Ring Reviews
Caterham R300 Superlight: First lap
- Details
- Parent Category: Nurburgring
- Created on Tuesday, 14 June 2011 14:44
- Last Updated on Tuesday, 24 April 2012 22:04
- Published on Tuesday, 14 June 2011 14:44
- Written by Dale
It's almost 55 years since Colin Chapman, the founder of Lotus, completed his first Type-7. And like the greatest examples of engineering, the Seven is still going strong. This is the R300 Superlight - an EU-approved sub-500kg weapon that can run circles around cars costing twice as much with three times the horsepower...
Regular readers will remember that I recently tested the more road-orientated 2010 Caterham CSR175 and was fairly impressed. Kurt Hoffmann (pictured above) and other members of the international family that is Caterham are keen that I try the 'full-strength' R300 model to see what a real track-orientated 7 can do.
So this story starts on Saturday afternoon, and the R300 above is brand new. Totally new. Like "eat your english fish and chips off the paintwork" new.
Kurt, Caterham's de-facto German importer, has only just PDI'd and plated the car yesterday, before trailering it over to me post-haste. In fact, the car's only completed 23kms prior to unloading from it the trailer - to say this is a rush job would be the understatement of the year.
I'm assured the motor's broken in sufficiently on the bench and I'm not to worry. Even so, the spec does make me think twice - full dry sump conversion, Lotus standalone ECU, racing 4-into-1 exhaust system. It looks a little bit too trick to be treating it like a Mondeo taxi motor now...
My first lap is actually on the Saturday night, and I won't pull any punches. This ends in crippling shame.
After a fun little lap getting to know the flightly beast, I realise that the temperature gauge is climbing. And this is what the queue to come off the circuit looks like...
Now if I look a little hot in the next picture, just imagine what the motor's feeling like with NO FAN RUNNING.
Problem. I've only just realised the fan's not running. The surrounding noise of hundreds of hot cars has completely masked my own. Panic crosses my mind! But I'm less than 100 metres from the track exit and only just over 100 degrees on the temperature readout. I can make it. All I need is to move at 10mph and I'll get away with it... or so I think.
The final exit off the track is two cars wide, and half-way down we're stuck. With no cool air to go over the combined water and oil cooler, it's not long before the steam starts to rise. And behind me a trail of slippery shame begins to leak. Bugger.
While cars come off the track, I throw my €112 of builder's sand all over the leak. As soon as the crowds have left, I inspect the damage - nothing serious (this isn't a K-series, remember) and I grab a bucket of water off Didi at the Devil's Diner and cruise the car back to the Rent4Ring workshop.
But all is not lost. Over and above the call of duty, Fredy and Thorsten step in, and with specific instructions from Caterham Cars, over the phone at 10pm on a Saturday night, we modify the thermostat to open quicker and also hot-wire the fan on.
Just before midnight we're all off home and ready for the morning... and why is the morning so important?
Oh, it's just the Daily Planet show from Discovery Channel - here to do a feature on Bridgetogantry.com! :D
More tomorrow, including an onboard lap.
Comments
I even worry (unnecessarily) about my Clio's temp when I'm queuing to leave the track so you must have been getting really stressed out.
Funny situation in hindsight, not so funny when you're in it!
i was also in that queue sat evening -we had only just arrived for the weekend and managed to get a couple of laps in inc half the gp circuit(nice surprise) - hope all is well with the caterham
Given you have a jahreskarte, wouldn't you be able to avoid the long queues by using the Adeneau exit to enter or exit the track on busy TF days?
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