Part 15: Two-tenths to glory

Unbelievably, for my second track day of 2023 (the wettest Auckland year since Noah's Arc set sail) the day was bright, warm, still and dry.

I lent my 86 to an experienced driver called Danny for a session, and so I was able to get a few snaps of my car in action: 



The Porsche club were out in force yet again:


 Loved my new kicks:


They had to put this 'dry track conditions' sign out or we wouldn't have believed it was actually dry for once in 2023: 


Danny also brought his GoPro with him. So, for the first time I've been able to watch myself driving. And, through the magic of technology, so can you dear viewer:



This recoding is of my PB time of 1.26.2 set in the final session. It doesn't look super fast, but for reference I'm getting up to 180kph on the start/finish straight. Let me tell you, that feels fast!

I'd bettered my previous PB time of 1.27.56 by 1.35 seconds - a fair amount in motor racing terms. I put this improvement down to a few factors:
  1. New, grippier tyres. 
  2. More experience of the track, meaning I've got a better grasp of where the braking points are, and what lines suit my car best. 
  3. Excellent track conditions.
  4. I can't in good faith attribute more than 1% of the time improvement to an increase my skill level. OK. Maybe 2%?
However I managed to set that time, I did manage it (and a bunch more decent times in the final session). So now I'm only two-tenths of a second away from getting into the 1.25s - That's almost blink and you'll miss it territory. Finding that two-tenths would make me officially and undisputably 'good' at race car driving (OK, good according to one pro driver, but I'll take it). 

Had there been another session and had my car been up to it I think I might have gotten the time. I was feeling very hooked into machine and track. However, it was the final session, and my brakes were well and truly shot to pieces at the end of the day, having survived the punishment of four gruelling track days.

Now that I can review my driving I can clearly see areas for improvement. Taking too much speed into that corner, braking too early for that corner, absolutely rubbish line into that corner and so on.

My next track day is coming up in September, plenty of time to scour the GoPro footage for that illusive two-tenths.

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