Special K 442 Report post Posted November 12, 2013 Been a fabulous weekend.. start at the beginning.. About 4 months ago I spotted that BookaTrack were doing a two-day November trackday weekend at Spa and, as I've never been there before, I gave into temptation. Talked to my chum PeteH about it as he's shared my car at Donington - he was up for it and could lump all my tyres, tools and gubbins into his Kuga. Lauren has oodles of experience of Spa and recommended the Beau Site Hotel which is pretty close to the circuit so I booked up on line. We left at 9.00ish on Friday morning - the Chunnel is only an hour or so from me, we got there early and caught the train for the 30-min journey to Calais. My first time on the Shuttle - really impressed when compared to the ferry, although if you've shlapped half the length of the country to get to Dover you probably would appreciate the two hour rest (if it's calm!). Pete's been over to Belgium/Germany dozens of times so he took the lead when we cleared the port. Four hours later we're eyeballing the motorway turnoff to Francorchamps and the satnav found the hotel no problem. An excellent choice, Lauren, family-run clean compfortable and not overly expensive a €70-odd per night. The wild boar for dinner was excellent - as was the venison on Sat. night.. Saturday we followed two Brits from the hotel to the circuit, as it's a bit tortuous and they'd been loads of tmies before. Signed on at 8.00am, found our garage and got things ready... towing eyes in, checked fluids, tyre pressures etc. It had rained heavily overnight, track was wet so we kept the road tyres on - left them on all day.. 9.00am was briefing - safety, flags, overtaking rules etc. - then it was off for the 'sighting laps' for first timers. There were so many 'newbies' it took three sessions following the Medic Car around, which delayed open pit lane. What a fantastic circuit. We joined from the pits just after the hairpin - we were using the F1 pits - and crossed the start/finish line to spot Eau Rouge. The 'Spa signature corner' - you don't realise that you're doing 115mph as you brake into the left hander, nail the right hander before the hill at 80-odd and then pray you've got the line right over the blind brow.. then it's a flat out blat to a slow chicane - I was hitting just under 120mph before braking down to 45-ish for the right left then get over left for the next right. Won't go through the rest... unbelievably quick circuit.. Track was very wet and greasy so we both took it very easy in the morning. Fortunately it didn't rain at all and the track dried out and rubbered about lunchtime. I had one session with my Instructor - David Bradley - before lunch and he came up with some good tips. After lunch I decided to fit a 'data capture' system into the car to get video and telemetry, then David and I went out again - much better according to him and I think my fastest time was 3min 30odd but I've not reviewed the whole log yet. ObiWan turned up in the afternoon to say hello so, just before we packed up at 4.00ish I took him as a passenger for a few laps. He didn't say a lot... but I think he knows now what FI does for the GT86.. Car was fantastic all day. Never missed a beat but in the afternoon we developed braking issues on front nearside which I'm getting Adrian to look at later this week. Averaged 11.29mpg on track, did 259 racing miles (two full tanks petrol, on sale at circuit). Back to hotel, we sat watching the video stuff until nearly midnight. Woke on Sunday (second BookaTrack day) and it was bucketing it down. We drove through major storms on the way back - I'm glad we opted just for Saturday, as Sunday would have been a complete washout. Left Spa at 9.15am and we were back in East London by 3.15pm. Knackered but it's gone a long way to restoring my self confidence. All I need now is more grip and more power... Pix to follow - still waiting for the USB stick to turn up from BookaTrack. I'll try and post the video to Youtube or something - Alec I'll PM you for help. Spec K Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
GT86Jay 202 Report post Posted November 12, 2013 Sounds like awesome fun! Would have been great to be there and enjoy a few passenger laps! Bet that was an experience! More power?! Incredible! I drove Dave's Manual Turbo at the weekend and it's insane amounts of power! Glad you had fun and an incident free weekend!Can't wait to see the beast back at a meet! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LFA 68 Report post Posted November 12, 2013 great write up Keith and I REALLY missed not being there.glad to here it dried up but a slippery Spa is not a bad way to spend a morning. Ring trip in 2014? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Special K 442 Report post Posted November 12, 2013 Not sure I could face the 'Ring, Ed... BaT are doing a 'Sat/Sun' in July/Aug at Spa.. but it's £750 which makes it a hefty sum when you add on all the other stuff. I'm going to study the Lotus website, they've got some pretty nifty bargains on there.. Spec K Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Riceburner 284 Report post Posted November 12, 2013 Hi Keith, So pleased you enjoyed the spa weekend,my missus was asking how you were doing .As for more power i had the pleasure of driving Pitmans beast on saturday.WOw what a car and my preferable manual option.The car is awsome and sounds like a crack of thunder on full revs.Many thanks to Pitman an absolute gentleman.I have however had an interesting conversation with Masaya from HKs about their supercharger and i will reserve a purchase judgement untill i have driven his demonstrator.Back on Topic,it would be great to get some pics of the blue beast on circuit to show Gary & Andy where their efforts contributed to and without INCIDENT i hope Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LFA 68 Report post Posted November 12, 2013 No pics of Keith on the Bookatrack facebook page yet but I did find this one, which really captures the place Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LFA 68 Report post Posted November 12, 2013 I'm going to study the Lotus website, they've got some pretty nifty bargains on there.. Why do you need a proper car? Ring is nirvana buddy. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lauren 2259 Report post Posted November 12, 2013 Great stuff, glad you enjoyed it. Eau Rouge is something else isn't it? So, too, Pouhon, which is very aptly name. Look forward to the pics. :+: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
keelerad 256 Report post Posted November 12, 2013 Glad you had fun and no incidents this time, let me know when you have the video and I'll give you a bell and talk you through how to upload to youtube Alec Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Keethos 842 Report post Posted November 12, 2013 Awesome write up Keith, wish you carried on describing the rest of the turns/track :-D Glad you had a great time and like others have said, incident free and more importantly your confidence! Looking forward to seeing your pics etc! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ob1kxb 13 Report post Posted November 12, 2013 pics are up on the BaT picture site Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LFA 68 Report post Posted November 12, 2013 Yep spec k mobile looking good! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
chopper602 21 Report post Posted November 12, 2013 great write up Keith and I REALLY missed not being there.glad to here it dried up but a slippery Spa is not a bad way to spend a morning. Ring trip in 2014?Thats what I'm planning to do . . . Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Special K 442 Report post Posted November 13, 2013 Thanks for the kind comments on the report. It was such a blast I haven't really done it justice but I'll publish the video on Youtube with Alex's help and when I get my pics I'll stick a few on here... video''ll be of myself with David Bailey, the instructor as the video with ob1kxb 'lost' the data capture after the first lap (sob). Lauren, the whole track is just awesome, there is nothing like it here in the UK. And it's not just the track - the surroundings, the closeness of the stands, the whole atmosphere is just so inspiring. I wish I'd been able to use my Yoko's instead of my road tyres, would have made a big difference I reckon. Ed/Chopper - if there's a few of us planning on doing the 'Ring I could be interested. It's one aspect I missed over the weekend, not having other GT86's/BRZ's to follow round and compare notes.. Alec - I've got the video with me, I'll give you a call.. Spec K Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ob1kxb 13 Report post Posted November 13, 2013 wow hold on, i was in the frame? had i known that, i would have put on some make-up and let out a few screams here and there Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Special K 442 Report post Posted November 13, 2013 Ob1 - I'll put a 'link' to your clip. You were very quiet - I thought you'd fainted - exiting the top of Eau Rouge at 79mph on the warm-up lap... it's a real shame we lost the telemetry as I think our first flying lap was probably my fastest of the day.. Spec K Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
chopper602 21 Report post Posted November 13, 2013 Don't think I'll be able to stretch to a track day at the 'ring and the dates for the Tourist laps don't usually get published until well into the New Year, so I'll just have to wait a while longer! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lauren 2259 Report post Posted November 13, 2013 I'm not sure if it's any help, but I tended to find (this was in a MK1 MR2SC) that I could enter Eau Rouge at just shy of 115mph. However you have to run the left curb. Then I could carry about 100mph out at the top of Radillon. Had to keep my foot to the floor though. This was pretty much the same in the wet and dry. In the wet it was trickier at the top but the grip is huge under compression on the way up. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Special K 442 Report post Posted November 21, 2013 Doh! I can't find where Alec posted the vidcam stuff, so I'll post some pics here.. .. no... just on picture file is too big.. B*LL*CKS ! Spec K Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
keelerad 256 Report post Posted November 21, 2013 You need to put the pictures on a photo hosting site (Photobucket or Flickr) and link them to here Like this DSC00086 by keelerad1, on Flickr Here are the links to your vids Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Special K 442 Report post Posted November 22, 2013 Ahh.... thanks, Alec, I thought when it said 'browse' it would upload to the Forum.. This is all new to me... I thought a coilover was a male contraceptive device until I read differently on here... Spec K Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
keelerad 256 Report post Posted November 22, 2013 You can upload but you probably need to resize the photos first (this is to reduce storage space and reduce the load on the server caused by large high res images) If you upload them to Flickr or Photobucket its their servers that take the hit rather than ours. Its free to get 1 Terabytes of storage on Flickr and you can add your photos to a common group I have set up http://www.flickr.com/groups/2392049@N20/ This is an invite to join the group from Flickr I wanted to invite you to join a cool group on Flickr! It'scalled Toyota GT86 and Subaru BRZ Drivers Club, and it's abig bunch of fun!If you would like to join this group, click on the followinglink (or copy and paste it into your web browser). Then youcan see what this group is all about!http://www.flickr.com/welcome/95014563/1201d32d5b/ Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Special K 442 Report post Posted November 23, 2013 I've added five pics of Spa to the Drivers Club site, Alec. Well, I think I have... Spec K Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
keelerad 256 Report post Posted November 23, 2013 Yes that worked Keith you can get the pictures linked into a forum post as follows: 1.Click on the picture 2.Select the "Share" icon, the one with the arrow coming out of the box snap1 by keelerad1, on Flickr 3.Select "Grab the HTML/BBCode" snap2 by keelerad1, on Flickr 4.Choose the resolution you want from the pull down snap3 by keelerad1, on Flickr 5.Right click on the code in the box and select copy snap4 by keelerad1, on Flickr 6.Paste it into you post on the forum and you get the result below DX4J2675 by keith.stanbury, on Flickr Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
keelerad 256 Report post Posted November 23, 2013 Here are your other pics done using the technique described above (once you've copied and pasted you can use the left and right arrows either side of the pic to move to the next or previous pics) DJ6K1152 by keith.stanbury, on Flickr AI4C1130 by keith.stanbury, on Flickr DJ6K2581 by keith.stanbury, on Flickr Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
