Thought i'd share some photos and the experience.
Went in my Clio 172 with my brother in his Mk2 Scirocco (2.0 16v Seat powered). It was only our 2nd time on track, the first time was at Brands in
december last year - in the wet sharing his MX5 - very sideways but not fast!
We were much luckier with the weather this time, so the 1st time in my own car and in the dry.
Arrived early and grabbed a garage, which we shared with a nice chap in Blue 172 Cup and his mates in Mk2 Golf GTi and a Caterham.
Before the pits filled up:
Ran on some used 15" Avon ZZRs on the front, these were great, only used about 1-2mm of tread and did alot of laps. Rears were some cheapish BF
goodrich's which felt quite weak walled but once topped up with pressure and warmed up were very predictable.
Cheekily ran my Racechrono so kept a log of times and laps. I did 113 laps (£1 a lap then!) best time was 59.8 seconds, and was consitantly running at
61-62 seconds on the clear laps.
Was nice being on a road car only day, meant there were no idiots in real race cars using it for testing. And not many stopaages that I noticed. Early
on someone spun on padock hill and a porsche dived in to the gravel to avoid him. An M3 ended up sqaushing his N/S everything on the armco and about
3ish another BM dumped a fair amount of oil and water on Graham Hill bend which meant the last half hour was spoilt by having to avoid the apex.
There were a couple of clueless morons, mainly old guys - one in a merc who when the red lights went on for the oil/water, failed to find the pit
entry TWICE! another in a bog standard late model 5 series touring who thought queing for the noise test was for everyone except him, then asked the
classic 'did I pass' - go home mate! (funilly enough I didnt see him on track one so he may well have done!)
Cant wait to go back again.
Will get some videos up soon too.
Some professional shots:
Didn't have any scary moments, this was the closest I came to getting it wrong:
Just thought id update this with some of the videos I took, these are 3 of my better laps, apologies the last and (typically) fastest lap was
corrupted. But time stamp does show it was a shade under 1m.
Photo Archive
Building: confidence and miles with smiles
posted on 28/11/13 at 11:11 PM
Thats annoying that the video played up, especially as I have recently brought a DVR that could fall under the "cheap chinese" banner.
I do agree with Jeff. later turn in on Druids and Surtees.
For example, the position of the apex cone at Druids suggests:
1) That you either brake late, go deep, then straigthen up to get high speed out. so High speed in, sharp turn and long acceleration with small turn
angle.
2) You carryu a high average speed throught the corner and hug the red and white creating one long apex.
The correct answer for track days (one fast quali lap, no other racers to block) is Line 1.
I poted up about this a while back and got some great response, see below:
Regarding the line for surtees; I received some great 1st hand advice from Eddie99 on here. He said to have balls and turn in late. I went out with
him in his car and felt how much more at ease the car was doing this.
I have tried both of these changes and was lapping faster for it.
My final point to add: Having done Brands a load of times and other tracks to boot my general thought is that I commonly turn in too early on all
corners to start with and start to get faster lines near the end of the day as my confidence grows and that involves pushing my apex round the corner
further. Turn angle should be not kept to a minimal as I first thought but time spent turning should be kept to a minimal.
Track days ARE the best thing since sliced bread, until I get a supercharger that is!
quote:Originally posted by bi22le
Turn angle should be not kept to a minimal as I first thought but time spent turning should be kept to a minimal.
Not sure I agree with that. Corner Speed is the issue and how quickly you can get back on full throttle. The late apex at Druids is, as you say, one
of two lines and the reason it is used is to allow you to use more throttle on the exit without running off the track before Graham Hill Bend.
Surtees is flat out in most cars and is effectively a straight line, you aim for the marshalls hut and only turn for Clearways when you get to the
edge of the track (having braked of course). Clearways/Clarke Curve is a double Apex corner.
To be fair the laps that posted there were lap 13 and 19, so I was still learning the track. The only previous time round brands was in a very
different car in very different conditions.
Will clip together a few of the later faster laps as am interested in overlaying them against the GPS logs and a general comparison as the Racechrono
gives you an optimum lap, based on your 3 best sectors strung togther and base don that I should be able to shave off over a second.
Going back again in new year with a better camera and a better GPS logger with any luck.
