After planning and promoting the Rolling Road Day over the previous weeks, the morning came for me to rise out of bed at 8am and join Benzo (focus16v) for the trip to Antrim. Along the way we picked up David Spratt in his subtle Moondust Silver Focus and Scotty in his goKArt. After a hairy sail up the road, we met most of the rest of the crew at Tesco in Antrim and proceeded to DS Autos. We decided to run all the Foci first of all, as after all it was a Ford Focus Owner’s Club event. Overall we had an excellent turnout with many models being represented, including 1.6s, 1.8s, 2.0, ST170 and numerous diesels. Most powerful car of the region went to David Dunlop in his ST170 (153.3Bhp), however after many problems with the car since buying it from new, he found his power was also well down on stock figures. Davy commented that this was the second ST170 with such problems at his premises, so along with many comments on the FFOC it would appear the first ST Focus is a bit of a dead duck with its many known problems. Best increase over standard power went to myself (138.8 over 115), and best diesel went to Benzo (134.4 over 115, and a massive torque figure of 249lb/ft!!).
Once all the FFOC’ers were through, it was time for all the RMS cars. First up was another Focus (hopefully soon to be a FFOC’er!) which kicked out an impressive 151.4Bhp from its 2.0 Zetec, which put a smile on owner Jonny’s face. From then on we had many different marques, all performing well and showing their owner’s exactly how their power is delivered with the computer printout of their power curve. Most impressive car for me was Neville Craig’s VR6 Vento, which sounded absolutely gorgeous with its 6 cylinder engine coupled with Powerflow exhaust, and put out a very respectable 175.5Bhp, claming most powerful RMS car of the day. Hot on his heels was Andy Hughes with his rare 306 Rallye, showing a nice improvement over standard with his engine’s improved breathing modifications (173.5Bhp).
Performance aside, the bodywork on display ranged massively, with tractor driving benzo scooping the prestigeous dirtiest car of the day (or year?!) which sat in complete contrast to Graham’s immaculate Megane Coupe, which was shining as ever – how does he do it especially in this weather?! ("it’s called dedication Rob!" – Graham)
All in all 18 cars went on the rollers. Almost everyone stayed for the duration of the day which ran into the late afternoon, with a few spectators showing up including Andy Cooper and Max. Thanks to Scotty and Graham who took care of the photography, and a big thanks to everyone at DS Autos for the day’s events and the free soup and hot chocolate!
