MX-5 Club NSW track day - Wakefield Park
After the Supersprint, I stayed overnight at the Bakehouse Motel. Most of the other MX-5 Club members were staying there too, and it was fun chatting over drinks with everyone crowded into Mike & Cobie's room, and then share a meal next door at Trappers Inn restaurant.
Next morning I was out at the track by 7:30, and catching up with old friends. Must say that I find it a lot more enjoyable and friendly at the club trackdays, compared with the Supersprints. There's just a different feel to the event -- there are more likeminded drivers, the cars are more evenly matched, and the general atmosphere is more welcoming.
There were 58 drivers entered and 45 of them were in MX-5s. Timing was using Rod Menzel's system with the start line in the fishhook, which meant a half lap warm-up, four flying laps and a brief cool-down on the back straight. This event also saw the return of a regularity run of six laps after lunch
. I was in group 4 and started behind Ian Williams (HSV Clubsport), Phil Mayo (modified NA6) and Ian Miller (standard NC), with Roger Palfreyman (standard NC), Allan Cruz (standard NA8), Glenn Thomas (standard NB8B), Renaud Degois (standard NA6) and Robert Pimm (standard NC) behind me.Run 1: Lots of traffic! I made the mistake of pushing a bit too hard in my warm-up lap and caught up to Ian's NC by the end of lap 1. Overtook him at turn 10 on lap 2, but then caught up to Phil by the start of lap 3. Overtook Phil at turn 10 on lap 4 and then caught Ian's Clubsport at turn 6 just before the finish of the run. Whew! Best lap was only 1:19.53.
Run 2: This time I left lots of room behind Ian's NC on the warm-up, and did a 1:18.64 followed by a 1:18.67 but was struggling with turns 4-5 and the fishhook (as usual). Then at the end of lap 3, I had a slight lock-up into the fishhook, turned in with too much speed and a light rear, and around she went. Waved to Roger and Allan as they zoomed past, and that was pretty much it for that run since laps 3 and 4 were buggered.
Run 3: The start of this run was delayed for several minutes when the track light system failed and we eventually started under manual flags. For some unknown reason, my pace was really off in this run, and there was no traffic to blame. The first two laps were reasonably smooth but I still only did a 1:18.89. I was even hitting the rev limiter in 3rd on the back straight. Strange.
Run 4: Amazingly, this was my 4th run of the day and it was still before lunch. We were called in one lap early and out of the three laps, I managed to improve my best to 1:18.53. Again the rev limiter was cutting in at the end of the back straight and I kept mucking up turn 10 as a result.
Run 5: I was initially planning on nominating 1:18.80 for the regularity, but was then flipping between 1:18.70 and 1:18.90 - went with 1:18.70 in the end thinking that my times were improving and I might go a bit quicker this time. Ha! Things were going pretty smoothly for the first 4 laps, avoided the rev limiter on the back straight by coasting the last 20 metres, but then I started to catch Ian's NC. On lap 5, I experimented with a shift to 4th on the back straight and got confused with my heal-toe change into turn 10, producing an ugly oversteer slide. By turn 2 on the last lap, Roger's NC caught up to me and I backed off to let him past - but he didn't get the hint. After all of that, I thought I must have messed up my regularity time. In the end I finished with a time of 2.38s which put me 8th. Roger Palfreyman was the deserving winner with a time of 1.31s, and 0.87s of that was on the first lap! Very consistent driving! John Karayannis also put in an amazingly good run for a first timer, finishing 2nd and probably would have romped to a win if he hadn't lost 1.37s on his first lap.
Run 6: By this late stage of the day, I was resigned to it being a slow one for me, so I decided to experiment with a few things. First was a short-shift to 4th at ~200m on the back straight, then practice my heal-toe changes from 4th back to 2nd on turn 10, and more significantly, I tried just lifting the throttle for turn 5 (I have always dabbed the brakes for this corner). I had most success with turn 5 where I found that carrying a little more speed into the corner helped the car to oversteer, but then the road camber caught it and produced a lovely four-wheel drift. I was carrying an extra 2-3km/hr corner speed as a result and that shaved a tenth or two off the lap time. So I finished the day with laps of 1:18.52 (my best time on the day), 1:18.54, 1:18.86 and 1:18.60 - nicely consistent, even if it was well off my PB.
Here's a complete video of Run 6. For an example what seems to be a quicker way to negotiate turn 5, pay attention at 3:18, 4:35 and 5:53. Compare that with 0:40 and 2:00.
After some time at home analysing my PerformanceBox data, I discovered that the fairly strong NNE wind that picked up in the mid morning on Monday had a pretty big impact on my top speed down the main straight. For comparison, I managed 145-146km/hr on Sunday and 142-143km/hr on Monday. For the regularity run after lunch when the wind was strongest, my top speed was only 141km/hr! That speed difference alone added about 0.2s per lap. Ironically, Glenn Thomas and I were joking about the headwind on the day, and it turns out we weren't wrong.
So what's next?
Eastern Creek Supersprint 16th May
Wakefield Park Supersprint 5th June
Wakefield Park Supersprint 20th June
Wakefield Park Club trackday 21st June
If I can't improve on my Wakefield PB with all of that, there's gotta be something wrong!
. On the Adrenalins, my speed typically drops to 145km/hr during turn 1. Could maybe push them a little more than that, but it's a scary corner and takes a lot of commitment.
. Ah well.
