This is my track blog. I decided to have this blog to share my passion for tracking and also to have a log of both my car and personal development in tracking at Sepang International Circuit.
Can't Imagine that this was my first trackday for year 2009. Early of the year, I was troubled with servicing of the coils and later quickly followed by heavy work commitments that let me missed all the lovely trackdays in the first half of the year.
Nevertheless, I took time to recuperate during these down times, changing all the wear and tears, preparing and aiming for the trackday that I could go. The oil filter adaptor was replaced and the filter was migrated to the front bumper side. After few visits to the workshop, the oil seepage problems with the adaptor was finally resolved. It was also time to replace the clutch pading after more than four years since I bought the car. I also seized the moment to install the 5.1 final drive gear together with the clutch pad. The stock rotor had to be replaced as well, So I swapped in a pair of project Mu SCR matched with the highly recommended racing 999 brake pad. The A048 has reached the end of it's life cycle and I replaced them with new Bridgestone RE55S in 225 profile as well. Then I just had to wait for the day to come.
8 of june was the last chance to redeem the free trackday from TCC. It was also a rare 4 hrs session, so it is a no brainer decision to go. It was supposed to be an all Integra, 3 cars covoy up north. After we rendezvous in Gelang Patah Petronas, 3 other cars ( S2000, Swift Sports and EvoX) decided to tag along with our convoy. The journey was smooth all the way to our destination.
This was my best lap recorded at 2:44:06. It was two and a half seconds off my previous best. All I can say is that RE55S is really good as it not only grips much better than the A048 but also can better maintain it's grip after some hot laps. The 5.1FD is another thing that works quite well in Sepang. Now I can feel that the car pulls better especially in those 3rd gear corners like turn 4, 14 and 15 etc. The bites of 999 pads are also consistent and no fades. I guessed that all these contributed to part of the results. I am happy with it as now I can aim higher woohoo !!!
After knowing the tricks on the tyre pressure for A048, I headed to Sepang again to try out the new setting. TCC was blessed with a nice cloudy weather for the whole four hours and furthermore the number of cars enrolled for the track was only around 60.
The immediate feel I got for running A048 with lower tyre pressure than last track session was very positive. There were grip improvements on corner entry and exits. I was even able to go 10Km/hr higher at turn 5. I am begining to appreciate this tyre already.
As I was just begining to understand how to use semi-slicks, I will continue to explore and hopefully make use of it to reduce at least 3 seconds off my best track timing set when using the RT615. Besides tyres, I also noticed that the way I corner turn 10 and 14 was not executed well. However, I already knew my mistakes after watching my video and thinking about it. I will focus on these 2 corners for the next track day planned after August.
This was my best lap recorded at 2:46:19. It was about slighty more than a second shorter than the timing of the previous track day. Some minor changes involves breaking harder to have better corner entry at turn 2, 4, 7 and 9.
After resting for a long 3 months, it was time to hit the track again. This was the first time that I was using real semi-slicks (Yokohama a048). Hopes was high that the tyres will perform for me before I set off in the early wee hours. However, the results tell otherwise. I only found out from Freddy after the trackday that my driving style has to change and I was running way too high pressure for the a048.
With this silliness, the only thing I got was a slightly smoother line with the same timing achieved by the previous RT615 street tyres that I had used. It was quite a demoralising result. Nevertheless, it was only the begining for me to learn more about using semis and I am cofident that through practise, experience and guidance, there will be a day that I should be able to take advantage of what the semis could provide. I can't wait for the next trackday to try it out.
This was my best lap recorded at 2:47:21. It was exactly the same timing as the previous track day. Some minor changes involves 3rd gear into T4 and 4th gear into T7, T8. I have not been able to carry alot of speed into those turns but I do noticed that a048 does offer better grip at corner exit and I should be able to put the power on back much ealier.
This was the first Edge Track Day for year 2008. The last one was back in 2006 which I also attended. I remembered that back then, I was still trying to crack the 3 mins lap time. The Edge track day is always a good track day to go if you are worried about the numbers of participating cars. They usually have a much lower limit of cars as compared to the more pupular track clubs. This provides good opportunity to clock decent timing for the time attack style as there will be lower chance of cars blocking your line.
I set off at around 8am from Patronas in Geylang Patah with a few Legacies from Subaru Legacy Singapore Club to Sepang. The weather was good and traffic was rather smooth. We reached the 209km mark at around 10:15am, had our brunch, and then continued our convoy towards Sepang.
We reached our destination at around 11:30am. As usual, we quickly settled down in some of the unused pits, removing spare tyres, mounting camera and unloading other junks out from our cars to make it lighter. Registration opened at 12pm sharp and the track opened on time at 1pm with a 2 laps orientation run for the newbies.
My primary objective for this track day was targeted towards better braking at T1, T4, T9 and T15. Secondary objectives were to increase the speed into T5 and to improve the line into T11 and T14. With those objectives in mind, I headed out immediately after the orientation run had ended. Overall, I had some improvement in braking which I noticed that I can brake slightly later and harder than the previous trackday. The entry speed at T5 was also increased by around 10km/hr but I noticed that I cannot maintain the speed around the band and had to dropped back to slightly aboved 120km/hr in order to maintain grip. T11 is still a killer for me as I still cannot take it with good speed out the corner. However, I managed to clear T14 with a slightly better line by a wider approach before turning in. The results for the day was satisfactory to me as I managed a few laps of 2:47'ish and good consistency between 2:47 - 2:48'ish lap times.
I'll retire my RT615 tyres for the next coming track days as they have reached their end of life for just being used for only 3 months. This shows that I am not very good at preserving tyres on track, possibly due to excessive skiding at most of the turns. Next track in April, I will swap in a set of barely used A048 to check out how it works. It's my first set of semis, so I am actually very excited about it.
After waited for two long months, the first track day for the year 2008 finally came. It was another double-slot type of massive track day organised by Traction Circle Club with their original exclusive mini-endurance race termed "(JD) Judgement Day". Although it should be fun to participate in the JD, my goal for this trackday was still biased towards on how to improve my timing rather than preparing to be competitive for the event. My set-up for the car was simple. The only difference is to make the front camber slightly more negative to reduce tyres wear and also hopefully to achieve better traction at corners using the street's RT615 rubbers.
Weather was good in Singapore before set off. The rain hit our convoy of 3 around the 100km mark on the North South Highway but luckly the sky started to clear up from Ayer Keroh onwards. We reached Sepang with a total clear and dry weather and I knew immediately that it was going to be a fun day.
The track opened slightly late around 8.15am after the usual registration and safety brief. I took my time to remove my number plate when the newbies were heading out for their orientation laps. I did this to see whether it makes any difference to the efficiency of the oil-cooler as the plate was covering 3/4 of the cooler's area.
At around 8:30am, I was out at the track doing a easy 3 laps to warming-up my tyres and then pit again to check and adjust my tyre pressure. Then I headed out again to concentrate on attacking T5, ,T11, T12, T13 and T14. I shifted to 4th before entering T5 and it feels much better than when I was on 3rd on those previous trackday I had. However, somehow I didn't manage to red-line on 3rd before going to 4th and I believe that "eats" into my timing for T5. But the good thing was I was able to take T5 in excess of 120km/hr, which I cannot do it previously. This might be the results of the more negative front camber.
For T11, I still got problems finding the best point to brake and turn. I think I will need to aim at some object in future. There should be still plenty of rooms for improvement for this turn.
The cones at T12 and T13 are gone this time, so I was able to carry more speed into them with less worries. I was definately faster around T12 and T13 compared to the last trackday. As for the killer T14, I still had alot of mistakes. After shifted from 4th to 3rd then to 2nd, I was outside the power band during the turn. I will definately need to fix this in future. I would also want to explore different lines as I saw some of the faster cars were running a totally different line from mine. I was so confused on this turn.
For other turns like T4, T9 and T15, I still have problems with overspeeding and missing apex. I knew it was the braking that caused this. I had no doubts on the braking system and I was sure that I had not been braking enough for these tight turns.
When the qualifying period was over, I was happy that I got selected to participate for the JD event. That means that I was entitled to another 40 mins of track time to have some racing fun. I started out first in group C but ended 3rd. Nevertheless, it was full of fun, excitement and not to mention the tons of mistakes caused by the racing pressure.
This track was considered a fruitful one despite lots of mistakes still stays uncorrected. I was happy to clock my personal best of 2:48 and also brought home a small souvenir given by TCC. I am already looking forward for the Edge Trackday on the 22th Feb to try to fix my mistakes.
This video was recorded during the JD qualifying period of the track session. The lap time recorded in my DV Cam was 2:48:15 which is slightly better than the previous 2:49:08. It was a good start for a new year and I will be trying harder to do better in the following trackdays. A little improvement is better than no improvements ! Don't you guys think so ? Ha Ha.
Finally, the Year 2007 is ending soon and there will be no more trackdays to go after Novenber 12th. Personally, I am looking forward to 2008 for more runs to Sepang and maybe, the Changi track in future if everything goes smoothly.
For this year, my target is mainly trying to improve my timing and have more understanding to the handling of the DC5R. Timing wise, I am quite happy with 2:49 lap time although it might sound noobish to most good trackers. Nevertheless, through some hardwork, I managed to shaved off 5 seconds from 2:54 which I started out in early 2007. Of couse, that is not possible if without the help of changing some parts to improve the handling of the car and friends who kindly shared their tracking experiences with me.
Parts that I had this year: Fujitsubo RM01A exhaust Ohlins DFV Coilover Project mu 0-800 pads Shift Beeper Custom Engine Oil-Cooler
It was the last track day for the year 2007. SGTrackies was having it in the morning and then followed immediately by Traction Circle Club in the afternoon. I have not been tracking for 3 boring months, so I decided to go for both. Well, since it was the last of this year, why not enjoy it to the fullest ?
My previous set of RT615 lasted about eight months and left around 0.5mm of thread depth. I swapped in a new set and got the wheels aligned with proper camber and toe, in preparation for this massive trackday.
Before moving off from Singapore, I had a visual check with the weather and it looked good. I set off with high hopes that it was going to be a fine day. The weather was good all the way until around the 80km mark on the North South Highway when I started to see droplets of water hitting my windscreen. It was not surprising as it was supposed to be rainy season near the end of the year. The rain continued even when I reached Sepang and from judging the color of the sky, I immediately knew that it was going to be a wet trackday for the whole morning session, at least.
For the SGTrackies session, I did not track much due to the wet condition. I spent lots of time walking around and socialising with some fellow trackies who was also waiting for the sun. One of them was Chiam, who had also signed up for the TCC's session in the afternoon. That was our only hope for the day. For those who only tracked in the SGT's session, they only had less than 15 minutes of dry track near the end. I only did about 4 laps on the wet track (not even enough to warm up my tyres), before proceeding to register for the next session with TCC.
The afternoon TCC session started out with good weather. The track was 100% dry provided by a bright scorching hot sun. It was totally unimaginable that the weather could change so fast between morning and afternoon. There was no complains from me as it provided me with the right environment to do my best lap and also to test out the effectiveness of the oil cooler.
I scrambled out immediately after the orientation run. The track was closed with the red light on my third lap and I went back to the pit to check and release my tyre pressure. When the track reopened, I went out again and tracked for for more than 30 minutes trying my best. I counted more than 10 laps continuously and the oil temperature was still below 110 degrees. It put a big smile on my face. When I pit again, it was already around 2:45pm. This means that the qualifying for the 40 minutes mini-endurance event is going to be over soon. My thoughts at that moment was that I should be able to qualify for Class D which will enable an "extra" 40 minutes of track time. However when the transponder time sheet for the first 2 hours came out, I was surprised that I was stucked between Class C and D. That means that I was too slow to secure a slot for Class C and also outside the upper limit of class D. Although not able to have the last bit of fun, I was slightly consoled by setting a better personal best timing. But it was not enough as it didn't hit below my target of 2:50 minutes. There was still plenty of track time left though.
When I feel cool again, I headed out to the hot track doing another 30-40 mins. After that, the track was closed in preparation for the mini endurance event. I stayed around to chit chat with some fellow trackies while waiting for the event to end. The event was cut short due to oil leaked and everyone was forced back to the track. That marks the end of the trackday.
This video was taken during the later part of the track session. It was the best closure for me for tracking in 2007. The lap time recorded in my DV Cam was 2:49:08 which translates to 2:49:320 on the mili-seconds scale, using the formula (8*1000)/25 with a PAL DV recording at 25fps. Let's see if this matches nicely with the transponder time sheet when it is release later. I am happy with this lap time as it met my target for this year and in the video I also saw the opportunities that I can do better in future. See you guys next year! That'll be Jan 2008 if nothing goes wrong.
