September 8th 2017: Trip to Minehead: ~140 miles (Clock to 730)

After returning from Brands Hatch on the 2nd of September, I put the Lotus Elise under the car cover again. Now, it’s a car and it’s not going to dissolve in the rain, so it doesn’t need to go under the car cover every time I’m going to leave it for a few days, but I quite like to do this. Might the car cover scratch the car? Not sure, but I’ll definitely find this out soon. The weather in England is getting rainy, so certainly whilst the soft top is on the car, the extra waterproofing of the car cover is a good thing (and protection from bird droppings, and protection from the fading effect from the little bit of sun we get.) I’ll soon put the hardtop back on the car. The car cover’s also useful to minimize attention.

On Thursday, knowing it was going to be raining on Friday, I took the car cover off (wanted to have a dry car cover in my boot available for when I’m down in Minehead on the 8th.) Went to the garage and filled up to the brim with £27 - that’s not bad when you consider I drove 185 miles to Brands Hatch and back - and not any of those miles on motorways (works out at 36 MPG).

My route down to Minehead (from Thatcham area) on Friday the 8th (I left around 6pm), avoided motorways (since they’re boring to drive on), and intentionally avoided the bit of A303 around Stonehenge (which is famous for long traffic jams.) It was an excellent drive with hardly any hold ups (thanks Waze), and I was very impressed with the A30 (very Roman Road style.) The journey was around 140 miles which puts the car on around 730 miles.

One thing I did notice in this drive - perhaps this is because I’m getting more confident in the car - I twice struggled to get the car into 2nd gear, so note to myself to not rush going from 1st to 2nd. If you apply Reg Local’s teachings on changing gear you really should have zero problems.

Image: Route to Minehead

So now this diary blog is pretty much up to date. I’ve got to drive back home. A couple of drives to Thruxton. And then back to Wales for my 1000-mile first service on 20th September. The car is happily parked under cover in Minehead (it’s a bit Thunder stormy - I was lucky to arrive just in time to put the cover on.) 2 days under cover and we’ll be off again.

Image: Lotus Elise parked up in Minehead and under cover

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