STI @ a Lotus Club Day - Lakeside Driver Training Centre

Last weekend I was lucky enough to have an invite to Queensland's Lotus Car Clubs track day at Lakeside using a mini sprint track set-up in the Driver Training area.

There were 28 Lotus there, mostly different versions of the Elise or Exige's, a couple of Lotus 7's, 1 Espirit, 1  Elan and 1 x 340R - that thing is a beast!!  Also in the mix was a S15 Silvia, a Westfield and my 05 STI..

Lotus 340R. 1 of only 340 built with only 132kw engine and a measley weight of 701kg it smashes the 0-100kph time in 4.4secounds!! Very impressive to see launch.  Check out the wiki entry here for more info.

Safe to say I have a new found respect for the Lotus, seriously quick cars, the winner of the day thoroughly whipped me- 4 seconds up the road (happy to take advice on where to find the 4 seconds!!).  Here's some on board video for 2 of my runs.  After getting a feel for the track on my 3 runs I settled into running low 51s for the rest of the day.   My reckoning is more time in turn 1 - a blind right hander over a crest - simply put, there room for less braking more throttle here plus more time available in the some of the tight corners/a bit of over driving really. I'm quite happy with the do-nut (when you see it you'll know)....