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!

Party Race 08/07/27 - Video

Ok, finally edited the video from the Party Race. It shows the formation lap through to end. Enjoy! Not much to see this time though as I had a pretty uneventful pole-to-win victory :-)

Party Race 08/07/27

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.