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First Run

I'm trying to think of ways to get over how awesome this car is. It's an order of magnitude more impressive than the Radical on many levels. The way it has seemlessly unrelenting acceleration due to the near instantaneous gear changes. The endless brakes that stop you like a wall. The frankly mind boggling amount of speed you can carry through corners. It's just an epic experience and I have no doubt whatsoever that I'm just scratching the surface of it's capabilities. Make no mistake here, the limiting factor in this car's performance is very much the nut behind the wheel!

Then there was the point after a few sessions when we thought we should pop the engine cover off and give it all a check. We're so used to nails (Caterfield and Radicals are nails and require near contant fettling when tracking them) that we sort of looked at it, looked at each other, put the cover back on and stuck the kettle on instead (more on this later). It just works and feels bullet-proof with it, every thing seems effortless.

That's not to say it's not hard work to drive. I type this today aching like a good-un. Admittedly I'm fantastically unfit which doesn't help. But it puts a lot of strain on you, particularly your neck, and I could do about 25 mins before I could do with a break. Though it was getting better by the end of the day as I got more comfortable with it and got into a rhythmn.

It is quite easy to drive in the scheme of things. Sure it's got a brutal clutch so pulling away is not particualrly simple. But once you're going it just all feels right, allowing you to concentrate on what your doing rather than having to drive around the car. Even in the wet, and boy did it rain, it remained a big pussy cat. It's just so composed.

On the whole then we're both utterly amazed and delighted with the car. It's better than we could have hoped and we're now itching to take it to Silverstone where we can really stretch it's legs.

All the gear...

Ah yes, the kettle comment. Along with being a fat bloke in a race suit I now have a motorhome to borrow. We now truly are all the gear, with no idea.

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