General Wet track day

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General Wet track day

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Mar 31, 2012
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Canterbury FIAT Lancia club had track day at Ruapuna, Christchurch, New Zealand.

[ame]https://youtu.be/gIJCJVMhsnQ[/ame]

Day started wet, dried a little and then got very wet later.
The conditions seemed to suit the front drive cars with the large rear drive cars having the most problems.
 
Have just seen this - takes me back to 2006 when I went to the old Taupo track in my first dark-purple Stilo - raised a few eyebrows, it did :)

The memory I have is of really poor damping in roll, where it would corner in a series of high-speed lurches and a lot more tyre squeal than is evident in your video! The suspension felt very soft and squidgy - keep in mind the car was less than three years old with 21,000km on the clock - seemed to have the shock absorbers from an old van ;)

I remember trying a few techniques and finding that even slamming on the brakes when turning in would not make the back end come around. There was a shuddering as the stability control intervened and made it absolutely impossible to spin the car.

I also discovered that turning off the ASR (traction control) made absolutely no difference to the lap times, which were within a few seconds of each other and also an identical lap time to a FIAT 125 with the 1600 twin cam (driven by Geoff Johnstone, who I started alongside). Each time I would get by on the straights and he would drive around inside me on the corners...

-Alex
 
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Damping seemed fine. More body roll than Lancia HPE but more neutral than the HPE that would over-steer when pressed.
Tyre squeal was minimal which is perhaps the tyres fitted. I found it better to use the auto mode rather than manual just flicking it down into the hairpin and letting it shift up by itself.
 
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