First time trial

This Sunday, I took the Birkin out for its first set of timed runs. The day is run by AEM - the same people who are putting on the one-day rally in two weeks time, and the venue is one of the locations. So it was a good opportunity to punt it into a few corners to see what happens.

Anyway, four laps.....

First lap -well, less said about this one, the better. Started off, then put it into second for no apparent reason. Then came around a right hander, tried to sweep into the following left hander, hit brakes and accelerator at the same time, and parked it up a bank. What made it worse was that I almost beached myself -took some wheelspinning to get off and back onto the track. No damage to the car at all, which was good. I was only doing around 10kph as I went up the grassy knoll.

Second lap was better, although I must admit I was slightly gun-shy. Left it in first most of the way round, which worked a lot better. Coming into the final, sharp right hander though, I discovered it doesn't like braking and turning at the same time - basically understeered in a straight line, and clipped a bollard. Again, no damage.

Third and fourth laps were, well, dull in comparison, yet obviously much quicker when you don't park it half-way through the lap.

Anyway, the results should come out soon. I think if I hadn't parked it on the first lap, I would have done OK. I deliberately didn't look at my times during the day - I decided to focus on the driving, not on the times. When you're trying to shave whole seconds off, what's the point of keeping track that closely?

So, a few things to look at. The understeering is still annoying, but I have a lot of suspension work to smooth that out. I can also focus on the driver - as long as I do most things in straight lines at the moment, its fine. But I have two weeks before the next event - probably won't improve too much between now and then.

But gee it was a hell of a lot of fun...... ;-)