Brands Hatch ? Track Day
The return of the Sean-miester, Mr Laconic was back and sad to report yours truly had not as yet pulled his socks up. We had sneaked onto a novice only track day under the premise that with Sean in the car this was an instructional day. Credit crunch attendance left the circuit blessedly empty barring some yoofs in their M3s and the Caterham driving experience lorry, which I?m sure would have given some of the Caterham clients a run for their money if they let it out on the track.
This was my first time at Brands and I stuck in a ca 62sec lap first time out. This would have put me bottom of the bottom half of last year?s grid and as such was a very encouraging sign, especially with 90kgs of industrial grade talent mumbling away in the co-pilot?s seat.
The wind rush in the open topped car was a bit of problem for our 20quid intercom and despite a bootful of helmets we were unable to get a working set of full faces with intercoms. The next best option was the open face rally style helmets with the sun visors down. I could tell that the ethos of locost was finally getting to Sean as he manned up to the challenge by gaffa taping his gloves to his chin and sun visor to the gloves, which made him look like a safety conscious, if somewhat startled, Bedouin. Bound and gagged thus it was only by some negotiation that the marshals actually let us out on the track but on the plus side, cockpit comms were now restored and my final excuse for mucking around was gone.
Brands Hatch Indy is basically a four corner circuit that is fairly straightforward to learn and naturally subtly difficult to master. After a few sessions and the inevitable skinned knee, I was out on the track on my own trying to get it under 60secs (Locost lap record here being 58.4sec, set in 2004) when an eagled eye clerkess in race control black flagged me for undertaking an XR2 doing about 30mph up the hill to Druids hairpin. Back into the pits for a talking to and a slap on the wrist (XR2 man had just slotted in a new gearbox and was taking it easy for a few laps, could have stayed off the racing line, no?) Matt went out to set a ?data lap? at 59.8sec but even with a few more laps, and a couple at 60.0 I couldn?t get anything in the 59s but another 0.5sec improvement would put me into the top ten grid slots for the first time and with the possibly to draft other locosts during qualifying I was happy enough to spend the rest of the day pestering the yoofs in their M3, unable to pass them with 90hp under my command but unable to be shaken with 615kg lightly kissing the track. Nice to see that youth of day out playing with the oldies though
