A return to my favourite track (so far!)

An MX5 track day at Donington has become an annual event for the club, as Donington is a great place for people to try taking their precious car on track for the first time - it's a premier circuit with good facilities and safety measures, and it's a fun and challenging circuit to drive in a 5.

This year, the West London Region was represented by Jason, Gary, Russell, Andy, and new guy Marcus on track, and a couple of others (including Bob, Nicole, and Kevin) turned up to cheer us on (well, to laugh at our mistakes!) and be taken for passenger rides.

It was an early morning, as we had to leave at 6am to get there in time to sign in at 8, but it paid dividends as I was able to nab a garage, soon to be joined by Russell, and then Gary (who was stuck for a while at the Donington M1 services due to a hose failing on his 5)

The day was broken into 2 groups - one session of 30 MX5's, and another session full of porsches, caterhams, Impreza turbos and the like (and what appeared to be the fastest junkpile on the road!). Andy C turned up for the second session in his super boy racer mobile (which was a bit disappointing - I was hoping for a ride in the TVR!), and having taken several hundred kilos of big bass speakers out of his boot, he was ready to hit the track!

Because there were only 2 groups, this meant we got an extra bonus - 30 minutes on track out of each hour! On previous Donington track days I've done about 100 miles in the day, but this time I managed 218 (in 3.25 hours - I missed half a session, but more about that later)

The track layout was also slightly different this time - On my 2 previous visits I was lucky enough to drive on the full GP circuit which adds the Esses and Mebourne Hairpin to the route, but on this day we skipped the extra loop, so this time was lucky enough to have a whole new corner to learn!

The morning went very smoothly, with a couple of sessions warming up and remembering the track layout, and trying to get the most out of following Trev Brunwin who was very quick around the track and very instructive to follow. There was a good mix of "old hands" and new drivers there, and on the whole people drove well (the slow drivers watching their mirrors and allowing the faster drivers to pass easily and safely, and the faster drivers not hassling people too much if they didn't pull over immediately). There were still the normal couple of drivers who forgot that pulling over is not enough - in cars of nearly identical spec, you also have to take your foot off the accelerator to allow people to pass! This year I didn't find this much of a problem, though, as I have practised the long Redgate corner quite a bit now, and can usually exit it with a lot more speed than drivers who don't know Donington so well, so can usually use my momentum to pass them on the following straight.

As the day progressed, I gained confidence in my new EBC Turbo-Groove brake disks and Pirelli P6000 tyres, neither of which I'd tried on track before - they both did an excellent job! By lunchtime I was getting some lovely 4-wheel drifts through the Old Hairpin, and felt I had finally learned a reasonable line to take around Coppice, which had eluded me on previous trips.

While I took Nicole and Bob for passenger rides (and they're still talking to me! :-), Russell was giving it plenty of welly, and seemed to be really enjoying learning the Donington circuit. I didn't see much of Gary during the morning, mainly because I was so eager to get out on the circuit that I usually led the pack away, so Gary was often lapping on the other side of the circuit to me.

Then, with Bob as a passenger, it all went a bit wrong. We noticed a strange vibration on right hand corners, especially down into Craners. At first I thought it might be a crosswind on that section or something, but after a few laps, it was definitely getting worse, so decided to take the car back to the pits to check it out - I slowed down, and there was immediately a nasty flomp-flomp-flomp noise (a bit like a flat tyre). We slowed even more & crawled back to the pits with visions of huge repair bills flashing through my mind.

Back in the pits, we couldn't see anything major wrong with the wheel, so I jacked it up to take the wheel off and check behind it - by this time I thought I'd either warped a brake disc or lost the bearing! We were quite shocked to discover that the wheel itself was flopping about - 3 of the nuts had unravelled, and the entire wheel was loose! After leaving it all to cool, I tightened everything back up, and as it all looked ok, took it for a tentative lunchtime drive to fill my now nearly empty petrol tank. I was quite relieved to find that it all ran fine again!

I guess that's a good lesson for track driving - if anything feels wrong, take the car immediately back to the pits and check it out. I hate to think what might have happened if we'd tried to do another 15 minutes on that wheel! But, scary as it sounds, I'm glad it happened on track, as on the open road, the problem would have been far less obvious (repeating the same corners hilights these things faster), and could have had far more serious results (what if a child ran out? etc) than might have happened on track.

After lunch, I went for a careful run around the track, and as everything was fine, I got back to speed and began to enjoy myself again. In the afternoon I gave Bob a second ride, and demonstrated how to lose the back end of the car at 80mph, and then how to just hang on to it and recover! I was quite pleased (as I know that a short while ago I wouldn't have managed to avoid a spin in that situation) and Bob was quite pleased (to still be alive :-)

Later on I took Gordon Bell for a strop around the track, which all went pretty well except for another slight back-end-out moment, but Gordon didn't even scream, so I guess I corrected it ok!

So by 5pm we'd done 218 miles at an average speed of about 67mph, and a top speed at the end of the Dunlop straight of about 103mph. I managed a fuel economy of about 12mpg rather than my normal on-road 30mpg.

We then headed home and collapsed into bed, completely shattered! It was another great track day, which was fun but I also refined my technique, improved my lines on some of Donington's more challenging bends, and felt that as usual I really got a lot out of the day.

Jason Williams, August 26, 2002