TA 2008 Round 1. My report

[Yak]

First off Ive got to say a BIG thank you too those who got me into the first round: -

Apex performance for the assistance, support, wheels, tyres, brakes, arms, umpteen other bits and putting up with me turning up seconds before Apex shuts to pick stuff up! :Plug:
Marty_T3 for the use of his garage and the hours of work he has put into my car! Not long ago I think we worked out roughly he has put over 600 man hours into that car over the past few weeks, including pulling sickies to get stuff done. The man is mad!
SM for help, blagging, and a kick up the back side when needed. Gutting your car did not run. I know how much time and effort you have put in to that car just for it to fail just before the event
DCMS for putting up with a sleep deprived man clambering over his ramps, trying to do his alignment and braking his camber gauge in the process!
Scottdawg for letting me use bit of his S14a box to build up my PPG box and getting me out of the shite at the last second.
SWEBB for not being mad when he found i had robbed lot of bit of his engine that was at Marty's to build up my new one.


So the final push to get the car ready started on Thurdays as I had managed to blag the last 2 days of the week of work (why I had not booked those of before I don't know). Did shopping for bit to finish the build and picked up some front brakes to get the car rolling as it didn't not have any at that time and I needed the car to be in Burnley 8am on Friday.

Then things started to go a bit wrong. Went to the place to get the new wheels built up over the other side of Bradford.. but they could not fit me in that day and I needed the wheels to fit over the brakes so I could get over to DCMS!
So in desperation I popped in to the the first tyre place I found, National tyres on Canal road, who managed to fit them.. but then tried to charge me

[Yak]

Arrived at the track in good time with snow blowing of the cars! The track its self was very wet and all the grass and gravel traps covered in snow. Looked very fairly but you knew if you did come off then you were not going to stop before you hit something hard!

I was glad it was wet though as it negated some of my lack of power and meant I would not be abusing the brakes to much as they had not had enough running in.

Got out of the track in warm up which was just that with the risk of ice on the track! The car did feel odd as it was the first time Id properly driven it with the box, wheels, tyres and BIG Ksport brakes on! Still found I was going fast then quite a few quickly and almost T-boned a white evo and a black RX7 as they were cornering so slowly!

Had to come in before the end of the session as my washers had not been reconnected after the bonnet was painted and I could not see where I was going when the sun was on the screen. But no major problem.

The track had dried out for the practise session so swapped on to the 888s. I had not noticed how little fuel I had so again had to cut the session short, fill up and then back out for a lap or so. Had some sounds like tyres rubbing by on inspection I could not find any evidence of this so I still have no idea what that was.
The car still felt rather understeery and I wasn't really happy with the speed I was getting out of it but at least I had had no issues.

So to the qualifying session. Since I knew I was down on power cranked up the boost a bit... and got to a not very stable 15PSI and since this was the last session of the day (assuming I didn't qualify by some miracle) it was time to throw caution to the wind and give the car a good thrashing!
I think I had not been getting enough heat into the tyres as they seem to respond to me pushing harder and gave more grip. It felt good to really push the car. But looking at the vids I was still not maximising all the track or the brakes.
I was soooo sloooow on the straights too. I was 40th out of 44 cars on the speed trap but finished 28th overall in club. Didnt make the final but only a couple of seconds off, which is promising for when i have my new engine
I ended up only 0.6 behind NismoPete and only 2.5 seconds behind Bren in his mental V8 skyline
And was fast than dynamix by 0.036 of a second! Heh

Here is a vid of (what I think is) my fastest lap in qualifying. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo0A-aRAl7I


And part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v42oVaURpyo and part 2http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NduGi6OKfp8 of the session after it was red flagged for the broken cobra.









Managed 1.5 seconds faster than last year, with a car that had had no shake down, I didn't know how it would handle or brake. I didn't managed to qualify for the final but that would be a struggle with so little power. Only 2 seconds to find with almost double the power coming. Im feeling positive

[George @ DCY]

Good write up Yak.... I like all the build/before storys it seems every team have late nights and plenty of things going wrong.

I know what you mean about lack of power, I was in a standard car, with cat and standard exhaust, boost etc. I finished 27th :P it was the strieghts where I was getting blown away.

[duncan]

Great write up

Damn 0.036 of a second eh

[Yak]

George,
Yeah that was the last couple of days of about 6 weeks with not a lot of sleep and more than a few all nighters. Heh
Standard car! They must have some poke as stock as you were still 4Mph faster than me at the speed trap. Still atleast you wont have gone deef with a nice quiet exhaust on

dynamix,
Thats probably about 2 inches at the start/finish line

[duncan]

2 inches is very important :lol:

[P20SPD]

The track had dried out for the practise session so swapped on to the 888s. I had not noticed how little fuel I had so again had to cut the session short, fill up and then back out for a lap or so. Had some sounds like tyres rubbing by on inspection I could not find any evidence of this so I still have no idea what that was.

Where did you hear these, on a particular part of the circuit or everywhere, because i had a similar problem, but just through the schwanz curves, but no evidence of rubbing

[Dill]

Well done

[Ben]

Great write up of a rather hectic time