johns

Next Aberdeen monthly meeting will be on Tuesday 5th December at 7:30pm. Venue still to be decided. Was at Oldmeldrum last time, so may be there again or somewhere else if anyone has any good suggestions. John

Sam is an ex Subaru owner and SIDC member who used to do lots of our track events about 3 to 5 years ago. Went through some different cars and went over to the dark side a while ago. Not seem him for about 18 months, but it sounds like he is kept busy enough! John

Lol! Higgy drives a MY02 bugeye car himself, though not sure if he has taken his own advice [] Back on the serious side of things, I've just left mine as standard. A few guys have rpelaced the grille inserts at the side of the front grill for a different version (was available from Subaru dealers), and few have swapped the lights. Apart from that, not many people do anything with them. I'd recommend just having some fun driving the car for a few months, and think about any changs over the winter period [] John

When I bought my last tyres (Michelin Pilot Sports), I got them through Blackcircles.com with SIDC discount (you need to phone up). Were fitted locally, and slightly cheaper than Costco (by about £2/tyre). The one good thing about Costco, is that you can walk around the store, watching plasma Tvs and eating all the free samples of food whilst waiting for your tyres to be fitted []

I just left mine alone (it's in the boot on my car), and never had any issues. John

Steve, you can use the winter tyres every day. They are only V rated (up to 130mph), but the chances of anyone going faster that in our winter conditions are quite remote. They do have softer sidewalls, and due to the number of cuts (sipes) in the tread, they are a bit squishy on dry roads, and you'll feel the car rolling more than you would normally expect, and understeer earlier coming out of corners etc, but you soon get used to it. Where they come into their own is on colder days, where the roads are wet/greasy, and braking distances are much shorter and the car is much less nervous. On snow and ice, the difference is astounding - I had to work to get the wheels to spin on frsh snow, whereas on normal/summer tyres, the slightest twitch of the throttle in any lower gears had the back end sliding around. However, the biggest difference is again under braking. I've got a downhill slope onto a main road, which after a few cars have driven over it tends to be akin to wet polished ice. On normal road tyres, I've got to stick the car into 1st gear and use engine braking in conjunction with very slight brake pressure to come to a gentle stop. Last year, there was a 1.0 VW Polo with skinny tyres which was unable to stop at all going down the hill, and skidded righ across the main road and collided with a van on the other side. On my winter tyres, I was able to come to a complete stop halfway down the slope with no fuss or drama. At times it was hard to tell that the road was even covered in snow and ice!! After running them for 4 months, the wear was negligible, so I can see me getting 4 or 5 winters out of the set. Overall, about 15% of the time during the 4 months, I would have been better with normal summer tyres (the occassional warm/dry day). About 30% of the time there wouldn't have been much difference between them (wet days, but not freezing), but the remaining 55% of the time I was far better off having the winter tyres fitted. Regarding other Mchelins, the recent Pilot Sport PS2s are very good tyres, and probably one of the best all round tyres for the Impreza during the summer months. Even Mike Wood from Prodrive recommended them above their usual Pirelli's! Some of their other "commuter type" tyres aren't so great though, as they are designed for long life. John

Some great prizes up for grabs, I'm sure there will be a few more kind people on these forums who will buy some tickets from peter. Al the money is going to a great cause. John PS You might want to update the list of people who have paid after KH []

Was at Costco at the weekend. They have a deal on at the moment if you buy a set of 4 Michelin tyres, then you get a whopping 20% off the total bill. This also applied to their excellent range of winter tyres Michelin Alpin PA2(3), which I used last winter. Just got a quote to get some fitted to y wife's Astra (205/55x16), and the cost for a set of 4 brand new winter tyres was about £275 including fitting, balancing etc. A set of 225/45x17s was about £94 each including fitting etc under this deal. The guy informed me that the deal on winter tyres will run until the end of the year, but I'm not sure if this only applies to the Aberdeen depot. Now that the track day season is effectively over, and the roads are cold, wet and covered in leaves, I'll be fittig my winter tyres in the next week or two when I find some time. John

Still fine and dry here in ABZ, but dark and cloudy!

Reserve list now down to 3 cars.

Both the BBC and ITV weather this morning made it look like it should remain dry. Might be cloudy, but certainly no heavy rain forecast. John

Just for everyone's information, the event is fully subscribed and we have a reserve list of 5 cars currently. John

There's quite a few Elise/Exige owners from Aberdeen coming down as well, plus another couple of Imprezas in addition to the ones mentioned above. John

Event finishes a 1pm, but normally the last cars going out on track will do so about 12:40 - 12:45. The last 15 minutes tend to be the busiest of the day as people ant to get just one more session before going home []

It's free to watch, though we may ask for Santa Cruise donations for passenger laps. John

Just sent out the warm up groups to those taking part. Some very Tasty cars taking part this time, so well worth coming along to watch and possibly get passenger laps. Craig - sorry to hear you can't make it this time. Hope the back gets better soon. We may ask for donations to the Santa Cruise fund in exchange for passenger laps (depends if someone can assist me on the day), so please give generously. John

Tut has arranged for the petrol station in Drum which sells V-Power to open early at about 7:40am, for those who want to fill up before coming to Knockhill on time [] John

It's a feature of the software we use. If someone replies to an old post, but then deletes it, then it still appears at the top of the list of recent messages as it goes by the time last updated timestamp on the thread. John

Either/both are acceptable for Saturday. I think from next year you will need to present both parts of the licence. John

Nope, when we migrated servers/system etc we took across previous posts etc. This meeting did actually take place and we had about 10 - 15 cars if I remember and some good photos (though I forgot my camera that day!). John

Dunc, check the date when the above was posted! John

I'll be there about 7:15, but the followers-on will probably be about 7:30(ish)

If your car has the PPP fitted, then there is a chance that your car may already have the prodrive springs fitted. Check the colour of the springs you have on your car. If they are red in colour (might need to scrape off the mud and dirt!), then you have the prodrive ones fitted. Black = standard springs. John

Welcome. Should be quite a good turn-out on Saturday, and plenty of very nice cars to get passenger laps in (not just Imprezas - in fact we are outnumbered again!) Even though the forecast is looking dry, I'd strongly advise that you wrap up warm. John

Portlethen Asda Car Park, 6:20 - 6:40am I'll be leaving earlier than everyone else as I need to be there first. If you are taking part, then leaving about 6:40am should see you there around 8:00 - 8:10am at a comfortable driving pace. John