Meadesports – Pikes Peak – 2nd Practice is done!
Today we were at the very top of the hills, practicing on the last 3- 3.5 miles. Mostly very loose gravel, but very very fast! This is where we have to compromise with our lines, and hope there will be a good dusting on the race line on race day. The Kumhos are holding up, even on the gravel sections, at times, with the right dusting some of the gravel road has as much grip as tarmac. We shall see.
The yellow Mini is an all girl team that are fun to be around. They’re giving it a shot, and a good one as well. Rhys stopped half way through the practice stage with a problem, on the previous run his guys were trying to source a ‘glitch’ via data log, but I guess they didnt find it.
We also had a casualty today, the white ex-prodrive Sti (GC8) rolled on one of the fast down hill sections into a hairpin. Car looks worse than it is, but will be an easy fix! We’ve offered to go around and assist with hammers, which I think we will have to do. He is in our class, but we need the competition, if for nothing else, to justify us being here.
The speeds on the gravel were very fast! I never look at my speedo, EVER! But Merlin (Dave Hinde our Ecu guy) asked what speed we were pulling, now I hate speed so I never look at what the speedo is saying, but this time I decided to sneak a peak at speed, and it confirmed why I never want to look. Going around a left hander, sliding, setting the car up for the exit, I run down the next hill full throttle upshifting, the car is squirrily and moving around a fair bit on the Kumho V710s, I take a peak as I reach the very point I need to brake it the speedo is past 120mph (200kph+) I then have to slow the car down for a fast but treacherous right hander which I swing the car through with a small flick.
Then on the way back I found we were all going quite rapid back to the start to do another (of 4 total) timed run, 3 of us travelling together hitting 100mph switching between the tarmac and gravel.
Oh, almost forgot, I was standing there after the drivers meeting, which took place at 5am, keeping Cath warm, and chatting to the BMW boys, when this hooded figure walks up and walks into me, I knew someone was playing games and pulled the hood off to reveal my old buddy Andrew Comrie-Picard (ACP to the world), it was a great surprise seeing him again, and tonite we shall catch up on lots of missed drinks. Tomorrow’s Blog entry will n doubt be all about how I should stop drinking and how Im having trouble focusing because I’ll be hung over and that I promise to never drink again.
Andrew runs and evo 8 as well, but highly modded with carbon, well, everything. He’s a great competitor too, although he’s not in our class. It’s going to be fun having him around.
I love Pikes Peak, I can see now why it is such a drug for a lot of people!
