Drivers' Championship Round 3
25 November 2018
After the rainy Melbourne weather, it was a breath of fresh air to get on the sunny side of the Great Dividing Ranges and the lovely weather at Winton.
As always, a flurry of activity before the racing with cars off trailers and drivers putting the finishing touches on car preparation followed by the drivers briefing with the familiar group of officials.
My racing story is that after seeing a nice fleet of E30 racing cars outside Bell Motorsport I dropped in to see what was going on and maybe get my E46 325i serviced.
Frustrated by slow speed limits and fast speed cameras town, I had been thinking about doing track days and driving with no risk to licence. Needless to say, Jo and Graeme quickly signed me up with the BMW Drivers Club and I signed on for the sprint events.
I was looking forward Winton, as I thought this would be a great opportunity to test my skill and car on a slower more technical track.
Earlier, after torturing my Michelin Pilot Sports at the Haunted Hills and Broadford sprint days, Graeme suggested Yokohama racing tyres, to save the Michelins and do more enjoyable track work.
My car has done 200,000km and needed new front shocks to reduce vibration and the car had a lot of body roll, so replaced the springs, shocks and added a hefty sway bar. I was really keen to try out the new setup at Winton as the car is driving brilliantly on the road.
Winton is a special track with short straights, sweeping corners and a few very tight corners. I was thankful for that my car is now handling well and I was able to go full throttle earlier out of corners. Interestingly my best lap times for 5 stints were all within 0.4 seconds apart.
Every session on the track put a smile on my face for a different reason, whether it was feeling harmony between the braking and throttle applications, finding the sweet line for turns 5 and 6, catching an MX5 or the raw squeal of tyres and raging noise of a supercharged Alfa Romeo working hard to overtake me out of a tight corner with the sounds stirring my petrol head soul.
As always, I looked forward to hanging out with the BMWDCM “family” as all are genuinely good people and have this enjoyable common interest. Thanks especially to Team Kertes for Paul supplying me with petrol and Rachael some useful track advice.
Rod Martin | Member #29
BMW Drivers Club Melbourne
