Circuit Club Track Day: Oran Park South, 29th November 2009

Oran Park has a massive reputation amongst motorsport fans. You can see the whole circuit from the grandstand, so it's great to watch from, and the course is easily the most fun of the choices in NSW. That's rarely disputed.

Over the last couple of years, I've been here to watch drift and time attack, and I just had to get on to the track before it's closure. The land has been sold to housing developers, and as of January 2010, the Oran Park circuit will no longer exist.

I was also super keen to try out the latest investment for the car: a set of track only rims, and some semi slick tyres for extra grip. The tyres on the new rims were second hand, but that suited me fine. The driving style on semi slicks is quite different to on road tyres and given the price, I didn't want to damage a new set while I was re-learning how to brake and corner.

The weather in Sydney had been great (and very hot) in the days leading up to the event, and the Sunday was no different. It was cloudy but fine, and quite hot - around 30 degrees. I wanted to get stuck into it straight away, but first session out, I took it easy while I learnt the new layout.

I pushed a little toward the end of the first session, and had a bit of a half spin from being a little too eager on the throttle. I also had driver trainer Dave Sieders in the car with me. Dave drives V8 super cars in the Fujitsu feeder series, and had some useful words of wisdom for me. He also drove my car for a few laps, which was totally exhilarating. It gave me a benchmark to chase for the rest of the day, and showed me how much potential my car has, even in it's current form!

My thoughts on the day? Fantastic, for a number of reasons. First, the track layout is fast and flowing. Once you are comfortable with the layout, you can really push yourself a little at a time to get the most out of it. It rewards a little bit more bravery, but also you're always conscious that a mistake could find you in one of the many walls that line the circuit. I can see why the track has been so popular over the years - the bumps, quick changes of direction, and constant elevation changes all give the circuit a real character. If i'm lucky, maybe i'll be able to drive the full Grand Prix circuit before it closes.

Second, driving on semi slicks (even old ones) is so much more fun than radial tyres. After two or three laps when radial tyres are starting to overheat and get slippery, semi slicks are just switching on! They feel so much more stable, and allow you to corner with greater speed and confidence. I don't think I can go back to radial tyres now!

According to the time sheets, my best was 52.3, but that was with Dave at the wheel. After seeing an individual breakdown of the times, I found my best was a 54.9, showing there's a great deal of room for improvement. Better to save that money I was going to spend on the car and enter a few more track days I think!

One final note. Today I passed a little experience milstone - my 10th track day. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was taking my humble little non-turbo S13 to Eastern Creek to play with the "big boys". On my first ever Wakefield day (2nd track day), I lapped in a best of 1:21.9. I can now do it a full 9 seconds faster than that. I guess experience does count for something.

Autosports Track Day: MDTC, 23rd August 2009

What a fantastic track! This place is a credit to the owner, Garry. I had a ball today and will be back for sure. The Marulan Driver Training Centre (MDTC) is not advertsied as a race track per se, but a place where you can learn about your car without taking risks on the street. I think that in itself is a great initiative but on top of that, Garry has thought the layout through carefully, and the result is a technical, demanding short circuit which hardly gives you time to breathe.

Apart from the short straight, it's a continuous blend of throttle, braking and steering all the way around this 1km roller coaster. There are fast sweepers and slow corners which are on and off cambered, undulations, and a few bumps which can catch you out. It tests your driving skills and keeps your attention all the way.

For the first 15min session of the day, I familiarised myself with the layout, trying to pick appropriate braking markers and corner lines. The fastest way through some corners isn't obvious, so it took a bit of experimenting to find something that flowed a little better. Because the day doesn't have official timing, I had a mate stopwatch time me to see roughly what times I was doing. I seemed to be around the 48s mark, with a best of 47.5. Anthony thought I might be able to make up another second on that time, because I was backing off when I let other cars past me. Maybe a lap in the 45's is something to aim for next time?

I had a little issue in the second last session, blowing an intercooler hose off which left me stranded half way along the uphill pit lane, requiring a tow back to my garage. Other than that, the day went smoothly and the car performed well. I think this facility is top notch, and some others must feel the same, because they've already cleared more land to extend the facility a little further. I can't wait to see what's in store for this place in the future.

Circuit Club Track Day: Wakefield, 25th July 2009

It had been just over a year since I last visited the track, and I was absolutely dying to get back out there. I would do it every weekend if I could but it's an expensive hobby, so sometimes these things have to wait. The weather was clear, with air temp of about 10 degrees, so great for the turbo cars.

The only change to the car since the last time I went out was a set of better brake pads, and some additional front castor from the adjustable arms, so I figured my times would probably be similar to previous times out. Given the gap between track days though, I wasn't hoping for a lot - just consistency.

First session out, the track was still a little damp, and there were a lot of offs, including myself. I spent the first two sessions getting back into the swing of things, and pushed myself a bit more later in the day when the surface was warmer and I was feeling more comfortable. By the end of the day my best was a 1:14.2 so after a year off, I got within about 1 second of my PB. I was reasonably happy with that.

The main difference between past days was that I didn't have the confidence in the car to attack the turn one kink as I have done before. I was braking before the kink, which was costing me time into turn two. Something to try and improve next time.

The Potenza RE001 tyres are also now around 14,000k's old, and have done four track days. I noticed a lot of understeer from the fronts once they got hot. I think after so many heat cycles and hard driving, their best days are probably behind them. In reality, that probably had a lot to do with my time too.

On the whole, it was a really enjoyable day. I got six sessions on track, with very few interruptions. There was only one red flag, and the traffic was totally fine. I probably did more laps than I’ve ever done at a track day - around 50 in total I think. The only down side was that in the final session of the day, the car developed a misfire under full throttle. I cut the session short to avoid any further problems, but the car was fine to drive home. The problem was later diagnosed as a shagged coilpack.

Now that I’ve got the bug again, I can't wait to get to another event. It definitely won't be another full year before the next time out.

5 stud conversion

I have had a full S15 silvia hub assemby sitting in my garage for a while, but becuase the car already has the 4 piston front brake setup (with the rotors drilled to suit the 4 stud hub), there wasn't a lot of urgency to get the 5 stud hub assembly on the car.

Anyway, I finally got my act together and had the 5 stud assembly installed by Autosport Engineering. There just isn't the space to do it at my current house, and it gave me a little extra peace of mind knowing the conversion had been carried out by a professional.

So the car now has a full 5 stud hub assembly, as well as S15 lower control arms (longer than the S13 items, with a resulting increase in front track). While it was there, I also had a set of adjustable castor rods installed.

The 5 stud assembly opens up a lot more wheel choices, and also makes after market brake discs easier to get. My next upgrade will be a second set of wheels with a set of semi slicks strictly for the track.

Braking Improvements: 21st September 2008

The brake pads in the car were starting to get down to their last bit of meat, so I saw this as a good opportunity to upgrade the car’s braking performance further by replacing them with some quality pads.

After asking some of the seasoned track goers in the club what they thought, I settled on Project Mu HC+ pads. They’re marketed as a high performance street pad, suitable for track use. They still operate effectively from cold, but have quite a high temperature threshold before performance deteriorates. Perfect. They weren’t cheap, but their performance was immediately evident. I spent a good 20-30 stops bedding them in, and after warming them up with a few stops from 60, I tried a fully committed stop from 100. I was rather impressed. Strong initial bite, but easy to modulate. I locked it up once, but got the hang of it quite quickly. I think this will improve my track times again, as it shortens my braking distances over the standard pads.

After having had them on the car for a while now, I've also noticed that these are very dirty pads. They shed a HEAP of dust, and make the wheels filthy very quickly. Lucky i'm not too worried about shiny wheels then eh?