Donington Park National Circuit 25/08/08

[DanDud]

Lol, yeah Ant i was working the gold cup, we did fantastic in qualifying, had 1st, 4th and 5th on the grid. Then for the race we had 1 car blow its clutch up after the 2nd lap, another 1 got stuck in gear, so we whipped the box off, re jiggled the selector and got it back out on the track in 13minutes.lol Then another car decided to set itself on fire with 10mins to go. Its a bit fooked now. So all in all not a great weekend.

 

[antgtir]

Oh dear, remind me to stay away from your team when im next on track :lol:

Sorry to hear the missfortunes but it all adds to the experience gained at each event, hopefully that will be it and you will be able to get some more racing time on the clock.

Is it me or is £20 / adult rather expensive?

Ant.

 

[DanDud]

Haha yeah, atleast the driver was ok, there was a few cars ended up in flames, it was a tough day. Yeah £20 is probably steep, but i never have to pay lol

 

[nitrosgti-r]

amazing time apart from the db regs Got vids and pics but dont know how to get them up?

 

[fubar andy]

Let’s be honest, summer and August hasn’t really been seeing eye to eye this year (come to think of it, nor last year?). Yet with bank holidays you always hope that there will be some sunshine or decent weather to go with it.
It’s your one free day away from work that you wish you can enjoy without it chucking it down or blowing a gale and for once (well for me anyway) it actually happened!
Of course most people would spend their bank holidays in the Lake District, hiding away in damp ridden caravans, perhaps sitting in mind numbing M6 traffic going nowhere, having relic relatives reminiscing about the “old days” and when the Beano comic was priced at 2d (yes you’ve read that right - 2d, not 2p) or for most, recovering from a well earned hangover!
Thankfully my Monday consists with none of the above; as I headed down to Donington Park for my bank holiday trackday! 8)

I have to admit that when I booked Donington Park I was a little apprehensive about their 98 decibel drive by checks. GTiR’s and 98db’s isn’t something that goes together like say bangers and mash. Even after a new silencer was fitted to quieten it down, its noise is still loud enough to be heard from almost a mile away, not quite what neither I nor Donington Park were really after.
However an early bank holiday morning broke and I was on my way to Donington to see what the day had to offer.

Weather reports from the internet gave a dry day if not mainly cloudy but to be honest as long as its dry that’s all that matters; not only that I was running Yokahama A048R tyres for the 1st time, so in the back of my mind I was hoping that the rain would stay away to let me take full advantage of the tyres and dry conditions.
Of course the normal rigmarole of the briefings and safety checks had to be completed as well as indemnity forms to fill out and sighting laps to complete.

As I was in the intermediate group (novice/inter/advance) it was good to see the novice group go out and watch some of the turbo cars go out and see if they passed the 98db drive by limit. Within in 2 laps the black flags were out and an Evo was flagged as well as nitrosgti-r
At this point I’m getting a sweat on as if I’ve just run a marathon due to people being black flagged left right and centre; not what I was hoping for at all! :?
Now it was my turn to go out. Lets just say that my revs didn’t really “rise to the occasion” just to ensure that I could do my sighting laps and the 1st session without being black flagged and get a feel for the track. So far so good, yet disappointing.

I was told by officials at Donington that there were sound checkers all round the track so every bridge or overpass I came to I reluctantly lifted off to kill some sound and then planted my foot back on the loud peddle. I had been told by Kev and Bren (Apex Performance) that there was a definite sound checker at the start finish line, but rather than risk anything right away I lifted off for the time being.
Well that was until my last morning session when I had a tussle with a nice Evo VI, and lets be honest you can’t be rude when you’ve got one up your arsé, so I opened the taps and gave it death!

For the 1st couple of laps I was ahead with out real problems I opened a nice gap down Craner curves and coming down the Dunlop straight the gap never closed nor opened until the start finish line, but I no matter how much I wanted to nail it down the straight I had to ease off allowing the Evo to catch me.
At this point I had not been black flagged – brilliant, now I’ll give it full power on the track and see if I get black flagged?

Over the start finish line and I still didn’t have the guts to put peddle to the floor; it was down, but just not to the floor. However on my second lap round at full pelt, the black flag came out and I had to return to the pits – gutted! :doh:

Into the pits, I was greeted by a marshal who explained that the microphone recorded my car going past at a shocking 99.0db’s!
Weirdly I was pleasantly surprised and told him that “I would turn my turbo down!” **pressing my air-con switch to show I had made my adjustments**. God knows what I meant or what he thought, (bearing in mind that I’ve not actually done anything to my turbo and as my air-con as been removed pressing the button was pointless) but it worked and they let me back out again!!! ;-)

Shortly afterwards lunch time came as well did the sunshine; finally a nice bank holiday with some decent weather!

Afternoon sessions were still taken with some care as I didn’t want to be black flagged again as that would forfeit the rest of my sessions!
Yet I did give it full power round the rest of the track as there were no decibel testers anywhere else. ;-)

One thing that I did get to test out was my new A048R’s and I was pleasantly surprised how well they gripped. I say that but in the morning the pressures were wrong and my suspension set up was rubbish.
As the day wore on I made adjustments and pressure changes to increase grip and dial out understeer.
In the afternoon I used a 400bhp Evo VIII on slicks as my pace car to see how well the Yoko’s would fair up on grip and turn-in. Although I was happy-ish with the grip the understeer was still prominently letting me know that I still had to make adjustments.
In the end I tweaked the pressures and the two last sessions of the day the car came alive!!!
Understeer, that was almost gone and my turn in was greatly increased. My corner speed was much improved and I didn’t have to rely as much on my brakes as I had in the morning, not only that I was flat out down Craner Curves which was fantastic and I really got to grips with the car. 8)

With this new lease of life and grip, my last session I decided to open up the taps and give it full power round the track. I built up my heat and pressure in my tyres for 2-3 laps and then gave it death down the straights.
Yes I got black flagged, but you know what? I couldn’t have given a shit, I carried on at full pelt and caught up with a rather powerful Audi A3 with Porsche 6 pot brakes and that was good enough for me. :thumb:
Back in the pits my reading came back as 99.6db’s drive by (at full throttle) but as it was my second black flag I was no longer allowed on track.
Not that it really mattered as about 30 seconds later red flags were out and the session was lost to recover a car. So overall it was a decent day.

My conclusions to Donington Park are as follows:

Trackday sessions are still shite, if a car goes off and needs to be recovered then you’ve pretty much lost your track time for that slot; and I had 3 red flags in 3 different sessions in my intermediate group and they will not credit that time back or give you those minutes back on track.
The 98db limit is still possibly the most depressing thing about the place, if you’ve got a Caterham or quiet road going car then great you’ll have no issues at all.
However if you’re not running a quiet system on your turbo car you’ve pretty much had it.
The only thing you can do it to back off the power on the start/finish straight to avoid being black flagged which can be VERY frustrating and annoying after a while, but if you can live with that then you’ll be fine.

Donington is a great fast track to drive around and you can get a rewarding feeling when you get the corners spot on and hit those braking points perfectly. :thumb:

It’s just a shame that they have such a stupid set-up and low db limit yet, as some will know when you’re talking to the marshals about the sound issues and a commercial airliner is throttling up after take off from the airport next door, you may find you’re shouting at the marshal so that he can hear you!!!

Ironic? :doh:

A good day it was, nice to meet nitrosgti-r and glad the weather stayed dry and sunny.

As for F1 at Donington in 2010, I know there going to invest millions in to the place, but in my eyes it’s defiantly the wrong decision. The real “Home of motorsport is Silverstone” (although Oulton Park is a bloody close second!)

I’ll add my pictures up when I’m back this weekend.

 

[Tim]

What exhaust do you have fitted to your car?

 

[warringtonjack]

Nice write up fella.

What brake setup are you running? I have issues with the back end going too light if still braking hard on turn in.

 

[fubar andy]

What exhaust do you have fitted to your car?

Its a custom 3" system :thumb:

What brake setup are you running? I have issues with the back end going too light if still braking hard on turn in.

I've got the K-Sport 304mm kit with DS2500 pads, standard rear discs with up-rated Mintex pads, braded lines all round and the "Pudney Support Bracket" to give a better peddle feel.

Just one point though, if your rear is going light when braking on turn in, then make sure you've shed your speed before turning in.
When on track the best thing to do is brake in a straight line (where possible) then turn in. That way you're car is more stable and you can be concentrating on the corner in hand while you feed in the power.

If that fails then I would look at your suspension set-up and tyre pressures. ;-)

 

[Tim]

Need to do all your braking before the corner in a straight line and the car will be a lot more stable upon turn in..

 

[warringtonjack]

Yeah, knew that was the case, just that when defending into a chicane I broke late and couldnt scrub enough speed off before the turn in, so held on to the brakes a touch too long and ended up gliding backwards towards the rapefields. :doh: Think i'll look at some whiteline options!

 

[campbellju]

Weirdly I was pleasantly surprised and told him that “I would turn my turbo down!” **pressing my air-con switch to show I had made my adjustments**. God knows what I meant or what he thought, (bearing in mind that I’ve not actually done anything to my turbo and as my air-con as been removed pressing the button was pointless) but it worked and they let me back out again!!! ;-).

That is just about the funniest thing I have ever read 8):lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

Nice one Andy

 

[nitrosgti-r]

excellent write up andy and some good info too.

It was good to meet you mate

 

[fubar andy]

Kill rate: HIGH 8)

HOW MANY????

:-D :-D :-D :-D