Johnny Bence

Just had the best driving day of my life so far! Started off very ominously travelling up the A1 in thick fog early this morning, the fog persisted nearly all the way to the track, magically cleared to beautiful sunshine passing over the last hill and into the Cadwell Park valley.

If you've not done Cadwell yet - don't hesitate, it's an absolute delight. Very twisty, challenging technical corners, lots of switching rapidly from side to side through the corners with often no braking distance inbetween, resulting in some very loose sensations in the back end of the P1! Learning the right line is critical at Cadwell. The two main straights were surprising fast - I got upto 120mph on both by the end of the day, given more time to improve my braking distances this would no doubt have improved.

The mountain section was pure adrenaline fun. Just before the pit straight (which is very short) there is a sharp left bend which follows immediately into a sharper right bend, all of this is going very steeply UP hill, putting all the power in up over the crest and you feel the front wheels lose the road and then come to earth again (I thought this would be quite hard on the car and me but it felt very smooth considering).

A couple of dodgy moments kept me on my toes - the first and potentially nastiest was when having just taken the hairpin normally, staying on the left to go into the tightish right hander leading to the main straight, the car in front (I later saw was a caterham type thingie) had shedd a long streak of oil for about 40 yards... lovely! When the front wheels hit the oil they kept going in a straight line directly for the crash barrier, then the back wheels slid as well and I started to drift sideways mid bend, the car rotating clockwise by - gosh, not sure really but felt like 20 degrees or so? - I put some power on and hoped the wheels would regain some grip, which, thankfully at the end of the track they suddenly dug into the tarmac and, with a not very graceful lurch I slid out of the bend onto the straight in one piece.

The other incident was more comical than serious (except to whoever owned the piece of equipment I suppose!), when pushing through a series of sweeping and tight right handers then road began to crest before taking a sharp right with an immediate sharp left, so the obvious place to set up for this initially was on the left of the track, which is where I was when suddenly an chunky exhaust box with pipes attached sailed into view across the track going left to right, it landed where my right wheels would have passed had I not moved over putting the left wheels on the grass for a moment (going around it to the right was not an option, I was carrying to much speed on a curve to take the S bend badly). I still cant figure out how the exhaust fell off a car and then came back towards the track against the direction it would have fallen off! Bounced off the tyre wall perhaps??

Anyway. Great day. Do it if you get the chance. Take it easy, don't go mad, build it up nice and slowly and you'll have a ball.
How the hell can I go back to spaying bitches on monday after a day like today??

P.S. Yorkshire Simon? If you read this - I had the AP's installed early so I could use them today, and they were simply awsome. No fade at all on the track, even on the hard drive down back home on some cracking B roads they remained solid and firm all the way. Worth their weight in gold (so I guess I still owe you some money then?!) Take it easy.

[Edited by Johnny Bence - 3/28/2002 7:58:54 PM]

simon a

i was there today, just spectating though. saw your car flying round the track, looksa very demanding circiut
saw 2 other scoobs there as well a dbm and a silver wrx sti
did anyone spot my car parked up, a uk97 reddish ble with gold wheels
great day out even the weather stayed good
simon

Reffro

Knowing Cadwell like the back of my hand first thing I'll ask is how many people screwed up the Gooseneck?

Oh and with reference to the mountain provided you have plenty of horsepower and bottle you can leap all four wheel off the tarmac. Though I will allow that the only cars I have regularly seen with all four wheels off the tarmac are the TVR Tuscan race cars, when they used to race there. But they have 450bhp in an 8-900kg car.

As regards your other comments the circuit is absolutely mental, and it requires a lot of skill and ***** in equal measure, it is after all called the mini-nurburgring.

johnfelstead

Cadwell is an awesome track. I love the mountain section, it's a lot of fun landing sideways with full power on and the back wheels spinning.

The back straight is very fast, you can keep full throttle on right over the blind crest near the end as it's deceptively far to the corner.

The goose neck is a good laugh, quite a challenge to carry your speed properly through there. My favourite section is the mountain and hall bends followed by the off camber downhill right onto the startline straight, brilliant fun.

Just be careful if your a newbie to track days or cadwell because it's not got a lot of runnoff.