thanks Adam, glad to see you are enjoying the read.
WOW!! years of work and learning and heaps of help culminate in the first real road test of the restoration, we are at Phillip Island for the shakedown, we have been here before, but that was in the Sporto 4Speed, no clutch, we now have a manual 5 speed, we know the track, how will we go in the Targa.
I'm anxious as I sit on the grid in pit lane wondering if we'll go OK!
And then we are waved off by the marshals, we are off, engine roaring as we reach for 2nd exiting pit lane and track opens up before me, down the hill into 3rd, into 4th, turn 1 approaching, off the throttle, dab the brakes, we are far left on the track and cut into turn 1 at 150-160kph or so - she's going and we are flat out concentrating on what we are doing around the double apex of Southern Loop in 3rd. Flat out around Stoner Corner and then we hit the brakes hard 150m out from Honda, back into 3rd, down to 2nd round we go, tyres squealing gripping hard - you beauty, through Siberia, tricky, not sure what gear we should be in - 2nd, no 3rd, lost a bit there wrong gear, wrong line but we are flat out around the back of track, hugging left at Lukey Heights over the top, down the hill, BRAKE HARD, shift down into 2nd, hard right and then the sweeping big left turn at 11 and 12 while reaching for 3rd, then 4th (is hard work) then we are on the main straight reaching for 5th. What a ride, we clip 200kph down the main straight and line up for lap 2 - you beauty.
Son, Steve and I had a great day in the Targa and she went well, real well. - and we had our mates with us, helping us, but more about them later.
We did have a couple of cases late in the day where we lost power (engine cutout) during a lap but restarted after 10 seconds or so. Not sure what that is - fuel, ignition - did we hit the rev limiter - we are not sure yet.
What a day, full of different emotions.
You may wonder why there's now mention of the Sporto, the plan was Steve and I have a car each - I had spent Friday night bleeding the brakes and installing new front brake pads, then with flat battery Saturday morning went and got new one -- THEN after all THAT -- some in-attentive driver smashed into my beautiful Sporto at the service station on Saturday morning, the last thing I had to do in preparation for the weekend was to get some fuel and look what the ***** did!!
Sporto, woman in a van, not looking what they were doing, in a hurry, reversing out of the parking bay - CRASH.
