I woke up at 7am, grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed off to Fuji.
I was very excited about trying out new tyres and brakes and despite some rain in Tokyo I was positively looking forward to clear skies and dry conditions once at my destination.
The weather certainly didn't disappoint ! Clear skies, cool wind, perfect conditions as the photo below shows (taken at Fuji Speedway heading towards Paddock A I believe)
Together with Tom's friend Runman (BMW) we decided to run the 10:10AM session.
I quickly taped the lap timer sensor to the right door side step, took out all the unnecessary weight and checked the tyres. I started off with 220kPa (cold) air pressure in all fours, which after 5 laps went up to some 250kPa (except the rear left which remained at 230kPa for some reason).
I had a great run ! I recorded my fastest lap of 2'19''75 actually at the very end of the session and a top speed of 203km/h although i wasn't really pushing that much. Today was more about tyres and brakes for me. And the tyres worked beautifully ! What an amazing grip ! Great feeling of confidence whilst cornering ! I couldn't have spent my money any better if I tried and what a difference to what I had before ! Go ADVAN !
For the 2nd session, Tom's friend Derek (Mitsubishio Evo X) joined in and this time I up'ed the air pressure to aim for 260kPa after 4-5 laps. The session didn't go as well and in fact the pressure was too high and I didn't have as much grip as I did in the 1st session. On top of that a fairly crowded session meant I had to constantly watch out for faster cars which distracted my concentration considerably. Nothing really to write about here...
For the 3rd and final session of the day at 1:30pm, Tom and I decided to plug in Traqmate, a GPS based lap timer with data logging into my car. I also dropped my tyre pressure so that I could run on no more than 240kPa after a few laps ! The car felt great and tyres worked a lot better than in the 2nd session and almost as good as the 1st. The problem was disconnecting my HKS CAC to run traqmate meant I had the old 180km/h limit imposed on me so I couldn't get a better lap than the one from the 1st session. Oh well ! I had fun and lots of practice at least!
Video from today's session
And to finish off, on my way back home I was running out of petrol just before entering Shuto Expressway so decided to be safe and detour for some High Oku. On my way back onto the highway I marginally crossed the yellow line seperating lanes entering the highway from the normal road and it so happened a cop on a bike saw me and pulled me right over. I tried the "I don't speak japanese routine" but it didn't work. The cop spoke English and after apologising and bowing about 12 times slapped me with a 6,000yen fine and 1 demerit point ! (I won't even get into why I think it was a token fine but let me say Japanese drivers (especially taxi drivers) break rules constantly and get away with them but like I said I won't get into it)
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