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TCR wrote:I've seen that quite a few times now and at first I was pretty impressed like most.

He can certainly steer, but it takes a lot of faith in your fellow drivers and/or little regard for your safety to pull off some of those moves. It could have so easily ended in disaster.

greenMachine wrote:

TCR wrote:I've seen that quite a few times now and at first I was pretty impressed like most.

He can certainly steer, but it takes a lot of faith in your fellow drivers and/or little regard for your safety to pull off some of those moves. It could have so easily ended in disaster.

... and even less for the panels on your car, and those of your fellow competitors.

Dean_racing wrote:Hi guys,
A friend linked me up with this site and thought I'd answer a few questions.
1) It was funded totally by myself, and was a buy-a-drive. Cost me almost $8000. The Lotus Series http://www.lotustrophy.com.au offers these drives at $5000+GST at most rounds (Bathurst is extra) in an Elise and it's a lot of fun. This was a reverse grid race, and I started from 14th.
2) Believe it or not, there was no contact with anyone else, apart from when I was squeezed against the wall off the start-line and had my driver's side mirror knocked back. As I go up Mountain Straight, you can tell I'm hesitant to move to the right because I couldn't see to my right!
Also, it looks like I bump the yellow car out of the way, but he later admitted it was just a case of him being surprised to see me there. I also thanked him for being aware enough not to squeeze me into the wall, a consideration not exercised by many racers.
3) Yes, not only a full lap without breaking down, but 6 of them. Ha! I think Paul Pickett, series organiser, has found and remedied a lot of the mechanical problems.
4) Yes, I short shifted into fourth gear coming onto Conrod Straight because the safety car came out - it's a yellow flag and an SC board, not a white flag. Two red Elises came together at MacPhillamy Park behind me and both landed in the sand-trap. We had two slow laps, then after the restart I managed to stay in the lead and win Class B Elises by 7 seconds, but got passed by about 10 Exiges down the straights (though given they were doing about 10 seconds a lap faster, that's not surprising). Note, there's also one Exige in the group I pass, it's visible with the rear wing. He's in the middle group going over Skyline.
The track was also greasy from MacPhillamy onwards, but only two guys in the field had experience in the wet at Bathurst. I did my first Bathurst race there in 2000, the GT-P 3 Hour in a Peugeot 306 with Warren Luff in 'monsoon' conditions. We finished 2nd to Greg Murphy and Steve Richards in an Astra.
The car I was driving was also a bit down on power, as evidenced by the climb after turn one when three cars pass me.
So there you go, some exclusive answers for MX5 Mania!