Trackday at Donington Park (Oct 07)

This was the first time I had the opportunity to put into practice the training I'd received on the Prodrive track training day. Sure enough I found out a lot more about what the car (and I) could and couldn't do blushing.gif . On the whole the car held up very well throughout the day. On track it was sure footed for the majority of the time. The best fun was on bends like Macleans, Coppice and the old hairpin. Here it was possible to jump on the power at the apex and let the car drift out to the opposite of the track with lots of speed and no drama. Similarly it was very quick throught the Foggy chicane when yet again as soon as I'd turned in and clipped the first apex, it was a simple case of pointing the car at the second apex with full throttle.

The most difficult corners to get through quickly were the melbourne hairpin and goddards. Throughout out the day I had to be content with braking hard, going in deep and only feathering the throttle until I was out the other side. Too harsh and too soon would make the tail slide but having had a big spin at Craner curves early in the day I decided not to experiment with trying to slide it round those corners in case I ran out of talent.





The main issue with the car on the day was that the hard braking points of the melbourne loop took it's toll on my brakes. Although I'd bled some fluid and checked the pads (more than 50% left) before setting out to Donny I got a big case of brake fade after 4 laps in the second session. After checking that everything was OK and letting them cool I was happy to carry on for the rest of the day but I had to be a lot more sympathetic with them by braking much earlier than I would have liked to.

The other plus points from the day were the confirmation that removing the undertray had removed the embaressing phenomenom of smoke coming out of the engine bay after a hard session and that the battery, which had started run down due to a period of low use, had fully charged back up by the time I got home. All in all a brilliant day and the car continues to provide both the fun and thrills that I was hoping for.