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Lexus Track day support at Goowood

Hometyre were contacted by a company that supplies professional test drivers to motoring organisations, to test/drive their cars for them at various events around the country. Whether it be new vehicles, modifications to existing vehicles or just showing off the cars abilities to customers. I was asked to spend 2 days supporting a team who were driving vehicles for Lexus.

They had sent their cars to attend the Goodwood Festival of Speed, then after the event they wanted their cars to be put through their paces on the race track with vip customers being taken out with professional drivers.

A team of technicians are on hand to check the cars and do any adjustments as required. During the runs made at the Festival of speed and from the test runs, the tyres get worn and need replacing. For this they chose Hometyre to support them for the test period.

There were 6 cars based in the race side pits, which were used to go round the track, with further cars available for open road driving. When modifications, brake pads or tyres were required, the cars are brought out to the 'Paddock' where I was stationed.

Day 1, I was at the track at 7:45 to prep the cars before the days event, tyres were checked and pressures adjusted, all ready for the start. Drivers arrived around 8:30, had a team talk, then off they went in the vehicles. After an hour or so a RCF limped into the Paddocks with an odd knocking sound. It turned out to be one tyre that had delaminated on the outer edge, half of the tread had come away, and the remaining half was loose on the casing. Being that they wanted the car to drive in the best possible way, the decision was made to change both front tyres. It was soon jacked up, old tyres were removed and it was re-fitted with 255/45R19 Michelins. While I was working on the wheels, a crew of detainers jumped on the car cleaning off all the burnt rubber and giving it a quick clean before it went back out to the track.

Next in was one of the CL500's … with a puncture, a piece of aluminium had pierced the tyre. Luckily it was small enough to warrant a repair, especially as there was still around 6 mm of tread remaining. It took around 20 minutes, to fix and off it went back to the track. At the end of day 1 all the cars were checked over to see if any work was required before the next day. No tyres were required although they did move some of the front wheels from the right to the left of the car. This was due to mostly left turning on the track which was causing the NSF outside edge to wear.

Day 2. Again a quick check of tyres and pressures, it was decided to drop the front pressures from 2.5 bar to 2.2 bar, due to the heat generated going round the track, which when warm increased the original pressures up to 2.9 bar. Off the cars went : each ' customer' gets two laps round the track with a professional driver, who then swaps seats and allows the customer 20 minutes of high speed driving. At lunch time, two of the RCF cars came in to have their front tyres changed. Again one of the tyres had started to delaminate, and the others were showing signs of wear on the edges, where they were cornering hard. New tyres fitted, lunch over and the cars were back out on the track.

No more changes were required during the afternoon, and at the end of the day the cars were loaded onto transporters to be returned to the Lexus UK HQ.

Should you require track day support, call us at Hometyre. 03334445454.

 


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