Here we go again, after a painful attempt at doing TA last year, with it coming together towards the end of the season with a 3rd place in the last event, I have signed up again.
This weekend saw the first event of the year at Cadwell Park, known as the mini Nurburgring :) Cadwell Park.
Full story of the day below, for those not so interested I got a 3rd in class in the final and enjoy the videos
Thanks to the support from Z1 Motorsports to get me up and going for this season and my engine builder for putting a very solid engine together. In the last week the engine build was complete, it was thrown on the dyno for a base map and ran the event on Monday.
Fastest Lap
Highlights
Story Quick story of the day, not going to prattle on as I think the video shows a lot of it! I'd only done 3 or 4 laps at cadwell before and that was with blown turbo's so yesterday was a steep learning curve! Learning a very interesting track and getting used to the car with a much more agressive power band. My brakes are still mismatched as well, but will get that sorted for the next event, all focus had to be on the engine for this round. This is also why you see the rear getting *very* light on heavy braking
Day started early, got up at six and left the B&B by 6:30am. Pulled over on a quiet bit of road to unload the Zed from trailer so I could get some heat in the engine and put some road miles on her on the way to the circuit. Got to the circuit at 7, found ourselves a spot, and then promptly got on with checking the car over and fitting the rain light at the rear.
Then went through the usual signing on, briefings etc. We left the car on the Michelin Super sports for the first session, again for me to get used to that setup and the track. The red flag was out very early in the session and was shocked to see a bale on the track while returing to the puts, followed by Bob's car off the track. Having seen the remnants of the accident, I'm surprised the damage to the car isn't worse to be honest. Saw Bob walking around the puts shortly after so glad to see he was unhurt.
The warm-up session resumed after clearing up, and my best lap of the session was a 1:50. We switched to the R888's and pushed on, my best time in the practice session being a 1:47. Both the morning sessions revealed a stumble in my map between gear shifts, so played with the emerald setup and managed to fix this
After lunch, we had the qualifying session so some points up for grabs. Also charged the gopro inbetween but forgot to put the SD card back so no footage from that one. Shame as I was closely following a subaru on a flying lap, unfortunately he span just before 'gooseneck', so I also ended up spinning while avoiding him. Must have been quite the sight seeing both cars pirouetting together. Best time was a 1:45, 4th in class so some points - though didn't realise at the time.
Final came along, and it was a real struggle to put in a flying lap, there was a yellow flag on the back straight, then combination of traffic or mistakes from me. Finally got a clean(ish) lap together and as I came onto the pit straight I saw the chequered flag, hesitated a bit then realised my lap would still count so booted it and bagged my fast lap. Parked the car on the trailer and it was only while chatting to another competitor did I learn that the time was a 1:43 and good for 3rd place Looking at the timing sheet I then found I only missed 2nd by 9 thousandth of a second...
Showing my support for US vendors :)
Follow Ups
UK TimeAttack - 2013 season has started - JaffaUK05:48:45 04/03/13
UK TimeAttack - 2013 season has started - 
09:36:02 04/03/13
