A.R.S.E.

Awesome!

Enjoy it.

I had my first serious track day in the car (along with two days of blasting around Victorian back roads which was most excellent!). Winton is about the perfect size track for my car and after watching it for years on TV and bemoaning how slow and tight it is for the V8s, all of a sudden it seemed quite fast. The sweeper was well over 100km/h which was plenty quick enough a corner for me.

To pull out some racing driver excuses, my brakes were pretty gone by the end of the day (had them bled afterwards and there was heaps of air) just when I was building confidence in other areas, and I also copped a bit of traffic on my best lap that made me lift. I also discovered the importance of tightening wheel nuts between sessions! Still, even with that I improved over 10 seconds from my first attempt and I only went out 4 times. One of those was with a more experienced guy in the passenger seat and with him telling me where I could push I made time up in leaps and bounds. Also got the back of the car a bit excited through said 100km/h+ sweeper! I went out for passenger laps with the same guy later and he was doing times about 13 seconds quicker than what I would be capable of - and in essentially the same car (only had semis and coil-overs). The braking distances were eye-opening to say the least. I had a fantastic day and I'll be hitting up Wakefield in November although might be taking it easy on the brakes since the pedal still isn't where it was before Winton.

Here's my, fairly tame fastest lap:

[youtube]XtYRp_2b1c8 [/youtube]

And some random pics of lots of Renaults invading country Victoria:

Untitled by Mick Dunn, on Flickr

Untitled by Mick Dunn, on Flickr

Untitled by Mick Dunn, on Flickr

Untitled by Mick Dunn, on Flickr

Untitled by Mick Dunn, on Flickr

Untitled by Mick Dunn, on Flickr

Untitled by Mick Dunn, on Flickr

Untitled by Mick Dunn, on Flickr

Untitled by Mick Dunn, on Flickr

That's awesome. Perfect car for thrashing around.

Road car brakes on a race track do not work. Upgrade the pads/rotors, and you might need to flush the fluid altogether and get some race fluid (though this is a major step and you may need to mortgage your child to afford it) like Castrol SRF.

But it looks like a lot of fun, and I can see why the tail might have been getting excited through the sweeper (big bumps).

Good stuff Exar....there is nothing quite like being able to have a good fang without having to worry about anything else.

Try not to too get addicted, there is no end to money you can spend and improvements you can make.

Speed wrote:Good stuff Exar....there is nothing quite like being able to have a good fang without having to worry about anything else.

Try not to too get addicted, there is no end to money you can spend and improvements you can make.

Oh yes. It's like that joke about how to make a small fortune in motorsport...

It's running better rotors and better pads already on the front. Rears are totally stock though. It also had better fluid (Ferodo dot 5.1) but maybe it was just too old or air is getting in the system from somewhere else. The car doing much faster laps was on stock sized brakes, just upgraded pads, rotors and fluid like me so there may be some other gremlin in my system that's made the pedal go long.

And yep, I could easily get addicted - although my self preservation instinct still kicks in pretty early, so I'll never be particularly quick!

Stupid question Exar, but do you remember talking to me @ Winton?

I completly forgot you were going to be there but I vagley remember talking to someone who kind of looks like they were waring a light grey top driving a clio

by the way I was the shortish guy driving the lunar grey RS250 wearing a black jacket & glasses

Haha, I was thinking the same thing about you! If I saw a photo I'd probably know. I remember your car though. Bloody quick!

[youtube]ckWMf5ELOsQ [/youtube]

Thats was my fastest lap of the day at winton maybe that will jog your memory

Missed the brake.

It seems to me that you all sit too far from the steering wheel...but maybe that's because my Delecour-style feels more normal to me.

You're not the only person to say that, VT. I've already adjusted my seat

VTRacing wrote:
It seems to me that you all sit too far from the steering wheel...but maybe that's because my Delecour-style feels more normal to me.

Or your prescription windscreen requires it

Bringing sand on track..bad boy.

w00dsy wrote:

VTRacing wrote:
It seems to me that you all sit too far from the steering wheel...but maybe that's because my Delecour-style feels more normal to me.

Or your prescription windscreen requires it

Up yours, w00dsy.

(It's a prescription half-windscreen because Erin has to see out, too.)

VTRacing wrote:

w00dsy wrote:

VTRacing wrote:
It seems to me that you all sit too far from the steering wheel...but maybe that's because my Delecour-style feels more normal to me.

Or your prescription windscreen requires it

Up yours, w00dsy.

(It's a prescription half-windscreen because Erin has to see out, too.)

Not that much of a bonus, she has limited capacity to influence the impact once the error has been made...

Wakefield!! Loads of fun. A little less intimidating for me than Winton - I don't know if that was the track or the experience or both. GoPro didn't get my final session where I finally started to get the hang of things but it was all still fun.

[youtube]tTPiMz1ubvo [/youtube]

Renault Sport invasion!

Untitled by Mick Dunn, on Flickr

That looks like so much fun!!

It is indeed! You should bring your ride down the next time we do it.

IMG_2699 copy by www.autofocus.net.au, on Flickr

IMG_2731 copy by www.autofocus.net.au, on Flickr

IMG_2733 copy by www.autofocus.net.au, on Flickr

What sort of speeds are you doing at the top of 2nd and 3rd? It looks really zippy and some nice driving

Just under 100km/h for 2nd and somewhere around 130 for 3rd I think. The track suits the car really well. Not a quick car in a straight line but there's enough time spent cornering and the braking distances are crazy short with someone who actually knows what they are doing. My best time I caught on video was a 1:19.4. I missed taping the final session but felt I had a really good lap in that one that would have got me into the 18s.

Wonder how my boat would go there lol

There was a VL there that was doing a billion k's an hour for the first third of the straight and cruising for the rest of the lap Hehe.

Mate check my thread, vl has been and gone haha

Really nice driving, Mick. Smooth and neat.

Your seating position seems better too.

I really don't think it's worth pushing your daily driver harder than that on a racetrack.

I must admit, my Renault Megane RS250 was one of the most enjoyable cars I've ever owned. Torque steer was a bitch but otherwise, a fantastic little car that went like the clappers.