It’s 5.50am.  It’s dark and cold and coffee is being consumed at ET Plymouth like it is going out of fashion and in a cacophony of turbocharged noises from the Impreza S10 WRC replica and Evo 8 MR (available via ET Classifieds), we leave to meet up with the rest of the Enginetuner crew.

Sedgemoor services is reached and we await Rob and Max who are piloting the R34 GTR and Nissan Pulsar GTi-R, respectively.  Another coffee consumed and OD’ing on caffeine it’s time to hit the road once again with the ET playlist blasting via the bluetooth speaker (no car stereo in the WRC car, thanks Rob – racecar vibes – Petter Solberg didn’t have one either.  That said, if Petter had downloaded the ET playlist via Spotify he may have approached things differently!) It’s not long before we roll into Castle Combe Circuit to set up with our buddies from Link ECU.

Flags erected, advertising and brochures displayed; a crowd soon gathers to check out our offerings of JDM goodness.  The GTR and GTiR – both fettled by Enginetuner and fitted with Link engine management – take pride of place and had crowds around them most of the day.  

Despite the early showers and dismal weather forecast, there was a great attendance at the event with considerable effort made by attendees to show off their halloween spirit.  A quick break in the weather enabled us to stock up on breakfast and topped up with energy, we take a nice meander around the trade area and car clubs.  Car of the show for us?  Probably the triple rotor, carbon kevlar C6 Corvette piloted by @Axel.turbo.  What a noise that thing makes!

Whilst the track was still in the process of drying out, track users were understandably tentative.   As luck would have it and perfectly timed, the sun began to shine just as the drifters were due to slide on track!  There is something most bizarre about watching drift cars on a wet surface – a lack of tyre smoke seems to make a huge difference.  Thankfully a few laps in and the drifty boys and girls had the circuit almost dry and we were reunited with the familiar sight and smell of tyre smoke.

Back at our base camp, we were able to capture a quick Vlog with the Link team on their latest products – keep an eye out on our Youtube channel for that one!

As the old saying goes, time flies when you are having fun.  Before we knew it, it was time for three parade laps of the circuit in the GTR, GTi-R and the wide body Impreza (or two laps for the WRC car – transpires that the marshals aren’t particularly enamoured by the open exhaust valve, screamer pipe and anti-lag on the car driven by Rob), the time then came to pack up and make our way back to ET Plymouth!

All in all, a great way to wind down the car event season.  See you again next year Combe – perhaps the Enginetuner Drivers Club will hire out the entire track before long!?

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