Introduction
In this post I’m looking at what I’ve done to the car since Silverstone in June, preparing for a track day and what happened on it.
Work on car since Silverstone
It’s been an expensive few months. Sometime’s the plan just doesn’t come together and you need to dig yourself out of a hole of your own creation (like in rebuilding the front end) and at other times (like installing the roll bar) it runs like clockwork and you end up wondering what went wrong that you haven’t noticed!
I’ll post on these upgrades as I go along.
Brakes: Having left Silverstone with a knocking sound from the suspension on the drive home (review of Silverstone to follow), I found I’d lost a sliding pin from the front left brake caliber. This necessitated replacement so I bought a Bigg Red slider pin kit and all was well. I’m going to do a full brake service in the off-season.
Laptop: Having also found our AiM Solo2 DL quite helpful, I bought a refurbished Windows 11 laptop to keep all the car and track day info together in one place.
New Lower Wishbones: As part of an attempt at a front suspension refurbishment which was meant to end with a full set of polybushed front suspension arms, I instead split an upper suspension arm pressing out the old rubber bushes; and then repeated the trick with the lower arm. So I bottled the remainder and replaced both lower arms with new replacements and the broken upper with a second hand replacement from a breakers yard (which was in better condition than the original). Obviously a story tbc….
Front Alignment Bolts: In that refurb’ I’d also elected to replaced the alignment bolts as the originals no longer permitted any adjustment.
New Inner/Outer Track Control Arms: To replace completely seized originals.
Front Roll Bar Bushes: Replaced with Poly – the only bit that worked so far.
Track Day Alignment: I then took the car for a track day wheel alignment at a local tyre depot which will align them as close to the Bofi Racing Track Day recommendations as they can get. Not a cheap option when its all out of alignment, but so worth it.
Car Intercom: I’ve also added a Zero Noise Valiant Intercom and their Full Face Helmet Intercom set to two helmets from Demon Tweeks – a brilliant addition that means we don’t need to shout at each other to communicate over the wind and engine noise.
Extra Fusebox: I’d also added an extra fusebox to power a new intercom system and some planned additions in the future
New tyre: I’d also needed to replace a road tyre which had picked up a screw and was unrepairable.
Cybul Roll Bar: A safety upgrade purchased from Bofi Racing.
Taken together even without the laptop this had been an expensive few months. I managed to bring it all together on the Sunday before the Tuesday track day. So then I could pre-flight the car for Thruxton.
Track Day Preparation
This will be my fifth track day and I’ve begun to develop a pre-flight check list to standardise my prep in the week before I go.
I also carry a towing bar in the boot so I can be towed if I break down heading home from the track; and a petrol can, our helmets and food & drink for the day.
Usually we go in convoy of two cars so we can carry the extra gear in that.
On the Day
For Thruxton I usually book with Javelin Trackdays as they allow overtaking on either side which I prefer on this track as it is very fast and the on-track discipline of other drivers is not always the best.
Javelin allow a slow driver to indicate their intended line so a faster driver can pass on the remaining side. I’ve been black flagged before with another provider for pulling left to allow a much faster car to overtake on the right at this track before.
For me this has worked well up to now as with closing speeds being quite fast with some cars, then moving-over is sometimes more instinctual than planned when the car is on the edge of grip.
I’ll always use the turn indicators to tell people where I’m going so they can pass on the other side, its less safe when the following car “misjudges’ its braking or turning zone and ends up overtaking in the corners or in the chicane as happens more often than I like; but this happens with all providers.
Also the afternoon session as anyone will tell you are way less congested than the morning as people start to head home early.
Did the upgrades work?
So lap times came down for both drivers as we were more confident in the corners. Terminal Speed was up for both of us and feel was much improved as we were able to judge grip and turn much better.
As were using a slower less powerful car we were not lapping that fast (top speed 103mph) and were lapping at just over two minutes. Though as before each lap is compromised to some extent by the faster cars as you move off line or allow a car to let them pass you safely.
For some reason the Solo2 DL did not record any data on this session which was a disappointment but we managed to recover some data using the GPS file of the GoPro when rendering using RaceRender3
Here’s a video from YouTube of my best lap of the day
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