Qui casse les verres les paie

Well, lots of stuff happened over the past month.

First I had to pay rego, which was made more difficult by a last minute change of CTP insurer. Came to $269.45, like any other 4-cylinder car.

Then the next round of the QR Sprints were coming up, and I wanted the car in good condition. I had an oil change (used Shell Helix Ultra) and general check-up done and we fixed some of the plastic bits underneith the car that had cracks in them. Bit of ziptight did the trick okay. I also had the oil filter changed, which alltogether came to $150.

Next thing were the front tires, which looked a tad worn. Very worn, actually. Still, I thought I'd get by with switching the fronts and rears. Since Bob Jane's was also going to do balancing and alignment, I went there. Unfortunately the guy came back into the waiting room and told me the tires were already so worn that they were illegal. The only options they had for me were Pirelli Dragons, which I hadn't heard great things about, and Bob Jane's Xenon Z1's. Since the latter were $50 cheaper, I picked them. Which meant that I came to the trackday with a 10-year old Korean tire design.

Still, I don't think they did too badly. At the moment I'm definitely the slowest part of the package, so the most time can be gained if I can get my act together. And that costs a lot less money too.

I was quite disappointed with my performance at the sprints this time round. I managed to go quicker (1:07), but only on one lap and only by one second. I got along with the traffic better this time, but my lines must have been horrible...I guess I'll never be racing in F1 :p

It was only during the last session that I posted quicker times, breaking later and taking a different line through the last chicane and hairpin. I had a bit of fun with what was apparently a Falcon XR6T too. The guy wasn't particularly fast either, so through the corners I kept catching up to him, while on the straights he would pull away. Good fun because we somehow managed to end up together on all three runs...bit annoying during the last run, when he was actually holding me up a bit.

I do have a video, but the camera work is atrocious, so I won't bother uploading it...some pictures might be coming though.

Either I'm thinking too much or not enough when I'm out there. I suppose there's nothing for it but to practice more. At least I got up on three wheels, I'm told.

Since it'll be two months, I'll see whether I can get the break pads replaced. I suspect they'd be very worn by now as well, and Ferrodo DS2500 should improve performance as well. The guys from OzRS who have them seem very happy.

PS: If anyone is going to buy an RSC, make sure you take off the little caps on the rims and check whether everything is okay there. I didn't, and apparently one of my front wheels is missing a wheel nut. The whole idea of going to a dealership was that I didn't have to worry about stupid stuff like that, so I'm not too happy with the dealership on that count. They better make up for it once I take it in for servicing.
On the other hand, I was pretty stupid to forget checking. Best way to do it would probably have been to have a mechanic do a full check of everything and then present them with the list. I didn't have the time or the cash when I got the car, so now I'm probably going to pay for it anyways.