It's taken a while to get over just what happened on Sunday at the second round of the Party Race. Three words sum it up nicely though - Pole-to-Win!
The race started on Saturday for me. I drove up to Tsukuba where I had a 30 minute slot starting at 2pm to see if I could remember how to drive :-) My goal was to do about 4 hot lops; followed by perhaps 2 practice starts at the end of the pit lane; followed by tire cleaning. Four laps in though I was very unsatisfied with my times and my driving. I did 1 race start and that seemed ok, so after checking my pressures I went back out and kept trying to figure out where I was going wrong. After 20 minutes, I think I'd got as low as a 1'11.8 at which point my car would just involuntary over-steer around all the corners even when I was taking it easy. Not very encouraging for the next day. A quick check of my pressures revealed that my right side was 0.1kpa lower than my left side so perhaps that was causing it the over-steer. Bemused, the session ended and with it I thought my race hopes too. Still, tomorrow is another day and I'd give it my best shot regardless.
I did everything right on race day. I got up early, left the hotel early, was in the registration queue early, got my car race-checked early and was first out on the track for the 10 minute qualifier. Qualification was held in a misty drizzle so we ran with the top up. As I was first out, I was basically driving blind at speed into the various corners but I'd decided that it didn't look so slippery out there so I'd just give it hell but
try and stay smooth. It paid off. I knocked out a 1'11.35 which got me pole by about 0.8 of a second. Unfortunately for me, I didn't get any of it on camera though as I guess I was a bit distracted going out on the course in the rain. Damn!
When race time came, I gave my mate Rod a ride around in the parade lap so he could see what Tsukuba was like. I was mid pack so had to make my way up through the grid to pole position. I made a stupid error and took the inside wall up along and probably picking up lots of rubber on the way. Silly me. I'd been driving the line all the way around only to do that! Still the formation lap was to follow so it would probably clean up.
Sitting on pole, I wasn't so nervous. I knew the engine should be turned on at the minute mark, and I could lead the pack around when the green flag came out. I took the opportunity to try another start and all seemed to go well again. Maybe I'm getting the hang of these starts :-) I basically just drove around on the line without much thought for warming the tires up. I figured keeping them cooler longer might help them last longer in the race.
Back on the grid again, I watched as cars lined up behind me. I heard the announcer say the green flag was out, 5 second board appeared and it took an age for the red light to appear. I watched it hungrily and as soon as it appeared, it pretty much went out. I took off.
I had a little bit of wheel spin but I managed it well. When I looked to my left, I saw that second place was along side me but he wasn't gaining anything after that and I had the inside line to the first corner. From the corner of my eye, I saw him brake first as I held out, braked and blipped it into second before popping out in 1st place with a good exit. Down then into the first hairpin where I braked a little early but got a nice exit before leaving the cars behind at Dunlop. By the time I rounded the 2nd hairpin I had a nice gap and saw it widen as I exited faster. From there on, I just drove as fast as I could without risking anything. The gap opened further every lap and I took it upon myself to keep opening it curious to see how far I could get.
On the 6th lap, I started to find the first hair pin a little slippy and had some opposite lock through Dunlop as a result. So I just decided to take the 1st hairpin a little easier to keep the risk down but keep pushing everywhere else. At the end of the 8th lap I caught sight of another car in front of me and smiled as I caught up and passed at the start of my 10th and final lap.
I took lap 10 just as hard as my earlier laps and tried my best GT flashing lights impression as I came over the line. What a feeling! Driving back to the pits before being told to park on the circuit in-front of the podium was very cool. I was quite nervous about opening the champagne for some reason so I forgot to jump around as much as I should have :-O
Everyone was there to congratulate me. My name was called out and I couldn't believe that it was my place to go and stand on the podium in-front of the crowd. 2nd and 3rd soon joined me and we were presented with trophies followed by the bottles of bubbly. While I was unwiring the top, it just flew off. I shook the bottle and sure enough, it started to spray so I pointed it at 2nd and 3rd place :-) They dutifully drowned me back.
In the end I won the race by 8.5 seconds. I'd got pole, the win and the fastest lap. Happy days! I hope my luck continues! Next up I move up a class to Clubman 2 so things will get a lot harder from here.
