A Day at the Clinic
On 22 May 2001 W111 FLY was the subject of one of Dave Walker's clinics for CCC
magazine.
It all started back at the Autosport show when I approached Dave just before he
lectured us on Cam timing and asked what one had to do to get one's car in the
CCC Clinic. Since most of the cars in the clinic are highly tuned race cars of
one sort or another I didn't hold up much hope. My justification was that it
would be good for propsective Caterham buyers (and maybe Caterham themselves) to
see how a bog standard (except for an Emerald and Yoko A032Rs) 1.8K series
performed and handled. Dave said they didn't have many cars lined up for this
year and I should give it a go and he gave me the application form to send in.
So I filled in the form, put some waffle on it about it being useful for
prospective buyers to find out what is wrong with a car set up straight from the
build manual and post build check and sent it off. That was back in January.
All went quiet an I thought I'd blown it, then we came back from California
(great roads, we should do a List Tour there :-)) and I had a message on the
answerphone from the CCC Editor Steve Kirk asking me to phone him about a Clinic
article. I phoned him and he said they'd do it and I should phone Dave Walker
to arrange a date. We originally settle on May 2nd but that had to be cancelled
due to work pressures (I'd done a major software release two days before which I
had to support), so we rescheduled it to 22nd May.
I can't remember what the weather on 2nd May was like but I can remember it was
gorgeous yesterday.
The normal scedule on a Clinic day is photo shoot and handling at MOD Chertsey
Longcross test track in the morning followed by geometry measurements, rolling
road power runs and car weighing in the afternoon. Since my car had been on the
rollers to have the Emerald set up at the last rolling road day adn had also
been weighed that was two parts of the clinic already done.
What remained, essentially was a phot shoot and a handlng check. We had
arranged to meet at 10am ar MOD Chertsey and since he was off work Daren Ball
asked if he could come along as a passenger which Dave said was OK. We left
home in my car about 9am expecting to get caught up in the rush hour traffic,
except someone had cancelled the rush hour that day and we were at MOD Chertsey
by 9:30. We went over to the test track and went up to control to check in and
were horrified to hear that the guy had no booking for CCC that day. Not a good
start to the day, all my hopes were about to be shattered I thought but the guy
said just fill in these forms and we'll fit you in it's not too busy. As we'd
arrived we saw the McLaren factory F1 car (i.e. the road car not the GP car)
dissapearing up the track. While we were waiting for dave a new Audi A4
(quattro ?) arrived and drove off with a camera strapped to the side. Later a
GT40 and a very loud older Ferrari (sorry we couldn't tell what model but the
sound was AWESOME) arrived and blaster round the track (which has 70MPH speed
limit !).
Around 10 Dave Walker arrived followed a few minutes later by another Dave this
time the photographer in his shiny new BMW 530d Touring (more later).
We had a cup of tea and a chat for a while about what photos they wanted to do
and then Dave started doing the static photo shots of the car (and me
unfortunately) we pushed and shoved the car around to get the sun in the right
position while Dave took the photos, then it was time to do some motion shots on
the track. By this time there was a BMW M5 and Jag X type on the track and
Auto Express had arrived with a Pug 206. Dave Walker had jumped in my car and
settled in, then we had a problem, if the photographer (Dave 2) was going to be
sitting in the boot of the BMW taking pictures then who'd be driving the BMW ??
ME,ME,ME,ME ! I was told in no uncertain terms not to floor it in any gear, not
because he didn't want his car thrashing but because he didn't want to be
ejected out the back and under the wheels of the Caterham.
I've never driven a car so gently in my life, I shoved the gearbox into
steptronic mode and shoved it into first then second and third and held it at
30mph with Dave Walker what seemed like inches from our bumper. By the second
lap I was getting more used to it and was a bit more relaxed and could look in
the mirrors and see what was going on.
After we'd done those shots, the photographer wanted some panning and cornering
shots while Dave Walker tried hanging the tail out, not an easy job with brand
new A032Rs and only 137 BHP of power but he managed it.
That was just about it for the photo shoot except for a set of slow speed shots
with the photographer clinging onto the rollbar taking pictures of Dave driving
while he went along at all of 15 mph.
Dave the photographer then packed up and went home while DW and I went up to the
handling pad to check the cars handling. Dave had brought along his tyre temp
gun and after he'd shown me what to do I drove around in a circle both clockwise
and anti clockwise fr about four laps at about 4-5000 RPM in second trying to
hold it on the edge of a tail slide. Then I'd come in and Dave would take the
tyre temps. I'll publish these later along with the geometry figures.
Once we'd done the handling test it was agreed that the car handled slightly
better on right hand circles than left hand circle which was later explained by
some toe in on the right rear.
That was just about it at Chertsey so we headed of to sunny Brixton for the
geometry check. The drving standard in Brixton was down to its usual standard
and we were cut up numerous times while trying to follow Dave. We got to Emerald
at about 2pm and got the car inside for the geometry check. For those of you
who haven't experienced this the car is placed on pads under the wheels which
rotate at the front and slide side to side at the rear. Then some big clamps
are put ont he wheel rims from which hang the laser boxes which shine a beam
along the two sides and accross the front of the car. The boxes are plugged
into a PC and the results come up on the screen and that's it !
We left Emerald at about 3PM, had a light snack at the local cafe and hit the
rush hour on the way home. It had been an excellent day and I hope the CCC
article makes interesting reading. I'll be signing autographs later !
I'd like to thank CCC magazine for agreeing to do the Clinic, Dave Walker for
thrashing my car and not crashing it into the BMW and Dave the photographer for
letting me drive the BMW (I want one). Thanks to Daren Ball for coming along
for moral support, speed camera spotting and taking extra pictures which should
appear soon.
The CCC Clinic article is shown below, click on each page to view a larger version.
The clinic article from August 2001 CCC is reproduced with kind permission of CCC Magazine editor Steve Kirk.
