On Track: Bedford SEN in Gale-Force Winds

It took us way to long, but we have finally got out on track this year. The opportunity for me and Luke of Junsport to have a day down at Bedford Autodrome on the SEN circuit came up and we were never going to say no to it. Even if we were battling 50mph winds, the day was still a huge success. The trackday was booked out, with some decent machinery around, a couple of Lotus’s, plenty of BMW’s, a few Mini’s and a splattering of other manufacturers.

We never got some proper clean laps out on track so the fastest time that was achieved was a 1.56.3 but this still had traffic at the start of the lap. It would have been nice to have got a full clean lap in and see what we could actually do time-wise. But I think that was a good time considering the track day was about enjoying the car and not lap times. Thankfully there was only some running wide on corners, and no full-blown off circuit moments, unlike the first time we came to Bedford. Each lap we got more confident in the car and pushed the car’s limits without feeling like the car would snap on us.

Getting out on track with a variety of machinery was a good test to see how the R56 performs against some of the more powerful stuff. The performance we are getting now, especially in the mid-range, is making it so we can hang with things like BMW Z4M’s on the straight and easily outperform them in the corners. Even trying to hold a Lotus Elise 250 Cup behind us was a good challenge for the car, and although we couldn’t keep the lotus behind, the R56 gave the Lotus a good run.

The question now is how close are we to the Mini R56 Challenge cars performance. We run more power than those cars, but we are also heavier, which would offset the advantage. Suspension wise, we are on a more compromised setup, but a heavier weighted spring would cure that. Then it would just be down to brakes and tyres to bring us somewhere close to their overall lap performance.

Plenty more still to come with the track project R56, so keep checking back for updates!