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Well another track day done and another dollar gone.....whats that saying - How do you make a small fortune in motorsport? Start with a big fortune!
Saturday started off with perfect weather and heading for 35 deg C after midday at Phillip Island.
The VT all ready to set the world on fire with brand new B/stone RE55s on the front of the beast.
A nice morning with a stiff warm northerly pushing down the straight and plenty of time to get the my car and my mates VS ready.....except out in peasant valley they don't bother to connect the PA system to let us know when to grid up.

So after hearing cars taking off from the pits,the peasants are in a mad rush suiting up and making it to the grid with just enough time.
That feeling you get when something ain't right happened as soon as I left the pits and I felt a vibration through the steering.
I knew everything was tight as I checked every bolt/nut during the week and I also torque the wheel nuts every session.

So I soldiered on thinking the wheel balance wasn't done right or a weight had come off and completed the first lap gingerly sitting behind my mates VS and laughed my ass off as put the boot
into his 5lt out of Honda corner watching the slide...slide...save it...slide....lose into the grass....then watch him sit there for the next 4 laps.
He joked about the heat soak with 5lts and hot weather before we went out, thats how he started his day

I came in after 5 laps not happy with the vibration and visually checked the front end for something weird.
All seemed good until I ran my hand around the RHF inner sidewall and felt a lump about the size of a golfball ......that's how I ended my day

Brand new f***ing tyre just wrecked my day with entry fee,fuel,travel etc etc.
God I hope the supplier comes good with a replacement at no charge as it was suss as soon as I left pitlane.
I thought it might have had side wall damage from being fitted but you can feel the bubble as if the rubber skin has separated from the carcass.

Stay tuned folks

that sucks, not having much luck with the tyres eh?

Tyres at the moment....no.
The one that I blew last meeting still had a couple of meetings left in it so it had me baffled to what caused the failure.
I just put it down to a failure or wacking those see saw ripple strips coming onto the straight,who knows.
When I came in and pulled the rhf wheel off in peasant valley,a bloke next to me running a schmick LJ Torana with all the good gear
said that ever since they resurfaced the island,most of the commodore runners have been having tyre failures on the rhf side.
They've tried different,caster,camber,toe changes thinking some people are using extreme specs to cause the failure.
They are at the point of saying that because of the low pressures at cold the sidewalls are loading up too much since the resurface and that they might have to run tyre warmers
to get pressures up straight away. PHUCK THAT!

Mine I is just a faulty tyre as I noticed it as soon as I left the pits.

Going to visit the store today

All sorted and tyre replaced by supplier without an issue.
He said he'd rather replace a tyre than lose customers and it probably happened when it was fitted.
That's about it for the year I think.

My mate got 5 sessions in and left the best for last...his tyres have done 3 years worth of track days and for the last year he keeps on saying "1 more meeting"
This time they're PHUCKED.....and starter motor heat soak for book ends to end the day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs_fyoGCDTE

Might pay to get a couple of spares so it dosnt ruin the day after all the effort to get there

man I feel your pain, I've had a few race meetings where you have an issue at the start of the day that puts you on the trailer!

hopefully new year next year will bring some more luck!

Reliability has been really good so far,apart from checking fluids and tyre pressures,i don't have much to do between sessions except talk crap with people next to me.
HQ....I have been looking into spares as mine has BBS BMW rims with ET40 offsets to clear the front coil over collars.
Even worse is staggered wheel sizes.
If I can find a couple of C/dore 18x8 and 8.5 with the 40 offset i'll grab them and pop a couple of tyres on them,but definitely been looking.

I asked the tyre dude would you have still have continued running the tyre and he said "if it was for money,you'd run anything"

Mind you I did manage to improve my times from the last meeting of 1:58.1 to the 5th/last lap on Saturday of 1:56.4 of that 1 and only session.
Getting quicker every session and I haven't played with suspension settings yet.
Until I cant improve my times anymore then i'll have a fiddle.
At least its going forward and not backwards.

Engine is still stock and apart from touching the ecu whenever I have the ability to,a bit more grunt out of the corners would be nice.

Bummer on the dodgy tyre! At least you picked it up before hitting the straight

I didn't back off on the straight
I took a piccy before I took it back.

Just updated the pic title for you haha