And so, back to Broadford.
Those of you who have been kind enough (or bored enough) to read previous offerings may recall that I introduced the 10K-hop to the race track at Broadford back in June.
At this point the beastie was pushing 2.7 litres through spectacularly un-sticky cheap ‘n’ cheery, skinny tyres from somewhere unpronounceable via a modestly uprated set of suspenders. Thankfully I was in entrée class so no record of lap times exists to embarrass me.
At this point I was somewhat oblivious to how hard these bugs bite (well, I did have a vague idea but the seriousness of such bites had dimmed in the fogs of time!!)
So by the time we got to Broadford the second time we were well on our way to chuckledom. That is to say that the device now brings a grin and a chuckle with each passing tinker. And tinker is to say that we spent lots of the day playing with suspension settings to dial out the understeer and maintain traction, the larger wheel/tyre combo notwithstanding. (Mind you, this will all probably go out the window at the next event when suitably sticky rubber will be used).
But you know how these things work. In the quest for broader grins and lower lap times, we get to thinking….Being from a fundamentally rallying background, we learned early that there’s all sorts of stuff you can do underneath the car to ensure the wheels stay in contact with terra firma, but the best way to maintain forward motion was via proper traction and the best way to achieve this was with a slippery diff. So I have (nearly) bitten the bullet to have Stu install a Quaife unit!!
Then there’s the little matter of those bloody awful seats. They’re a bit tatty. And slippery. And blue. So on the day, in my heightened state of excitement, I agreed to buy Frank Deak’s spare race seat and harness. Then there’s the new steering wheel…Of course all this new, unexpected (!) expenditure means that the proposed bright orange wrap might wait for a bit. Unless it can be shown that such wrap will make the car faster.
And of course there is the matter of the previously mentioned exhaust drone. It’s OK on the Hume at 110ks but pretty intrusive at 100ks – by the time I got back to Melbourne my ears were ringing – truly!! So this means that I may well need to think of towing in future. Maybe I’ll replace my current 3 litre turbo-diesel with a diesel Cayenne and trailer?!!!?
And so what were my lap times? Well, I started coyly in the first session at around 1.17 then got down to the 1.12s I think (I’m awaiting the posting of official results). I want well under 1.10 next time up there.
I know that the 10K-hop and I aren’t about to give many others a bloody nose (just yet!!) and I know that it now owes me rather more than $10K but when all is said and done it’s nipping at the heels of friends’ Cayman that cost two or three times what I have invested. So what does amuse, bemuse and tickle me is that I have a jigger that is not precious, either in the way I treat it or in terms of what it owes me. And as those that know me well will attest, I can’t stand precious!!
By Robbo (Ian Roberts)