my first track day

[Bula_82]

(taken from elsewhere so some may not make sense)

Was today, at Brands Hatch.

An (ex) colleague of mine showed me a link for a load of track days he had seen as he knew I was interested.

I looked and see one was Brands Hatch, which is only about half hour from me, and booked it... £80, open pit lane for novices.

Turned up expecting to see a whole load of people, turns out there was only a few of us there - a fella in a civic which he's bought just to chuck round the track, a masariti, Z4, porsche of some description, 2 MX5's, an MR2, a bimmer looks like Pes's, but tamer and .... a Jimney which moved pretty quick!

The masariti rarely bothered to brake, went like stink and sounded fantastic.

The MX5 decided to brake foooking hard (i thought my car was dying then realised it wasnt me) and managed to flip the car over and it didnt get back on track, i looked at it later and it had damage to the passenger side, but everything else 'seemed ok'

Then, the car started making some random noise which freaked me out a bit, I was all ready to blame Matt when i realised it as coming from the dash and not the engine, so, on Matt's advise I just carried on and hope that the car didnt blow up! (the noise disappeared shortly after and hasnt returned so not sure what it was )

Although it rained, it was a good learning curve for me to test the limits of the A3, and when it poured I kept it in the garage

Sooooo, today i learnt i like track as much as I knew I did and that Castle Combe and Donnington are next

 

[Bula_82]

In preperation..........

omg... the night before the day after

prep for the track day started a couple weeks ago really. eibach arbs, remap, new engine oil the other weekend, and then the 'final bits' lastnight.

i think work started at about 6pm. it needed a new stat becuase water temp was dropping. gearbox oil as a precaution seeing as the car does receive stick and then brake fluid change, as they seem to fade on hard road use.

stat change went without hiccup. access was easy enough, it just went well. then the gearbox oil, my god that smelt nice and it went into the box no issues either.

last, and what should have been the easiest, was the brake fluid swap. a problem occurred when the pipe going from the pressure bleeder reservoir to the car's reservoir went a bit ape and started pumping air into the hydraulics at 20psi.

i found this out when bleeding the 1 from last caliper and air started coming out.

after doing the whole lot again, i was on the last caliper, went to fill the reservoir again and the pipe had dropped off again

an emergency trip to KEN LEE in southend got me some extra brake fluid (2 litres more, just in case). at this stage i was worried that maybe the ABS pump might need bleeding or something and that the car wouldnt be usable for the track day, so had offered sheryl my mk3 in case the situation arose.

carried on re bleeding to make sure no more air was in there, it was close to mid night by this stage, but still no use

after a bit of head scratching i looked for a nipple on the master cylinder. found two and went for it

once those were done up tight the car was right first time

a tentative trip to a petrol station for air, we took the car for a run to see if the brakes were ok... they were tip top

the car rocks, i was relieved, i went home, had some cereal to eat at 1am and then went to bed.... and then was jealous all day when i was in work at 8am and sheryl was going ot brands hatch

 

[simch]

Sounds like fun, although your post is a bit random!! lol!

You will have fun at both combe and donny. Get some pics up if you got any!

 

[Clach]

Good to hear...Thought about it myself, but the M40 to Oxford is my Brands Hatch after footy late on Thursday night...lol :icon_thumright: