Party Race 08/09/20 - Video

Finally I managed to get the time to get the video of my last race out of the camera and up on the Internet. I learned a lot from this race and even though I was at the back it was one of the most enjoyable races so far. I made a huge amount of mistakes as seemingly all of my smooth driving was forgotten and replaced with a mountain of under and over steer showmanship. If anyone was behind me they probably would have been scared out of their mind at the rate my back went out during these 20 odd minutes. The only reason I made it around in one piece is because the roadster is such an awesome handling fun car. Well done Mazda and well done D-Technique on setting it up for me. Now I just gotta fix my driving and go faster :-)

So without further ado, Enjoy the show!

Lake Okutama Trip

Went on a small trip to lake Okutama with some good friends. Had a great day driving and chatting. Took some photos but not that many as the car was filthy after lots of rain last week. It was good to stretch the legs though.

The road to Okutama (411) has a bazillion tunnels on it where you could hear the different exhausts whale off of. Very satisfying with the top down. Superb day of driving although a little burnt perhaps :-O

Party Race Photos

Russ over at GT-Roadster took some cool photos of the race and the day in general. Feel free to click on the photo and go have a look! Thanks Russ. They look great!

Party Race 08/09/20

Jumping up from Clubman 1, entry level roadster racing, to Emblem (top level) was always going to be a challenge. Looking at the qualification timesheet I knew that my best ever time in the roadster around Tsukuba was going to put me at the back of the bunch. That's of course assuming that I can equal my best time which I didn't. I qualified 14th out of 15 cars with a time of 1'11.5. The three top grid positions all got 1'09s and the everyone else got 1'10s. These guys are fast!

I mucked up the race start again with too much wheel spin. Gotta stop doing that! By the first corner I was back up with the boys though and following on down into the first hairpin when most cars were side by side. It was messy down there and one of my mates drove off into the grass when late braking left him no space. As he wobbled and weaved in the grass, I cautiously passed him and headed into Dunlop with him on my left. Cleared the 2nd hairpin and headed up into the final corner. He was hanging out just on my left rear side so when I braked into the last corner, I neglected to drop the car into 3rd and suffered the consequences when I finally got around to dipping the clutch on the exit. By the first corner he'd got up my inside so I gave him the passing space he deserved and took the corner the best I could on the outside.

After that, I really enjoyed myself as I battled to keep up with the guys. I made all kinds of mistakes under braking and had lots of over-steer issues as my tires managed to get themselves out of whack with my normal running pressures. After the race the the pressures were: FL: 270, FR: 260, RL: 260, RR: 250... Yikes. It seems I messed up my initial pressures. Just not used to 15 laps flat out around Tsukuba it seems.

Anyway, it was highly entertaining. Probably the most fun I've had since... well actually, all three races have been fun in different ways but its definitely the most balls out race I've run so far. I think the video captures it quite well also so look forward to getting that up here again.

Also like to take this time to give a huge thanks to Russ over at GT-Roadster for all his help during the day. He was there early with me for registration, car prep, shaken and even cleaning off the tires at the end of the race. Thank you so much!!! Next up, big thanks to D-Technique and their support team. Everyone helped a lot and made the day more fun as always. Congrats to Ishikawa-san on winning Clubman 2, Kato-san on winning in Emblem and Kanepee-san for winning the final race in the RX-8 masters series! Also thanks to some of the SDIJ guys for coming up to watch the race. Hope you enjoyed the show :-)

Another set of brake pads

Not much to do this time round. Saturday I ran at Tsukuba for 2 sessions. Monday was a holiday so took the opportunity to wash the car and check the brakes. Pads seemed a little on the thin side so I thought I'd have a look at them again after some errands. Picked up some new wiper blades as the old ones were useless and bought some tape etc at D-Tech. All ready then...

Err, no. Forgot the damn pads. Definitely not advised to skimp on pads so tonight I had another look at them after work. Looking at them through the spokes of the wheels, it's always hard to judge so I stared at the buggers deciding what to do for quite some time. In the end, I decided that they were probably past their race safety date and went off to get my tools.

Glad I did because when I pulled off the front left side the outside measured 8mm on the outside and 9mm on the inside. Hmmm. The backplate is 6mm so that's only 2mm of pad left. Good man Tom. I seem to have cleaned off another set of pads in two months. Changing them by flash light in my car park was fun, but I'm getting good at it these days so pretty soon I won't need any light at all.

Only thing remaining now is to give my glass some attention as there is a possibility of rain for this Saturday's race. I've saved that work for tomorrow morning when its light out. Car currently has just over 8000 kms on clock.

I should also add that I felt pretty good with this batch of pads verses the previous 2 batches. Either my braking has improved, I've got used to the car or the actual pads were better even though they were the same maker...

Party Race Report

The Party Race Report is finally out. Wish I could read more Japanese! Anyway, some nice photos there along with what looks like a nice write up.

The next Party Race event is September 20th. This should be fun. The 4 hour media endurance race is also held on the same day and that is always a pretty nice event. Wish I could race in that too! But I guess, I get to race this weekend in Ebisu in the 12 hour endurance race in a Honda Civic so that will just have to do :-)

Motegi Active Safety Training Park

Today, I attended a Kuragonbeya course at Motegi's Active Safety Training Park ASTP. It was my first time at ASTP.

The day didn't start too well as I woke up at 7:40 having somehow switched off the alarm. I was due in Motegi by 10am latest so I just grapped the few things I needed and hoped in the car without breakfast. Luckily, the roads were not so bad so I was able to make good progress and arrived at 9:50. Whew! My navi initially had me arriving at 11:10 when I first got in the car at 8am!

The first task was skid control. They have this very slippery surface covered in water which you have to drive towards at 40kmph and then once you go over a little piece of metal with the rear tires, it jerks the car sideways and you basically have to try recover the skid or stop safely without hitting the water fountain. 35 kmph was easy, 40kmph was still doable but I didn't get 45kmph and spun. When I started spinning I was trying to do a 360 but the Honda guy gave out to me for not doing full brakes and stopping even though I was pretty aware of everything around me. So strict! I guess he was thinking more of safety than car control and having fun which is what I was looking for.

Next task was to drive onto the slippery surface, brake in a straight line and then turn right to avoid some fountains. Again, 35 was easy as was 40 but 45kmph eluded me. Kuragon-san also tried my car at 45 but said that 40 was probably the limit due to car/tire combination so I didn't feel so bad when he spun out the same way. I tried 45 again one more time but same thing happened again. Reverting to 40 was easy. Amazing the difference 5kmph makes!

Next was a timed course of 4 different surfaces of varying slipperiness. I quite enjoyed this until I noticed that my time was quite slow. Damn! How could that be? I was modulating the accelerator to navigate around the first part which was great fun, but then I noticed in some places I had zero traction. I finally got the point of speed and instead of modulating the throttle to steer, I tried to keep it constant which worked much better and my time improved from there. I was still not as fast as I should have been though and ended with 42 seconds. I was too careful on the other surfaces it seems and not carrying enough speed.

So interesting day. I think I learned a lot but mostly, I got to play a little and re-affirm which I had already picked up. Ok, time to watch some F1!