Oz Mazda Track Day - Wakefield Park

First of all, a big thank you to Darrin, Mick and Dan of Oz Mazda for putting on a great day. The organization and flow of the day was top notch and we got our fill of track time. This year's pilgrimage to Wakefield surely did not disappoint - the weather was practically perfect and the variety of cars and drivers provided much entertainment.

My goal for the day was to sort out my sway bar setup and as always improve on my PB. At the previous track day, I had the front bar set to soft and rear also to soft, a setup I found too tail-happy for my liking. So for Wakefield, I had set the front to hard and left the rear on soft. If there was too much understeer, I would then set the rear to medium. What I found was that I didn't have the change the settings throughout the day, the front hard/rear soft combo worked for me. The car still had a hint of oversteer (more than stock) and yet was easily manageable by an amateur like me.

With that sorted, I then set out to get my Wakefield technique back and attempted to beat my PB. I managed to improve on my previous PB by 0.05 seconds in the morning and then another 0.03 seconds early in the afternoon, ending on a new PB of 1:12.49. This was such a marginal improvement but I was happy that I can still match my PB.

My timed laps (not including passenger sessions):
1:19.5150
1:14.8730

1:17.0000
1:14.4940
1:28.8860

1:14.3630
1:14.1970
1:14.5290
1:13.7750
1:13.5870
1:35.9890
1:14.3190
1:22.2620
1:13.7160
1:12.5210

1:13.5040
1:15.5020
1:12.4970 *NEW PB*
1:18.1070
1:23.9710
1:15.7050

Full results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?15/08/2009.WAKE

Thinking back over my sessions, these are the main things I can improve upon at Wakefield:

- There is time to be gained at the first corner after the kink as I'm not using the full width of the track on exit.
- I might be braking too much at the top of the hill.
- On the back straight, I am topping out in 3rd and riding the limiter for some time before the 100m marker where I generally start braking. Short shifting to 4th earlier in the straight might help.

Photo credits:
- Kam80/Anja
- sktiz (Oz Mazda)
- silver6 (Oz Mazda)

Video from CelicaJim's car as he was chasing me, couldn't shake him: