Ian Noble

No. 005 in Ferrari Titanium Silver. 7,880 miles. Built by Caterham March 2000. Full weather gear. Plumbed in extinguisher. Battery cut out. Kept in tip top condition with no expense spared. FCSH. Just serviced. £30,000 Reason for sale is due to the purchase of Simon Lambert's Supergrad car, which I have just started racing this year. Hence the R500 will not be used. Needs to go to a good home to keep up the TLC.

Mark, I have adjustable suspension so I don't know how high/low yours sits. Ian

Blimey! I didn't expect such an immediate and overwhelming response. Also I may have a bit premature in offering these for sale as I last night established that I could not fit the ideal replacement to my car. Let me explain: On Sunday I competed in a sprint at the Lotus test track at Hethel, on these wheels and tyres. I afraid what follows is the never ending 'which tyre/wheel combination is best' saga. Although Mike Bees competes in class 7 and I'm in 8, I used to 'mix it' with him in my 1600 Superlight before I took delivery of my R500 last March. Despite Mike's undoubted talent and superior power I sometimes beat him and often was quite close on times, using A509's on Supalite wheels (the A509 was about the softset compound then). However, as you know I cannot use my sticky CR500 tyres that came with my new car as they are not in List 1A of the MSA Blue Book. So, I had new 509's fitted to my Supalite Wheels 185/60/13 front and wider 205/60/13 to the rear (hoping for more traction). I only did one sprint last year when I was running the car in and gave up subsequently as I was plagued with R500 teething problems. So.... back to Hethel, my first two runs where 87 and 85 seconds compared to Mike Bees' 80 and 79 second runs. My car felt like it was on ice and I could not put any power down. Although my antics were pleasing the spectators, who either thought I was reckless or just a pratt, I dearly longed for my old 1600 Superlight. However, by pumping up the tyres to 22lbs instead of the 18lbs I had in them, I took 2nd in my class at just over 1 second behind Mike Simpson and 1.5 seconds behind Mike Bees class winning time. The bottom line is that the tyres were perfect for my 1600 but can't handle the power of the R500. So I thought I would pursue Mike Bees solution of Bridgestone S02's on 15" rims, price a set from Demon tweeks and advertise mine (thinking someone might be interested in the next month or so). You guys must have been sitting there with your fingers on the button! Anyway, last night I establised that a 15" rim with tyre will not fit under my front arch, so I will have to hang fire until further investigation. I will contact each of you in order of interest (Stuart who phoned, Steve, Ken and Mark). Apologies for getting everyones hopes up. Regards Ian

1 year old superlight wheels (K Series/De Dion) fitted with 2 x 185/60/13 and 2x 205/60/13n Yokohama A509 list 1a (wider on rear to get traction for R500)only done 500 miles. Cost £600 plus, will accept £250. Call Ian Noble on 01708 750452 and leave message or email ian.noble@pts-ltd.com

Yes Andrew, I'm afraid your starter may be getting cooked by the exhaust manifold. If this is the case you will have to get a new one (£150- £170). However, get the geared one used for race engines as the solonoid is underneath away from the down pipes. You could try shielding the current one with a heat wrap (Demon Tweeks) but it may be too late. I had 3 on my '96 Superlight. The last one I shielded.

Steve, Try smothering the nose cone with baby oil and thrashing it with a large branch Basil Fawlty style. This may be more strenuous than applying Autoglym, but the oil will give it a superb gloss finish!