The Fabi circuit is a popular track day rental. So I knew that many racers were looking forward to racing on this track including myself.
Friday – Practice
I made the trip alone as Michelle was only going to join me on Saturday. I was lucky to find Gilles Biron #6AM who was pitted on pit lane. I was able to secure 30ft of pit lane for myself and the others that would join us during the weekend.
There were surprisingly very few people at this gorgeous practice day. Normally, I get an hour or two of open track in the morning then we switch to the short 10min. sessions. This was not the case. I got tons of track time. It was open for almost the whole morning and then they switched to an Amateur/Pro session format.
Furthermore, I had registered for an evening track day on that track that was scheduled from 5:30pm to 8:30pm. I was actually too tired to do this track time. But the organizer only got a few people interested so I felt obliged to stick with my commitment. So I paid him and did a few laps to say I got out there.
Saturday
Michelle and Pat Boyd #48AM arrived at 7:00am. After doing the morning’s practices, we discussed tire strategies for the weekend. Unfortunately, that was a mistake. We would have needed to make a decision much earlier as the scrub laps were less than 20mins before my first heat race. So we opted to have me run on my practice set for the first heat race, then do a tire change for the second heat race. Unfortunately that meant that I would run that second heat race on un-scrubbed tires. The good news is that Dunlops on tire warmers seem to be pretty good during the first few laps on new tires.
My first heat race was a split heat for the Amateur Superbike. I was gridded 3rd row. I managed to finish 9th. This gave me a starting position of 18th for the Superbike finals. Not the greatest but it was my first heat race. The Amateur 600 heat was later that afternoon. We put on a set of fresh tires. There was only a single heat race for the 600. I started again on 3rd row and finished 15th.
The first leg of the Superbike double header was later that afternoon. Great conditions again. I was running those fresh tires from my last heat race. I got a good start and I had a good run in the race to finish 15th. I was happy with my day as it was the last points paying position. I needed points in that class as I crashed in the first round and never had a chance to make some points yet.
Sunday
The morning practices were good. We had some fair weather. My 600 race was the first up. We mounted a fresh set of tires for that race. It was right after the scrub session. So that was perfect for us this time. I was starting in 5th row. I had a good start and managed to make my way up to 12th position. I fought a great battle with Mark Johnston #301 the whole race. I was right on his rear wheel but was never able to make a pass stick. Never the less, it was a blast.
My second leg of the Superbike was the last race of the day. It started pouring rain two races before my race. So we mounted full wets. Unfortunately, it stopped raining and the track started drying. We opted to stay with the wets hoping the track would still be wet enough. In pre-grid, I noticed we were all on a mix of tires and this would be very interesting. It was also my first time on Dunlop wets. I’ve used Michelins and loved them but these Dunlops have a very different shape. I had a good start again. But I dropped back pretty quickly as I didn’t like my tires. They turned in very differently. After a few laps, I got used to them a bit and made my way up and passed Pedro Sousa #32 for 12th place. Michelle kept indicating I had a good gap until the last lap where Pedro passed me back. I worked my way back onto his rear wheel. I got a better drive out of the hair pin and we drag raced to the finish line. I got back my 12th spot by only a few feet. That was fun!
