The Hothatch Diaries

I think I can safely say, that I am no Renault fanboy. I am definitely well aware of the faults and shortcomings of my Clio. But if Renault’s ad agency Nordpol (Hamburg, Germany) keeps chucking out commercials like this one, that might change:

Of course it is aesthetically impressive, the choice of music (Jacque Offenbach’s “Les Hirondelles bleues”) is spot on and it’s technically well made. But the remarkable thing about it (and about the older Renault Crash Test commercial) is, that it presents such a serious, sensible and boring aspect as safety (yawn) with the greatest of ease and surprising facility — despite of the fact that what you actually see is cars crashing into each other. I might even like this one better than the Crash Test, because of the more subtle humour. And I can’t help but taking a little (totally irrational) pride in driving a car that’s made by a company which approves of commercials like this.

It’s terrible what advertising can do to you.

I am planning my first track day. If all goes well, it will be on November 10th and I will be going to the Spreewaldring Training Center (I’ll write a little more about that track in a pre track day post). “If all goes well” means: if I get my Clio (click on the thumbnail below to get a larger version of the crappy picture) to a competent garage in time, and if that garage can identify and get rid of that strange creaky noise, which seems to come from the chassis.

I guess this is the time where I have to admit that I know next to nothing about the technical side of cars. But even if I did, I wouldn’t have the time nor the place to actually work on anything besides maybe changing a light bulb or a fuse every once in a while. So I have no idea what causes that noise. I can only say that it sounds as if the springs were not as firmly attached to whatever they are supposed to be attached to. On top of that, I’ve recently been getting a clunky noise when accelerating hard from standstill. I wonder if those two noises are related, and I’m determined to find that out. Or rather I’m determined to have someone else find that out. I’ll be calling a garage on monday which, as far as I know, fixed up a Clio Team (which would be the Spanish equivalent to the Cup in the UK or the Ragnotti in France, I think) with a destroyed body a while ago. I came across that garage in a Clio-forum. A guy who races in the New Renault Clio Cup and drives a Clio Williams posted about the built-up of the Team Clio there — which is now driven by his mother(!). So they should know one or two things about a regular Clio Sport, I suppose, but we’ll see about that.

Apart from that, it’s about time to get some proper winter tyres, as it’s really starting to get rather chilly over here. I might try to get those before the track day. I’m going for a set of Pirelli Snowsports in default dimensions 195/45 R16. They won’t have any less grip than my summer rubber (Goodyear Eagle F1 GSD3), I guess, because of the low temperatures. But even if they did, it’s probably just as well for a first outing. The limiting factor will not be the tyres anyway, but the driver.

P.S.: Just in case you were wondering: The Clio rattles, squeaks and creaks in several different ways and areas, not only from the chassis. But unlike the chassis-creaking the rest is to be considered normal (which obviously is the reason for the post title). Nonetheless: It’s an extremely entertaining car and I am really looking forward to finally beat it around a race track.

So here it is, a blog about a guy and his car. Actually, about a guy, who will soon be taking his car to the race track and is planning to write about it. Funny thing is, I’m writing in English, even though I’m German. I’m doing that mainly because most of my motoring-related acquaintances I know through the Internet, and they are not German. I also know a few British and American blogs about similar things. Some of these have actually inspired me to start this. For one, there’s a guy named Dennis, who is building his very own and very special performance machine, the dp1. I stumbled over his blog in February, when people on the LFS-forum I frequent discussed his creation (LFS is short for Live for Speed, which is a great online racing simulator). Dennis also writes a lot about his other vehicles (he has plenty) and how he takes them to track days, mainly at Portland International Raceway. Me, always wanting to go out on a race track myself, found it rather interesting and entertaining to read about his ventures. So I’d recommend dpcars to anyone with a desire for motorsports.

Another site which has inspired me is reynard883.com by a guy named Tristan, I also know from the LFS-forums. He and his family have gotten a Formula 3 car (the Reynard 883, in case you didn’t guess) up, running and racing. He’s finished his first actual season with it just recently. Unfortunately, I will probably never be able to participate in actual races, but it’s great fun to read about it nonetheless.

Last but not least, there is Bemused and Confused, a journal which is pretty much what I hope to establish here. It’s basically the same story: A guy who’s taking a BMW 323i (E46) to the race track and who’s writing about it. In my case, the car will be a Renault Clio Sport. A quick and nimble hot hatch.