Photo: Shahaan Engineer (India)Bob McMurray writes from the Toyota Racing Series......
Taupo (round 3) Thursday/Friday 26-27 January 2012
Two test sessions today at the Taupo track in fine warm weather.
My journey here was via the beautiful city of Napier. A lovely place in yet another absolutely beautiful part of our country and yet another picturesque drive over and through some spectacular scenery.
The road, when all the road works are finally done, is one of those roads made for the GT touring cars of old, a 1950s or 60s model ‘Vette with the top down or a new Lexus ISF ‘Red’ edition with the scarf blowing in the breeze, Ray Ban Aviator sunnies on, five on the floor, a loud and ‘rorty’ exhaust sound, and the Beach Boys on the radio ......or loud opera, whatever turns you on.
All the chaps and the one chapess were very keen to get on track today.
A bit of holiday time in between the Timaru round and the drive up to Taupo seemed to have given them some itchy feet and a renewed vigour to get on track and up to speed as soon as possible.
The ETEC team mates of Josh Hill and Melvin Moh actually clashed on track on turn 1 when Josh tried to overtake and go under him. Unfortunately Melvin returned to the pits with a large tyre roundel on his side pod and Josh was stranded on track.
His car had leaped into the air on contact and it had blown a circuit breaker on landing, cutting all the electrics.
The sessions took the form of a two one hour periods and there were plenty of ‘exploratory’ spins and offs but by and large without damage.
There is always the exception to that and the first was Josh Hill who whacked one of the plastic track marker posts dislodging his front wing.
Melvin Moh also had an off but this was a little more serious.
He entered the braking area for the long open turn 10 hairpin at the far end of the circuit when the front left suspension seemed to collapse and he was left with three wheels on his wagon at around 200kph.
He spun the car, or the car spun him, and ended up safely stopped in the gravel trap.
The breakage may possibly have been the result of the previous contact with Hill but it certainly resulted in a spectacular spin, and right in front of Sam MacNeil, Steve Boyce and me who were at the marshal’s post there.
It said by some in the team that Melvin may well have changed his underwear after the incident!
There were a couple of engine problems that were being addressed overnight but all looked set for the Friday session.
The Taupo events people have some back up happening to the TRS weekend on as well.
Body Art on the shore and the powerboats on the lake and the TRS drivers have some involvement apparently!!
Friday 27th
Weather change again!
Cool, overcast and threatening rain.
The first piece of good news for the day was for me to see in the Autosport magazine that the GP3 series is confirmed to run at the Formula 1 GP at Monaco.
Our TRS graduates Mitch Evans (GP3) and Richie Stanaway (Renault 3.5) are both racing in Formulae that are the backups to the F1 circus in this coming year so it will be great to see them both shine on that iconic track.
If Brendon Hartley can also secure a drive in Renault 3.5 for 2012 as well then it should make for a fascinating weekend.
The first session of testing (2 sessions today of 30 mins each) got underway under ever threatening skies, in fact a light misty rain drifted across the track occasionally.
Spins aplenty again with turns 4 and 5 catching a few drivers out.
No real dramas though.
The session ended with Bonifacio, Cassidy, van Asseldonk and King in the first four places but the top twelve drivers were covered by less than one second.
Just after the session ended the heavy rain came in, the visibility dropped and the wind started blowing.
The drivers had an event or two scheduled for the late afternoon with a jet boat experience being one of them and body art (!) with Jono Lester volunteered to take an active part, being the other.
Not sure if they will happen at this point.
30 minutes before the second session and the wind is blowing hard with a very cold edge to it but the rain has stopped.
The series continues to gain more media coverage than ever before and this morning Barry Thomlinson was on the local More FM radio station with Victor Sendin and Josh Hill. There have also been many reports in the printed media with Eric Thompson leading the charge in the NZ Herald with articles, reports and even video blog stuff on www.nzherald.co.nz
The weather looks as if it may improve so the second practice session has been delayed by 15 minutes as blue sky is on the horizon and getting closer by the minute. Hooray!!!
The Taupo track is more suited to the smaller TRS cars than the larger and more powerful A1GP cars that raced here for two events.
It presents more overtaking possibilities for them and lets the cars really stretch their legs.
A lap of the track is done in around 1 minute 24 seconds and starts across the start / finish line at 160kph in 4th gear and then to 5th at around 190kph before heavy braking for turn 1, taken at 70kph in 2nd.
Then up to 3rd then 4th through turns 3 and 4 reaching 148kph before dropping down the gears again to 2nd and entering the turn 5 at around 80kph.
Accelerating once again through turn 6 and up into 4th gear and a speed of 160kph before another heavy braking for turn 7 in 2nd, then again up to 3rd, 4th, and a speed of 190kph before lifting off and slight braking for the very quick right hander at turn 9 taken at 150kph.
Flat out again on the run through the almost imperceptible turn 10 and getting into 5th gear and reaching 220kph before dropping down the gears to 2nd with heavy braking yet again for the wide hairpin turn 11 taken at 80kph.
Then foot to the floor for the long, long straight, also used as a drag strip, and climbing through the gears to 6th reaching a terminal speed of more than 230kph before, once again, heavy braking and down through the sequential gearbox to 2nd and taking the left, right, left complex of turns 12, 13 and 14 at 100kph, 85kph and 98kph before holding the car close against the start of the pit wall to get across the line and finish the lap.
Once again, sounds easy eh!?
The start of the session has been wisely delayed until 3.15pm to let the blue sky take over from the black rain clouds.
It worked!!
Blue sky, cold wind and sunny.
Spins and offs and damp track drying to dry with the occasional puddle.
The session ended with all of the cars on dry (slick) tyres and the order ended up with Bonifacio leading then Cassidy, Hill, van Asseldonk, Marciello, Leitch and King in the top seven.
The next thing for the drivers today, jet boats and body painting!
The convoy of volunteers has just left the track for the lake and the river.
More on that tomorrow hopefully.
Chris Amon is a very welcome attendee this weekend as he lives just around the lake in Kinloch and is also very involved in not only Toyota but also the TRS series.
He was fulfilling his obligations to his land the other day and mowing his vast acreage with his horrendously large and expensive Walker ride on mower.
As befits any self respecting race driver, especially a Formula 1 driver, Chris takes his mower to the limit in all aspects and the limit was reached when the thing overturned on him. Not literally ON him as he had abandoned ship moments before the thing reached tipping point.
(I guess his years in Italy may well have educated him in the ways of cruise ship captains).
It took him, his wife Tish and the front end loader to get the impressive machine the right way up again.
It just goes to show you are never too old to get yourself in trouble.
In fact it is always a pleasure to see and talk with Chris as his vast experience, vast knowledge of race cars and racing and vast store of stories, which are mostly not for publication, is pure entertainment in itself.
A great man.
OK, that’s it for today....
More later.
Bob
