We had agreed that I would go out as a passenger in this session, not to evaluate Alan but to evaluate the car and where we needed to go from here. Alan said he was going to beat the car up....and boy did he try....but Damian fought back;)
On the out lap Alan decided to get some heat into the front left as that was the tyre that was going to carry the most stress, only he never told me beforehand:boxing_smiley:. As soon as he got on the olod pit staright he violently flicked the car to the right and he kept doing this on the out lap. At one point he was doing this 90 mph.....How he could have so much confidence in the car sticking is beyond me but it did.
In the fastest ford sessions you go out in very small groups of no more than 10 with a maximum of 20 on track. In this session there only 5 in his group and 3 groups in total. In front of Alan was a MK2 Focus RS 449 bhp and behind Alan was the Sitec MK2 Focus RS 458 bhp.
The car went well, seriously well, hitting 140 mph on the hanger straight, the brakes once warmed up, were strong and consistant, then the fighting started. Alan would throw the car into a corner expecting the back end to come out, (i've widened the rear track to stop this). In stead he had understeer, coupled with diffent gear ratios and diff meant that Alan was changing up, down the gears mid corner, power on, power off. In the main the car stuck but as Alan experimented with which gear for which corner and how fast he could attack and how late he could brake meant that we explored a fair bit of the run off areas and grass verges...all this whilst keeping the Focus RS in touch. It was like wild Lions sorting out who is the alfa male:cuss:
I said nothing but just held on. Then it started to rain, slightly, and after a lap of drizzle on the windscreen and heading into becketts he flicked the wipers on................and the windscreen smeared.........in panick i looked over at his side of the windscreen......thank feck...it only smeared on my side. Bollocks i thought i bet is all that polish that i put on the window.
Alan was changing up into 5th going into becketts when i felt he should have been braking, riding kerbs that i would have hesitated to climb in my frontera and putting 1,2,3 and even all 4 wheels off the track...yet he doesn't seem to get fazed by it.
How who i sum the first session.................
Bart well and truely violated that car and held his own in the Fastest ford Session.
Session 2 and Alan went out alone..........i think he needed to have a private word with Damian.
