Author: Graeme Fraser
If you haven't done Elvington (nr York) before, you HAVE to give it a go...
Imagine Crail, but with a far better surface and about 3 times the size and
width and you're getting close.
Simon, Neil and I had an awesome day. It's not a place to practice your fast
laps and hone your skills to shave of the tenths, as the cones get blown around
and scattered everywhere and every lap looks different, but there is sooooo much
space for playing around in, pushing the car beyond the limit and letting it run
as wide as it likes if you get it wrong.
The weather was perfect, and despite some very evil looking clouds we got away
without a drop of rain all day. The general standard was a bit novice, with
even the faster machinery being slowly driven, but most were well behaved (with
only a couple of tw*ts who wouldn't pull over). The only near-crash of the day
was caused by ... Simon :)
Organisation by BaT was perfect apart from a slightly drawn-out briefing and
utterly useless marshalling (too spread out and not really awake).
Fortunately there is so much space, you'd struggle to hit anything.
There is absolutely nothing to hit there (except cones, and they are bendy) and
I spent a large portion of the day facing every direction except the one I was
travelling in with a huge grin on my face! It brings out the hooligan in you in
a way a track with gravel and tyres and armco does not, inspiring confidence to
just lift off half way round a bend then plant the foot again, purely for the
fun of it! I don't think I've ever had the Elise up on two wheels before..!!
(see pic DSC_6928.jpg)
At the end of the day, I had a few laps in the pax seat of the S2 eRise with
Jonny in sideways-demo mode! That was an experience I won't forget in a
hurry...a very, very quick car - the grip was so good (on A048s and Nitrons)
that Jonny was having to be quite violent with it to unstick the back end, but
when it went there was so much power that he could hold the drifts right round
some very long corners - unbelievable! The power on the straights was amazing
too. Not quite as quick as the S1 (due to the lardyness) in a straight line,
but faster overall due to the handling (according to them what knows...).
Overall, a fun day at a surprisingly good venue. A must for an S_E day sometime
for hooliganism and photos and laughs a plenty!
Author: Simon Ironside
Elvington was good - much better than I expected it to be. Before I
booked on I'd been reading some of the reviews on bookatrack's site and there
was an awful lot of whinging about the condition of the surface and going
through a new set of tyres in a day etc. They have obviously never been to Crail.
I don't think tyre wear was totally unreasonable but definitely more than a
track day at a race circuit, I was on Toyo T1-S - the fronts were well used
before and are down to the wear indicators now, the rears are all right. Neil
got his money's worth out of his Maxsports ;o)
The dynamic nature of the coned track meant it wasn't really possible to get any
gauge of whether I was getting any faster or not - but obviously I think I was.
Actually I think Graeme, Neil and myself were amongst some of the fastest there.
We couldn't do anything about the "nascar" type thing that was once a Mondeo,
the Blink S2 or the bike engined westfields of course!
Got some decent video of Graeme and of me passing everything which will be
posted later ;o)
I did just about cause an accident during the first few laps after the pace car
ones. I was behind a Rover 200 or maybe an MG ZR? that I thought was entering
the pits and moved to pass him before realising to my horror that he was not
entering the pits at all, my fault - he hadn't indicated, just appeared to be
from the line you have to take for the following corner. After a dramatic
application of the brakes I didn't hit him, just made a mental note not to ever
assume anybody was going into the pits.
Talked to the driver of the Rover afterwards, he was very nice actually, he
didn't even know I was there until he heard the screech and then the noise of my
braking. He'd already figured out what happened and we ended up arguing over
taking the blame "No, it's my fault," "No really, it was my fault" etc.
Still, this may not have been the only near miss caused by me - I have no brake
lights again, the switch in the front services compartment has melted into the
"brakes not on position." There's a Ford badge on it, and a part number, so I'll
give that a whirl at my local before forking out £7+postage for one from Geary.
I had a great time, well worth the trip down - definitely one of the better £99s
I have spent.
http://www.gfraser.plus.com/elvington/