Articles

Long-form pieces drawn out of the session logs: tyre testing, setup, the circuits, track culture in Europe and Japan, and why this footage does not show up in search.

8 articles

• 01

  TIRE TEST / 2003–2005

  The “fast tyre” was not fast

  On grip feel and on reputation the A048 was ahead. Even so, Michelin won on time at SUGO. How to explain the difference.

• 02

  SETUP / 2005

  One step of anti-roll bar, six seconds

  At my first session at Fuji Speedway I moved the front anti-roll bar from 2/5 to 5/5. The time came down by three seconds, and after that I got it wrong. The record of that day.

• 03

  CULTURE / 1996–2006

  Track days without helmets

  At European driving schools you did not wear a helmet for free running. The reason was not that safety was taken lightly. It was the opposite.

• 04

  INCIDENTS

  The moment you catch the car in front is the most dangerous

  Laid out and read again, all 75 sessions show the failures repeating the same shape. It is embarrassing, but that is where it is most useful.

• 05

  TIMELINE / 1996–2009

  From 1996 to 2006, in the order I drove

  The European club years (1996–2000) and the Japanese circuit years (2003–2006). There is a gap in between.

• 06

  COURSE NOTES

  Notes on each circuit

  The corner-by-corner notes scattered through the descriptions, gathered up again by circuit. Half of it turns out to be about layouts that are gone.

• 07

  ORGANISERS

  Who was running these events

  A track day has an organiser. Looking again twenty years later, most of them had nearly disappeared from the record.

• 08

  SURVEY / 2026-08-09

  Onboard footage from the early 2000s does not come up in search

  I set out to confirm whether this collection is rare, and failed. The reason for the failure was far more important.