After hearing so much about the 'Ring from people who'd been, I'd been meaning to take a trip to find out what all the fuss was about. So when Ixion's Adamanda announced that they were taking the Subaru to meet up with others from the Subaru Impreza Drivers Club, a group of us decided to go with them.
The Ixion party was, if I haven't forgotten anyone:
In deference to the weather, and a healthy survival instinct, I opted to join Adamanda in choosing to take a car, a decision we didn't regret when the biking group - who got there before us - described the surface as like 'polished marble' and Robin crashed on his first lap (fortunately no injuries). Suffice it to say that, while all of them went out, they also spent a lot of time drinking coffee and blagging passenger rides in cars!
The track was as slippery as advertised, and I took it pretty easy. Even so, I had a few slides.
I did also take my bike thanks to Fizzy volunteering his trailer and Adamanda volunteering to tow it. Unfortunately, Fizzy and I managed to drop my bike off the trailer during loading. There was no visible damage, but one of the brake discs took the weight of the bike. When good weather opened up on the final morning of our trip, and I unloaded the bike from the trailer, a quick spin round the car-park confirmed the bad news: the disc was badly warped and the bike unrideable. :-(
But I didn't mind too much (I minded a bit more when I got the £200 bill for replacing it). I had a fantastic time in the car, and was thoroughly hooked. I couldn't wait to return in the Spring.
I was also extremely impressed by the Subaru Impreza Turbo after blagging passenger rides in Adamanda's. Where the MX-5 is pretty tail-happy in the wet, the Impreza was happily doing controlled four-wheel slides at much higher speeds. If they ever do a convertible, I'll be seriously tempted.
I took some video footage, but the system I had then of simply placing the bike tank-bag on the rear shelf of the MX-5 didn't work very well, the camera angle much too high. For quite a bit of the time, you couldn't see the track itself, and the rest of the time the lack of any close track vision meant that you looked like you were doing 20mph even on the 120mph bits. Still, it did capture the moment I came face to face with an Audi coming the wrong way round the circuit ... !
The trip back also included a couple of interesting moments. The first was when, on the A258, I decided to nip on ahead of Adamanda for a bit of a play (it's a great road). I'd only got a few hundred metres ahead when I reached roadworks with a red light. I came to a halt but, looking in my mirror, it didn't like Adam was going to manage to stop. I was still in 3rd gear but pulled away as best I could and managed to move forward about 15 feet as I heard Adam lock-up behind me. Fortunately, 15 feet was enough to prevent a collision, though the bikes jumped out of their slots and my belly-pan was slightly damaged. Combined with scratches to the fairing where Fizzy's bike fell against mine (the tie-downs were rather crude), it wasn't a good trip from my bike's perspective!
The second interesting moment was on the M25, literally 15 minutes from home. I was following Adamanda when they suddenly swerved from lane 1 into lane 2 and back into lane 1. The trailer lifted up onto the left wheel, at an angle of about 15 degrees, the bikes slewing over a further 15 degrees, then up onto the right wheel at a similar angle. For one horrible moment I had visions of my bike falling off in front of me and then hitting it with my car, writing off both my vehicles in one go! But all was well. It turned out there had been a lorry tyre in the lane; Adam, not knowing whether the dark shape was a tyre or lump of concrete, swerved round it.
I swore 'never again' at the trailer option, though, having talked with other people who've trailed bikes to the Ring quite happily, perhaps it's 'never again Fizzy's trailer'! :-)
Copyright © Ben Lovejoy 1998