TC1000 07/07/03

Couldn't believe I was off to Tsukuba on Tuesday. I mean, I'd just driven 300km up to Fukushima at the weekend. Had 2 full days of Gymkhana madness. Drove back to Tokyo. Worked 1 day. Now 1 day later again, TC1000 awaited! How mad is that?!

This was another D-Technique day with the deadly duo Deki-sensei and Kato-sensei. Those guys have amazing energy. I wish my Japanese was better so I could soak in more of what they are trying to teach me. My Japanese is improving though and perhaps my driving is too :-)

John was in group B and I was in group A. This was nice as it meant that we could take some outside footage of each other around the track. My previous best time at TC1000 was 0'44.41 so that was one of the days targets. I remember it being quite hard to get under 45s the last time out although I did nip under it a few times. This time around it was quite easy. I think the gymkhana helped me improve quite a lot. Unfortunately I couldn't climb into the 43s range. I got an early best time in the first session 0'44.119 and couldn't top that although it was pretty easy to keep close on clear laps.

I actually span out quite a lot in a few different places, sometimes due to too much throttle on the exit, others too much brakes trailing on entry or the car not taking a set early enough for the corner. All self-inflicted anyway :-) Its healthy to spin though because it forces you to think. Its also important to know how to spin properly so practice helps! - or so I keep telling myself! Its also quite a lot of fun to see another car spin infront of you. You can see them go from really early on. You can tell from the noise and the pitch of the car.

I got some good practise in on the inner hairpin. I'm still not happy with that corner but I did manage to try a few different things. Its all too easy to go wrong there and I feel that's where I can gain more time next. After the 3 sessions were complete, all I could think about was how quickly it was all over. I wanted to go karting or anything to continue on the rush that driving gives you. Luckily I didn't though as I'm quite tired today, 1 day later :-) There will be another day.

Here's some in car footage from the second session. Taking the outlap nice and easy and then playing catchup. Quite a lot of cars sliding around out there including myself. I actually span out only once in this session. Those tires are making quite a lot of noise... I started them off at about 195 and didn't check them after that. Hope to get more time out of them as I only got them in February! Must post a photo when I get a chance.

SSPark Gymkhana Mazda RX-8

Great weekend practicing different things at SSPark Gymkhana with D-Technique. With 2 days you really learn a lot and get to practice a lot. I managed to get a 56.3 out of the little course which I'm quite pleased with. Probably could have got another second at least out of it, perhaps more, but this time was bascially a second faster than my previous best anyway so that's pretty huge. You can't see much of the gymkhana setup in this video, but it records what I did (when I turned the wheel, hit the brakes, gas etc). Still lots to learn! Must be possible to do a 53 in my car I reckon especially with a kami-sama driver ;-)

bye-bye Roxy

Ok so its not really bye-bye, but rather see you in a week. She's going under the knife down at D-Technique to get that oil cooler installed. I figured track time was more important and signed up for a full weekend of driving on 6/30 so that left me with only one weekend to get the cooler installed. If it rained I'd be screwed so decided safest way was to get it done in the shop. They are also going to make me some oil cooler screens which should save the new one from sticks and stones and jolly big insects.

Honjyo 07/05/22

Honjyo was a great little circuit. Really good fun. Tight as hell, looming barriers to stop you being really naughty and some really difficult corners. Main aim was to practice trail braking which I managed to do with some success on the day. It was a great little circuit to practice on as the speeds were relatively low through the corners.

Honjyo was also very special because John was back in his new 8. Check out some of the photos up on flickr.

Oil cooler arrived.

The oil cooler kit from RE-Amemiya arrived. I decided to order it anyway as they couldn't fit it for me immediately. Fitting was going to cost 32,000 yen so I decided to invest that money in some good tools instead and learn a bit more about the car by installing it with the help of Richard. Just opened the kit and it looks pretty sweet. Cooler it self is about the size of an A4 page.

So its down to Super Autobacs this weekend to buy some tools and perhaps dyno the car while I'm there. Then I guess I'll have to wait until I'm back from China before I can install it some weekend.

Oil Temp

I recently installed the Racing Beat gauges for Oil Temp/Pressure and Water temp. Its been interesting watching at random intervals while driving around. First thing I noticed that water temp comes up way before oil temp comes up to temperature. I used to think I could just hammer it once the stock water temp gauge got to its usual position but it turns out that that is way too early. Oil takes at least a further 5 minutes or so. Normal ranges for oil temp tend to be between 80/90 degrees in normal driving.

My last two circuit outings though I noticed after a hard run, the temperature went over 130. The gauge maxes out at 138 degrees and it was around that mark when I glanced at it on the straight... That's not so good me thinks - at least not for extended periods.

Currently thinking I need a second oil cooler. I'm pretty much decided on the one from RE-Amemiya as its similar in price to MazdaSpeed one and the RE-Amemiya guys have a lot of good parts. Will see if they can fit it for me this weekend before Honjyo! Hope so. RE-Amemiya are out by Narita so its a nice little drive.

Tsukuba TC1000 - Spin Master

Richard and I hit TC1000 on 5/4. 5 fantastic sessions of 15 glorious track minutes each. There were 4 groups. I was in group A which was supposedly the ~45 second group. My fastest time thus far on the track was 53 seconds so I was wondering what I was doing in group A... The last time I was at this track it was bucketing down. It was also the first day I'd turned off DSC fully. So I was hoping to be about the 45 second mark.

Main aim of the day was to practice braking later into the corners. Unfortunately for me I didn't quite get the fact that this was a delicate art that involved gradually releasing the brakes through the corner with most of the hard braking still done in a straight line. I ended up spinning out 5 times in all - an average of 1 per session :-) What I was trying to do is called Trail braking although, I should have read up on it first before firing into it based on my limited understanding of what the Japanese instructor was trying to tell me. Brake too heavy late into the turn and out the back will come. Not brake enough and understeer off the corner. You only need this when you are going fast and thats when doing things like this bite the most... Tricky stuff this. Perfect track to practice it though. TC1000 is wide open, has great visibility and the speeds are relatively low. Also everyone in the A group was pretty awesome.

I was pretty happy at the end of the day. Although I never really got it right, I scored a fastest lap of 0'44.41 which wasn't too bad considering the heat. Drove 70 laps altogether! At 1039m a lap, thats nearly 73km of fully concentrated driving. Another RX-8 beat me with a 0'44.07 on the day. I hear that its possible to do a 0'42 in the RX-8 at TC1000 so I've a lot more work to do! Fastest time of the day was 0'43.106 which was an MX-5. Nice.