trackday was simply awesome.. I’ve been a spectator plenty of times but being out there and getting to actually stretch the legs on the car was fantastic, though I think we have a stuffed lifter.. I’ll add to this later on but I was glad to be out there with some other V8s cos there were far too many imports out there being dickheads for me to feel truly comfy out there.. V8 supercars are on tv so I’ll be back..

OK, back again.. where was I???.. blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda..other V8s.. blah blah.. imports.. yadda yadda.. dickheads.. ok

I think I’ll just start over and give you a day entry.. We met up with Crewchief at Shell Petone and filled up the fuel cans with 95 and put some in the car too, transferred some bags into Crewchief’s car and one passenger and headed off up SH1 toward Sanson.. sometimes, well most times really, I choose sucky music to listen to on a drive and this time was no exception.. but we soldiered on and made it too Levin where we added some of that lovely 98 and arrived at Masterton around 9 I think.. Paul had saved us a spot at the front of the row of open stalls that were our pits for the day..

Crewchief went to work on removing the scoop and checking the vitals.. as a matter of note the trans temp guage needle didn’t move from Wainui to the track, the oil temp was a constant 165, the oil was around 2.5bar and water temp was pretty cool too.. while Crewchief did the spanner work I went and did all the administrative stuff and got our little blue sticker.. met up with Jeff (PDQGTP) and had a chat about following and passengers and I asked him to take the Wife for the familiarisation laps, farmed the eldest child out to Paul (TYRETA) and Crewchief and I followed Wife and Jeff around for 4 laps – what a gas, even at the easy speed we travelled at.. Jeff has done a few of these so he was more familiar than I so was quite happily slliding out of corners which impressed the Wife no end.. Eldest child was excited about the speed and braking of driving around the track with Paul.. I am stoked that both tin-lids have been out on the track and am looking forward to the next time I can take them out again..

driver briefing was basic – dos and don’ts, allowed not allowed, in the event ofs and what to do ifs.. all pretty basic and commonsense really but required nonetheless.. was a great cross section of people..

I returned to the car and got myself ready to queue up.. we made NO alterations or changes to the car whatsoever and truly drove in and onto the track.. the harness is just fractionally too short and requires me to sit back at least 2 notches on the rail than normal, this is a pretty big change in seating position and had a bearing on my driving throughout my entire day, at times more so than others.. but I drove out feeling more nervous with excitement than anything else, we were away..

first thing I noticed was I was not relaxed.. and was thinking about how straight my arms seemed, that and “don’t cock it up and hit the wall” – optimistic.. I loved the sound of the car as I rounded turn 1 and headed round turn 2, 3 and 4.. the infield banked hairpin was a challenge as I started to enter too low and turn the car too tightly in the early laps but eventually moved higher and exited with much less fighting against the steering.. I found that the accelleration out of the infield hairpin was sluggish to say the least and when I shifted into 3rd at around 5000rpm the drive from 3rd was shocking, like she was struggling to breath the power out.. Higgins would truly be my nemesis on the day and whilst I managed to get every other corner pretty smooth at least once, not so with Higgins.. the oversteer would be my downfall, that and trying to left foot brake while stabbing the throttle to soften the manual downshift entering the corner.. the principal is sound and it worked perfect when I got it right..down the back straight and I began entering the last corner high and wide and fighting to steer round with very little throttle till well and truly exited and onto the straight again.. next entry is about how I got better as the day progressed..

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