went out for a club run up near Pitlochry today, Weather was not so good, mostly wet and loads of wet leaves on the road. Just perfect for a mid engined turbo charged rear wheel drive motor.
I drove up through milngavie, aberfoyle, callender, Killin then onto Aberfeldy then Pitlochry itself.
I drove sensibly but still had some moments. Front end slides and a couple of rear end movements. Slowing right down for the corners and just balancing the car through the throttle helped greatly but some corners had leaves and some didn't. Some of the road surfaces were just rubbish and offered about as much grip as a greasy block of ice. I was really careful just to be smooth and really quite slow round the corners and then slowly accelerate back up to sensible speed. Although the speeds were slower than I'd normally drive at I still had some fun as I was thinking more about what I was doing rather than just hooning from one corner to the next. Turning onto the main road on the last 4 miles of the journey I got wheelspin in a straight line in 2nd gear. Damn it just lit up the rears.
Unfortunately we lost a mk1 on route due to engine failure so one down already.
After meeting up at Pitlochry we then drove around the route and we were real easy and slow, only one guy knew the road and he lead us off down the winding road. Again we were fairly slow not doing anything daft but the roads being so slippy I still had a couple of moments.
Then it happened.
Driving into a very slow left hander the lead car hit some diesel and round he went. It being such a slow corner we had all bunched up and some how we all stopped without incident / running into anybody. Me having ABS stopped no fuss but the mk1 behind me locked up and had to straight line the corner and then re apply the brakes. Colin managed fine and missed me ok. Luckyily the escort that was following Colin managed to miss him also.
The damage to Peter's car is bumper damaged, needing replaced, fog lights needing replaced, rear right alloy rim busted so needing replacement too. Nobody got hurt so we called a halt to everything and just headed off home.
The weather was now constant rain and really unpleasant to be out it. Pulling onto the A9 from Pitlochry and coming off the Broxburn runabout again I got wheelspin in 2nd gear in a straight line which certainly keeps you honest.
I've checked the tyres and they have more than the legal tread but really they could do with being replaced as they aint so good in the wet.
MR2's are completely different animals in the wet in comparison to the sure foot nature of the dry. Just have to respect the layout and not over drive it.
Take it easy out there
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