to start posting here more often, or if you're interested in writing a guest post then get in touch - Trackweapon@gmail.com

Thanks
Chris

Modified Live At Knockhill

Modified Live is a full on day for any level of petrolhead. I don’t like the phrase “something for everyone” but this time...yeah. Club and trade stands, Pickup Truck Racing, Honda Civic Cup, Time Attack Round 2 and the European Drift Championship.

I arrived just in time to hear the end of a round of drifting, so I set my sights on the paddock to get some snaps of the awesome array of cars on show.

Then moved on to the impressive Club stands all with a great turnout!

For me though, the day was about action, so after the pickups had finished their round, the Time Attack folks came out to play

2 classes were run Club and Pro, and the Pro stuff was noticeably faster and more dramatic, take the Team Militek GTR for example

Gavin Renshaws Evo was also a stand out car as one of the fastest going, pretty hard to get pictures of it at any straight of Knockhill

Aside from these two in the Pro class there was equally cool and favourable cars in the club class, I took a shine to this blue FN2 Civic Type R

And this Porsche 993 Turbo, not the most common sight for Time Attack. Something about the Time Attack Championship really appeals to me, I can see an attempt at a One Hit Wonder (OHW) in the near future.

Then we got some action from the Civic Cup, the cars are so close in terms of performance that it takes a stand out amount of driving skill and track knowledge to gain places

The leader of this race and skill and knowledge in bucket loads apparently, pulling well ahead of every other car by a big jump each lap. We clocked his split time at over 18 seconds at one point.

Then some more pickup racing, interesting to watch but not so much photo so here’s another paddock picture of some typical Time Attack aero

European Drift Championships was one of the big pulls of the day for me. Semi finals were settled quite quickly but the finals were going one more time 3 times or more! 3 tyre changes for one competitor!

You can see why though, it was seriously close competiton battles for all positions: 3^rd and 4^th:

And 1^st and 2^nd

In the end the BC Racing S15 took the win. Consistent, stylish and close following (above) bagged it.

Time Attack came out for their finals after this, which ended with a pretty mega crash right in front of us from the Eurospec Time Attack Team CRX leaving 1:25 on the clock. No pictures myself but here's one from my friend Martin Woods (have a look at his photos, really nice stuff!) According to their Twitter feed, car isn’t that bad and they’re taking it to another level with the rebuild, slicks and dry sump have been mentioned, great stuff!

As usual you can find all the pictures from the event on our Facebook. Next event will most likely be a day out at Crail Raceway with GarageFuckHouse on a drift day!

Chris

TrackScotland Track Day at Knockhill 10th March

Writing this up slightly later than expected but looking through the pictures I snapped on the day all the days events quickly come flooding back.

The trackday had already been re-scheduled due to bad weather back in February so we were itching to get out on track to test out the strut brace on the Celica and more importantly the engine on the Civtegra.

Lets start out with the strut brace all fitted up: 

Was very easy to fit and everything went together very neat, a big tick for the research and development that RT-Performance put into making this.

Onto the track day, there was a great selection of cars that turned up for the day, a lot of them on trailers or in the back of trucks/vans. It was a pretty daunting arriving to a sea of very professional looking cars/teams.

Things like this Civic sporting a genuine BTCC rear wing and this very tidy (and very slidy) Escort.

Cars joining us on track included various Skylines, R33 and R32 as well as a R35 GT-R, 2 e46 BMW M3 CSLs, a selection of Evos, some of the Scottish MINI racers, a variety of Peugeots such as 306 GTI-6 and a track-prep 106 known as Hulk. VW Corrado, a fair few Starlets, some MX-5s, a turbo CRX, a Silvia Spec-S and a Caterham R400. There's probably some I missed there but the pictures should do those represented justice.

Needless to say the pit was busy all day.

Unfortunately the day for us had a bit of a black cloud over it, there were concerns with the Civtegra over-fuelling in the rev range,  a possible slow puncture and a mysterious habit of it drinking coolant in the days leading up to the 10th. The day came and indeed the Civtegra had problems, the brakes despite being sourced from a V6 MG-ZS were still not quite enough to pull it up at the end of the pit straight!

Entering into the first downhill turn too fast the car almost rolled and ended up at track side having smashed the new front splitter in to and taken a tyre off the rim. A lucky escape is the general feeling towards this. It limped back up the hill on 3 tyres and was parked up for the rest of the track day. It completed only 5 laps which is a real shame. So there was a lot of stress and struggle to get the car off track which took some time. 

So back to the remainder of the day, it was a fast day with a lot of big power or well prepped cars on track but I didn't feel like I had to move over much and got some good laps in! Still need to build my confidence and I hope that some fresh brakes (mines are scored and corroded slightly at the moment) will help with this.

The strut brace did help with turn in and keeping the car more level, less understeer through faster corners. Celica still rolls about a bit and the thought of coilovers hovers around me constantly.

Now for some pictures of track action:

 One of the two black CSLs there. Built to be a track car anyway, both of the BMWs came with spare tyres (one of them a set of slicks) and upgraded AP Racing brakes.

 The turbo CRX

 Wallace Performance tinkering with their Evo, it was throwing out A LOT of flames

 An indication of the selection of cars on track

Evo vs Evo, new vs old

 the slidy starlet, had him behind me for a few laps and it was a hoot to watch him drifting around.

 More Evo action

 Love the small print on the number plate - "No wife, Great life"

 The M3 CSLs side by side, further away one with the slicks.









Close up of the slicks and brakes, clearly getting more heat in them than I managed

Aero for days!











As always, there are more photos on Facebook here: Facebook Album. Don't forget to share and such!

Looking forward to the next day, have bought some new brakes for the Celica and no doubt the Civtegra will be back and stronger than ever.

Thanks for reading

Chris
TrackWeapon

New parts, new reading materials, an old dilemma.

I'm going to combine a couple of topics here because I feel that, for me anyway, they have a troublesome relationship. The postman was nice to me today he brought me a new RT-Performance front upper strut brace for the Celica and brochures on the new GT 86 Toyota sports coupe! Epic stuff, so here are some pictures!

Lets start with a quick preview and some thoughts on the strut brace:

 It's made by RT-Performance and is a replica of the super rare and super expensive C-One strut brace designed for the gen 7 Celica.

I would love to have gotten a C-One original but I've done the rare, expensive import thing already (more on that soon).

Plus when the build quality looks this good its not much benefit for all the extra cost of sourcing the rare and expensive parts. Proof will be in the fitting and then track testing on the 10th March!

 So now for some words on the GT86 and the "dilemma". I've been playing with the idea of getting a new car, and have wanted one of these since I saw the concept. When a release date was set I stopped spending on the Celica to start saving for this. I got impatient and those with the bug know what its like! 

So I caved and bought that strut brace, which lead me to this.

So today the postman brings me both a new part for my current car - the Celica and the brochure for a new car. Feeling a bit pulled in opposite directions! Not long now till our first track day of the year (10th March at Knockhill feel free to come watch) where I can really see how the strut brace improves the car.

Keep an eye out for the next post on fitting, testing and my full review on this part (or a new car...)

Chris