The AW11 Racecar - It Survived......

[85AW20v]

The inaugural Bruce Mclaren Motorsport Park 9 - 5 Endurance Track Day. Yes that's right, BMMP ran an 8 hour track day. Minimum of four drivers, so two hours of track driving each. Prep for the day was a new set of tyres, Kumho Ecsta V70A semi slicks on a set of 15 x 7 rims off TradeMe and a new set of Remsa "E" brake pads all round. Checked the oil and water and a spanner check while up on the stands. One sway link needed half a turn. Took the C-clips off that hold the front brake lines in place then cut the mount so the brake could come out easily so I could swing the calipers up and out of the way and not stretch the brake line for pad changes. Cable tied the hoses back in place. I even vacuumed out the inside as there was a bit(as in heaps!!) of grass and dust inside after my last outing at the Taupo track following an off-track excursion. Onto the trailer at 9pm, ready for the track day.

Race - I mean track - day was fine weather wise - overcast which was great. A couple of formation laps which allowed me to bed in the new brake pads. 6km is probably not ideal but they came right after a couple of high speed laps, as did the new tyres. An hour of driving flat out on the track gets you a bit hot and bothered so I was quite happy when my hour was up. We used about 20l of 98 each hour and covered about 22 laps, depending on the driver. Each time we came in for fuel and driver change we lost 3 laps to the leader, which was a Ssangyong Race Series ute. Those guys were doing 2 hour stints so they had 12 laps on us because of that by the time the day was over. I could lap them in my one hour stint but no way could we get 3 laps back.

The organisers also had us running anti-clockwise for the first 4 hours then clockwise for the second 4!! that presented a whole different set of corners that no-one had raced on prior to the day. The worst corner to get round was corner 1 back on to the pit straight - it was a shit!! Really tightened up just as you turned onto the straight and the A-pillar/mirror/rollcage obscured just where you wanted to look. I think the guys in the utes were OK, and the blokes in the Camry station wagon with the winged pig on the room had that extra set of eyes up on top.

At the end of the day, I think we finished in 6 or 7th based on the number of laps, which was something like 175 laps. And no - I don't have a picture of the Camry with the winged pig on the roof, or the Ssangyong ute with a rhino on the back.....

So if you've got something with a rollcage in it with harnesses - fill your boots. You get a lot of fun driving for the money!!

[ClanFever]

Sounds like a solid day out! Your car sure does get hot inside it, is a coolsuit or some other circulation system a worthwhile investment if you'll continue to do them? Or happy to do the hour stint and cool down after?

[85AW20v]

Coolsuit = have the window down !!