As you can see from the pictures and desciptions I headed back to Izu/Hakone area on Saturday 14th June. This Barry Connolly was along for the ride and the weather was much nicer than the last time! Highlights:
*Caught up a Ruff CTR - highly modified Porsche 911 - on the Izu Skyline. The main problem was that I couldn't overtake him because eveythime the otherside of the road was clear he would drive down the middle of the road so I couldn't get past! What a plonker...
*Sorted out the ticket system on the Izu Skline. Rather than paying 900Yen, travelling to the end and then returning only to get a right telling off for not having left the road (because I would have to pay another 900Yen) I only paid to get to the first stop but traveled the full length of the road. I then came off at the first stop, re-entered the Skyline again and exited at the start point. I didn't get told off because I had the right ticket and ended up only paying 300Yen so saved myself 3 quid!
*Got to the 5th station t Fuji and it was very cloudy. Barry and I walked over the the shops and as we returned to the car saw there was a clear view of the top of Fuji. We ran back and tried to take loads of pictures before the cloud covered it up again. I thing the picture look rather good, don't you?
Having left the Ashinoko Skyline there is a narrow winding road that leads back to Route 138. We were behind a Series 1 Lotus Espirt with overfuelled Dellorto carbs who was himself behind some slow moving people carrier. After a couple of corners the MPV pulled over and the Espirt started going a little faster. As the corners were slow and tight I though it was a safe place to practice some power oversteer - basically getting into the corner, giving it full throttle, wait for the turbo boost to rise, the rear wheels start to loose grip and come around. This was great fun but it seemed to scare the Espirt who was in front who within a few corners put on his wanring lights and pulled over to let me past. Now I could drive quicker and powerslide and left him behind until you caught up some people cruising on motorbikes and had to slow down.
Saturday afternoon to Sunday was the LeMans 24hr race in France. Luckily SPEED on the US had full coverage for the full 24 hrs and I managed to get in about 8 hours. It was really interesting to watch, particularly the last 2 hrs as the Audi, then Peugeot, then Audi again were going fastest. Audi won the race in the end making every LeMans victory this century an Audi victory (Bentley have won once but they are owned by Audi).
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