Quote from southamptonfc :

Ok, in nearly all cases unmodified road cars in real life cannot be raced. They simply aren't up to the stresses put on the car during racing. They will literally fall apart and catch fire.

Bollocks, my Dad's 1977 Morgan +8 was hillclimbed and sprinted from new by its first owner, my Dad then raced it for 19 years until he sold it last year. It needed a new chassis really for competition use, though it still made a good road car. I think 30 years is a pretty good lifespan for a competition car, especially given that most road cars don't last that long. Driven to the circuit for every event it performed brilliantly really the only major issue was the rate it went through rear brake shoes (though this was due to Morgan's lovely but rather untechnical approach to car design which meant the rear drums never stood a chance to cope with the job being asked of them, even on the road). In all the years it less us down 3 times, once all the electrics burnt out following a short, the diff failed driving back from the Nurburgring (within walking distance to home) and once a stub axle failed in dramatic fashion out of Paddock Hill bend (believed to be the only time this component has ever failed in a Morgan). It needed minor work over the time, rear axle was rebuilt twice, gearbox once, engine once and was serviced as a road car. Only modifications to it were racing fluids, rollbar, fire extinguisher, strut brace, harnesses and a tin plate to replace the seat cushion (so my Dad could sit low enough to pass the rollbar check). There are similar spec cars to this that have done 24 hour races without drama year on year.

Our Focus 1.6 has done two track days without any (car induced) drama, the brakes fade after a while (on DOT4) but other than that it is great fun and pretty bulletproof, far less fragile than a lot of racing cars. With the necessary safety modifications and racing fluids I see no reason why it wouldn't do a 24 hour race without a hiccup. I know for a fact that competitive Group N spec cars have run with standard calipers, discs and fast road pads in endurance racing and over 3 hours there is no real disadvantage or reliabilty issue. Autocar did a feature where they raced several completely standard new road cars for 24 hours and most of them made it to the finish after a few pad and tyre changes.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Not really - you get in, you drive it as fast as you can, you come in. The only difference is no laptiming and no competition. Or do you only drive gently on track days?

I think going easier on the car in places is sensible on track days if you're not driving a car with suitable brake fluid, for example when we took the Focus to Donington we found we had no issue with the brakes if we broke gently for the chicane and Redgate, this was also useful for letting people in cars that could pass us on the straights but hold up our enjoyment in the twisty bits get away from us (its funny how nobody in a GT3 or an R8 can acknowledge the fact that a shopping trolley is faster than them ). By doing this the brakes would last 30 minutes with a short cooling period and allow us to go full pace from Redgate to Coppice, the interesting part of the track, obviously some heavy braking can't be avoided like going into the Old Hairpin.

Quote from southamptonfc :

You could imagine the XFG and XRT to be track cars, they have adjustable suspension and brakes (which don't fade on track) and don't pretend to be any real life road car. Also as amp88 says, there is already the FXO.

Hopefully the Scirocco will bring with it realistic setups and start the ball rolling to remove most of the setup options for the other road cars which are totally unrealistic atm. Standard brakes fitted to a sporty modern car should not fade if they are using racing brake fluid, without using suitable grade fluid you simply cannot drive at the limit on a track safely. Fitted with appropriate pads and fluid they braking system should be fine for going motor racing with. The main issue I see with this car is its weight, it has more than enough power and isn't slow off the mark, all this pales in comparison to the critical question of whether it will be any good to race.

Would it not be more prudent to invest your money in a computer peripheral designed for your intended usage?

Quote from Intrepid :

no, my point was that rallying's excitement doesn't require car to car 'racing' so if one person always wins it still doesn't take away any of the sceptical. I didn't say it wasn't exciting, just that it's excitement isn't dependant on who wins.

I think you're just trying to be bloody minded and are fully aware that the element of competition, and not really knowing who is going to win a rally before hand or even who is leading it at any one time make rallying far more exciting to follow for the true enthusiast.

Quote from Alistair :

the thing that made them so unsafe was the roll cages
there was a crash in a lancia delta 2 years after the class was banned at the same sort of speed and the driver and co driver were fine
if they ahd the same amount of power and modern roll cages and other saftey eqipment the crashes would not have been fatal

The main safety issues with Group B cars were cars going into the crowds. Other than that the main issue that can be directly related to the cars (and driver safety) was the fuel tank positioning, usually at the front of the car in mid-engined cars which made them highly vulnerable to huge fires when they hit stuff, modern rally cars rarely catch fire but still carry a large quantity of fuel and if one does go up there is still no effective solution to put it out quickly enough to have any hope of saving drivers.

Rollcages haven't changed much since the Group B era, the only significant change is aluminium has been banned on grounds of safety, due to poor welds failing, though the difficulty of welding aluminium was unlikely to effect works teams.

I'm a bit confused with UK seat belt law and can't find it anywhere. Basically I'd like to know if rear seat belts are compulsory on a modern car (1994), I know they have to be worn if fitted but are they required and if fitted as a factory item can they be removed.

The reason I'm asking is because I am interested in the possibility of fitting four point harnesses to the front seats of my car and using the front and rear lap strap mounting points to save modifying it.

Also I presume that I don't need to notify my insurance company of the change and are full motorsport turn buckle harnesses legal for road use, I presume they are seeing as lots of road legal competition cars use them but the harnesses with push button releases always seem to use the fact they're road legal as a selling point.

Personally driving a fast car does nothing for me, driving a car fast is a massive obsession. Of course we naturally want to drive/watch faster cars but the enjoyment is not directly proportional to the speed they get round a track/down a stage, whilst I would love to drive a Caparo T1 on the limit I don't think the experience would 500 times better than driving my fast Lada (or as hilarious a spectacle ).

I think it is an important change, the current cars are far too expensive, if manufacturers are struggling to afford works teams then there is little hope for the WRC. Personally I would have rathered rules allowing Group B style homolgation specials with the only real requirements being 2WD and low capacity naturally aspirated (but otherwise totally free engines). Modern rally cars are boring to watch but extremely fast at the same time, there has to be a move towards historic (and even Group B to an extent) rally cars with limited traction, more than enough power and no computers meaning the result is spectacular cars making lots of noise and pleasing crowds whilst not traveling very fast.

Quote from Intrepid :

Considering rallying doesn't have car on car action (99% of the time) I can't see how one guy being dominant can be THAT boring. You only see one car at a time anyway so it doesn't matter who wins in terms of sceptical.

Of course it does rallying is a competitive event and the WRC should be the equal to F1 as the pinnacle of major motorsport disciplines, they're not demonstration runs.

Quote from sam93 :

If you have enough money, surely you could be uninsured. I think I remember being told, that Plymouth City Council vehicles have no insurance because if they hit another car they have enough money to pay out. Don't know if this is true or not.

Type 'car insurance' into Wikipedia and you'll soon see that council vehicles are excluded from requiring any provision for road traffic insurance and it is also possible (and sensible for large low risk fleets) to self-insure.

I think they will try and sell you glasses when you don't really need them, the only time I have found glasses vaguely useful has been flying, even then they spend as much time being a pain in the arse getting in the way as they do actually improving vision.

According to wikipedia there is no legal requirement to insure a car with an insurance brooker in the UK. Simply a deposit of £500,000 must be arranged with the Supreme Court.

Quote from Mattesa :

^ I think that series like the TDI Cup, Star Mazda, etc. etc. are low low low ladders of professional series that you can't just show up and drive at. The teams hire you, and you bring sponsorship money to pay them.

Unless your Dad or close friends are already racing and can give you a seat in their ready prepped car, I think your best bet as a young guy on budget is to do exactly what Speedy Pro says.

BTW, the SCCA runoffs are being show on SPEED again. Do you see now those guys bump and grind and spin!? LOL I wouldn't want to do that with my own car.

Teams don't hire drivers in entry level series, the driver/sponsor simply pays the bill any idiot can go and buy themself a drive in such series (in Europe at least) buy a copy of Autosport and you'll see plenty of drives available in just about anything for scary amounts of money.

Quote from 5haz :

Only thing Audi about it was the Engine block, RTN (Racing Technology Norfolk) designed and built the chassis, Peter Elleray was the designer.

Obviously the engine was also bored out, because of the larger capacity limit in the Bentley's class.

Obviously noting in common apart from the engine, the funding and the team of engineers and the Audi coupe... Whilst it's nice to dream it was the same car painted green and nominally British, still stunning though, unlike the open top cars.

LeMans has got interesting again because for the first time in the best part of a decade there is now more than one car that is intended to win it, even with the Audi customer teams it was clear that one team was chosen by the factory to win it when there were no works cars running.

Far better LeMans entertainment is the 956 In Car DVD, real cars really racing scarily fast, and Derek Bell and a flat 6 doing the talking rather than a PR department, a must for those that haven't seen it.

As far as I'm concerned protesters should be treated no differently to any other intruder at a vulnerable location, they should be immediately rounded up by armed police and shot if they refuse to co-operate plain and simple, had they done that at a military airfield they'd soon either come to their senses or have a load of lead in them.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

The driving physics, often described as superior in here, don't cut it for me. Now I've only driven the Solstice, as I haven't bought a single seater, but it drives very much like a non racing tin top in GTR-Evo: lot's of tyre squeal on almost every steering or breaking input, which makes finding the limit very hard, and it feels slippy and somehow detached from the road. Force Feedback is despite a resitance to turn the wheel, almost nonexistant, which doesn't help either.

Completely ignore the Solstice, being a really standard bloated modern road car it can't really be compared to any other sim. Get straight in the Legend car change the setup (it has RC setups on the default picking list) and go and see what you think

Quote from 5haz :

I think perhaps the sequential gearboxes found in the cars in GTR may allow flat shifting, but in Rfactor is probrably due to the rather half-bakes physics engine.

rF/GTR share the same physics engine, which has limited gearbox simulation.

Quote from lizardfolk :

Wait.....the hydroplane mod....

Presumably it only uses one gear...

Quote from sam93 :

CSU1 - My dad drives heavy machinery, any size swing shovel (excavator)
Here is a video you might enjoy, my old man is driving the machine, its the guys 18th, this was his present lol: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XOURAzlLkG0

He should sue him!

Quote from mrodgers :

The XY scatter chart, is that what you are looking for?

That's it thanks

How do I plot a line graph in Excel (the horrible new one) where I define the values of the points on the X axis?

What I've got is 6 sets of 5 values that I want to plot a line of each which are at the same 5 x values. I can't seem to convince the new excel to do anything other than assume my points lie at 1,2,3,4,5 on the x axis. I'm sure I'm missing something really obvious?

AFAIK DNA evidence alone is not sufficent to prove something beyond reasonable doubt in the UK anyway.

What does it actually achieve, locating parts inside the wheel? Why not just bolt a conventional wheel onto the internal bits?

Quote from Forbin :

You sure you're not thinking of Cadwell Park? That looks like Coppice.

The modern Donnington Park bears very little resemblance to the pre-war track.

Quote from Intrepid :

what are you on about?

Quote from karting fanboy :

1 18 Lucas Di Grassi 42.592
2 20 Vitantonio Liuzzi 42.707
3 11 Rubens Barrichello 42.809
4 1 Michael Schumacher 43.222
5 21 Thiago Camilo 43.342
6 3 Antonio Pizzonia 45.090
7 16 Allam Khodair 45.162
8 42 Ricardo Zonta 45.535
9 65 Max Wilson 46.290
10 80 Marcos Gomes 46.942

Obviously got pretty low standards if the top 10 drivers in the world (according to Alan) are split by over 4 seconds when you ask them to do one lap.

Quote from Intrepid :

Yes millions in karting! Over the whole career of a driver from age 8-18yr millions would have have spent. In KF3 and KF2 seasonal budgets of £250k are easily achieved. A driver will compete in several championships during a year. Even in Cadets 8-12 yearly budgets of £50-60k are not uncommon.

You know perfectly well it is conventional to talk about budgets per year not over a career. The yearly budget is going to be enormous just to produce a similar car (seeing as about the closest thing is a FPA which you won't get your hands near), a million pounds is pretty optimistic to produce such a car, that's before you get to running costs or the fact that you will be barred from all race circuits.

Quote from Intrepid :

I actually was being honest with this kid and warned that the price of karting in the US could go MAD because the over dependance on Italian manufactured chassis/engine. The dollar is going to crash big time, and that extends to any motorsport that has a reliance upon imported goods. And that problem is already being felt in the US, AND the UK!

Where ever you go in the world you are not going to be running a kart on £20 a weekend.