next morning waking to the sound of afew neighbours puking 
we packed up most stuff, parked up at the stands.
as more micras turned up it was really getting packed into a good turn out.
might've been tempting to go back on the strip but tbh once is enough stress for the tired car, I need her healthy for the trip to germany. someone also pointed out there's a dyno nearby but £45 for 3runs is abit steep & risky on my budget. left the bonnet open to show and wondered through all the lovely & entertaining automotive pron from the subtle to the extreme examples.
went back to the stand for the toilet and is nice to see some interest from the crowd round our cars
alex pointed out to me that there's some sorta autotest course out the back nearby the stand and he drove off to line up, I thought it was just for the drifting show guys but he said twas for anyone and tis free...ooh remember I once did the same slalom handling test course back in japshow 2011 and that was fun so sign me up scotty
went over to spot alex & observe the course, looks abit complex with so many combinations of turns plus there's both a clockwise & anti-clockwise layout to further learn, signed up anyway, wrote car number on window and drove over to line up.
nervously drove in to the start, the luvely host Jake Archer asked do I know the course, nope. so I've not looked at the course map?, nope didn't know there was a map supplied lol
he quickly described the course.
also took a pic of me cos I was the smartest looking guy there teehee cheers
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3-2-1 go, with roughly no idea of the course lol
launch to the first left cone, brake hard & turn, urm she ain't turning tight enough and quickly heading for the barrel so had to quickly yank the e-brake to turn sharp at last moment.
head for the second barrel braking then handbrake and she slid round nice,
now aiming 360 round the next cone, turn & handbrake only but she badly understeered. tried to blip power whilst handbraking to make the front pull in tighter towards the cone but I overshot and ran over a cone I didn't see, oops.
lets continue on towards the double figure 8 but whats that scraping noise and she understeers abit?
another fast hard trail brake & handbrake round a wider 360 but went over this dip in the tarmac which bounces the car all over
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stopped at the finish.
"urm did I hit a cone Jake?"
"well we got a slight issue here"
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"oops lmao"
no wonder she was oddly scraping & understeering
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went for a 2nd practice but the front guy took the left side so I'll have to try the opposite direction side.
went for the first cone turned to early and hit it dammit, continued onwards. went for the wide 360, handbrake and she just understeered wide and bashed into the barrels (knocked the arch lining off the bumper abit). oopsy now we're just smashing cones like a dog running around a wet slippery floor
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the 3rd last practice ran a softer front damper & pressure to help ease understeer, launched at lower rev to ease wheelspin, trying to avoid cones this time and gonna both trail brake & handbrake into bends and it turned her. hit that tarmac dip which really tippled her around.
I finished correctly with no dnf this time, Yea! and got a 45.5s
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that's enough practice abuse, returning to stand to fix the snapped zipties again. had quite afew interest from the crowd passing the stand after those runs talked to some nice ppl
near 3pm most ppl were getting ready to pack up & I was about to pop back to the tent with stuff in the boot when a guy pop by to say I've qualified 12th of the top 16 and the next full round is at 3pm in 10mins, Wha!? that's a big surprise
had to quickly empty the boot and reset the dampers & pressures and go back to the course.
was abit confusing who's running against who when most of the runners have left the show and the wind & drizzle is heading over fast but I waited my que.
heated up my tyres for a better launch, mostly went ok but I messed up the figure 8 and overshot the finish, said I was 14th.
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no idea what happens next but twas getting late so headed back to packup me tent and headed for the tiring 4hr trip home.
big thx to the members, crowds, drivers & organisers for a fab weekend.
