Straya Day

[LoBelly]

...have more track sense than I had on my first open practice at Winton.

I think I got in everyones way - fluffed every 3-2 downshift (I could tell by the grinding)

and ended my first session with an off that resulted in me being surrounded by a cloud of dust that took several seconds to clear.

to add injury to insult I also boiled the engine.

I clearly hadn't had enough seat time to get the best (or anything really) out of the car and this was so obvious that my (apparently random) driving style was commented on by the sister in law.

I was there with my brother and nephew - nephew had his recently aquired 1977(? long nose short boot) Celica that he's transforming into a track car, I was sharing the Cobra. The sister in law was along too to see how her boys went and to make sure that sunscreen was applied. (30 degrees)

Apart from the self interest the idea is also to direct the nephews energy away from street antics.

After my go the brother went out - his wife put the mobile phone stopwatch on him a couple of times - he started at about 2:06 and later 2:01

Determined to tone it down and stay calm for the second outing - following the advice of the brother and Tony Cram I kept it 3rd most of the time moving up to 4th occasionally when I got a good run onto the straight.

The low down torque of the (probably) stock cam made driving the track in only a couple - or even only one - gear simple, this gave me time to concentrate on the other aspects of what I should be doing and consequently everything was a whole lot easier - enjoyed myself rather than fought my way round. Still not able to hold off the drift boys in their sleek machines but that's only temporary.

Got into the groove, got cocky, pushed too hard (same corner) whipped around so hard I felt quite disoriented - I'm told it looked quite elegant.
Retire with a few mins of the session to go.

Nephew comes in to discover the diff seals have blown so that the end of his day

Brother takes the next ride - sneaks under 2:00 then has an off - engine instantly boils sending coolant out from under the bonnet. Some goes under the windscreen onto him - he parks it inside the track and walks away till the session is over.

We decide that's it for now.

Had a great time, utterly exhausted - have some problems to solve.

Looking forward to next time.


Additional Edit.....
Since you're all so enthralled I thought I'd add some photos

The nephew and me heading out for the first session


This is me clawing my way through the pack..... I think the drift boys were waiting for a written invitation.


As you can see its pretty dry up there

ta

LoBelly