Stoneleigh 2013

After a busy week away with work that included a lecture on leadership from Charles Morgan - former ITN cameraman that walked out of Afghanistan with Sandy Gall (Behind Russian Lines: An Afghan Journal) and is currently the CEO of the family car company, I got to look at his car - nice parking! Set me up nicely for the trip to Stoneleigh. Perfect weather I took the Westfield to work on Friday and whilst showing the engine to one of my colleagues spotted a pooling of coolant coming from somewhere on the hock stick.  Investigating later at home I tracked the source of the leak to where the temperature sensor is welded to the tube - too late to discuss with Westfield I cleaned away the powder coat, keyed the surface and slapped on some plastic metal and prayed.  After a reasonable run out on Saturday I was happy there was no leak so Stoneleigh was back on.

James and packed the car on Saturday night and got on the road at 0745 on Sunday to meet up with the Dorset WSCCers at Warminster Services. Once all the cars had assembled we headed off in the direction of Chippenham for a fuel stop and then headed off to the Fosse Way and Stoneleigh - all A roads, after an enjoyable drive we arrived at Stoneleigh just before 12:00.  After parking the cars on the WSCC area we headed off to the camping area to set up the tents; James and I then headed back to the WSCC to do our first stint on the Auto Jumble followed by the BBQ - very enjoyable meeting many of the Forum Posters then I'd seen on the website.  We also met up with Paul, Joe, Jason and Rene some of the bloggers that we'd shared our build experience with.


Malcolm took the opportunity to give a masterclass on front ARB installation.
















Monday packed up the car an parked it at the WSCC enclosure.  I bought the Aerodynamix carbon fibre fronted side mirrors I'd been eyeing on Sunday afternoon and then had a discussion with the Aerodynamix team about carbon fibre canards/whiskers and dashboards - upgrade-itis strikes again. 

The drive home was more problematic than than the outward journey - blistering heat and traffic resulted in a need for an innovative approach to a Westfield sunshade quickly followed by a stop for fuel and one of the members having to short a radiator temperature switch to leave the cooling fan running constantly.  Once we'd cleared the traffic around Warwick it was a straight forward run home with a fuel stop on the A350 just before turning off to drive through the Deverills - arrived home at 17:15 - tired but with a very big grin.

The car now has ~1350 miles on the clock and I'm very much looking forward to my first track day on 10 June at Keevil.