Afternoon all,
Time for another update! It's hard to believe so much time has passed since my trackday at Mallory in July - the memory is still vivid... unlike most these days
I had 2 sessions of instruction booked, one in the morning, and one after the lunch break. The day started beautifully weather-wise, however clouds were building in the distance and come 10 o'clock, first instruction session time, the heavens opened in a big way. Due to my spin at Blyton in the wet last year I was fairly tentative, and during my 20 minute instruction period I could only really focus on learning the braking, turning and clipping points. After this biblical deluge however, the track dried pretty quickly and my confidence began to increase through the morning. After lunch, with tank refueled I headed out with the instructor once more. 'Much improved' was the verdict, and I was able to sort out a couple of slightly tricky moments without too much fuss. I really tried to focus on being smooth, but found there was just so much going on. I think once I've been to a few trackdays I'll begin to process it all better and be able to think a corner or two ahead. Even so, I learnt a great deal and was keeping up with some slick-shod cars through the corners which was unexpected. Reviewing the footage of the day from my camera later, I found I was in the low 57s for my fastest laps, which isn't too shabby at Mallory for cars such as ours - and given it was only my second time on track. The Chevron suspension was great all day, and I found the car would now actually turn better with some throttle applied - however I didn't have the cojones to exploit this fully! Still it makes me aware that with this fantastic car the ceiling for its performance is very high, so there's much yet to learn about it. The brakes were amazing, the tyres were brilliant too - although I abused them somewhat in the late PM staying out a bit too long, see pics!
All in all I had a really good day, helped massively by the friendly and generous people there. If you're yet to do a trackday I'd highly recommend doing one, this one was organised by Javelin and ran very well.
Since then I've got round to fitting the new PU front lip (Tim's beautiful carbon one was cracked, some of you will remember) and my new APR GT3 carbon mirrors. With the mudflaps, grilles and wind deflectors that's pretty much the exterior mods done - at least until I find a CF bonnet, wing and boot lid (PM me if you're selling and struggling to find a buyer
hahaha). PFC 01 endurance pads have now been fitted too.
So for now I'm going to focus on doing the interior, but I'm a bit stuck as to exactly how to do it. I want to fit a bucket seat for improved feel, CoG and comfort (my back doesn't like newage STi seats). For safety's sake this requires a harness, but I want to retain full use of at least one rear seat, and as such I can't refit the harness bar. My current thinking is fit a side-mounted GRP / Kevlar bucket to the Subaru-specific Buddy Club rails, and anchor the harnesses at the right rear passenger seat belt bolt. Given that the bolt is almost directly at the join between upper and lower cushions, I should be able to retain the lower bench in place and have the left side available for passengers. And the angle of the straps back from the seats is well within FIA recommendations, apparently many sprint cars run with this configuration (although they get rid of the rear seat!). If anyone's got any thoughts or experience on this please feel free to post! Anyway, providing I can safely fit a seat and harness, I'll be looking to fit a smaller aftermarket steering wheel too, which should improve steering weight and help when the proverbial 'dab of oppo' is required
After this I'm thinking a flocked dash could be next...