Customers Experiance at PEMBREY TRACK DAY – 23rd Sept 2006

Background
Pembrey is a superb circuit some 12 miles from J48 off the M4 just past Swansea.  It is promoted as the home of Welsh Motorsport which is hardly surprising as all of the top F3 and BTCC teams test and race there.  The circuit is a mixture of flowing curves on one half of the circuit and a long back straight where you can really put the power down on the other half.  Overall a superb circuit with a bit of everything and very reasonably priced at £159 for a full days entertainment organised by Motorsport Events.  For all of these reasons I included this event in the MSCC calendar.

Morning
The alarm went off at 6:30am to wake me out of a deep sleep, how I laughed.  Having had everything prepared the night before it was just a case of getting up, having breakfast and hitting the road.  The purpose of buying my 5EXi was to have a car that I could drive to a circuit, abuse on the track all day and drive home again.  With the powerful and torquey 1.8 VVC engine in my car coupled with the close ratio gearbox from the Rover 218 BRM donor I knew that the performance was strong on the road, I was about to find out whether this would be the same on the track.

I arrived at the circuit a little late and missed the first drivers briefing which was at 8:30am.  Thankfully I was not alone and joined about 6 others for the second briefing at 9:00am although it did mean that I missed the familiarisation laps behind the pace car.  There were a total of 40 cars at the event which ranged from the usual 7 type cars, a Cobra and a good mix of high performance production cars.  The track was wet from overnight rain but was drying rapidly as the combination of cars on the track and a good breeze took its effect.  Although the day was “Open Pit Lane” the first outings were done in 3 sessions, due to my late arrival I was in the third session but was glad of this as it meant that other cars would help to dry out the track to create a racing line.  I had not driven Pembrey before and this was my first track day since buying the 5EXi, these two factors combined meant that I had to ease myself in gently.  I went out behind a Sierra XR4x4 whilst the track was still damp.  After a few laps I had the feel of the circuit and started to drive faster and soon caught up with the Sierra which I overtook on the straight.  After that I began to get faster and after that began chasing a Supra twin turbo which the owner later told me had been tuned to 380BHP.  I was quicker than the Supra and soon started to reel him in and passing him 5 laps later – boy that felt good.  The session ended with the usual chequered flag then it was open pit lane for unlimited action.  I came in to allow the car to cool down and have a drink before going out for the next session.

By the time I went out for the second session the track was now dry so I decided to push harder and what fun I had.  By the end of the session I had got significantly faster and overtaken a Vauxhall Monaro V8, Porsche 928, Audi TT 3.2 with 4WD and some of the 7 type cars.  I could not however live with the motorbike powered orange colour RAW Striker at this time.  My third and final session before the lunchtime break was more of the same and I stopped for lunch with a grin as wide as the car itself.

 Afternoon
During the lunchtime session Mark Matthews arrived having driven for 3 hours from Crediton to spend the afternoon with me and impart some of his racing experience.  Ask yourself, how many other car manufacturers would do that for their customers, very few I can assure you.

Mark asked me to go out again so that he could watch how the car was behaving on the track.  I came in earlier than expected as I was starting to run out of fuel and actually ran out completely about 100 yards from the paddock.  Mark identified that the car was too loose and set about lowering the tyre pressures and increasing the damper stiffness all around.  The chap next to me in the paddock a real gentleman called John donated his fuel to me so that I was able to go out again without having to leave the circuit to get fuel some 5 miles away.  Mark then imparted his racing knowledge of the circuit to me telling me where to push, which corner could be taken without lifting and where to leave the braking to the last moment to carry maximum speed through the corner.  I went out again with the new settings, some extra bravery and set out to set and improve my lap time.  The orange Striker that I could not live with in the morning suddenly came into view.  With the “bit between my teeth” I started to reel him in then caught and passed him – Brilliant!  Not only that but as I accelerated along the straight I started to pull away with the acceleration clearly stronger than his bike engine, another satisfying moment.  Mark was now timing my laps and gave me a lap time of 1:25 as I came back to the pit lane.

The weather was now very warm and I desperately needed a drink before going out again as I had started to loose concentration and had twice outbraked myself at the end of the straight before the hairpin.  Suitably refreshed I had time for one more session before the end of the day.  I arranged to go out with Gentleman John as he had 220BHP in his Caterham and sticky Yokohama 048R tyres.  Mark felt that I could run him close despite my 145BHP and TOYO T1-R tyres due to similar torque outputs of the engines although it would mean driving the wheels off of the car to stay with him.  They let us out about 200 yards apart and I immediately set off in pursuit.  On the first lap I pushed too hard on one of the fast corners, ran out of grip and had to take to the escape road.  I turned the car around and rejoined the circuit only to be black flagged to come in for a ticking off.  As I had not spun they let me out again quite quickly and fortunately I came out behind John.  I set off in pursuit again pushing as hard as I could.  My speed increased, lap times cane down and I started to reel him in, within 5 laps I was on his tail and he pulled over on the straight to let me pass.  I then proceeded to pull away slightly and we both went past a Lotus Elise as though it was standing still.  The Supra then came into view and I set off in pursuit knowing that this was my last run off the day.  The Supra was certainly much quicker than it had been in the morning session but I was slowly reeling him in.  In my desire to finish the day passing a 380BHP supercar again I took too much speed through the same corner as earlier, ran out of road and took an excursion across the grass.  As the session was nearly over I took the infield roads back to the pits where the organisers were waiting to have a “chat” with me with Mark hiding his concern behind a big smile.  Examination of the tyres back in the paddock showed that the surface of the tyres had bobbled up like small marbles where I had been sliding the car around the corners.  That is my excuse which I am sticking too despite what anyone says.  The good news was that my lap time had come down by 7 seconds and I was now lapping at 1:18, not bad for a first attempt at a circuit I had never driven before.

Conclusion
As you can probably tell I had an absolutely fantastic day.  The car performed brilliantly, humbling some much more expensive machinery and proved totally reliable despite the abuse I had given it all day on the track.  My sincere thanks go to all of those at Motorsport Events who organised and ran a superb day at an excellent circuit.  I then ran out of fuel again between leaving the circuit and getting to the filling station.  Mark drove to the garage, bought a can, filled it with fuel and came back to rescue me.  With a car this good and the level of support received from the Mark why would anyone want to buy anything other than a Marlin?

See you at Brands Hatch for TotalKitCar Live!