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BigSmoke

id
Posts: 844

Location: Indonesia
Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains
Age:
V$: Broke
#150573   2018-10-23 06:08          
First Trackday!

"Hey man why did you went silent for half a week?"
Truth to be told there's almost nothing interesting happened, just work and daily stuff I've mentioned in the intro (and of course IRL stuff as well). But finally I have the time to say that the Evo has spent it's first time trackside!


[20 Oct 2018]
When you buy a car, particularly the one that you really want, I'm sure there's a raise of need for speed (no this isn't a pun), the urge to open the tap and unleash the potential of your new ride. But normally all you can do is fullfilling it on public roads. If you're already mastered car control this would be an easy thing, but if you don't it is almost certain that you'll crash into something and breaking your cr, as well as public property. To add the salt in the wound, in the age of internet and mobile connectivity this mishap would attract people and tempt them to snap/record what happened and upload it to the sea of internet. The next time you opened your own phone, chances are either you've become a buttjoke of at least your local car community, or you'll see people lamenting the loss of your car and blaming you for being a lackey on public road.
(DISCLAIMER: Don't worry, this never happened to me IRL, mainly because I don't even own a car IRL :crying: )
Alright we've gone too far, let's get back to the story.

So the obvious choice based on the previous explanation is to bring your car to a local track. And I'm quite lucky as there's one near my place, which, as I've explained in the intro, is Tsukuba Circuit, just 18 km from my place. Tsukuba is seen as the equivalent to Top Gear's Dunsfold Airfield, Lotus's RAF Hethel base, Honda's Suzuka Circuit or Angelsey Circuit which is often used by Evo magazine. It might be small and near-flat, but it is a perfect and practical place to test a car's capabilities in tackling various kinds of corners. And for that reason it is also the home of Japan's national time attack events which sees cars with absolutely mad aero works, ranging from video game and tuning magazine heroes such as Voltex Cyber Evo, HKS Hipermax Evo and HKS TRB Altezza, to modern-day F1-style aero-infused monsters like Voltex S2000, Escort Evo, Esprit NSX, Scorch Racing S15 and HKS TRB-04 86. If you're a fan of Option Video and Hot Version clips, you'll also aware that stock production cars are tested and raced against each other here as well, from cars like Toyota Starlet and Mazda Demio, to my Evo and its arch enemies, to import sportscars like Porsche Cayman and Corvette C6, to even exec station wagons like Toyota Vellfire and Nissan Elgrand.

I went there on Saturday at morning, to avoid weekend traffic. Since it was a race weekend and there are two major motorsport events happened in Japan (Super GT @ Autopolis and MotoGP @ Motegi), as well it was still morning when I arrived and no special events happened there, the track is noticeably isn't so crowded compared to usual trackdays held there. And then I remembered something: The clutch needs to be replaced and the order I put hasn't arrived yet. Despite this, I hit the track with no hestitation.

As the above images tell, the front anti-roll bars did their job quite well to keep the front end planted and optimizing tire contact on inner corner size. However, as the rear anti-roll bar doesn't exists, I still can feel bodyroll on the back as picutred above. It does give a bit of oversteer, but rarely. I'm also afraid it hurts tire consumption in the back. Oh well, at least the rear suspension held the body nicely, but indeed it could use some help.

With slow section assessment complete, it is time to check how it performs on the straights. At the backstraight, I give the car all I can while hoping the clutch won't break under high speed gearchange. And fortunately, it didn't. And despite sitting on stock suspensions and shocks for ages, the car is reasonably stable as I bring it to the last corner. It reached 200 km/h and a bit more (204 I reckon) before I started braking at the entry of the last corner. As of the last corner experience itself......it was reassuring, but also a bit of horror. As I said before, the car doesn't have rear anti-roll bars yet, so whilst I throw the car into the corner at 200+ km/h I also pray for the car not to spin or worse, rolling as I turn. But in the end I and the car survived, though I can feel the car rolling a bit violently at the back along the corner.

As an additional assessment, and to give myself an idea how far I can push the car in this form, I decided to pit in and went to the circuit tower to borrow some VBox recorder at the steward office to record my lap time. It is a good thing they apparently indeed have VBox rental service, you can rent them at V$200/hour. After a DIY VBox isntallation and rehydrating myself, I hit the track again while wishing again for the clutch not to break in the process. Here goes!

After 1 hour I averaged at 1:06.xxx territory, with my best lap being 1:04.835. With all assessment done, I returned to pitlane, exhausted but satisfied. When I returned the VBox, the stewards commented that I was going like hell and I should enter the clubman and open level time trial events they held someday. I thanked them for the VBox, and said I'll join the event when I've improved the Evo. Afterwards, I decided to have a meal at the track's canteen and then call it a day, returning home while wondering how can the clutch and th front anti-roll bar survived.

As of the other cars attending the event, mostly they're just like mine, either a stock car or lightly modified ones. I did see a team testing a time attack Subie GC8 though! But as I spotted them while I'm inside the car, I didn't get a pic of them. When I go to Tsukuba again I'll make sure to snap it for you guys.


[21 Oct 2018]
My friend and fellow translator Kenichi came to my house to have a nice chatter and some translation discussion. Kenichi himself is going for a lone, long trip on his bike to his hometown at the coastal town of Ooarai, also in Ibaraki prefecture. He went back to his hometown every near end of the year to clean his mind and relaxing after quite a lot of work here, and currently almost all of his major works has been done. He's a fan of motorcycles, but too afraid to ride a sportsbike since the last time he rode one he crashed in a dramatic fashion. He survived with just several bruises and slightly dislocated shoulder, but his bike is obviously totaled. So for his second bike he did a downgrade to a 150cc junior sports bike, a Honda CB, which he modified to resemble the bike's South American cousin, the Honda CG.

I don't really have much snacks and drinks in my place other than frozen onigiris, ramen cups and instant coffees, so I and Kenichi went to my favourite coffee shop at the northeast end of Tsukuba city, which also in the route where Kenichi is going to. There's also a TV inside, and they're broadcasting Super GT race at the moment, so I can watch it together with Kenichi while continuing our discussion. I also asked him about the bike, since I never thought I could find a junior sports bike here, and told him I might get a junior sports bike or a scooter for short-distance commuting at one time.

At the end of discussion I told Kenichi to be safe and get enough rest on the long way back home. Kenichi said he'll meet me again at the start of next year and bid me a goodbye. We parted ways and I decided to go straight back home.


[22 Oct 2018]
Paycheck time! I also received message that the clutch will be arriving in 3 days, while the DAB receiver will arrive in 5 days.


[23 Oct 2018]
While resting from work I'm browsing for anti-roll bar set (front & rear) as well as new shocks and spring for the Evo. I'm going to strengthen and lower it a bit more. I'll decide and put orders on them once my clutch has arrived.


As per usual, a TL;DR if you think this is too long:

And of course quicc maths on my finance:

And finally, a P.S.:
Still following the damn train since 1992

Visit my RP HERE!