Party Race 07/09/15

Gotta love those race queens. Took a while to upload so many photos from the Party Race but here they are! Click on the photo for more photos.

This event was pretty special. It was the usual party race followed by a 4 hour endurance race for car related media companies. The cars were all identical and were provided by Mazda. Wow! Isn't that amazing.

Kato-san, was driving on the Mazda team and qualified them in pole position. Peter Lyon was also driving and his team qualified in 11th place I believe. 4 hours later, 3 different crashes, 2 safety cars and 90 litres of fuel, it was all over. Some cars ran out of fuel. I'm not sure how many, but amazingly, Peter's team worked their way into 6th place! Congrats!

Kato-san completed another victory in the Emblem race. In the RX-8 masters race, Kanepee-san fought hard for 3rd place after qualifying 2nd. With that, he claims the championship for the year. Congrats on a fine win!

Goodbye condensation!

For the longest time now, my rear left light has been carrying around water. Not just a little bit either, its basically been 1/3 full of the stuff. This was also causing condensation resulting in a very dim and not very pretty rear light.

Finally on Monday, I decided to get the tools at the car and take it out to see if I could get some of the water out of the light somehow. This was actually easy enough. Probably took about 10 minutes as I wasn't so sure what I was doing the first time. The second the light came out I spilled water on my shoes - it was that full!

After removing the bulbs and shaking the thing about for a while I had most of the water out.. Unfortunately, there was still water inside that I just couldn't get out and the light was still full of condensation. I decided to bring it inside and leave it in front of the de-humidifier for some time to see what would happen.

After about an hour most of the condensation was gone! Yeah!!! But there was still a lot of water inside. Nothing for it but to keep going. Finally after about 24 hours, not a drop of water remains in the light. Its all gone!!!

I cleaned the gasket off a little bit and cleaned off some dirt and finally connected it all back up to the car again tonight (in the dark!!!). Yep - its that easy a job. I guess it might start to collect water again at some stage but at least I have a work around now. Mazda wanted nearly 20,000 yen for a new assembly! If it fills again, I'll just try a new gasket after the same procedure.

I'm Japanese!

Finally decided to figure out what it takes to get a B Competition Licence. Turns out that since I'm Irish I need Motorsport Ireland to contact JAF and tell them that I do not hold an Irish competition licence. Once I have that I could apply for a Japanese B licence. As I've got 30 days to get the paperwork in, I decided to do the course this weekend. It took about 2.5 hours and was pretty easy stuff. I got 2 huge books of rules and regulations all in Japanese and 2 slimmer handbooks. As I was already a member of JAF, I only had to hand over 9000 yen. Once my Irish paperwork arrives, I can hand in my application (along with another 3000 yen) and I'll receive a B licence. That simple!

The result of doing all this in Japan is that apparently if I ever decide to get a foreign racing licence and take part in a foreign event, I'd be racing as a Japanese driver! Certainly easier than getting citizenship. Anyway, this should open up a bit more fun for me over here. I'll keep you posted!

Driving Weekend

Busy weekend full of driving. Saturday attended the Party Race and 4 hour media race. That was superb fun. Kato-san as usual wrapped up the emblem prize and scored pole for the media run. Peter Lyons team managed 6th place which was fantastic. Well done to all.

Today, I had an appointment at RE-Amemiya to have my oil cooler fittings checked. I arrived at 10am and it was supposed to take 3 hours. They found a leak in the hose, so swapped that out with a new one. Then a test drive and unfortunately they found that the new hose was faulty too, so they swapped that one out for me too. I was a little pee'd off at waiting for nearly 7 hours but then again the guys did it all for free and I was happy to have it back in perfect condition with new RE-Amemiya engine oil after a very defailed look over.

The engine oil feels different to the Speedmaster oil that I'd been using. I remember thinking the Speedmaster oil was fantastic when I first drove my car with it. It's amazing the difference you feel over the standard Mazda oil. I haven't had that feeling in a while with my other oil changes. Now again, I immediately felt the difference with this oil change. I'll definitely try this oil again with my next change.

I also got RE-Amemiya to change my LSD oil. It hadn't been changed before as the dealer had never mentioned it to me. So that oil was 4 years old! Amemiya said the oil was in a very bad state when they took it out and that I should ideally change it every 2 oil changes. They also recommended changing gear oil every oil change. Wow... I hadn't thought about the LSD oil in that way although I've occasionally been changing the gear oil.

Finished up there at 5pm and drove to D-Technique as they were having a sale. I finally bought myself a driving suit. Alpinestar GP PRO LM (2006 model) for 50% off which is a pretty good deal I think as its a great suit. Its red/white and black. I'll stick up a photo soon. One less thing to buy and it sure beats driving in jeans...

Just waiting for the F1 to start now. It's on from 11:50. I'm just glad tomorrow is a holiday and I can take it easy all day :-)

TC2000 07/09/11 - Rain

Ok, I dug out this lap from the wet session. It was the only lap with a bit of excitement as I was taking it pretty easy. I believe this is a 1'19 lap and I had a little action on the second hairpin where I probably didn't match revs properly on my down-shift and locked the back wheels briefly.

TC2000 07/09/11

The magic of TC3000 was coming straight from TC1000 over to TC2000 for the afternoon. What a feeling... We were up for 3 x 20 minute sessions from 3pm to 5pm. The rain was holding off so it was looking good to break under the 1'10 barrier.

The first decision was what to do with my suspension. I usually use 3F/5R for TC2000 which is a harder setting than TC1000. After playing with the suspension in the morning, I decided to try a setting of 4F/5R for the first session. The main aim for today was to concentrate on corner entry (braking softer and earlier and coming off easier) and I was thinking that by doing this I'd naturally get a 1'09 without working too hard. Not a chance. My car worked very nicely going into the corners but I had a lot of under-steer on the exit in particular on the 2nd hairpin and the last corner. I managed a 1'10.9 late in the session but it was hard fought. Hmmmm.

One of the pro-drivers brought me out next. I forget his name but the last time out he got a 1'09 in my car two up. I'd left the car with the same setting as I had used for the first session to see what he thought. Funnily enough he also had major under-steer issues in the same places and could only manage a 1'11 after just 3 laps before we had to go in. Still I did notice that he was turning the wheel a lot more than I was turning it so I thought maybe I'd try that.

Before my 2nd session I set my dampers to 4F/6R and headed back out hoping for better behaviour. The difference was immediately noticeable and it seems like a good ratio for my current driving style at TC2000. Half way through, I noticed the turning the wheel more really helped to get rid of some of the under-steer mid-corner and towards the end of the session, I was beginning to feel that I was braking too much into the corners and could take them harder. This is hard to do though because your brain is used to you slowing to a certain speed you previously thought was the limit. I ended the session on a series of 1'10 times the best being 1'10.456. One more session I thought, and I'd have my 1'09!

It started to rain. Oh well... I was actually happy in a way as driving in the rain is great for learning more about how smooth you are being. My objective was just to build up speed in the rain and feel for grip but not lose it. I even trail braked the corners in the wet ever so softly to keep practicing. I only really lost grip the once, although I didn't always turn where I wanted to... It would be good to have a whole day of just rain to practice on. I'm guessing that I should lose 2sec per km in the rain so my rain lap time should be 1'14. Best I got in the rain was a 1'17.885 but I guess the rain had stopped also at that point and it wasn't at its worst. The best rain lap in my session was a 1'15.303 so some people were obviously going for it :-)

Anyway, while I still didn't break into the 1'09s I feel its a certainty now if I can build up my entry speed. I think the first 2 sectors should be enough and I can probably improve on the last sector too.

Top 5 times for the record were:
1. 1'10.456 - 28.862 28.792 12.802 - 149.938 km/h
2. 1'10.535 - 28.562 29.113 12.860 - 150.943 km/h
3. 1'10.791 - 28.853 29.135 12.803 - 150.104 km/h
4. 1'10.809 - 28.901 29.155 12.753 - 150.523 km/h
5. 1'10.876 - 29.081 29.116 12.679 - 151.261 km/h

Wet for comparison was:
1. 1'17.885 - 31.651 31.723 14.511 - 146.045 km/h

Ok, now that all the boring details are out of the way, here is a video clip of 3 laps which include the 2 fast laps and one in the middle where I stuck her in 4th instead of 2nd! Opps.

I wonder if you notice any difference in driving styles between this video and the one from my previous run at TC2000! I certainly do.

TC1000 - 2007/09/11

The day promised light rain. While I don't mind rain so much as you learn a lot, I'd been hoping for some dry runs to see if I could get my inner hairpin technique down. The threat of rain also meant that it was cooler which should be good for pulling out a fast lap or two. 43 seconds looked doable today I told myself.

Session 1, I was having my usual over-steer entry problems on the fast first corner. Managed a 44'043 so things were looking up :-) One of the sensei's drove my car and commented (after a small spin) that I have too much over-steer setup on my car and that slightly less over-steer would be a good thing. I'd started out with my suspension set to 7F/9R so I dialed it to 7F/6R. Next session the car was different. It was a little understeery on entrance and very understeery on exit. So for session 3 I tried 7F/7R which seemed to bring it back to oversteer again but more controllable on entrance I thought. Must play with the settings more next time again. I completed the remaining sessions on 7F/7R.

Finally in Session 4, I managed a best time of 44.016. So close to 43 seconds and yet so far! I still haven't got the inside hairpin right so I'm losing time there I think. I also can't seem to get the last turn just right so probably lose time there too.

I actually spun quite a lot on TC1000 again. Some notes for myself would be:
- try carrying in a tiny bit of brakes all the way until the car turns on the inner hairpin. Try using more steering early on mid bend. Don't come off the brakes fast.
- turn earlier on the first corner. I'm still turning too late.

Weather wise, we ended up with light misty rain the first session which quickly dried out mid session. Petrol at Ishige was 142 yen where as petrol at the circuit was 178 per litre! Damn what a difference.

Oh yeah and John is back on my tail with his new suspension/alignment combo. He had quite an exciting time :-)

Oil cooler fitting recall

Apparently there is some issue with the fittings on my RE-Amemiya oil cooler. I've made a booking on the 16th with RE-Amemiya to have it looked at. That will be a good excuse to go have a look at RE-Amemiya as I haven't been out there yet.

Hmmm. Should I get the battery done too? I need a replacement. I guess if I break the 1'10 mark on Tuesday I'll see if I can change the appointment to also include the battery. If not, it can wait me thinks until I have more money.

John's Suspension - Poll

Closure is a great thing. The poll closed 1 month ago. The R-Magic Ohlins suspension was tied on 4 points with the vague "Other". What was "Other" and was it worth looking into. We waited...

Finally, John found a suitable "Other" to represent the 4 point tie breaker. The final choice he made is this. I'm really looking forward to a review and a drive. He also got an aggressive (but blessed) track alignment to go with it!