Peter150

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I've always wanted to get into track days, but the idea of binning my Celica horrifies me! Plus if I did ditch it i'd then be stuck without a car. I've only done 4 laps of the Nurburgring which was fantastic fun, but I was so relieved after finishing that I had a car still in one piece, especially given the reputation of that circuit! Something which may be worth considering and I've looked into (but never actually gone through with) is a novice only track day. You're put with everyone of the same skill and have a bit of extra instruction, plus they're quite cheap as usually under £100 for the day. http://www.clubmsv.com/car-home/novice-only.aspx You can also do taster sessions at some tracks - 20 minutes of track time for £25. http://www.clubmsv.com/car-home/taster-sessions.aspx Remember track day insurance! Its not too expensive (I think I paid £90 for a full day at the 'ring) but only covers your car and not any third party cars or infrastructure you crash into (nearly impossible to get insurance for this.) I believe the un-written rule of track days is that you're responsible for any damage to your car, no matter who or what may have caused it.

Wasn't it you Liam who recommended G-Motorsports in Peterborough to me to fix and spray my dent? They did a decent job of it and offered the cheapest price compared to anywhere else round here. The only other bodyshop in Cambridge that I approached that offered any reasonable quote price was these guys: http://www.robertjbarnes.co.uk/ Some of my friends have been to use them since for accident damage and they seem to do a good job and are very friendly guys working there.

I've been there all weekend and didn't see it. I did however see a GT86 driving in on the Saturday morning. Also got overtaken by a white gen 6 gt-four (I think, i'm not an expert on the gen 6's....) whilst going around Northampton ring roads on the way home tonight. Guy gave me a thumbs up but couldn't see any club stickers in his windows. Also passed what I think was a member (thought I saw stickers in the back windows, but they were travelling in opposite direction and didn't have time to read what they said!) on the A428 also this evening in a lagoon blue gen 7 - anyone from here?..

Thats gotta be pretty close to me, unless you're on the opposite side. I'm about 2.5 miles away from the centre on the northern side. Seen quite a few Celica's around here but none carry the CCUK stickers.

I used to compete in road rallying and managed to buckle three alloys exactly like that. I tried hitting it with a hammer but it wasn't going to budge so sent it off for repair. It was about £70 a corner if I remember. Buckled alloys like that are a MOT failure and i'm pretty sure they'd notice a bodged hammer job. Done properly and its a great job. They literally melt (well soften) the alloy and reform it back to how it should be. Has the added effect of also removing any kerbing marks.

Adding to this, the best MPG you can achieve for cars is somewhere between 50-60mph in the highest gear possible. This way you're travelling a decent speed to get the miles but RPM is still quite low for efficiency. I used to get an extra 75 miles ish out of my old car (Fiesta) by dawdling at 60mph along the motorway compared to normal speed (). Not noticed this so much in the Celica though, seems pretty consistent whatever speed I go. :rolleyes:

In terms of rules and regulations, there are none. When I went a couple of years ago they didn't check anything on the car (or license/insurance) - just turn up, pay and drive. Worth reading up on and watching the videos at the track about rules and safety whilst driving. I'm going again in the Celica in just under a month. I'm not planning on doing anything special to the car, just checking tyre conditions and pressures, make sure the car is running smooth (service), making sure all loose objects are fastened down or removed. Warning triangle, high-vis, fire extinguisher e.t.c. are all a good idea, as well as a list of Nurburgring emergency contact numbers. I'm not planning on pushing the car hard as the Celica is too valuable to me and I don't want to go beyond its limits into the armco (thats until the red-mist kicks in! .) The best preparation you could do is learn the track (and your car) as best you can. You'll never get the impression of how bumpy or steep the gradients are, but learning the layout, black spots and best lines will help massively. There are a few tight corners hidden which you won't see until too late - the weakest point in most cars is the driver.

There are 3 Gen 7's at my work. A rather nice GT, my T-Sport and a rather upsetting blue 140 that needs quite a lot of TLC! No sign of any other generations around here though. I seem to go through stages of not seeing any other celica's on the road for days, then suddenly they all turn up and i'll see like 5 in the space of a few miles.

Unfortunatly these things happen and its all part of the "fun" of owning a car. My previous car got both a dent in the top of the bonnet (wtf? - could have been an animal jumping on it I suppose) and its wing mirror smashed on two seperate occasions. Rather than parking furthest away from where i'm going in the middle of nowhere, I look for the nicest car in the car park near to where I want to go park next to that. Thats in the hope that if someone has a nice car, chances are they'll be a bit more careful when manouvering around mine.

Quite an interesting website one of the people from my old university motor club runs. It logs how many cars of each make/model are still around in the UK each year. Very interesting to stick in "celica" and seeing what comes back, like there is only 1 Celica XT Auto left in the UK! http://howmanyleft.c...k/?q=Celica&p=0

Doesn't look too much like Celica IMO - think the owner is being a bit optimistic! I test drove a T-Sport with the plate "CE51LCA" which I think is the best so far. Great plate but the car wasn't in the best of states so gave it a miss.

Interesting that this product seems so successful! I remember watching an article about fuel additives on fifth gear a few years back and the experiments they conducted generally showed no difference or in some cases, a decrease in power and MPG. Willing to give this one a try though for the sake of £20! Not sure how much of an increase i'd get since my 2005 Gen 7 has only done 35k so *should* hopefully still be in a pretty decent clean state!