This event turned out to be a pretty good event for the first ever Downshift track day, big thumbs up to these guys for organising an event that was not only good for the competitors, but the spectators. The Holden Driver Training facility is a really well setup facility and the Norwell Park Circuit itself is a great designed track with a good mix of high speed corners, switch overs and hair pins.

Well all the preparation work for the TrackDub went well for this event, bar a small wiring problem that reared it’s ugly head 10mins out of town, but it was fixed quick enough.

All ready to go!

Times.
The TrackDub is car D18 on the time sheets.

My best lap of the day was a 1:07.7 during the 3rd session, went to my head in the last few sessions as I tried furiously to beat it, only to end up with over shooting braking points, missing apexes, over steering corner exits and a high speed off track experience on the final corner.

Have a few things to sort out on the TrackDub that are holding it/my potential back.
– Brakes, think I need to do a full system flush again as I think I have air in the lines somewhere, it was causing some insane squirrel braking that proved interesting. Other then that, the Hilux 1″ master cylinder made the brakes pedal feel awesomely better.

– Oil temp / pressure, need to get myself a digital temp and pressure gauges rigged up on the car, I’m getting some pretty crap oil pressure readings and I need to find out if it’s oil related (too thin), heat related (thinning the oil out) or mechanical related (oil pump is rooted).

– Race seat, Recaro seat out of the SlushDub just doesn’t cut it, time to blow some cash on a Sparco Sprint V fixed back seat and throw my harnesses back in. I’m pretty sore today from bracing all day yesterday.

– Tires, I’ve got the R888’s but I really don’t think I’m getting the full potential out of them and I need to learn more about setting them up correctly in regards to pressures. I never get the tires over 60’c (75’c is suppose to be a nice spot for R888’s IIRC), but they definitely felt like they were baking a few times when I was pushing hard. I’m tempted to just buy some Federal 595RS-R’s and do some back to back laps to see how well on the street tires. If my times are similar, I can save some cash by using the street tires and focus on learning to drive better instead of leveraging on a better quality tire.

– Suspension, I’ve got a rear tie rod that has some slop in it, so I need to replace it and I need to finish off my camber plates to allow some better adjustment of camber to allow quick adjustments during a track day. I need to look at my sway bars as well, I think the rear one might have to come off

Till next time!

A couple of weeks later, I received my photo pack from sirck.com.au of the DownShift Track Battle.
Good photos, just none of the good action, except my off at turn 7!