There’s a bunch of things you should do before attempting a track day. I did none of it. Also, there’s a condition your car should be in before risking 60 minutes of lapping in a 27 year old car you bought in bad nick to begin with. I was having none of that neither. 

 

Since I took delivery of my Supie I’ve done a service, replaced the exhaust at Joe’s Radiators in Retreat (thanks Zeyne), replaced the induction and lastly taken it to the Wheelman aka Ernest from OPD in Ottery for a dyno tune via the Dicktator management. The standard car made 108kW (early spec) with the 5M-GE in 1983, no surprise then mine only managed 91kW – Ernie quickly got this back up to 102kW with torque at 195Nm – similar figures to my old Astra. Being an ex-scrutineer, Ernie quickly set about checking for the usual gremlins that climb into a road setup and also fashioned ‘McGyver-style’ a top notch battery bracket. And that was enough to get me through the scrutineers the next day at the track which is where it would go down. Killarney, five turns a turning.

 

 

Yes, in all fairness whilst I have never raced before I have done over 50 laps of Killarney due to previous track days and vehicle testing and so, entering the first (novice) group might seem a bit unfair. But believe me, under me was a car that I was a total novice in – having honed what little quick-driving experience I have predominantly in front wheel drive cars. Besides, it was almost definitely going to disintegrate on the first corner. 

 

 

But it didn’t. When the marshall dropped her hand and released me onto the track it was all systems go – I dropped the clutch, revved her just enough for a smooth-ish pull off and we exploded onto the track in full six cylinder glory. The old Toyota sounded great *cough* never mind that smoke, ‘tis normal in a sports car (bull). Second gear, third gear, firm on the brakes as turn one loomed. Scanning, scanning, scanning the turn until it opened up and “Wham!” the induction spits out a beautifully truncated exhaust note as I boot it on exit and the back shimmies around as much as a 1.5 ton, 100kW missile may muster. Turn two is a way off, so it’s a shift into fourth, a nice piece of acceleration and then back onto the brakes, and it’s third gear, still braking, second is selected *pop* “Damn, forgot about that” and I hold it in as I oversteer through the first half of the turn.

 

With a hint of opposite lock on exit the engine is singing in second. Third gear, navigate the mild ‘right-left’ chicane as a straight and then into third. Turn three in on me and a mild stab at the brake is all she needs to scrub off enough pace and line me up for a high speed corner. I snatch at fouth gear and turn four, the double right hander looms, looking scarier than I remember it. A Honda S2000 has come into view. What the hell? We blast out onto the back straight together and he pulls strongly away. [filtered word]! My power deficit was looking chasm-like now. Still, he is new to this and I’m capitalizing on his super early braking on turn five. Damnit, I just remember the WPMC’s Paul Simon telling us that we’re not allowed to overtake on bends, just on straights – and here’s me in a rusty, power-starved banger. We exit tightly and the main straight is ahead. Oops! 

 He opens another gap but not as convincingly as last time – turn five’s seemingly odd line (high on the bowl till exit) unsettles newbies (well it unsettled me) and that might be why I’m next to the 177kW Honda. A smoky pull down the straight (no I have no idea how fast, my speedometer… errrr, no worky) and there are now two S2000s less than 50m ahead of me as we enter turn one once more. “Must not overtake on corner” he said! They’re dawdling in the middle of the track, I take the outside and cut between them to kiss the apex (pretty sweet maneuver actually *pats back*) and I exit a ball’s hair behind them but on the right bit of the track and pin the throttle to the foot well while I presume they continued to “free wheel in fourth”.

The rest of the first session continued the same way and my rust bucket managed to pass a few Fords and a 2.0T A3 before trouble struck. Seems its Achilles heel would be cooling, the single fan on the tiny radiator was not enough despite leaving the fan switched on permanently. She could only do five laps at a time. I pulled in and its watery fluids spilled across the pit lane. My brother in law, Shaheed, is handier than I when it comes to wrench work, which is why I’m grateful he was there to help me try to patch it for the next session but alas we could only manage one lap before more of the same. We skipped the third session focusing on the fourth by refilling the reservoir via copious plastic bottles of H20 until we were suitably topped up and cooled off. Five more laps was all we could muster, with Shaheed in passenger seat (sitting level with the gravel now I dare say) but they were quality stuff – unfortunately not quite as glorified as the first session but now we have a base to work from and a bearing knock. 

 

Oh that’s right, a bearing knock has come into effect in that last run – seems I was a bit stubborn. Poor cooling coupled with an unbuffled sump means it might be time to open her up. It’s a bittersweet thing really, but I’m going to look at it as a reason to ‘modify’. Saturday I’ll be pulling her through to OPD once more, and the diagnosis can made. I’m thinking pistons, rods, crank - cash?