Phillip Island was designed for penguins!!

[mj911e]

I spent Saturday on the cold & very wet Phillip Island skating rink, had a great time, managed to keep on the black stuff (unlike plenty of others)!

Now I need another couple of team members for TEAM 2.

Michael

[Terminator]

What event was that in Michael?

[mj911e]

PIARC ran a track familirsation (when are we getting spell check?) day on Saturday, followed by sprints on Sunday, bloody slippery, & having GT3's & that red thing appear rapidly in your mirrors was interesting to say the least!

Plenty of "offs", only a couple into the barriers, I mannaged to have "only" 1 spin coming out of turn 2, but stayed on the black stuff.

It was a good day to do withplenty of track time (only 30-40 cars showed up, & half of them left early), and innstructors were on hand to be taken/take laps with.

Michael

[CamBiscuit]

Bbbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Hope your heater works! I guess you've got your wet weather handling sorted then!

[mj911e]

Rain-Ex helps heaps too!

The Supercarts ran on the Saturday as well, very comical, every race at least 10 came back on trailers from various parts of the track. Drivers looking like drowned rats.

[Porsche]

(when are we getting spell check?)

There is already spellcheck!!! Click on at the top of the editor!

[Darren Sharp]

I was down at the island yesterday for the first time, great weather, great car, great fun and that tracks fast!
Its scary coming down the straight at 200Km/h and going into turn one.
There was no way I was going to do it without washing off some speed first.
A few times I found myself doing everything too late - braking, changing gear and turning into the corner all at the same time – a big no no.
It seems easy in theory but a little more hectic when you don’t know the track.
The first few laps the wrong corners were coming up when I was expecting them later
I’m amazed how fast they can rebuild the track and move the corners on you while you’re lapping
Later in the day when I had the track memorised (or they stopped changing it around on me) times got better.
After the first few laps in the high 2 minutes, I said I’d be happy if I got down to 2:15 for the day and had the car in one piece.
My best lap was 2:14 with lots of room for improvement but I was happy but definitely not consistent (sorry team 1)
Road tires were a real surprise, after two laps or so it felt like ball bearings were on every corner, I’ll be ordering competition tires tomorrow.
I was surprised at how forgiving the 901 was, there were a few moments when I had it very unsettled through my own stupidity but backing off or a little correction kept it on the black stuff all day.
Photos from the PCV website by Ron Widdison

[Chuck Miller]

Great post Darren.... good'on'ya mate

Cheers,

[alexwebster]

Well Marcus and I were at the Island yesterday and posted some decent lap time .... it was good to do some testing for tyre pressures and fuel consumption for the 6 hour.

Marcus beat me 'the prick' by .4 of a second. I was in the 356, and he did follow me through, so I am claiming he was in my slip stream and had a better run down the straight!!!! But he beat me fair and square.

I did a 2.05.55, with Marcus at 2.05.19.

All up a great day, got dizzy going around and around so much, and it was DRY!!!!!

Took some video - despite being banned from doing so by Phillip Island!!! Will make copies for everyone in Team 1 when we meet up so that everyone can talk your way around the track and feel a little better about lines etc.

Cya!

[Darren Sharp]

I can do a fairly consistent 1:13, take turn one at 317km/h and keep it together but unfortunately this is in the simulator and not real life

[alexwebster]

Was interesting to see the times that were done during the day. Some hot WRX's were doing just under 2.00. The fastest time of the day was 1.51 by a GTP Alfa Romeo. Bearing in mind that the in the 6 hour there will be traffic, and pitstops etc, I think anywhere from around 2.10 - 2.20 should be comfortable for most of us.
Definately will want to do some more laps down there and know that I can shift into 4th before turn one, and dig a little deeper on the brakes when required, as on the way home, I had NO BRAKES!!!! Oh what fun!

[Paul W]

Hey Alex sure you weren’t driving your Mum’s car again?

[alexwebster]

Hey Alex sure you weren’t driving your Mum’s car again?

Funny, in the Boxster I could not get the pedal to go down, in CRC I had no problem about travel, just wayyyyyyyyyyy too much.

It is off tomorrow to find out what is wrong. I have a feeling the master cyl has died. Either way, happy that it did not go to the floor on the track but on the way home...

[Paul W]

Yep - one of those stories that potentially could not have had such a happy ending.