Last Thursday I took a day off from work and headed out to Fuji Speedway. I'd been itching to drive that circuit ever since coming back from Perth and that day just happened to be a perfect opportunity !
I left Tokyo at 6:30am and arrived at Fuji around 8:30am. When I got there I saw only a few cars getting prepped for the day and quickly found a spot to offload my stuff and start preparing myself.
I started NS4A at 9:30am.
It was very cold at that time, some 1-2 degrees C max. I spent about 15 minutes getting used to the car, speed and gusty winds then pulled into the pits and adjusted my tyre pressure. At that point I think there were about 5 maybe 6 cars out on a circuit so it was fairly free for everyone to do whatever they wanted. And so in the last 10 minutes of the session I pushed for the best lap and managed to get 1'09''70 which was slightly slower than my best. I don't know why perhaps I was tired or just pre-occupied but for some reason I felt hesitant when running down the main straight at over 210km/h and braking into the 1st corner. Normally I don't worry so much as I trust the car and brakes but perhaps psychologically that day I was just backing off a little bit more than usual.
In any regards, the new Project Mu's are just GREAT ! I will never go back to any other pad ! They grip, they don't fade and give you a very good confidence level to push at any point. There just isn't a better pad out there in my opinion. Coupled with freshly overhauled BREMBOs, stainless steel brake lines, they're just a perfect set ! The downside though, very dirty wheels from all the brake dust.
My 2nd and last session for the day NS4B was at 11:50am.
Somehow half of Tokyo decided to take a day off and come to Fuji. The carpark and pits were packed ! I later realised that there was a track day run simultaneously by ENDLESS (with lots of sexy girls!) hence all these people wanted to have a go and show off their skills ! Again in this session I managed a couple of 1'09s which speaks a lot for consistency (remember how long I'd been trying very hard to break 1'10s!?) but 1'08s still eludes me.
Lastly, there were a few in-experienced drivers on the circuit but one in particular stood out in a grey Mazda (as shown in the video below). I somehow felt like he was going to loose it and I was right. Sometimes people need to be realistic about their own abilities before trying to push like a pro and endanger other people's cars !
Enjoy the video !
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