After 10 months of hard work on the car, we have finally achieved it. What a great day! The objective at the start was to have a car that was incredible, with no production vehicles able to touch it, and finally i feel its been pretty much gained. AMAZING the difference an exhaust can make!
From last week's track day really struggling to overtake much, the car was destroying pretty much everything on track. The only faster cars were a Caterham CSL 260, Another Megabusa, and a Radical. As i'm sure many westerfield owners have found in the past, it really is comical when owners of really expensive cars come over and wonder what the hell you're driving. I particularly enjoyed lapping the Ultima GTR (twice on one session).
They almost started me in the novice group because I hadn't driven the track, but i persuaded them to put me in intermediate. By session number two, I was the fastest car on track so I upgraded to the Experienced group. This was great as I got to follow Steve in his red megabusa, and learn how he did it. I was able to keep up with him, but it required an incredible degree of concentration - one small mistake like locking up a wheel, or a botched off-line overtake, and a significant gap opened up between us.
From finding racing a little intimidating, i now can't wait - they're a really friendly bunch, i LOVE the circuit, and i don't think i'm that far from the pace.
Bruce in the faster Caterham CSL was lapping almost 3 seconds quicker than me (on slicks), and i'm lucky to have a copy of his datalogger files - i'll analyse those as soon as i'm in front of a PC and see what i can learn.
I had a session out with the instructor who helped to tidy me up. My driving is not consistent enough at the moment, i need to really work on that. I had four little incidents: I spun on cold tyres once, on hot tyres once, went over the gravel once and kept on, and hit a tyre wall.... now that was scary - going straight on through the gravel thinking "no no no no no" and eventually just kissed it - just enough to break the cycle wing but cause no further damage.
The race is on Saturday, my objective is to get signatures on my license (i.e. Finish the race!), so i will not be pushing at all..... that's the plan anyway, but can i be disciplined enough? I do have this worrying habit of spinning!
