What a week.
Refresh
Loooooong Weekend.
It’s Monday, the last day of the Easter long weekend, and I’m blogging… why? Because I have done nothing productive all weekend and now there are grad apps to be submitted and assignments to be written of course!
Friday – Recovered from symptoms of excessive partying due to work drinks (which somehow ended up at the roundhouse…). The weather was too good not to take advantage of in one way or another – so I packed my photography swag and fashionista girlfriend and headed to Bundeena to take photos for her latest blog post.
The low light and wind + heels made getting a sharp photo difficult but I was happy with the end results:
I need to suss out using the flash in these kind of situations, even bouncing it off a reflector was way too harsh. Natural light ftw.
Saturday we headed into the city to check out the recently refurbished Museum of Contemporary Art. I though the architecture of the new annex building was great… but the art was largely uninspiring to me. I used to love this place as a teenager, maybe my taste has matured, or maybe I’m consuming too much media through the internet and my attention span is shot to bits. I’m thinking the latter. We ate at Opera Kitchen, which was disappointing and overpriced, save for the Miss Chu dumplings.
I’ve recently become hooked on Instagram which was just released for Android… Kat no longer can scowl at me for stealing her phone to use it! What I once thought was gimmicky now really appeals to me as a casual, fun social network. Some photos (including the dumpling pic above):
Want this!
Brekky at Cafe Naked, Gymea, 10/10!
2012 Melbourne Grand Prix.
Last weekend I was fortunate enough to make it out to Albert Park in Melbourne to watch the start of the 2012 Formula 1 Season, thanks to a conveniently timed work trip. I also caught up with some old friends and made some new ones, and sampled some of Melbourne’s best bars, cuisine, and weather – a really great dew days (despite the heavy workload!)
My photos from the event:
Representing the 944's!
Got Press?
Is that standard equipment?!
On the Sunday night I headed to Lygon Street for some late night Italian fare and was greeted by the sight of my favourite car of all time – the Ferrari F40. Imagine my disbelief when a second F40 rocked up and parked behind the first! Absolutely surreal. It was a shame I only had my phone to capture the moment.
Tearing up Wakefield with Porsche Club
Saturday saw another painfully early start in order to reach Wakefield Park Raceway in time for the start of the first Porsche Club NSW Supersprint of 2012. I have high aspirations this year so made it down early, swapped my semis on and quickly consumed some caffeine before the Driver’s Briefing.
The track was wet despite several creative counter measures as Goulburn had effectively been under water for the past two weeks. The hilly landscape at Wakie means water will continue to rise up out of the ground long after the clouds have disappeared.
So with that in mind I cautiously headed out onto the track…. well that lasted all of about 3 laps and before long I was pushing hard so as to secure a spot in a fast group which would hopefully not hold me up later on in the day. Turn two was VERY tricky… the standing water meant that the car would simply stop turning and go straight ahead. This is not ideal! After setting a decent lap then spinning on the aforementioned corner I returned to pit lane for a small tyre pressure adjustment and to check the group allocations.
To my surprise I ended up in Group 4 – in the company of some pretty serious race cars including a GT3. I had a great moment where I let the GT3 pass me on the straight, then hounded him for two laps – closing significant distance through the top of the circuit. What a rush! Such a shame the video data from this session was corrupted.
I ended the day with a best time of 1.15.4, o.3 of a second off my PB. I was happy with this time considering turn two was wet all day and I would have been losing at least 0.7-1 seconds slowing down for that section before the hill. I can smell the 14’s! The time I set put me three seconds ahead of the next fastest car in my class and I am anticipating being close to the top of the driver’s leaderboard when points are announced. Feels good man.
Also got to test out my new 70-200 2.8L, which I am VERY happy with – check the photos and judge for yourself. Panning at longer focal lengths is still a challenge, but something to be worked on!
The cover photo was taken by Tiit Saul – it’s one of my favourites of the 944! Nice guy who takes a mean photo. Funny that I added him on Flickr & saw he’d already snapped me at the Circuit Club day in January!
As always, more photos on my Flickr.
Katrina Chan
That's her!
Katrina Chan – that’s a name to remember people! My gorgeous lady-friend has only recently launched her blog and has already been getting linkbacks from the designers – this time it was Aussie label(?) House of Wilde. They created a gallery for the shots which I took for Katrina about a month ago around my street. They are good shots – but it’s really not hard when the subject is so stunning!
Check out the gallery here.
New Toy – Canon 70-200 2.8L
Yesterday my parents returned from their three week sojourn through Asia. I rather missed them this time – usually the empty house is a welcome proposition, but after house sitting a place in Balmain for most of January & February I needed some company! I especially missed the casual advice from Dad – I’ve been making some big (& tough!) decisions lately and like bouncing my ideas off him. He is the rational voice which is missing from my inner monologue. But we’ll chalk it down as another lesson in independence.
They brought me home a belated 21st present in the form of a Canon 70-200 2.8L lens. Couldn’t wipe the smile off my face when I de-boxed my first ‘professional’ L glass.
Initial impressions are great – amazing build quality, images are sharp, autofocus is quick… really looking forward to testing it out at the track soon. I immediately whacked a Speedhunters sticker that Dale got me on the Lens hood – for e-reps yo. Might even trick people into thinking I’m a ‘hunter myself ;).
They also brought back this bag – it’s huge and is perfect for my kit at it’s current size.
Fits the 70-200 easily, which is handy.
Speaking of my digital kit, it currently sits at:
- Canon Rebel T1i body
- Canon 50mm 1.4
- Canon 10-22 3.5-4.5
- Canon 70-200 2.8L
- Canon Speedlite 403ex ii
Yep, bit of a Canon fanboy!
Some updates & Porsche v BMW day
A few (good) updates!
I ordered Advan A048s from Tire Rack, in 225/50/15 which are now fitted to my stock 15×7’s. This wheel and tyre combo represents 26kg less unsprung weight!! They aren’t the prettiest things but are light and strong. Got some mad fender gap now. Hellafunctional.
Also got a new exhaust put in from extractors back. Saved some weight, it’s almost straight through so flows a bit better, and now I can actually hear my engine over those bloody Hondas at Circuit Club. 😆
Also went out to the Porsche v BMW day. This is my 2nd time at EC and represents almost a year of being a track fiend. The car ran great and took down many supposedly faster cars. Unfortunately with over 100 cars attending and a rather “relaxed” attitude to getting cars out on track I didn’t really get to put together a decent lap. I managed a 2:00:6xx which I was happy with & apparently was a new PC class record.
Here is a vid of the last session of the day. I do a 2 min lap then am on a real blinder until I come off at the hairpin from shitty braking. Pay attention to the last 30 seconds or so… you get a good idea of what an E36 looks like after a disagreement with gravity and a wall at 150km/h. Thankfully the driver survived with only a shattered sternum. The session & day ended after this.
With the semis and smaller wheel/tyre combo the car feels like a sharpened tool. So responsive and communicative. The slight understeer with the old setup made the car forgiving but ultimately slower.
I have a Sparco to go in before the next event & want to replace the stock pads with something more track suitable! After that, maybe an LSD and I will be happy with the car 😀 Just have to work on my driving! Loving this car more and more.
WTAC weekend
Last weekend was a big one… two 21st’s, a date, and let’s not forget Superlap.
A great event (considering it cost me nothing to get in) with some amazing machinery. To be honest the $45 they were charging everyone else seemed very steep considering that the non-race entertainment was limited to a show n’ shine and a drift event that only ran at night (after most people left… why not run a session during the day?).
Some photos:
Cyber takes fastest lap @ 1.28.851 (insane!)
And it still looks fairly tame when it comes to aero compared to other cars, is the secret the underbody?
Possibly my favourite car of the day.
And I'm sure it's easy to see why!
Oh, hello there!
Makes me really want to work on my driving and get it to a level where I could be competitive at this caliber of event. Unfortunately that won’t be in the 944. Maybe an FD though…
Also took a very pretty girl to see Wil Anderson’s live show at the Comedy Store in Entertainment Quarter, which is a great little venue. I really recommend the show, but as Wil himself professes, his stage persona is very far from his television persona! He is better on stage!
Circuit Club day @ Wakie
Got down to Wakefield yesterday for the Circuit Club trackday – it was a gamble with the weather but conditions were perfect all day! Had a big night on Friday with no sleep then up at 5am to make the long drive south! Met up with Nemo and watched him carefully dodge potholes on the way down.
It was the first session since new suspension went in. I didn’t have time to do setup beforehand though so was running street camber. The car definitely felt better but was still understeering badly in the first session. Turned out rear tyre pressures were well below what they should have been so I rectified this. Next session out the car felt 100% better.
Managed to put in a 1.17.9 which was about 1.5 seconds better than my previous PB! Very happy. Also got to do a session with the driver trainer at the end of the day which was invaluable – Didn’t go any quicker though (well he was a solidly built bloke of at least 100kg)!
Nemo was trialling semis for the first time. He dropped his time to a 1.16.5 (from memory) which is good for a stock-engine NA6. His car seems nicely set up and at this point he is a little faster than me… but I hope to rectify that soon 🙂
The driver trainer said my tyres were shit and that the staggered set up is not helping with understeer, so I will probably be running my stock 15×7’s next time with R888’s, this has been in the back of my mind for a long time anyway. Could also play around with rear sway setting or put 20mm spacer on the fronts according to him. Next time I will put aside time the night before to do alignment setting instead of drinking…
Other highlights of the day were an Audi R8 getting air… backwards! Was also good to put faces to names of some forum guys.
Here’s a vid of a couple of hot laps:
БJ 