. . .  which as ever comes up trumps with more than enough information to get things moving.

Quite a lot of things which are either needed or are useful for sprinting were already in place as Brum was built for the Roadsport B race series. So, twin throttle return springs, yellow tape on battery negative cable, battery master switch, fire extinguisher (still showing green but will need testing I guess) and assorted labelling all get a tick in the box.

/Portals/14/Blog/Files/21/58/2009-05%20Brum%20Sprint%20Prep%20001.jpg%20  /Portals/14/Blog/Files/21/58/2009-05%20Brum%20Sprint%20Prep%20002.jpg%20 /Portals/14/Blog/Files/21/58/2009-05%20Brum%20Sprint%20Prep%20005.jpg%20

/Portals/14/Blog/Files/21/58/2009-05%20Brum%20Sprint%20Prep%20003.jpg%20  /Portals/14/Blog/Files/21/58/2009-05%20Brum%20Sprint%20Prep%20029.jpg%20

Tyres - I‘m planning to compete in class 1 so they need to be list 1A. The current tyre of choice seems to be Yoko A539’s. My rims aren’t the best but they are only the “spare” set. At the same time as swapping the tyres and wheels over I also swapped the front brake pads to Mintex 1144’s. The existing pads were very poor when cold, the 1144’s feel much better. I think they're a good compromise for my mix of road and track and should give me some confidence that I can slow down approaching the first corner!

 /Portals/14/Blog/Files/21/58/2009-05%20Brum%20Sprint%20Prep%20022%20copy.jpg%20

Roll Cage – she was bought with a full cage. From my point of view I feel more secure than with a roll bar.

 /Portals/14/Blog/Files/21/58/2009-05%20Brum%20Sprint%20Prep%20022%20copy%202.jpg%20

Head Room – the down side of having a full cage, tillets, plus being long in the body and short in the legs is that I couldn’t get anywhere near the 50mm clearance required. The upshot being that the tillet seat had to come out. A mixture of an Oxted seat base, some standard foam, a smattering of 2part foam mix, some black leather effect material, spay glue, gaffer tape and not a little frustration has seen something that just about does the job. It’s certainly not pretty but I do feel like I’m finally “in” the car rather than “on” it.

 /Portals/14/Blog/Files/21/58/2009-05%20Brum%20Sprint%20Prep%20008.jpg%20 /Portals/14/Blog/Files/21/58/2009-05%20Brum%20Sprint%20Prep%20009.jpg%20

Head rest – This was a bit of a head “ache”. The car came with the two part support designed to assist the tillet head-rest. “Fine” I thought “I can make use of that”. However the lateral support bar had had it’s chips because the thread was stripped and it wasn’t long enough to reach the position of the main head-rest. “Two months minimum to get a new one.” said Caterham “You’d be better having a go at fabricating your own”. So I did. It looks a bit like over-grown mecano and consists of a 35mm exhaust clamp, a 200mm length of threaded 8mm bar and assorted nylock nuts, washers and black electrical tape but again I think it does the job.

 /Portals/14/Blog/Files/21/58/2009-05%20Brum%20Sprint%20Prep%20016.jpg%20 /Portals/14/Blog/Files/21/58/2009-05%20Brum%20Sprint%20Prep%20032.jpg%20

Timing Strut – I bought this from Caterham, all I’ve done is araldite the bolts in place on the bracket to make it easier to deal with.

 /Portals/14/Blog/Files/21/58/2009-05%20Brum%20Sprint%20Prep%20040.jpg%20 

Finally and not to be forgotten are the speed championship stickers.

/Portals/14/Blog/Files/21/58/2009-05%20Brum%20Sprint%20Prep%20020.jpg%20

Next stop Curborough on May 17 2009 for which I have yet another long list of things not to forget,kindly provided by the ever enthusiastic members of BlatChat. Thanks to everyone who's pointed me in the right direction either on the forum or by email . . . . http://my.lotussevenclub.com/Providers/HtmlEditorProviders/Fck/fckeditor/editor/images/smiley/msn/regular_smile.gif