Time for an update.
As many of you know, a bunch of us from NSW made the trek down to Phillip Island for the RDA-EBC Brakes AROCA Supersprint on 11th December.
My little toy was fitted with a towbar
and dragged an extremely lightweight and outstandingly stable trailer both built by and courtesy of Paul Byers which carried two sets of wheels for myself and RODG to use.
The was a leisurely affair which covered a few of the beautiful MX5 roads we have in this country.
I was a little dubious about the trailer towing but was astounded at how little I noticed it.
A couple of stops on the way down to fine tune the Ohlins ended up with 22turns off hard front and 24 rear.
At these settings the car handled the bumps really well on those roads but tended to 'jiggle' just a little on the smooth (boring) highways.
The Toyo T1 Sport tyres were amazing, quiet and plenty of grip. A dramatic improvement from previous models of a similar tyre, the T1S (IIRC)
PI was a blast!!!!
Set the R888 at 28 all round, wound the Ohlins up to 6F and 8R (much softer than I'd used at Wakefield previously when I felt the car was a little locked up).
Left the rear bar in the mid position and didn't touch the car all day other than a check of tyre pressures after the first practice and a huge off into the gravel trap in the southern loop on the first session in anger.
Brought out a red flag (sorry guys) but managed to eventually extricate myself by rocking on the clutch....lsds are really good in gravel
Balance was good with very slight understeer in a couple of corners and gentle oversteer through others.
Spent the day learning the circuit which is FAAAAST!! with 150, 160 and 205kph seen regularly on any lap when I had time to look.
Finished the day with a whole bunch of laps just on the high side of 2:03 with a 2:03.08 being the best.
Can't wait to get back there and knock a couple of seconds off 2:00 dead is I believe a realistic target with RaceChrono showing that as an optimum lap....and that southern loop had me a little spooked all day.