Saturday the 28th of September marked the Porsche club of NSW's round 3 of it's Supersprint series. Fantastic weather greeted everyone at Oran Park with Temps expected to reach 26 degrees.
The format for the day was the GP circuit, which for those that don't know is the long layout, which comprises of a fantastically fast long straight with a kink at the end & also the only bridge on a track in Australia, or so I'm told..
Unfortunately my good friend CT couldn't make the 'trek to the track' (say that 3 times fast!) so I was flying the Volkswagen flag solo today. Got to scrutineering & the head scrutineer approaches me & my car very seriously & says, "lets see if I can find something to knock u back today, since u beat me at Wakefield Park!" then proceeds to burst out laughing. Yeah, I get it.
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I get asked if my mate in the other little VW is coming & they are relieved to hear that there won't be 2 VW's embarrassing some of the older Porches out there today. Oh & they have put CT & myself up a class, seems that we beat all the Porsches in the class above us at Wakefield Park & we are actually close to the times of the Porsches in the class above the ones we beat!
The morning consisted of 2 practice sessions, which went perfectly, after the lunch the timed runs began, I elected to try something different & I used a power pulley & also took the passenger seat out to try & make the car a little quicker.
The car defiantly felt quicker, especially holding it in 3rd gear all around the back section & over the blind flip flop it felt really quick, just holding it in the 5500 rpm to 7000 rpm range really made the car come alive. I don't know any times as yet but my previous best for the GP circuit was a 1:31 lap, & with new tyres, rear sway bar from V-Force & the power pulley, I'd like to think that I beat my time.
My last run of the day was the best; I was lined up in front of 5 older 911's ranging from 2.7l to 3.2l. I led them out & after a warm up lap started to get into it. The long straight for the long circuit is such a buzz, I'm not quite sure what speed I was doing but the tacho was hitting just on 6200 rpm in top gear, back off the accelerator, don't touch the brakes & let it float through the kink, then hit the brakes & back down to third, its soooo much fun, especially when there are 3 Porsches in your revision mirror! I know that I can pull away from them through the back section, which is good, as I need all the head start that I can get for the straight, I just can't match the top end speed & power of the Porsches on the straight, especially if its a long one. On the second lap the 3 Porsches get to within a car length of me at the end of the straight, I pulled away a little over the bridge, leaving it in third gear & really wringing the neck out of the little 1880 cc, well it seemed to like it. Pulled a little more space on them over the flip flop then tried to get as much run off for the big drag down the straight, I must have been trying as the next lap the were about 3 car lengths behind so I had opened up a little gap. As I clip the inside of the kink at the end of the straight & line myself up for the corner, I see a gold Carrera with all 4 wheels locked up sliding into the sand trap with dust flying into the air in my revision mirror. I take my foot out of it & use the last lap as a cool down lap & then just pull into the pits.
I've had enough & decide to call it a day, I start to load up the car & change the power pulley over for the standard sized one for the long trek back up to the Coast when the owner of the gold Carrera pulls into the pit bay beside me. He jumps out of his car full of adrenalin, he introduces himself & starts to tell me that following me around was the most fun that he's ever had. He begins to explain that on the first lap he saw me lift the inside front wheel over the bridge & thought that I was going to lose it but then he saw me lift both inside wheels over the flip flop & thought that I must have known what I was doing! (little does he know) so decided to follow all my lines as best he could! I ask him about his little off road excursion, he blushes & says, 'your never going to believe this, but I was trying to use your brake lights a braking marker as I really wanted to catch u before the run was up & as I came through the kink I realised too late that u seem to brake much later than me & I just went off the track!" We have a good laugh about it & he says that he wants to have another run with me at the next event, which is Eastern Creek on the 20th of October. I won't have much of a chance against the Porsches there as it's such a fast track but it will be a fun day never the less.
Until then, stay cool, Jak