Shut Up. I'm Talking.

14th Jul 2011

Fourty Five Dead.

While I wait to board my plane back to Cape Town.

14 hours later…

So I’m back and, wow, what a trip. One thing I forgot about motorsport (actually sport in general, no doubt) are the highs and lows you can experience in just one day.

For day two of testing we got to the track nice and early as we had some work that we still had to do on the kart. Once preparation was done I went out to do a short session to warm up the body and check that everything was ok.

Straight out of the blocks I was relatively quick which is always relieving because I sometimes tend to worry that my performance is a fluke or once off.

After three morning sessions we decided it was time to stick on some new tyres. The day before we had set a best lap of 45.2 on new rubber so today we planned on at least doing 45.0 and hopefully some high 44’s.

Pics from the test

The biggest nightmare as a driver / team is that when you put on new tyres you don’t actually go any quicker. Generally tyres are guaranteed to find you time so if you put them on and stay at the same pace (or worse, go slower) then you worry.

Unfortunately I was blessed with that honour on this second day of testing. Instead of doing 45.0 I juuuust managed to squeeze out a 45.2. I personally felt that it was down to me, the driver, as our setup was really good.

So with that in mind I sat down in a quiet corner and gave myself a fat lecture. I have experienced these moments while competing in Gran Turismo competitions, so I know the drill. It is usually a case of me over driving or over compensating. I thought to myself, if I just pull it back slightly and then build up pace again I should be able to do a good time.

By now it was already midday and the bruising around my ribs was taking serious strain. It took me about 1-2 laps just to get over the pain and shut it out so that I could drive flat out.

During the second session after putting on new tyres it seemed that my little pep talk did it’s trick as I started dipping into the 45.1 range. As the session progressed I felt that I could push a little bit harder and the next thing I see that on my lap timer is that I have hit 45.02.

The racing lap record around the circuit is a high 45.0 however I didn’t know this at the time. I stayed out and pushed harder in the hope of breaking into the 44’s but it wasn’t to be.

When I came into the pits I was told that I had matched and then broken the lap record. That, my friends, is a competitive pace and something I wasn’t expecting when I got on the plane to Durban 2 days prior.

With 45.0 as our new benchmark we experimented with a few things on the kart but as the day progressed I was in more pain. It eventually took me 5 laps to get over it and through some of the really fast corners I was gritting my teeth as hard as I could to just get through the corner.

Eventually I decided to call it a day as we were losing time due to the drop in track temperature and the pain I was experiencing.

All in all it proved to be a very successful test, I will be back next Thursday to take part in a Regional Race meeting as preparation for the big race in August. Everyone who will be there in August will be there next week, so it will be a fairly accurate acid test of where I stand.

I am cautiously optimistic but also apprehensive because going fast in testing is one thing but racing fast is quite another!

Here are some pics from the test