Had a trip out to Cadwell Park on Monday 15th May, despite me looking at the weather for the week prior to the event and trying to wish the rain away this did not happen, Every time I have taken the Z4 to the track it has rained, maybe its because I'm not in my bright yellow Z3! Hmmmmmmm..........
As Cadwell Park is quite a way from home this involves two overnight stops, The car was prepared on Saturday and loaded on to the trailer, new brake pads all round, again. I had fitted a complete set of new Textar pads prior to Anglesey but a wet day on track plus a couple of hundred miles post trackday had the pads worn down to the limit!, The new pads this time were a new compound for me, Carbon Metallic made by performance friction pads, I made a mental note when fitting these that the rear discs will need replaced in the not too distant future.
Sundays trip down the country is a long trip, you just have to put the distance out of your mind and trudge onwards, Aarron my youngest son was with me this time so at least I had him to keep me company
Monday morning came, sunshine outside the premier inn, hurray I thought, this did not last long, the weather forecast was for once correct, the heavens opened. With the signing on process and safety briefing complete we took to the track for the sighting laps, this is a standard 3 lap tour of the circuit at a steady pace to let everyone see the circuit.
At approx 09:40 the pit lane was opened, we went straight out and stayed out on track for a good 40 mins, the rain came down but despite this I had a great time, near the end of the stint on track I noticed the exhaust noise getting louder, we pulled in to the pits to investigate, for the first time in a few years I had suffered a failure of something at a track, the exhaust clamp that holds the back box on the car had split and the exhaust was blowing badly.
A walk round the pits to see if I could muster up a plan got me nowhere, i took the handle off a bucket I had to try and tie the exhaust pieces back together but no joy. I then had an idea which involved some jubilee bands, a trip in to nearby louth, 6no: jubilee bands later and I had come up with this.
It worked a treat and let me carry on with the day, fitted to the car it looked like this.
We had lost 2 hours coming up with this fix, going to get the parts and fitting etc. I can tell you lying on the ground in the rain is not fun!
After lunch we were determined to get out on track and make up some lost time, a few laps on track, back to the pits to see if the clamp had held and then straight back out for another session of 15 mins or so, by this time the rain had stopped and the hint of a dry line was appearing.
After a short comfort break, I went back out again and bingo, a true dry line had appeared, foot to the floor time
Aarron (my son) who was enjoying his first track day went a little quite and then piped up "we are going a lot faster than we were before Dad!" this is the first time I had driven the Z4M on a dry track, WOW! what a car! I had a brilliant 45 min session. The new brake pads were very good, giving a good feel and bite both cold and hot, had a quick look at the rears tonight and there is plenty of meat left on them too.
The rest of the day stayed dry and a good few more laps were notched up before loading back on to the trailer for the trip back to the hotel for the night.
As mentioned in other posts, we had a good few red flags (7) for incidents out on track, this is unusual for our club days but everyone was OK, apart from some dented metal and dented prides.
Back home a new exhaust clamp was fitted, this is an after market kit but does the job well. I will maybe double nut the bolts?
The other side looks like this, I have the new clamp ready to fit