What a day the 26th November turned out to be, saw a fair few Clio's and met their drivers. What a great bunch of folk we all are too. Never seen so many Cups\Clio's on track, was a special day all round.
Met Tony Hunter at the track registration point, listened to Phil from Easytrack give his track brief. He took a while but it was an easy listen, likes a joke does Phil. Pity that I've now heard them all 5 or 6 times this year. I hope he gets some new material for next year...
Sam drove the sighting laps this time out, spent a few laps trying to tell her to get some heat into the brakes\get them working. As wanted to make sure after taking the pads out and swapping the inners for outers that it all worked as it should and I wasn't just a being pikey not putting new ones in.
I gave Tony the opportunity to go out first with Sam, baptism by fire, after the first few laps even I could see the difference lap on lap in the amount of speed Sam was carrying and through the corners. Said she has learnt a lot from her time spent out in the Cup with Tony, apart from how to drive but also some of the theory behind it all. She even found out that Tony used to compete with as little as 1hp a while back..nothing wrong with wearing a pair of jodhpurs is there.
Next it was my turn, completing a lap to get the car warmed up then increasing the pace, after a fair few laps and some really good instruction my confidence and control of the Cup had improved no end. Have, as a result pushed the Cup harder, further than ever before and got lots more out of it in both experiance and ability. Was told that at various points on track that my speed had increased by up to 10mph from the start of the day...can't fault that. Power\speed gain is what it's about....
Was after the lunch break I joined the queue to head out onto track, fair few clios\cups in front. Felt well toasty waiting to be let out of the pit lane....seemed an age, as the marshall was leaving 30 secs between each car... out on track got the car up to temp and made it my "hero" mission to at least pass the clios and cups out on track in front....cutting a long story short and after some very spirited and at one point "smoking" driving (locked the rears up whilst passing Dan and his cider drinking mate from down south) and posibly 3 laps later made it past all bar one....got 10 meters from his tail pipe, messed a gear change and he went into the pits, oh well there's always next time. Car was hot all day and well up for the job. Now need more front camber 2.9 -ve isn't now enough for the speed we're carrying, front tyre edges worn a lot more than before.
We're now even more eager to "go racing" next year. Got a few things to do first, race licence, finsh the car prep (fire extinguisher\ engine cut off to name two). Nothing major, I hope, needs to be done to bring the car up to the expected standard.
