Like mentioned before I went to Monza this weekend for a track day organized by Speed Day. They have themes for each event and this one was Coupe & Cabriolet. Luckily my Celica, which is in fact a hatchback, qualified as a coupe, so 50% off the normal rates.
I got there nice and early at 9am. I was praying for dry weather but what I got was cold, wet and miserable. It had rained all night so it was pretty soaked.
The track didn’t look so wet and I thought it might dry up, so I expected to go faster than last time. Here’s a video of a lap:
As it happens the track didn’t dry and I ended up running with way too high tire pressure and couldn’t get heat into them, felt very slippery. I was definitely pushing harder and braking later than my last track day here, but in then end I managed a best time of 3:03.83, which is pretty much the same as last time. Despite this it was great fun, gained some experience and learned a lot.
I also discovered than the stock Celica brakes are rubbish. They’re fine on the street, but on the track they just didn’t have enough force and they felt like poo. I also had to do a cool down lap every 2 laps, as soon as the brakes got hot they would have large fade and the disks would warp slightly. You can hear it in the video, on the last corner (the Parabolica) you can hear a vibrating noise, makes it very hard to slow down.
I doubt this car could take a track session in the dry, the brakes would last 1 lap.
Used and abused. The old track in the background with one of its epic banked turns.
I was using some new filming equipment, but I realize I need to learn how to use this as well. You couldn’t see much of the road and the speaker was rattling on the door.
Next post I’ll post some pics of the amazing cars present…
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