|
|
|
|---|---|
|
|
|
|
Navigation: |
11th March - First testing at Brands Hatch! |
|
What an exciting day ahead - My first ever experience of driving a 7.5 tonne lorry to be closely followed by my first ever experience of driving a competition race car. You could say from the sublime to the ridiculous! |
|
|
|
|
| On signing on, I was informed that we were in Group C. Group A was mainly comprised of the slower saloon cars, Group B open wheeled cars, and Group C the faster saloon cars, which on this occasion was mainly Porsche GT3's, Radicals and Caterhams. If my natural apprehension wasn't already building enough, I certainly started to become quite nervous having witnessed two pretty big offs in the first two sessions before mine. Oh well if you're gonna have a go, you might as well go in at the deep end. | |
 |
|
| Out of the pits, round Paddock Hill bend and up towards Druids for the first time with cars seemingly darting around in front, behind and on both sides of me. On changing down from forth into third for Druids I began to get an understanding of why everyone says the Tuscan Challenge car is pretty 'twitchy'. The back end immediately started to fishtail which, probably more by luck than judgement, I managed to catch and slid my way round the hairpin. This happened once more during the first session until I was able to gain a greater feel for the car and employ some heel and toeing. The next challenge was working out how to tame the beast particularly going through Graham Hill bend where we experienced a rather exciting power wobble - it doesn't half focus your concentration. Almost as much as coming out of Clearways to see bits of car flying everywhere in front of you as a Radical and a Caterham decided to get better acquainted. | |
 |
|
| Managed to avoid collecting any of the bits and we made our way back to the pits giving Andy an opportune moment to check over the car. It was a freezing cold day only just above 0 ºC and the tyres were barely warming up at this stage. Other than what appeared to be mandatory offs and spins by many of the cars in our group each session got better and better and despite the cold track and the used slicks which were on the car we managed to clock up a best time of 52.9 secs - not too bad for a rookie. My main aim for the day was to get around without spinning off or worse yet, breaking the car, which we achieved capping off a very successful first outing. My thanks to Andy (APM Automotive) for ensuring the safety of the car and also to Craig Adams (Hants TVR car club) for coming along to support us for the day. | |
|
|
|
| ^Top | |
|
Website
created and designed by Glynnder - contact him for more information on
alexglynn@gmail.com |
|
