Updated on 9th of May 2014: Added in the official results from ZeroToHundred
Today would be two firsts for me, first time I am participating in ZeroToHundred’s TimeToAttack and me blogging using my iPhone 5. But of course the first one sounds a little more interesting. The day started off with registration and a car inspection. After that I headed over to our assigned pits and started unloading the car of my spare tyre and fan blower.
There was plenty of time between registration till the driver’s briefing so I decided to take a walk around the pit lanes. There was an open day track day going on as well so the pit areas were buzzing with activity.
I met up with some friends and started hanging around WingHin’s pit where the two Golf R’s, RX7 and a Toyota 86 was being prepped.
By the time it was time for my group which was the first group out, I made several rookie mistakes. First mistake, I started out with 32 PSI on all 4 tyres on cold tyres. The track was hot and after 3 laps, it jumped to 40 PSI and I lost grip on the track. I quickly pitted trying to release more air and I couldn’t find the air pressure gauge. Wasted a lot of time letting air go and by the time I went out, I didn’t have much time left to run. My best time, 2m50sec for the first session.
After the first session I was completely disappointed with myself and sought advice from some friends. Nick advised me to start out with around 26-27 PSI and by the second round I made sure that the tyres were prepped up with 27 PSI all around. By the time the second session was about to start, I double checked everything and made sure all is ok.
And it was in my second session where I knew the tyres were starting to grip throughout and I didn’t need to pit. I made a couple of mistakes here and there but the group was kind of interesting. Saw a E92 335i spin-off at turn 7/8 and then later after he overtook me on the straight before turn 15, he locked up his brakes at turn 15 and blocked my racing line when he tried to recover.
Thanks to the tyres having the right temp, I managed a 2min49sec lap. I know I can be slightly faster but at least my lap times are getting more consistent and I am not shredding my front tyres.
After cooling down, I went on a walk with some friends along the service pathways watching the TimeAttack cars go through turns 1-5. Watching from there was amazing because you tend to notice a lot more things compared to when I am driving in the car. Learned a couple of new lines which I would love to try out during the next track day.
After a long day at Sepang, I am completely worn out and as I wait for my Mac Mini to process the video I recorded using Siva’s GoPro, I think I will sleep happily tonight.
By the way, in terms of the results of the group, I will probably wait for ZeroToHundred to show the official results. Check out the video of my 2nd round session below. Don’t judge me by the music as I used all royalty free music so my choices were somewhat limited 🙂
