| Wednesday, October 14, 2009 3:29AM | Behind The Wheel With Brett Smrz |
Today was a very, very, very interesting day. It was probably one of the most eventful testing days I have ever had.
The day started off a little rickety. The first session out, I got about 7 laps in, and then I started feeling the car surging. I came into the pits just for them to check the car out. They couldn't find anything wrong, so they sent me back out onto the track. I immediately felt the surging again, so I came into the pits a second time. They changed out all of the electrical wires to see if that was the problem, and they send me back out again. I made it a full lap this time, and the motor just cut out on the front straight away. I had to have the officials move me into the pit lane, and that is when the team had realized that they forgot to fill me up with fuel the night before! It is alright, I know mistakes happen.
The second session, I started getting going alright. I was basically getting comfortable with the track and the car. I was trying to slowly work my way into my comfort zone, rather than to push too hard. I made it about half way through the session, and then I locked my brakes up and went straight off in turn 2. There is a gravel trap right on the exit of the corner, which I ran into. I put the throttle all the way down, hoping to work my way out of it, but I just barely stopped short. They got me out of the gravel, and I pulled into the pits to have everything looked at. Everything was okay, and I just headed back into the pits.
The third session, I finally had a clean session. I stayed out on the track the entire time, and was learning new things as the time went by. I didn't drop much time throughout the session, but I think my tires were at their limit. At the end of the session, I was about 1 second off pace, but my tires looked like they had been through the ringer. Cliff agreed that I needed some newer rubber, so they decided to help me out with that for the final session of the day.
The final session of the day, I started dropping huge increments in my lap times. I got passed by Scott Malvern (My team mate), who was the quickest in the session, and I was keeping up with him quite well. I got down to a 50.8, and the fast lap of the day was a 50.4. I unfortunately put the shifter into neutral on the front straight away, and just to be sure I didn't over rev it, I pulled it into the pits for the team to have a check up on it. The car seemed to be a-okay, and it is ready to get back on track tomorrow morning.
I definitely know I can drop some more time tomorrow. My times were dropping significantly when I had that mistake with the neutral, so it will be interesting to see what I can get down to tomorrow. All of my team mates seem to be quite nice, and they are helping Connor and I out any way they can. It was quite the opposite from what I expected, but they are very nice people.
England is a great place. I am hoping that I can visit London while I am here. I definitely want to visit some of the sites while I am here. We are going to have about a week off next week, so I will be able to visit some things later.
Brett Smrz
