BRC Track Day 3: From Dusk Till Dawn
December 2002

Ahhhhhh...what a day! We all met as scheduled at Starbucks Petron SLEX at 6am and took off soon after. Joey led in his BMW 320 with 5 Miatas in tow: myself, Alfie, Ricci, Jenny, Dan's driver, followed by Dan in his Suburban (? wasn't paying attention). A bit less than expected but at that point, we were all raring to go!

STAR tollway was boring, lots of cars :(

We made it to BRC before 8am, with just a bit of traffic at Lipa. We had some guests, Lito Ignacio, Mike Aguilar and 2 other members of the BMW bike club, they did a few rounds and chatted with us while we were resting and getting ready to hit the track. they were nice enough to scout the track and discover that as usual, Johnny Tan's cows had marked all the apexes with cow crap, and Mike played patintero with a cow on the track...hope he didn't flatspot his tire :) Anyway the caretakers shooed away the cows and cleaned up the crap, and we started trickling on the track.

As usual, my camera was set up, with different angles depending on what we were interested in seeing. Started out with a mount facing me a la Jeremy Clarkson :) Wanted to get that out of the way while I was warming up....found out that for some reason, the track was very slippery compared to last time! My first hot lap got me wide at the last turn, no grip at all from the tires! Had 2 wheels off the track on grass, and the rumble strip did a number on my left front mud guard :( Ended that set of laps with the discovery that even braking points were different this morning due to the lack of grip, sending me on a nice spin into the gravel trap at the end of the hairpin! ON FILM!

My second lap was somewhat better, but as I had feared, being the 3rd session, I was really looking to squeeze every bit off the track, and was more on the edge of adhesion than before. Tried joey P's line which he suggested last time, the 2nd apex on the last corner...which sent me off on my 2nd spin of the day! ON FILM AGAIN! Before 9 am at that!

Dan was enjoying himself on the track, which he hadn't seen for a few years, pretty much his first time. After a few sessions, he declared it "interesting and fun", and promptly started setting good times ranging from 2:08 to 2:04s. Jenny brought her red car which was perfectly set up...in her words "no power, no grip!" She was doing around 2:23, pretty good for a bone stock car! Ricci started out with 2:29s....after a session riding with his new coach Jenny, he proceeded to drop his lap times by 8 seconds! Next time I take you up on the offer for lessons!

Alfie brought his cousin, and they took turns driving Stocko (the dumbest name considering what's in the car but hey...) Alfie was still where he was last time, doing 2:03s. Joey was setting 2:16 with the red NA car, and also took his 3 series out, which almost sounded like it was in pain on the track..."plleeease tamaaa naaa...may miata ka naman bosssss...." He gave that car a flogging :)

We shared the track with some unscheduled guests, some bikers in assorted bikes, mostly (?) Ducatis...was cool, we took turns in 45 minute sessions, which was fine since we were only 5 miatas. Turns out they paid a lot more than we did!!!! Thanks again to Romy M for our sweetheart deal! Hope your dad is feeling better.

Lunch was prepared by our BRC caterer, which was the best spread yet! "BRC BBQ", BIG pieces of fried chicken, beef sinigang (tasted good but might have been a BRC cow), and rice! After that lunch we spent 2 hours in the cold VIP suite swapping horror stories and Miata set-up tips. While the bikers took a nap outdoors :) Thanks again Romy! :)

More track time in the afternoon, track was grippier than in the morning, at least that's how I felt...

Took some group photos for the club, then headed home around 5:30...some drag racers were arriving for tomorrow's race...Alfie showed the his drift technique. Hit some traffic in Lipa and the usual SSHW traffic, but made it home in an hour and a half or so. Tired but totally satisfied.

Those of you who are missing the track days are missing out on a whole new side of your Miata! Finding the limit and learning to control it...ahhh nothing like a corner perfectly taken :) Ah well, next time na lang. But it won't be for a while, need to recover from the stress.

Oh, and as I said before, the lap times are pretty fast already, so I will be more strict with the helmet rules. And I may separate experienced and non-experienced drivers on track, both for safety reasons and so the more experienced drivers can ride with the newbies.

-Greg

Carlo eat your heart out! TWIN DRIFT!

Don't ask me how they managed to convince me to risk life and limb for THIS shot!

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