Practice 1 - Breaking the ice

Practice 2 - I’ve learned something!

Practice 3 - Testing my new knowledge

Practice 1 - Breaking the ice

My very first racing experience behind an Rx-7 and what an experience! I had no idea what to expect getting behind the wheel. Suffice to say a stall was guaranteed to be on the cards and sure enough it was ;). I wasn’t even on the track yet, in fact I wasn’t out of our pit area behind the race track and I stalled.. Oh well.. try again..

Made it out onto the track and I was to follow Phil around for a lap or two, to learn lines, breaking points and turn in points for the corners. This was I’d say for me the hardest practice session because I had no idea what was going on half the time. I just followed the guy in front of me!

Being early in the morning the track was cold and the tyres on the car were cold also so this made for some excellent drifting action around the first corner! Well for the first few laps anyway until it warmed up.

Despite a cold track it was real hot inside the car, alot warmer than i expected so i definitely had some sweat on my brow. All of our practice sessions today were held with the rest of the Pro7 and Pro7 Plus field as well as the Bridgestone Porsche’s. Awesome watching them so close up rip down the inside of you at a million miles an hour faster than your doing! Haha.

Practice 2 - I’ve learned something!

A few hours later they let us loose again on the track… Yes I did stall the car again.. No i’ll remember next time that Yes you need to rev the sh*t out of the car to get it moving! (Tight clutch means you pretty much have to drop it to get movement out of the car so basically you cant just ride it like most of the soft clutches in street cars). Still I got to have another go at the track.

This time we checked the tyre pressures and they were way too low after practice one so they were raised up and what a difference it made to my driving. I was able to stick into and out of corners better and even keep up with some of the front runners for a while.. Unfortunately as experience shows they still did manage to dissapear into the distance but it was very helpful to stick behind them to learn a thing or two

Ian came out a few laps in and passed me after one of the corners. So i followed Ian for a bit to learn more about late breaking.. Unfortunately Ian’s late breaking was too late and he ended up in the gravel trap at on of the hairpins on the far end of the course! I had to laugh because its twice now i’ve seen (or heard) him go off at a hairpin.. Poor fella. He had a good laugh when we got back to the pits which is good.

I myself was not without incident however. About halfway through the session I spun out on the second hairpin. Im honestly not sure what happened but i think i broke too hard with too much left turn and maybe gear shifted with out hitting the accelerator or something like that but anyway i hit nothing.. just ended up slightly sideways on the track.. Phew there were a couple of guys behind me. Lucky they weren’t too close or that could have ended up interesting. Also towards the end of the session I had a lapse of concentration and the wide right sweeper going into the pit straight I ran off the track.. Again nothing spectacular, i think i just forgot to turn! Whoops

All this before lunch time.. and i had no breakfast… No wonder i had a lapse in concentration!

Sufficed to say i’ve learned to eat my breakfast before i go racing, and i’ve learned to keep my fluids up, and i’ve learned to some extent how to drive the track! I’d also learned by now how to successfully change down gears quickly without making the back tyres skid!

LUNCH TIME

Chips, Hotdogs and plenty of water! Not the best of lunches but hey it was better than nothing!

Practice 3 - Testing my new knowledge

Well here i was… Nope no stall this time at the pits making my way out onto the track.. I’d at this point gone over in my head so many times when to brake, when to turn, what are the better lines to take, when to put my foot on the accelerator, when to not skid off the track ;). Wow that truely is alot to take in in only a short while.. Ok so here’s how it goes, i get owned by absolutely everyone.. minus a couple of people i did manage to pass… not sure what was going on there. Me passing people on my first weekend… never! lol

Anyway there really wasnt much to tell here. I took every corner conservatively, considering this really isnt my car i dont want to crash it! lol. I did however learn there were a few corners i could push a bit harder so i took my confidence to the next level and gave it a try.. it worked! and i was able to keep up with a few of the faster racers.. by that i mean the more experienced guys.. even followed one right to the end of the practice session without him straying too far ahead… VERY VERY PLEASED with that effort. *gave myself a pat on the back

So this ended my first day, a practice day nonetheless but crunch day is tomorrow. Qualifying is first thing in the morning (cold track and cold tires! GRRR) then first race after lunch is us.

What do i want tomorrow? A good result for me personally would be to not come last. It is a race after all In all seriousness i feel that if i can start easy but gradually make improvements every lap then that i feel is the key to my success. I honestly dont expect to pull magic 1.22’s like the front runners but to be able to have gone out there, giving it my everything i have to give and always improve would make this weekend well worth the investment.

With thanks to Phil Blythe Motorsport, Ian McDonald and the guys at Eletank. Adam and Logan for the work they’ve put into the car on the day and everyone else who has made this possible this weekend.

Bring on tomorrow, expect another report from me tomorrow night

C ya!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 10:24 pm and is filed under motorsport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.