5th March 2006: East Fortune Shakedown:

What a day – early start – took ages to load a car to the trailer – late getting there and had to wait for an hour [bo**ocks] Trip over however was event free and trailer was very stable and the whole package was much more driveable than I expected. We get the car started [hooray!]but have to wait to get in.. ["£%%**@~] then dad forgets to follow me in and gets stuck on the outside of the circuit. Unfortunately I get into the pits and stall her.. [doh!] dad still has the booster so I have to push her in, get signed in, get changed then try to find some jump leads. What an entrance.. Thankfully we get her jumped off Rog’s XJS.. and she starts up.. phew!

We are ready to hit the track with only an hour left to go. I realise I haven’t adjusted my harness but thankfully it juts fits. Roger jumps in and off we head (see EF vid as well as Jenny’s pics in the gallery). Jenny takes the pics of Rog and I going round, car feels pretty good although less grippy than I expected. Steering and brakes are good and only the gearbox is giving some cause for concern. Cold tyres provoke a sideways moment at Hannahs but car came back into control quickly, which did a lot for my confidence to push harder on some of the turns. Car doesn’t feel very quick in the first session, being passed by almost everything on the track, but I quickly realise I had left the low boost setting on. I feel a bit rusty but we get out again for a second session with the higher boost setting and she feels better tho an early incident involving a little hot hatch and red flag brings everyone back in so I don’t get much time to get into a flow.

Car’s race suspension really picks up on the bumps and ruts and all in all it’s a very physical yet connected experience, with little roll. All gauges seem fine, gearbox a real pain with second very hard to find for the 3 points where it’s needed in the track (Railway, Hannahs and the hairpin). Car still not as fast as I thought it would be and boost gauge only shows 0.6 bar with a terminal on Linton straight of no more than a ton (early braking included). Mid gear bends feel better but pace slowed by early braking, missed gear changes and late power out of exits. The poor gearbox is really messing up the flow of each lap and there seems insufficient boost to take in third.. I could push harder no there was no need to start risking too much so early on. Still taking to long on my exits and taking the faster turns too slow but it’ll take time to feel the car. Brakes felt a little too biased to the front on the day so I would have played with the bias had we been there a bit longer. The little hot hatches, kit cars and smaller Lotuses, which were passing me, would have normally enticed me to push but I hold back.

We get out for a third session but by now the gearbox has had enough and soon the session was over. It takes us a further hour to load the car up and set-off.. it was a bitterly cold day but thankfully dry and clear. I eat something for the first time that day after we get out of the car and quickly drink some tea. It was a good shakedown and first outing with only a few disappointments made up by the whole experience. Most of the issues are mine and I need to work on my throttle out of the turns, cadence braking and bias and heel-toeing. We finally get home and it’s 8.00pm by the time everything is packed away. Will aim to modify trailer to make experience less painful (literally.. I’m covered in bruises). Big thanks to dad for helping me with loading/unloading, wife and sister for putting up with the cold and Roger for his unprompted help on the day.