Brands Hatch trackday 7 December
 

My car club (Sevenoaks) are hijacking the Mazda on Track Brands Hatch Indy trackday tomorrow, anyone else doing it? You don't have to use a Mazda so will see what the wagon can do! Haven't driven at Brands since I did my ARDS test there in 2015, and haven't been on a circuit for a year or so. Should be fun :drive:

How did you get on fella? any video or snaps?



Hope the weather held out.

It was a bit of an adventure! Weather was utterly minging first thing, and I didn't get up there until 10.30 as I was at my daughter's nativity play in the morning.

When I arrived they'd actually had to red flag the session due to standing water on Graham Hill bend!

Went out and had no grip going into Paddock Hill, so ended up in the kitty litter, not the best start. Got dragged out and spent some time getting rid of all the gravel, thankfully no damage but some nasty scraping noises for a while until I shook it all out.

After lunch was much better, the rain stopped, the track started to dry out and I did over 60 laps in the end. I had my lap timer going and the fastest one was the last one :drive:

There were a few cars into the wall/gravel at various times, a nice RX7 lost it coming out of Clearways and scraped its nose along the pit wall; a race-prepped Mk2 Fiesta dropped its guts all over Druids and the next car to arrive went into the gravel; an MX-5 lost it coming out of Graham Hill and went into the left hand barrier; a very new race-prepped MX-5 lost it out of Druids and hit the wall on the right. All of these happened on their own with no malice from other drivers, it was just really tricky out there!

I've got a fair bit of video but haven't processed it yet, will put some laps together with the timing and get them on yootoob soon. Also waiting for some pictures to come through. Had a lot of fun but really must stop visiting gravel traps. :brickwall:

Whoops! Pretty well beached. It was starting to spin, and the back end went in first so straightened me up.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sco...9fea98e007.jpg


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sco...2b90880f98.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sco...fc28c6358f.jpg

Was pretty soggy first thing:
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sco...8bb2573bdc.jpg

I did think about popping over as only about 15 minutes away but the weather put me off :-D

Despite your excursion, sounds like you had a lot of fun? :doubleup:

I put the spin into the gravel up on YouTube!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-hKzAZaHes

Cool pics, brands is super slippery in the wet.

+ this! I remember my first time at brands was soaking wet and I led out after a pace car pealed in, (they also red flagged for standing water), the first thing I saw as I came out of Paddock in my rear view was the 2 cars directly behind me spinning off into the kitty litter! I think one of them was Rob!