Racefix goes racing!
Yesterday morning I was joined by Tyler from PVS Tuning to take my new race car out for it’s first run under my ownership. It was a very productive morning and the half-day open pitlane practice with MRA was the perfect opportunity to find some small setup issues with the car whilst getting familiar in the new car and learning how more race focused practice days operated.
When I originally looked at the car I noticed it had a set of aftermarket sway bars and long time readers of this blog will know how I feel about aftermarket sway bars and how they can sometimes ruin what is such a great chassis at the limit. Given I picked the car up on Monday I didn’t have a chance to swap the swaybars and I thought at a bigger, faster circuit on a car with R compounds it wouldn’t be as much of a hindrance as it turned out to be.
Otherwise it was just great to be able to turn some laps in the new car. It must be some strange mental thing having a cage around me but I was surprised how confident I felt in the new car. Not only was my quickest lap of the day the third lap ever in the car but I felt incredibly confident through T1 aswell. For the first time ever I just had the faintest of lifts on the entry to turn one before gently winding back on the gas with a minimum speed of 178kmh - 7kmh faster than I ever did it in the old car. I would never have felt comfortable not breathing on the brake pedal in the old car either.
Part of that may also be because the new car feels a little down on straight line speed. It may be partly due to the fact getting a run onto straight is difficult because of the understeer and snap over steer the sway bars bring on but we’re about 8kmh down on what the old car was doing at subinats on 98 fuel. There’s no denying it’s abit of a nugget in the straight line department but it’s encouraging that the car is already somewhat on the pace even with some issues present!
The 1:52 is from late last year. It’s comforting seeing how far my driving has progressed in that time too! Whilst the corner speeds are far lower in the red lap, the car still gets upto the same speed as the new racecar.
The biggest thing I struggled with coming from the turbo car was remembering to go down to second gear through the tight stuff. I would often find myself rolling into T2 and the hairpin in third gear and not having much luck driving out of the corner. Otherwise it still feels like an 86. I’m still yet to even have a proper look under the thing yet so i’m very keen to get it on the hoist at the PVS workshop in the next couple of weeks and have a good look over the car and make abit of a walk around video pointing out the things that make it a racecar and why I wouldn’t just turn #project86 a racecar as it’s a question i’ve received alot!