Octavia at MRT Track Day - Marulan

[Martin]

Firstly, a huge thankyou to the MRT Team for hosting the day and providing both technical advice and driving tuition - fantastic job guys (really nice bunch of blokes to mingle with for sure)

So three of us trekked down to this event, what a cool thing to use Friday for

(The photo is taking ages to sync - it will get there eventually)


I have to say, this is one of the shortest, tightest and busiest tracks I've ever been on
After a little tuition I settled into a nice rhythm
My new brake kit struggled a little in the morning as the pads have not been broken in (in anger)
By the afternoon they were lasting longer and performing very well

There was a very fast (modified) Mazda 3 MPS doing 42.4 second laps
There was a tricked out Subaru STI doing 45~46 second laps - going pretty hard
I was clocked at 48.5 seconds so I certainly didn't let the team down

My max speed was 118.5km/h (which is a lot on such a little track)
Most of the time my max boost was ~20psi (but there were a few 26psi spikes)

While the Toyo R888 semi slicks are not a really great tyre, having so much more rubber on the road was very helpful
I could get on the power pretty early (Tigger could not, the instructor lit up his inside front Conti, huge smoke)
I was a little concerned running semi slicks at the front and road tyres at the rear
Several times the front did bite and tuck in too hard for the rear but it was easy to manage thanks to the inherent good handling of the Octavia

Here is the obligatory YouTube video of a few laps
(When I pull off the track you can hear the diverter valve go off)
MartinOctaviaMarulanMarch2013 - YouTube

The volume is not very loud because the GoPro camera is inside it's protective case
If you turn the volume up you can hear a beep or whistle when I'm on power/boost
Apparently that is very loud outside the car and entertained the spectators
I was dubbed the "Whistling Skoda", we later decided to call my car the "Scud Missile"

I took Tigger for a few laps so he can compare his car versus what mine is doing

Fuel consumption for the day was 16.5 litres per 100km
That includes the 2 hour drive down there - so the track time was even worse

Hell of a lot of fun, I'm knackered, off to bed!