PROMISING PUG 106 TEST AT MALLORY

Initially just three half-hour sessions for Mike at Mallory, to test the car and learn the track. It had rained overnight, so the track was 'green' with just a damp line for the first session at 9am. At the back of his mind was the fastest lap in the previous Stock hatch race of 57.6 seconds. The first aim for session 1 was to get below the minute. Following an initial 3 lap warm up, and then two laps of 59 seconds, the red flag came out for ten minutes. The session ended with a further 10 laps all in the low 59 second range with Mike having a dice with a more powerful MGB.

Session 2 was at 10 am, so just enough time to check the tyre pressures, torque the wheels and top up the fuel. The weather was muggy and with 20 vehicles in his session - mostly Clio Cup and Ginetta's, there was a drying line developing. Sadly after just 5 laps, the MGB Mike had a dice with in the first session decided to leave the track an compress itself against an Armco! it too 20 minutes to sort the mes, so with just a couple of warm up laps and 5 more at race pace, Mike dropped into the mid 58 second range.

Session 3 was at 11am, so with just 20 laps experience so far, we were pleased to be given a 40 minute slot. We changed the damper settings, lowered the pressures and brimmed the tank. Without a stop watch we were relying on the car lap timer, but friends from Piro were there testing their Clio Cup cars and kindly included Mike on their time sheet. After 5 initial laps Mike then put in 15 laps all between 58.5 and 58 seconds dead. He came in for 5 minutes, as the front tyre was melting and scrubbing off too much speed as he under-steered. Not enough time to let the tyres cool enough to crack the 57 second barrier, Mike did a further 20 laps in the low 58 second range experimenting with different lines.

Considering the car hasn't been used for a year and the tyres were rock hard Mike was 'happy' that given better tyres and another 15 laps, he would be on lap record pace. As an aside there were several cars turn up that will be in his race at the weekend that he was able to pass, including a Black BMW M3 and a Jaguar XJ6. Hopefully as well as gaining two valuable signatures, he might manage to beat a few people.