1st Goodwood of 1999
After having finished last seasons trackdays at Goodwood in rain it was nice to start this season here, especially as the weather couldn't have been better.
About 20 cars and 5 bikes turned up for this one and the organiser, Trevor Willard Racing, split us up into 5 groups. My group had 2 Elise's, 2 Esprit's and a Westfield in it, the second group had 911's of various types and ages in it, the third and fourth groups had 1 Elise, an old Anglia, a Caterham 7, an open wheeled jobbie that I was told was a Lotus 21, as well as a couple of others, and the fifth group had the bikes in it.
For my first session I asked one of the instructors to show me round. He drove for the first 3 laps and then I took over, he showed me a couple of mistakes I was making which were leaving the braking too late for a couple of corners and turning in too early for Madgwick, and before I knew it the sessions was over as they were only 15 mins long.
The next session I took out the son of one of the other drivers who timed me, I managed to do a 1min 46secs and he told me that the time to beat is the 1min 40secs barrier, as once your below that it shows you've mastered the circuit. So now to the hard part, where am I loosing 6 seconds? One obvious place is Madgwick and Lavant as I'm still turning in too early and then having to adjust the steering mid corner which in turn affects my exit speed, the other is that I'm not getting the power on early enough or strong enough as I exit the corner. I should be applying some power just after I turn in and then nailing it once I've apexed. Time to put the theory into practice.
For this sessions I'm going out on my own. I finally start to get Madgwick right and I'm at 6,500 rpm for Fordwater but there isn't enough straight for fifth, also I'm still getting Lavant wrong although I've started using fifth down the end of the Lavant Straight! Halfway through my session the Westfield comes up behind me and we have a bit of a race between us, he catches me in the corners and I leave him down the straight's, what a laugh. After the session Chris, who's driving the Westfield, and I compare notes. He noticed that I wasn't very close to the curb on the second apex at Lavant, something to try and fix next time out.
After lunch I go out for another session, this time with the wife of one of the LDC's southern section organisers, I'd better be on my best behaviour! I seemed to be getting it together this time out as the other cars aren't leaving me behind so quickly. I even managed to overtake both of the Esprits, one of which is driven by my passengers husband :-)
The next two sessions are pretty much the same, but on the last session I take out the girlfriend of one of the other drivers and there's an Elise on my tail the whole time, when I get back to the pits the driver comes up to me and says "you're going much quicker, I was slowly catching up with you but there's no way I could've got past", excellent! It sounds like I might be getting the hang of it, but I forgot to ask him what time he was doing so I'll have to wait till I'm here again to get a time.
All in all it was an excellent day and I think everybody enjoyed it. The Anglia got sideways on the exit of The Chicane, one of the Porsche's bonnet came loose, and the Caterham ran rings around everybody!
We even had a shopping trolley out during one of the other sessions, and he got all crossed up exiting The Chicane!
My favourite moment; managing to keep up with an Esprit down Lavant Straight because I finally got it right and was travelling faster than him through the corner!
My scariest moment; putting too much power down on the exit of The Chicane and going sideways, humm I have a feeling of deja vous...
What did I learn from the day, that sometimes trying too hard can make you go slower!
Next time I'm definitely going to beat that 1min 40secs......
