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Ben Lipman Goo Roo SA Soarer TT manual, plus TT track car, plus a spare shell
Posts: 3934 Reg: 04-2006
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Tuesday, June 09, 2015 - 02:55 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
Hard to say Clayton. Looking back, the 1:07 lap was done with a seriously torn up shoulder and detached bicep (short head), old tyres but a nicely corner balanced car.
A year later, the shoulder is in good working order and the car is a couple of kilos lighter, but has not been corner weighted since. The new tyres did not give the immediate gain I had hoped for.
To be honest I am still not driving the car as well as I have done in the past, but my confidence is growing. I think a better driver would find more time quite quickly.
Over all I would say it is just a natural evolution of the car and the driver. The thing is, now I have run 1:06, that time is clearly achievable, and I now expect I should run some 1:06s at every event. It is a mental game. Interestingly, at least one other guy set a new PB in that last session, so maybe the track gripped up too.
Those last two sessions I was really wringing its neck. It got to the point I was throwing it into turn 2 and hitting the throttle before the apex to correct the understeer and slide the thing out to the ripple strips. I was pretty confident the tyres would find some grip and get me going in the right direction. I haven't felt that confident since driving Hidden Valley in the rain - I went from being 3rd or 4the fastest car in the dry to being 1st by a long margin in the rain. An external video might have been quite entertaining.
I am either going to head out to the circuit club day on the 11th of July, or the Rotary Nationals on the 12th. Both events are at Wakefield. I need to consolidate this 'training' before I lose it again.