| 3rd April 2002 | |
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After a few days of stressing myself with the decision and talking to various and numerous
people about it, I decide to go for the Westfield. Call the factory and place a deposit on the
last MegaBird in the special offer. I’ve decided that I can have a newer and arguably better car than if I went the Caterham route, plus I get to build it which will be (mostly) excellent. The bike engine will certainly give me the different experience I am looking for at the moment. The worst that can happen is that I don’t get on with it, then I can just sell it and find something else. |
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| 5th April 2002 | |
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Receive receipt for deposit and invite to Curborough Test Day. This will allow me to drive the
car to make sure I fit in it, and get on with it, etc. Again this seems like a sensible thing to do
when spending this sort of amount on a car… you wouldn’t buy without trying an ‘ordinary’
car. Contact Simon to confirm that I will be going to Curborough, and agree with him to open an email discussion of the specification and price for my car. |
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| 10th April 2002 | |
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Received revised details for Curborough Test Day – it’s going to mean a really early start for
me to get there for 0830! Following lots of discussion with Simon, I’m fairly happy that I have agreed the spec as follows: |
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| 11th April 2002 | |
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Westfield have some FW400s advertised on their website... been thinking about whether that
might be a better option since it has a more known quantity in the K-series engine, and the
FW400 is a pretty rare and lovely beast (can’t believe the price they are going for now!).
Although it would probably cost more long term (assuming my engine and gearbox(es) hold
together!) since a prang in one of those is bad/expensive news and there are quite a few trick
parts on it which add to the complexity (i.e. Hewland transaxle). Perhaps not such a great idea. |
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| 12th April 2002 | |
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Have been in discussion with various people on different lists and forums regarding wheel and
tyres sizes. Have been thinking about sticking with the 185s on 6” wheels rather than be
overtyred with the upgrade have included in the spec of my car. Hopefully they’ll get swapped
for mag alloys at some point in the future as this will help to reduce the unsprung weight of
the car (a good thing!). Spent the evening helping Jim with bleeding the brakes on his Westfield, it all seemed pretty straight forward, and served to inspire the need to get my car and get on with it! |
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| 16th April 2002 | |
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Curborough Test Day. I got up extra early for my mission to try to get to Curborough for 0830. The journey up there was going well until I got to ?, where I thought I could just about make it in time if I took a short cut. Unfortunately this landed me right in the middle of rush hour, which was not so clever. Eventually wound up being around 30 minutes or so late. I’ve just missed the walk of the track with words of wisdom from the Westfield race driver, but fortunately I’ve attended and marshalled sprints here before so I know the course layout. I’m towards the bottom of the list of those having a drive in the MegaBusa, so get a chance to watch how the others go first... and build the nerves up a bit! It is the same car which Simon took me out in on my Westfield factory visit. The format for the days seems to be Mega tests in the morning, with the first customer drives of the first road-legal XTR2 in the afternoon. Each of us gets three sessions, the first includes being shown a couple of laps with the instructor, and the last some hot laps with the race driver. First impressions of watching those before me in the queue driving the car are that it looks pretty quick. Of course, we are all (mostly) taking it fairly easy, but the final straight allows us to open it up a bit in relative safety. Also the car sounds awesome – it really does sound like a race car, as someone commented later “it sounds like a mini touring car”. Soon enough it is my first go in the car. The first couple of laps are with James, who will take it relatively steady to show us the general line of the lap and behaviour of the car. Strapped into the passenger seat, he makes it all look very easy, though I have a sneaky suspicion that the clutch and throttle control isn’t quite as easy as he makes it seem – the big clue here is that a few people have been stalling it when trying to pull away! Then it’s my first go in the driving seat. I squeeze myself into position – even with me being particularly skinny, it’s not the easiest car to get into! Turn the key and the bike engine bursts into life... now it’s getting exciting... following instruction we are just pulling away by slipping the clutch with the engine at tickover. This is quite a feat in itself both for my foot control, and that the car is able to do it since it is a slight incline. Being particularly nervous I take it very easy for a couple of laps, after which the temptation has become too great to crack it open down the straight. Needless to say it goes well and seems pretty willing, but this being the Busa it did seem to be less willing once you get over 9000rpm. But that might just be me not used to it. The most memorable thing about my first drive is the gearchange. It felt completely natural (once I’d got over checking for neutral like on a H-gate!), especially down shifting at the end of the straight – just stab the lever away from you with palm of your hand, very nice. Another break now until my turn in the second runs. Took this time out to watch the other people circulating – wish I could do some sort of comparison to how I was going – some people being smoother than others, but only one spin during the whole morning was ok. Soon enough it’s my second run in the car. This time I try to be a bit clever and lift the revs slightly to pull away. A bit quicker but not particularly smooth, though I think this will come with (lots of) practice. I decided to take the first lap slow to give some sort of indication what it was like to drive around at 30mph. It seemed perfectly fine and tractable enough from low engine and road speeds. The last few laps I started pushing it a bit harder. I thought that the steering was quite heavy, and the car felt a bit like it didn’t want to turn in, but soon discovered that just applying a bit more lock and it goes where you point it. Really enjoyed going a bit quicker in this run, and had the car twitching beneath me a little on some sneaky double de-clutched downshifts just before the “Molehill”. Our next run was with James, the Westfield factory race driver, driving quickly. Needless to say this was a very impressive demonstration of both his car control, and what can be done with the car in the right hands. He made it look very easy, and I’m sure it isn’t, but I’ll have to have lots of practice to hopefully get somewhere almost not too far off! In the afternoon, the first customer runs in the new XTR2 were being held. I decided that since it was such a lovely day, I might as well hang around and watch the action, talk to some people, and blag a ride in it myself later on. Unfortunately the car broke before I had chance to do so, but it looked and went very for a new car. All in all, good day, and worth the long journey over to Curborough to get a drive in the car, meet the Westfield people, and some other customers. It has confirmed that I am doing the right thing, the only problem is that I want it now! |
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| 19th April 2002 | |
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Have chosen to go with the 7” wheel upgrade and see how things go. I hope to be able to
upgrade to mag wheels at some point anyway, so I can assess how I get on with the larger
tyre first, then decide what size to get in the mag wheel. The current problem is that I am having an absolute nightmare trying to choose a colour! There are four possible colours in the running: Bright Blue, Canary Yellow, Orange, and Post Office Red. Proving very tricky to choose between these! |
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| 24th April 2002 | |
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Have decided to defer the choice of colour after too much agonising. It seems sensible to take
the opportunity to look at the colours at the Stoneleigh National Kit Car show in a couple of
weeks time. It means a split delivery, but I’d rather that than be pressured into a decision I
end up not liking. The split collection might actually make life easier storage-wise, I can build
to a rolling chassis anyway, and I won’t need to store the bodywork while I am doing this. If I
time it right, I can collect the body just when I am ready to fit it to the chassis. Also spent too much time than seems possible trying to get some sort of definitive answer on what size van I will need for the collection. Eventual answer seems to be a long wheel base Luton is the smallest thing which the chassis will fit in due to the length. |
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| 25th April 2002 | |
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Having seen the problems Jim has in fitting his, and how good Ed’s looks, I have decided to re-
spec the roll bar to be fully welded from the factory rather than their usual bolt-on option. This
is stiffer and lighter than the original option, and I am also having the forward (petty) strut
option – increased safety and it looks cool! Reserved the biggest Luton with tail lift I could find, as I now have an agreed collection date for part one of Friday 24th May – four weeks time! |
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| 29th April 2002 | |
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Finally got a loan sorted out, after having had some problems with certain companies offering
rates much different to those advertised. I've ended up with Tesco subject to them checking
my documents, so it’s all looking good on the finance front now. I should have all the monies
sitting in my account(s) in a week or so. Still no verdict on colour, but Stoneleigh coming up at the weekend to help choose! |
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| ©2002-2009 David Hackett |
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