I was going to tell you about my morning encounter with the police and me contemplating outrunning them. And I was going to tell you about my arrival at the track where Johan greated me with a parking space and a glass of champagne. And about the hospitality suite overlooking Eau Rouge where Group C cars went by in anger. But the events of my track session makes these things seem not that important...
We as a group got a free track session Friday by the arrangers by driving some VIP employees from the sponsoring company and their guests, Richard Mille. So the plan was to get a passenger, drive one lap, new passenger. 3-5 times. So we started doing that.
Here I should mention that every time I go on a track in my own car, I first have long negotiations with myself. Drive carefully. It's not a race. You have 1000km home. You just got it painted. Etc. And I end up promising myself to enjoy it, but to take it easy and of course not race anybody. It's not a race.
I was first in the line for some reason, based on how we parked, so I went on the track first. Had to get used to the track again.
But I'm sure my passengers were not just polite when they said it was an experience. If I had sat next to me at that speed, I would have been freaking scared! When the 3rd passenger got in, there was massive traffic on the track. So I drove slower, did a little overtaking, based on HP, not cornering skills, didn't want to be on or go near the edge. Still, I think they had fun.
After 5 passengers, I was told that we could now drive alone on the track for approx 10 minutes. With no pace car! Hhmmm. So I went out on the track, plenty of traffic, managed to overtake a few, especially after the chicane and down towards Eau Rouge. Hit the apexes pretty good, but kept a safety margin towards the slower drivers.
Then came trouble. A dark blue GT40 overtook me. That's like a red blanket to a bull. I don't like GT40s (sorry, I know they're popular here), primarily because they often outrun Panteras...
So I said to myself, I would not have any of that, I could go as fast as him. My self-agreed caution was out the window. So I set my sight on the GT40.
That wasn't as easy as I had thought. First of all, annoyingly I had nothing on him in straight line acceleration. He was exactly as fast as me (in honesty I was probably a little bit faster, but the elastic band effect of the car exiting a corner first made us equally fast). So I knew I couldn't just accelerate past him, frankly I wouldn't be able to pass him unless he made a mistake. But I would glue myself to his tail lights for sure.
He was fast, but he didn't hit the apexes as well as I did. So he couldn't shake me. We were by far the fastest in the group on the track at time, overtook plenty of cars.
But then it went haywire. We were about even on acceleration, I was better on the racing lines IMHO, but he was better than me on one thing: negotiating traffic. At Double Gauche Pouhon a slower car changed his mind, so my line suddenly was more challenging than I had traction to handle. I'm not sure what speed we were at there, probably 100km/h+, but the rear end stepped out.
I've had the rear end step out on many a musclecar earlier, always caught it pretty easy. Not this time. I corrected it, but as soon as the rear tires regained traction, they bit so hard the rear end stepped out to the other side. And that happened again, so I was fishtailing at speed with smoke from the wheels. All this happened while I had left the beaten track and was on the run-off area, nearing the tire wall.
Thankfully they had listened to Jacque Villeneuve who always advocated tarmac on the runoff areas, not gravel. So I was on the black stuff, and had a little control. The small corrections I made were all to keep me off the wall. In the end I spun 180 degrees, and came to a stand still. Tire smoke all around me. 5 meters to the wall. Marshalls running towards me. Engine had stalled, so I started it, turned it around, and entered the track again, looking to catch that GT40. Which of course I never did...
So no damage to my car. Could have been quite different. Annoying I wasn't able to catch the rear end. Stephane Bergeron was nice enough to tell me that tires and the slow gearing of the steering could be the reason. It was like riding a bull for a second or two.
I think it was quite spectacular, maybe we'll see it on youtube from people's in car cameras. One guy that drove behind me came up to me and said that he almost had a heart attack. Many smiled at me...
So what have I learned? Well, I can't trust myself and what I've agreed with myself. And that a good Pantera can play with GT40s. And that I need more practice in negotiating traffic...
Another track session is ón Sunday, this time probably in the rain...
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