Ebisu Extra 6 Hour - Mike's perspective

Joined TGR team again as a driver in their Honda for the 6hr endurance race. The weather was great albeit very cold. The rain that was forcast never came. In practice I managed my best lap time at Ebisu so far (1:11.9) thanks to an improved car (stiffer springs) plus me finally finding a solution to the S bend downhill hairpin and the kink/uphill hairpin. Tom also got his best time during qualifying with a 1:10.56, putting us 2nd in class and 8th on the grid.

The 6 drivers were :

Myself plus-

H.Sumi
T O`Dowd
R. Rolirad
J. Gibbons
D. Silva
team manager, pit boss and all round sweetheart: M. Varella-Cid

Tom also got his best time during qualifying with a 1:10.56, seated 2nd in class and 8th on the grid. Overall the car felt like a different car than before - much more stable - a good 2 secs faster. On race day after qualifying 10 mins before race start I noticed a 3 inch long crack going through one of the brake rotors!! The spares being in Tokyo.

I was a tad surprised to get agreement when I suggested we drill out the crack :) a technique thats often used to stop crack propogation. We quickly drilled a small hole at the end of the crack in the hope that would stop, or slow it growing. I checked at each pit stop to see if the crack was growing or if it was eating up the pads. As it happens the rotor and pads lasted the 6hr race without falling apart! These rotors had just been skimmed and fitted the day before. this crack therefore must have grown very quickly!

Unforunately were still seeing rapid outside edge tyre wear although not quite as bad as before. The car currently doesnt have much camber so its been suggested we could look at adjusting that and seeing if we can reduce the edge wear.

We qualified 8th and finished 9th overall. In class, we qualified 2nd and finished 5th. 13 cars ran, 6 in our class. We out-qualified a Westfield seven which Tom almost drove over under braking in qualification

It was a fun race!!

Mike.

Ed. Mike's full picture Gallery is here. (Miguels also here.)