Last Sunday I attended a 30-130 day at RAF Marham and apart from the poor weather conditions ( rained nearly all day ) and the admin **** up from the Mitsubishi Lancer Register organisers for some of the other guys, the baby GTI performed faultlessly. After discussions with people who had been before and looking at past results I had set myself targets of 30mph -130mph at 25-30 seconds and a top speed of 140mph.
The event itself is held every year and in a 1.2 mile strip you have to accelerate through cones from under 20mph and go as fast as you can before the brake markers and barriers at the 1.2 mile marker, most brake well before the markers.
Top speed achieved was 142.94 mph ( showed as 160 mph on the speedo )
30-130 mph was done in 24.04 seconds
So mission achieved on both accounts.
What I didn't realise was that the airstrip wasn't flat, which I thought it would have been. There was a significant incline for the first third of the strip, then flat-ish in the middle and then back to an incline for the last third. With this and the fact the surface was soaking wet the times for everyone weren't as good as expected. I had to start off the runs in third gear after finding out that a second gear start just ends up in a hail of wheelspin!
To give you all some idea of where I came in the overall standings, I came 39th out of 65 runners and beat some cars that I thought I wouldn't - R32, MKII Focus RS, RS4, Scooby etc.
The RAF however were military precision personified and made the day run as smoothly as it possibly could have.
Great to meet a few guys down there and have a chat or two. Dan GB made 160mph
My mate's Porker 997 turbo didn't do badly at all to say it was on worn road tyres, manual and still on the stock turbo's. 30-130 in 10.7 and a top speed of 193mph. Next year will be different though
The Golf ED30 had more issues as the health check the day before found it needing 3 new tyres, but no R1R's or semi-slicks could be sourced in time. That meant that with the race file, hybrid K04 and WMI it was all a bit too much for the traction and meant the car could only be floored once it was well over 100mph and had to brake early again due to the poor tyres. Craig didn't feel confident above 150mph in it as it was sliding all over and you have to remember it wasn't his car!
Like I said though it was a successful first time out for the hybrid turbo on a non-specific map and not bad for a little 1.39 litre car eh?
Next year my targets will be sub 20 seconds and over 150mph, with a few more mods.