CAMS NSW Supersprint - Round 2 - Sydney Motorsport Park GP Circuit
My last go at the GP circuit was on 21st July 2012, so I was really looking forward to this one. I love the turn 4/5 sequence, where you can really attack it and feel the car moving around underneath you, especially as it gets light over the hump. I was also looking forward to trying out my new Go Pro Hero 3 Black that Fiona gave me for my 43rd birthday earlier this month. After much stuffing around with camera settings and placement locations, I settled on 1080p 25fps with the camera mounted on the inside of the windscreen using a standard stick-on mount. The scrutineers were fine with it provided I also used a tether (cable ties!).
We had 8 minute runs, which was enough for four laps. A few long delays for cleaning up oil spills and recovering cars meant that it was two hours between runs. Plenty of time for socialising in between! Although most only had four runs, the net return of 16 flying laps was pretty good considering that 5 runs of 3 laps has been the norm in recent past.
As mentioned above, I got bumped into the "Orange 2" group in order to fill the grid of 2nd driver open-wheelers and clubmans. It was hilarious seeing the Stohr leading out a bunch of mild mannered MX-5s! I was usually last or near last in our group, and the Stohr would blast past after only two laps, doing about 60km/hr faster than me down the straight (I'll post some videos soon).
The complete times are still not up on Natsoft, but my PBox times were:
Run 1 - 2:03.48, 2:01.94, 2:02.46, 2:01.91
Run 2 - 2:01.66, 2:00.98, 2:03.00, 2:01.99
Run 3 - 2:00.64, 2:00.77, 2:00.93, 2:02.60
Run 4 - 2:01.50, 2:00.98, 2:11.84, 2:02.30
Everyone was a bit cautious for the first run because turn 1 was marred by cement dust used to clean up an oil spill immediately before our run. Just what you need on a 165-170km/hr corner! My second last lap featured a big smokey spin at turn 5 (see second video below).
Officially my fastest lap was 2:00.6382, which was only 0.011s slower than my best on 21st July (2:00.6269) - 6.5 metres at 165km/hr. My quickest times were consistently on the first or second lap, and then the R888s would overheat and lose grip. My optimal time was 2:00.12 on run 3, and I lost time on the first lap with a slight lift for turn 1.
GoPro video of my fastest lap on the day - 2:00.6382. Immediately in front of me was Stewart Temesvary (stock NB8A), then Kevin Addison (Type 3 1.8L NA), then Ed Cory (Type 3 NB8A).
My 4th and final run was delayed about 30 minutes while the marshalls cleaned up a big oil spill starting after turn 4 and going all around corporate hill. When we were eventually sent out, I started ahead of Glenn Thomas' stock NB8B. There was an aweful mess of concrete dust used to clean up the oil spill, but the track was reasonably quick. Glenn followed me closely for the first two laps and then got a very good slipstream at the start of lap 3, and dived underneath into turn 2. The video says the rest.
RRP is $356 but they're a fantastic tyre and worth every cent over the hopeless R888s. After two sets of the RE55S, I'm really keen to see how much these have improved over the old design.
It'll just take some getting used to. 
