Another track day, another huge smile on my face. It was the first time I’ve raced in a dual sprint format and I had a lot of fun trying to extract speed from Everards MX5 race car. Even if I was one of the slowest there.
Once again a massive thanks to Everard a.k.a. Eevee for letting me loose in his car at Ruapuna (a.k.a. Euromarque Motorsport Park)
The day started rough with Eevee letting me know he had to sort something with the car and would be cutting it close. When he did arrive we were late to sign in and the officials were not impressed having to reorganise groups. Then looking at the car there’s drama with the external kill switch being required but not working. The scrutineer eventually agreeing to let us race but the car doesn’t have an extinguisher. So now Benny has to come to the rescue buying one and bringing it to the track. But that’s not all, we need our race licenses to sign in but Eevee can’t get his login to the MSNZ app working. He eventually admits defeat and withdraws leaving me to drive the car when we had planned to share the drive.
A dramatic start to the day. Thankfully I was out in the last group and we managed to get that extinguisher in time for me to head out.
For all the drama off track it was smooth sailing on track. So awesome to push the car through each turn trying to go faster and faster with every lap. The MX5 offering plenty of grip behaving in a very predictable way.
In Dual Sprints you set off two at a time from the starting grid. Race 1v1 for 3 laps. Then come back to the pits to wait your next turn. There were also multicar sprints running with 6 cars but I opted to stay in Duals where we were allowed to bring passengers.
In the first sessions I lined up next to a black/green Toyota Trueno. With so many powerful, new, or modified race cars entered the Trueno was one of the few other cars that looked in a similar class as the MX5. Of course you don’t know how quick a cars gonna be until the lights go out when they did I got smoked down the straight into turn 1. That only made it more satisfying to close back in slightly through the twisty infield section. First lap in and my race spirit has taken over and I was full send trying to catch back up.
That was the start of a big rivalry that existed only in my head. I wanted to beat that Trueno. I didn’t line up against them all day but was able to compare times. Before the final session of the day Eevee and I sat down and talked about the best lines and braking points. It clearly helped as I went on to set my best lap of the day and finish the final run faster than the Trueno! Woohoo.
Unfortunately I didn’t grab the final overall results (there was no change to my position) but individual times can be found on speedhive.
Speedhive results: https://speedhive.mylaps.com/events/2892504
The other highlight of the day was getting to take people for rides. Both Eevee and a friend jumped in the passenger set and made me feel like the pro driver. A super fun day hanging out at the track sharing stories.
Of course, given the great impression we’d already made with the officials, we were the ones to forget to return our transponder at the end of the day 🤦 I knew it was likely so had set a reminder on my phone, it went off, I called Eevee and he had to drive back to the track to return it before we got fined.
