Lightyear's Black endurance racer

[DarrenM]

When’s testing?
If you were coming up to Winton to test I’d come & check it out.
Hope everything works as intended.

[rascal]

When’s testing?.

Think that was yesterday at Phillip island.

[lightyear]

I did the Vic Time Attack at Phillip Island. The car was around a second slower with all the aero in the first session. So lots of aero, no power and a long fast track don't work. But it was so much fun holding it flat around turn one, and especially over Lukey heights.
I tried a few different combo's on the day including running no wing. The speeds did go up, but the lap time was slower due to big front splitter causing lots of oversteer. I would have loved to have a go at Winton, to see how it works on a slower track. But sadly the event was over subscribed and my entry was not accepted.
In the end the car went about half a second faster than previously with the wing set well under zero degrees. 1:51.8 I think it was. Still way off my 1:50.1 with the old red NA8B. The Phillip Island 300 is coming up in a couple of months, it would be awesome to make a low drag set up and enter the event. I might need to find a driver...

[lightyear]

[lightyear]

I haven't updated this in a while.
I took the car back to Phillip island, changed the front aero to a more traditional airdam and splitter, and went back to the smaller wing.
I drove down on Saturday arvo, and it was a rough night trying to get some sleep as it was practically gale force winds all night.
Anyway, the morning started surprisingly dry before 7:00am. But that changed pretty quick. The track went anywhere from wet with some dry patches, to standing water all day. Mostly very wet. So no fast lap times. BUT, that was probably the most fun track day I have ever done. An 85-90kw MX5 could be considered boring to drive, but in the wet it's a different game. I tried to be the fastest car in every session. And pretty much was. I think I was the 3rd or 4th fastest car outright, and a few guys had wet race tyres too. The ex V8 Supercar guys on wets did a 2:01, and I did a 2:03. I did the last 4 sessions straight without a break (hard work...) Also, the timing guys packed up around 3:00, so the last few sessions didn't get recorded on Natsoft. I was doing some showboating on the last 3 sessions. Leaving the corners with massive attitude. Unfortunately my memory card in the GoPro was full by 3:00. I wasn't really even doing it on purpose, the weather got worse and I struggled to get the (huge) power down. Exit turn 2 was big fun, Siberia was fun, going over the top of Luke completely sideways at 140 was one of the more fun ones. Loosing the rear at turns 3,8 and 12 are more scary than fun. Barrie Crocker in his STi tried to keep up around T3 and had a massive moment. The inside line had several small rivers, the outside was like a shallow lake. No idea on how he caught it. But it was pretty cool being able to catch and pass cars with much more power and all wheel drive in the wet. After the 3rd run I decided to start rear of grid for the next few runs and try and overtake the field to make it more interesting. Gotta do something when you can't get lap times.

[lightyear]

I was invited to do Haunted hills, so thought I might as well give it a try as I have never done a hillclimb. I watched the cars go out for there first lap and when an Elise went and did a 92.9, I decided to set my cautious first lap pace to be capped at 90 seconds. I did an 89, so was happy with that. Then I asked one of the regular guys that is quick what a good lap time is, he said 79 seconds. I knew I had some work to do. Next lap was an 85, but the diff is working like an open centre. Looks like the Torsen doesn't like tight tracks?? It spins both wheels in the burn out, but is like an open diff after that. Very frustrating waiting with half throttle for the inside wheel to stop spinning before I could floor it. The best lap I did didn't get timed as they had an issue with the timing beam at the finish. :/. We did the longest lay out where you do the loop twice.
Ended up with a best of 82.4, good enough for 3rd outright. A pretty well sorted Laser TX3 got first, and a Civic got 2nd.
I took of the fastback roof and boot after lunch to save weight, aero isnt a big factor at such low speeds.