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My Uninspiring Blue Lotus Elan was still showing the marks of its workout in the El Capitan Enduro when I wheeled it on to the startline of its next challenge. There is an A/C Cobra that pretty much dominates the 1000 Miles! endurance championship in the European hall, and it has been widely accepted in this forum that if you want to beat the Cobra in these events, your only real choice of car is.... a Cobra.
There are four tracks in this championship: The Nurburgring, Opera, Monaco (whatever they call it) and Le Sarthe. I have no doubt that the nimble Elan will destoy the powerful but unwieldy Cobra at the tight opera and Monaco circuits, so a championship win would boil down to the Lotus's competitiveness on the two circuits where the Cobra's strengths - straight line speed and acceleration - are most obvious. That means Le Sarthe or the Nurb. Le Sarthe is a very straight track, one where I felt that the Elan's magic cornering trick would not be enough to beat the Cobra's sheer speed. So I chose to take the Cobra on in a at The Nurb, as it seemed the fairest playing field.
Interestingly, the Nurburgring event in this championship is one that I had never won, at least not against the Cobra. When b-spec Bob and I won the championship, in a highly tuned '69 Stingray, we won at Opera, Monaco and Le Sarthe, but came second to the Cobra at The Nurb. I won the gold cup for the Nurb event in this series some time before that in the very same (but rather less modified) Elan that I was entering now, but the Cobra was not present in that race.
I made no changes to the Elan after its El Capitan showing, except to lengthen the gearing slightly to allow a higher top speed. I figured that the Nurb was similarly as bumpy so I did not bother to test the car at the Green Hell. I figured the suspension was up to the job... in my laziness I also neglected to change the oil, and started the race on 200BHP instead of 210.
The competitions was an A/C Cobra (obviously), a Nissan Fairlady 2000, an Alfa GTA, a Mini Marcos and an Isuzu Bellet.
The Nurb 1000 Miles! event features a rolling start to its 25 laps, so I decided to count the 4 a-spec points offered to me on one hand (thumb remained unemployed) while waiting for the PS2 to pass control of my car to me. I crossed the start line, took control of the Elan and we were away.
I passed the GTA, Marcos and Isuzu quite quickly, but once we got into the faster sections my lack of preperation caught up with me. The Elan was proving a handful and pitched me into a couple of enourmous spins which ended in impacts that quite frankly would probably have killed me in a real Elan. A later examination of the replay showed that the little car was picking wheels clean off the tarmc over some of the bumps.. little wonder it felt skittish. I pressed on and got past the Nissan, but was losing ground on the Cobra, while cursing my lack of practice. As the tyres (Sports Hard) started to warm up and my driving became smoother, the Elan settled down and became less of a handful, but as always I had underestimated the concentration levels required at this challenging venue, and was taking a while to up my game.
At the end of lap 1 I was 20 seconds behind, but had shown that I could catch up in some places. If nothing else, the deficit should make a good race out of this.
By the start of lap 4 the gap had increased to 35 seconds, but the Cobra seemed to have a bad lap and I had closed the gap to under 30 seconds by the last check, and then the A/C pitted. This was good. My tyres were still green meaning I could do at least 5 lap stints, so the Cobra would have to pit at least once more than me, and so if I could keep the gap to about 20 seconds, we could have a race on our hands! The Cobra exited the pits into first place, but I was only 8 seconds behind him, and he was obviously struggling on cold tyres. I caught and passed him before the first Karusell and had gained a 4 second lead on him by the start of the long straight. My tyres were starting too look a little yellowy, which meant pitting now (lap 5) or on lap 6. Since both would put me on a 4 stop strategy, I decided to not risk lapping on worn tyres, and pitted at the end of lap 5. The Cobra took the lead again but when I exited the pits the gap was 27 seconds.
Once again the Elan was decidedly unsettled on cold tyres and I soon learnt to take it easy on my outlaps. The Cobra increased its advantage slightly on my first out lap but I was now starting to get into a groove in this car on the Green Hell, and I started eating into his lead. When he pitted again at the end of lap 8 I was just ten seconds behind, and therefore took the lead. I managed to extend my lead before pitting on lap 10. The Cobra again overtook me while I was in the pits, but this time I came out only ten seconds behind, and was in sight of the Cobra when he pitted on lap 12. He came out a good 15 seconds behind me.
By the time I pitted on lap 15 I had a comfortble lead, and exited the pits still in 1st place, with a 5 second advantage. The Cobra managed to eat up that gap while I was being cautious on cold rubber, and he was much faster than me up the long hill. I moved off the racing line to allow him through as I did not want to risk being punted into a time consuming maximum velocity pirouette, especially considering the Cobra was due to pit at the end of the lap, but he aborted his overtaking attempt at the last second and started to fall back behind me. When he pitted at the end of that lap, I was handed a 40 second lead. Since I had only one more pitstop to go and he had two, the race was in the bag.
At the flag, I had a two and a half minute lead.
The final results were:
1st Lotus Elan (me)
2nd A/C Cobra
3rd Nissan Fairlady 2000
4th Alfa Guilia GTA
5th Mini Marcos
6th Isuzu Bellet
Total race time: 3 hours 20 minutes 59 seconds
Fastest lap in Elan: 7:50.240.
That had, for 4 a-spec points, been more of a challenge than the 200 a-spec points I had previously completed at El Capitan... so much for a-spec points then.
During the race my next challenge had sprung to mind. Could my Elan, having beaten the Motorsport Elise on the El Capitan enduro by two laps, repeat its victory without the aid of forced induction?
Elan vs: Elise - Rematch, but this time with just 151BHP, coming soon.
There are four tracks in this championship: The Nurburgring, Opera, Monaco (whatever they call it) and Le Sarthe. I have no doubt that the nimble Elan will destoy the powerful but unwieldy Cobra at the tight opera and Monaco circuits, so a championship win would boil down to the Lotus's competitiveness on the two circuits where the Cobra's strengths - straight line speed and acceleration - are most obvious. That means Le Sarthe or the Nurb. Le Sarthe is a very straight track, one where I felt that the Elan's magic cornering trick would not be enough to beat the Cobra's sheer speed. So I chose to take the Cobra on in a at The Nurb, as it seemed the fairest playing field.
Interestingly, the Nurburgring event in this championship is one that I had never won, at least not against the Cobra. When b-spec Bob and I won the championship, in a highly tuned '69 Stingray, we won at Opera, Monaco and Le Sarthe, but came second to the Cobra at The Nurb. I won the gold cup for the Nurb event in this series some time before that in the very same (but rather less modified) Elan that I was entering now, but the Cobra was not present in that race.
I made no changes to the Elan after its El Capitan showing, except to lengthen the gearing slightly to allow a higher top speed. I figured that the Nurb was similarly as bumpy so I did not bother to test the car at the Green Hell. I figured the suspension was up to the job... in my laziness I also neglected to change the oil, and started the race on 200BHP instead of 210.
The competitions was an A/C Cobra (obviously), a Nissan Fairlady 2000, an Alfa GTA, a Mini Marcos and an Isuzu Bellet.
The Nurb 1000 Miles! event features a rolling start to its 25 laps, so I decided to count the 4 a-spec points offered to me on one hand (thumb remained unemployed) while waiting for the PS2 to pass control of my car to me. I crossed the start line, took control of the Elan and we were away.
I passed the GTA, Marcos and Isuzu quite quickly, but once we got into the faster sections my lack of preperation caught up with me. The Elan was proving a handful and pitched me into a couple of enourmous spins which ended in impacts that quite frankly would probably have killed me in a real Elan. A later examination of the replay showed that the little car was picking wheels clean off the tarmc over some of the bumps.. little wonder it felt skittish. I pressed on and got past the Nissan, but was losing ground on the Cobra, while cursing my lack of practice. As the tyres (Sports Hard) started to warm up and my driving became smoother, the Elan settled down and became less of a handful, but as always I had underestimated the concentration levels required at this challenging venue, and was taking a while to up my game.
At the end of lap 1 I was 20 seconds behind, but had shown that I could catch up in some places. If nothing else, the deficit should make a good race out of this.
By the start of lap 4 the gap had increased to 35 seconds, but the Cobra seemed to have a bad lap and I had closed the gap to under 30 seconds by the last check, and then the A/C pitted. This was good. My tyres were still green meaning I could do at least 5 lap stints, so the Cobra would have to pit at least once more than me, and so if I could keep the gap to about 20 seconds, we could have a race on our hands! The Cobra exited the pits into first place, but I was only 8 seconds behind him, and he was obviously struggling on cold tyres. I caught and passed him before the first Karusell and had gained a 4 second lead on him by the start of the long straight. My tyres were starting too look a little yellowy, which meant pitting now (lap 5) or on lap 6. Since both would put me on a 4 stop strategy, I decided to not risk lapping on worn tyres, and pitted at the end of lap 5. The Cobra took the lead again but when I exited the pits the gap was 27 seconds.
Once again the Elan was decidedly unsettled on cold tyres and I soon learnt to take it easy on my outlaps. The Cobra increased its advantage slightly on my first out lap but I was now starting to get into a groove in this car on the Green Hell, and I started eating into his lead. When he pitted again at the end of lap 8 I was just ten seconds behind, and therefore took the lead. I managed to extend my lead before pitting on lap 10. The Cobra again overtook me while I was in the pits, but this time I came out only ten seconds behind, and was in sight of the Cobra when he pitted on lap 12. He came out a good 15 seconds behind me.
By the time I pitted on lap 15 I had a comfortble lead, and exited the pits still in 1st place, with a 5 second advantage. The Cobra managed to eat up that gap while I was being cautious on cold rubber, and he was much faster than me up the long hill. I moved off the racing line to allow him through as I did not want to risk being punted into a time consuming maximum velocity pirouette, especially considering the Cobra was due to pit at the end of the lap, but he aborted his overtaking attempt at the last second and started to fall back behind me. When he pitted at the end of that lap, I was handed a 40 second lead. Since I had only one more pitstop to go and he had two, the race was in the bag.
At the flag, I had a two and a half minute lead.
The final results were:
1st Lotus Elan (me)
2nd A/C Cobra
3rd Nissan Fairlady 2000
4th Alfa Guilia GTA
5th Mini Marcos
6th Isuzu Bellet
Total race time: 3 hours 20 minutes 59 seconds
Fastest lap in Elan: 7:50.240.
That had, for 4 a-spec points, been more of a challenge than the 200 a-spec points I had previously completed at El Capitan... so much for a-spec points then.
During the race my next challenge had sprung to mind. Could my Elan, having beaten the Motorsport Elise on the El Capitan enduro by two laps, repeat its victory without the aid of forced induction?
Elan vs: Elise - Rematch, but this time with just 151BHP, coming soon.
