The first motorsport event for the year is always filled with a fair mix of anticipation and anxiety. These sensations are made worse by a break from racing of almost two years. Big thanks must go to the team at AVO for the meticulous preparation of my Circuit Sprint (Time Attack) ’96 WRX as anxiety turned to exhilaration within the first few laps of the track.
Preparation of the car included a couple of dyno runs focused on optimising the current upgrades and a general service and pre-race check of all key components. The idea was to go for maximum reliability and use the first event as a bit of a shake-down to get a feel for what direction we should take with the future upgrades. The tune delivered over 30 kilowatts more at the wheels at quite conservative boost levels - a great way to start the season!
I could see from data logs from my past run at Winton that with a bit more power there would be a second or two in the car. However, I wasn’t sure whether this sort of a drop in lap times could be achieved after so long out of the car.
As the car was good to go when it left the AVO workshop all I had to do on the day was a quick check of the tyre pressures and then hit the track for practise. I managed a 1:36.2 in practise. The car felt great, the brakes were where they were meant to be (more on this later) and the two year old slicks felt no worse than I expected. However, my previous best of 1:33.98 (set on fresh rubber) felt a long way away.
The practise run enabled me to sort out braking and turn-in points and I took some time to get these clear in my mind before heading out for the first official run. There seems to be some consensus that Winton delivers the best lap times earlier in the day, so I was anxious to hit it pretty hard straight away. The preparation paid off - a combination of good track conditions and the car performing perfectly help me to feel comfortable with the car and confident to get the boot into it. The result was 1:33.50 – almost half a second quicker than previous best.
I ran over the data logs before the next run and could see some further opportunities to cut lap time. I feel pretty comfortable as I would have been happy to go home with the time set in the last session. With some deeper braking and a couple of line adjustments which allowed me to get onto the power a bit harder at the start of the straights I managed a 1:32.89.
The key thing I took from the Winton event is the importance of quality preparation – with the car so well prepared all I had to think about was driving. Not only was this key to getting results, it also made the event way more enjoyable.
Future plans for the car… we are initially looking at further optimisation rather than grand changes. The current power levels are stretching the capabilities of the current oil system so, to ensure ongoing reliability, we have plans for bigger sump, upgraded oil pump and oil cooler. Other plans include some weight loss and a maybe bit of aero. Then perhaps a bit later in the season it will be time to hit the AVO catalogue some more…
