Nice one Chris,

I'll be in a Red Mondeo Estate, pulling the blue R!...

Andy

Garage 20, I think I can remember that as its my house number and date of my birth. See you all there in about 10.5 hrs

Sadly not your age though :lol:

Sorry ;)

Well, we didnt have snow here either, the sun showed at one stage!!!

Hope everyone got home ok and I hope you managed to sort some transport back Deej.


Nice to see you guys and thanks for showing me round deej and Chris.

As it was my first time here, I certainly found it different with the combination of very slow infield and very-fast outfield. Totally enjoyed it, I'll have to do it again soon.

Good luck to all the DD'rs, good shakedown test for the bikes today.

Andy

Oooh transport back??? does that mean? :frog:

No Andy it doesn't mean any muppet awards
Looks like the head gasket on Deej's van had gone, the final part of the journey to get him to Silverstone was by way of the AA, which meant he couldn't use them to get him home. So he was trying to sort out other means.
He had green flag cover with his van insurance but that only covered 10 miles then £3 plus vat per mile after that, so that would come to a fair bit back to Cornwall.

Dom there is no garage 20 at Silverstone so we settled for my mental age and ended up in garage 11

Muppet of the day award goes to my goodself...locked the bike on the trailer saturday night..get to circuit and say to my mate ' wouldnt it be funny if I forgot the key to this'

You know whats coming next..!! Cue rushing around for angle grinders/hacksaws (it cam eoff quite easily though !)

Nat

Oh..and I ran out of petrol on my third session....doh !

Nice bike yours Natty, certainly goes round corners well !!

Andy

ps. Seena3's DD exhaust is a work of art...

Thanks mate...really chuffed with the bike..went like stink for a 20k mile 748 (14/39 gearing was cock on for silverstone), and the handling was great - managed a 2.26m lap which I thought was OK considering the zero track temperature and the fact that I couldnt feel my fingers after 5 minutes...!!

Just a bit of front end chatter under hard braking to dial out and then we can get stuck into the new season..!!

Good to meet you boys..thanks for the company..!

PS Big up to Chris for lending me his tyre warmers !!! (V.nice DD bike mate)

Nat

I was cursing you lot all day...looks like you had good enough weather!!!:D

just to let you all know i got home ok in the end, stayed in towcester travelodge on the sunday night, then coughed up £700 to get the van towed home after the garage quoted me from £1200 + vat to fix the head gasket on my van !!! robbing *******s !!! can get the parts and head skimmed for £250 home here.

had a great day on track and met some great people just a shame id oubt i'll be able to afford to meet you guys again soon.

thanks for all your help and fun on track, andy and natty especially it was good to do battle !!

simon thanks for your help with the aa just a shame we couldnt pull it off :flame:

£1200 that is costly for a head gasket job and £700 is hell of lot for a tow. Living down your neck of the woods and doing trackdays is never going to be cheap but you certainly don't ned the extra costs. A hire van comes to mind :eureka:

Still it was good to meet you and see that you were enjoying the trackday, hopefully your next one will be less costly and more enjoyable

Yep, good to see you get back ok Deej, although they certainly lightenened your pocket, b-stards.... I'd be parking the van in the sellers front room window by now... Hope to see you again on another one,

Andy

going to argue like hell with direct line and try to get a refund for the truck. theyve sent me a customer satisfaction questionnaire which has been filled in, all positively of course !!! :lol::lol::lol:

i'll compare the pricesthat freeways motors were quoting to what ive been quoted now im home.

freeways. locallly
radiator £210 £95
water pump £95 £25
thermostat £65 £15
head gasket set £150 £85
head gasket bolts £150 £15
skimmed head £400 £40

this is all with vat to be added so you can see why i paid to get it recovered rather than be robbed blind by those cowboys. the radiator doesnt even need replacing:flame::flame:

kev a hire van isnt cheap these days as they all have a mileage charge if you do over so many !!!

andy would be good to meet up with you guys again but unless direct line cough up i wont be on any more trackdays this year

quick update on the van

the engine is beyond econimical repair so it means either a new engine or scrap it !!! not really sure what to do for the best, spend the money or cut my losses :puzzled::puzzled:

[Edited on 27-3-2006 by deej]

Bugger... thats not good Deej.

Have you checked over the rest of the van? If its all good and not done starship miles, I would look at a recon engine, although it has brpught you a fair degree of bad luck and maybe due to scrap,

Andy

what i would do
 

I used to own a van with a mate. He used it on an everyday basis and I had dibs on it whenever I did trackdays or motocrossing. It was great at first but when it started costing me money, we decided to get rid of it. I now have a trailer - very little to go wrong with it and it folds up out of the way when not in use. If you only use the van for trackdays, I wouldn't bother with it. The amount it costs to keep on the road in terms of insurance, road tax, tyres etc doesn't make a lot of sense.

Buy a two/three bike trailer with a group of mates, split the cost and get a removeable towbar on your car. All of this is assuming you have a reliable car of course. I would recommend this route as this is exactly what I have done and have no regrets. The added benefit is you don't have an eyesore of a vehicle sitting leaking oil on your driveway and taking up space for 98% of the year.

Oh, a couple more things: check that your car can have a towbar fitted. I didn't and ended up changing my car when I found out - from an M3 to an M5 :o and don't forget the RAC cover. ;)

Good luck anyway and hope to meet you at a track again (hopefully soon).

simon

Thats exactly my setup too Marchesini, but not the BMW type.

Bleedin eck M5!! Dad used to have one and if its similar, it would leave the trailer behind at lights !!!

Andy

Yes, it is a bit weird being in this 400bhp saloon car and stuck in the slow/middle lane of the motorway pulling a trailer doing no more than 60mph officer.

I still have to get used to the fact that the bike isn't going to topple over on roundabouts - I have never checked my mirrors so much!

What trailer did you get? I got one of the BikeLug foldup jobbies, quite pricey but dismantles into 4 pieces and three locking pins and takes no longer than 3 minutes to put together. Really nice bit of kit and they have just redesigned it so it looks even nicer now (and also may be cheaper??)

When's your next trackday then?

simon

Simon, my trailer is shared with my dad and is home-made by one of the classic bike chaps, certainly does the job, although not sure if it will hold two big bikes....

Thinking of doing Cadwell on 24th April - No Limits - £99, although want to get down to Silverstone again this year, really enjoyed it. I'll post to see if anyone else going to Cadders.

Andy

well it doesnt get any better, found out today that the wifes punto has probably got a cracked head too
recon engine is well over a £1000 plus fitting on a exchange basis
a second hand engine is risky
whats the van worth as a rolling chassis with no engine
shall i scrap it and sell it bit by bit on the dreaded fleabay


a van is a safer option for me than a trailer as its secure over night at a travelodge and secure when i get home at midnight, leave it locked in the van and put it away the following evening.


lastly and the very last option is selling the duke to pay for it as my thread in the 748 section. not the way i want to go but it may be a case of needs must

van update

have won a engine on ebay tonight but its in uckfield (nr brighton ). does anyone know of a good courier service from that area that would be prepared to ship it for me, dont really want to be driving to brighton on the bank holiday if i can help it. any help appreciated.