My car in pitlane
10 minute onboard hot laps
Yesterday I participated in a John Bowe High Performance Driving course at Sandown. It was an awesome day out with LOTS of track time. I completed 50laps. I mostly did about 4 flying laps followed by a cool down lap then out again. The instructor rode with me a few times to analyse my technique, surprisingly my lines were good and overall driving and car control was good. The only thing I needed to work on was my down shift timing. I tended to down shift too early (he reckons) but Gan San in Best Motoring says it better to downshift early to use the engine braking. Anyway, I took the feedback on board and as you see in the footage I got, I tended to downshift after 2/3rd of the braking was done.
The lude was "a fantastic car" according to the instructor who drove a few laps in it. I was chuffed.
I regret not having fitted semi-slicks because the Yokohama A500 (quiet comfort tyre) didn't really like track work.
There were quite a few hi performance cars there, 2 Elises, 2 Boxters, 1 911 GT2 (Twin Turbo), some Falcon GTPs which over heated after 4 laps. There were also some Targa prepped cars there, I was the only one not wearing semi-slicks! Everyone else had done lots of track time, and some were frequent Targa Tassie competitors who wanted to have an instrutor fine tune their skills.
It was a 38deg (100F) day yesterday with track temps around 50deg so those who had air con, used them (like me). The lude performed flawlessly, the massive radiator I installed did its job and I was able to keep doing laps, the main thing stopping me was me. I had to stop after 8 or so laps for a drink. I realised that the ECU turns off the A/C compressor at full throttle.
I started the day with the rear sway bar on Medium L Medium R, front and rear Tanabes on 3. This was good but I struggled with oversteer on corner entry. I had a huge moment at 140 with the car going into oversteer big time, had to take little bites with the steering wheel (don't want to over correct) and use the throttle to balance the car. I ended up setting the front Tanabes to full stiff which balanced the car out a bit. There were quite a few off track excursions from some people, including a big one for a 911 Carrera.
My brakes were fantastic, hardly any fade at all. I ran with RDA slotted rotors and QFM K750 750deg track day pads. In the video you will hear me say, something about no brakes but that was just the edge of my foot catching the throttle while braking. I was trying to look after the brakes as well, only using them 100% when doing timed laps. Otherwise I braked a little earlier and lighter.
The only casualties on my car were:
Tyres, Sandown is very hard on the right hand tyres. I had to rotate the right tyres halfway through the day. I really endeavoured to manage tyre wear, tried my best to avoid sliding where ever possible.
All things considered the tyres are pretty good considering I did 50 laps
The centre caps wiht the "H" logo melted off my front wheels. And my battery overheated and leaked some acid. Nothing that stopped me.
I got 1.5hrs of footage but here is a short version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arsmiygm-0Y
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