Slow in Fast out!

Ascari race track near Ronda, Malaga was host to the yearly event for the 103 Octanos car club. A mix of Machines from Nissan GTRs to Lotus 7s, Clios, Honda S2000 and the star of the day the TypeR Mini.

Bus gives birth to Mini

Tim Milne of DHS Sound and Vision, Estepona bought his ZCar last year an original Mini with Zcars proto-type sub frames and is still getting use to its 250hp at the back wheels. Weighing only 700kg and even with Avon slicks it is a hard car to control. The Civic TypeR engine and gearbox are mounted in the back and first and second gears a blocked off as they just spin the wheels.

After the morning sessions getting used to the many curves, corners and banking things started to speed up. Fellow racers in Caterhams, a true track car, were lapping in 2.42s and the fasted man of the day was a Porsche Carrera GT at 2.27. Keeping the Mini online and power down managed a respectable 2.47 lap before gearbox problems. Fitted with a limited-slip-dif finally seemed to cause some overheating leaving it stuck in third by late afternoon. That left only one thing to day which was to enjoy the beautiful surroundings at Ascari and watch some of the other cars finish the last session of the day.

Big car eats little car

Nice bird

Big Bird

So it was time to pack up the bus, the sandwiches, the jack until the next meet and remember the formula of 'slow into the corner means fast out'.