Rockingham. Britains first completely new race circuit for 40 years, and wow, what a place. OK, it is in no way finished (not even any kerbs on the track yet) but it's still pretty amazing. A complete US style "Motor Speedway" with banked oval outer track and infield road circuit.

The circuit we used was a composite - the three straights & one corner (plus a link section past the pit exit) of the oval, followed by a 9 turn 2nd/3rd gear infield section, totalling about 2.5 miles. The grass hasn't been seeded yet here so it's just tarmac and dirt. Quite hard work, both for me and the car - fast corners and also big braking areas into some very tight hairpins.

It was quite a 'busy' day on the track - the whole of one session was full of proper GT race cars so the 2 road sessions had a good mix of vehicles. I spent quite a lot of time chasing 2 yellow porsche 968CS' which seemed to run about the same speed as me. There were 2 other Elises, a standard which I caught easily and a 111s which I eventuallly passed after 5 laps or so finding our way past the slower cars. The 340R got away, but then they do have super sticky tyres and I did have a 12 stone passenger for most of the day so I'm not too miffed about that. Next time!

I borrowed a video camera from a friend and made up a mount to put it in the car. Watching the footage closely is a very educational experience - makes me realise how innacurate my line through most corners is...problem being I'm just having too much fun to worry about doing it properly! - I only seem to concentrate when I'm catching someone. Hopefully the camera owner will edit me up some footage for the web and then you can see for yourself.

Trying to think why, I figure than I am now confident enough now to handle any low speed (<50mph) problems with nothing worse than a loss of momentum, so putting my shrinks hat on there is no compulsion for me to enter a corner entirely under control - may as well go for an optimistic entry speed and see if it works. If I'm following someone then that forces me to control my entry speed and focus on the exit line with neater, faster results, but I don't seem to be able to maintain the discipline when running by myself.

Higher speed I'm still a little wary of the car, so must be some other cause - talking Rod at Willow Springs I came to the conclusion that concentrating too much on the turn in cones was still causing me to suffer a focus switch (to apex/exit) at a crucial moment, which led to me snatching steering at the turn in, scrubbing speed and compromising the car's balance. So I tried pretty much ignoring the cones and trying to look round the corners for lines - tricky as there aren't really enough references yet (bit like your turn 8) but I think it's something I've got to learn.

I got to work on the braking a bit as well, trying to squeeze the pedal and feel that little squirm as the tyres are about to lock - a couple of times I felt I'd really got to the edge there - when you almost feel the car isn't going to stop in time, then the nose just bites as you're ready to turn in, the rotation comes on cleanly and you feel you might just be about to spin just as the rear grips again under power and you're away.

So not too bad all in all, if only I could maintain the concentration.

July 2001 Update

Got another few laps of Rockingham in, this time in a Porsche 944, just for a change. One of those experiences that makes you realise what you've already got. The 944 is more powerful than the Elise, but much heavier and more softly sprung, which really shows in the tighter sections of the course. The mid-corner phase is just so much longer - brake, turn in, wait, wait, wait, power and exit. Too much power too early just seemed to cause the car to push wide, (or with a bit more rotation on entry, squeal a lot from the back tyres & go nowhere) and that little Elise trick of breathing the throttle to take a tighter line took so long to take effect that initially I thought it wasn't working at all. The 944 is nicely balanced though; flat through the banked corner no problem (much lower geared than I expected; 5th on both big straights, 3rd for the hairpins) so would probably be fine at a more open circuit where conservation of momentum is more important than acceleration from low speeds.