Car : Integra Type R DC5
Parts : Fujitsubo RM01A exhaust, Ohlins DFV Coilover(No Camber), Project mu 0-800 pads
Tyres : Falken RT615
Track : Sepang F1 Circuit (Malaysia)
Situation : I headed north from home at around 7:15am in the morning. The weather did not look good as the sky was really dark with light drizzling. I was hoping that Sepang would have all the sunshine.
Since it was a working Monday, there was totally no queue at both custom check points. The joruney up north was smooth despite the light drizzle which was also covering the Johore state. After clearing about 100KM of journey, the sun finally showed it's face. From then on, it was sunny all the way to Sepang. I had a big smile of relief on my face.
I reached the circuit at around 11:30am. As usual, the first thing I did was to find a good pit to unload all my stuffs and setting up the DVCam in my car. Having done that, I saw a familiar face which belongs to someone I knew from MCF (MyCar Forum) as they were tracking the morning Singapore Vios Club session.
Track registration opened at around 12:30pm with a single batch of safety briefing. It was again a big relief to me as this comfirmed no more 100 cars tracking this time! Track opened at 1pm with the kicked off the usual 2-3 laps of newbie orientation run. I tooked my time at the pit to work on the tyre pressure and thinking of my goals and what I was going to do. I decided to follow the "rules" and try to do something slightly different from my normal trackdays.
Result : I headed out for a 3 laps (no pushing) warm up laps to prepare my tyres. I noticed that once the tyres were warm up and pressure released to about 220, it will actually stabilized around there throughout the whole track session.
After 15 mins of resting at the pits, I went out to have some VTEC time under the hot burning sun. I noticed that I cannot last for 3 laps without having the defi beeping at a boiling oil temperature of over 120 degree celcius. This foced me to pit again and it actually spoiled most of the fun.
While the car was resting, Freddy came over to see whether I needed help. I grabbed the opportunity immediately to have him sat at my passenger side while I headed out for a few laps. He helped by pointing out my mistakes in my lines, gearing, braking, acceleration and a few other areas which I tried my best to follow to correct them. Next, I sat on his car while he showed me how it was supposed to be done. I grasped in awe in the way he did it using his DC5 with AD048 rubbers. Now then I know the way how the DC5 should be driven on track.
I spent the rest of the hours trying out the new ways that Freddy showed me. However, I cannot stay on the track for more than 3 laps due to the boiling engine oil. Although I did not achieve my target of cracking below 2:50 min lap time, but I did came back with something new to ponder and hopefully it will benefit me in the future. A big thanks to Freddy for showing me "the way".
Best Lap Of The Day:
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This video was taken when I was trying out a sligitly different lines and gearing. The lap time recorded on my DV Cam was 2:52:11, which is nothing to shout about. I think I'll need to stop targeting the 2:4x lap time until I had more practice with the current setup of my car.
Spun moments:
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Trying out new things and I actually spun twice in a day. It was sad that the more I tracked, the more "noobs" I have became. Ha Ha.
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