LS1NOVA
09-11-2010, 09:58 AM
Ill be taking my car to an open track event soon and thought it would be fun to hear everyone else's experiences. Where did you go, what car, what did you do to prepare, what broke, etc.
Motorlust
09-11-2010, 03:06 PM
Here's a long and detailed account of my first track day. I wrote it with the intention of making an accurate account of the day, just so I'd be able to recall the story later in life. Two themes here, work on smoothness, and be prepared.
I left the house at 5:15am and was in Bakersfield by 7:15. The problem was that I didn't need to be in Bakersfield. I was unaware that the 99 and 5 highways split. When I arrived in Bakersfield, I then realized that I had been driving on the wrong stretch of highway. A 2-hour drive on 6 hours sleep with almost no reason to check the map was not a good combo(from my house, it's nearly a straight shot up interstate 5 to the 58, which means long periods with no map required). I found route 58 to Buttonwillow. Near there was a big gas/food/trucker/hooker stop where the 58 and 5 meet. I gassed up the Camaro. You do not want to pay the pump price at the track ($3.75/gallon).
After fueling up, I jumped in the car and pulled onto the on ramp. It was 7:45. I looked in my rear view mirror and noticed my fuel door was open. I immediately pulled over on the side of the road and checked the gas cap. No cap. I put on my shoes, (I had been driving in slippers for comfort) sweatshirt, and gloves. (It was about 40 degrees with no sunshine.) I ran back to the off ramp and started searching for the missing gas cap. When I didn't see it right away, I headed to the gas station. There was no cap on the ground or in the driveway. Unfortunately, the mini-mart did not sell gas caps. I checked next door at the bigger mini-mart. Again, there were no gas caps. I figured there might be a parts store of some kind at the track and decided to head back to the car. By now, I'm really sweaty and cold. As the sweat cooled my internal temperature, my skin was damn near freezing. I headed back to the on ramp and spotted the cap in the dirt. As I pick up the cap, I saw my best friend James and his dad exit the freeway. They didn't see me, so I sprinted back to the car hoping to avoid their view. I was feeling pretty dumb about the whole thing. I got in the car and on the road before they saw me. I was sure I would tell them later that day, but I just didn't want to get into it at that moment. I found the track, checked in, and got in line for tech inspection. It was now 8:20. The drivers meeting started at 8:30.
Because I drive the car 200 miles a week to work and back without incident, I hadn't put much thought into the tech inspection. I thought, “Really what could be wrong with the car?” It turned out that the battery hold down was broken. The rear lip had broken off. (GM uses a lip on the back of the tray to secure the battery and a bolt-down wedge to tighten it into the rear lip.) The truth was that I had known about this problem 4 years ago when I changed the battery. But, since it wasn't causing any problems, I never fixed it. I had meant to fix it, but out of sight, out of mind. Strangely, they didn't hesitate to give me my group sticker and just suggested I get it fixed before I hit the track. Once the problem was found, I expected to be black flagged or put on a list for re-inspection. But, they passed me through. I knew enough to know that I shouldn't go on track with a loose battery with or without a restriction from track officials. So I headed to the drivers meeting with a broken battery hold down knowing that it would likely keep me off the track, unless I could figure a way to fix it on the spot.
I sat through the drivers meeting trying to pay attention, but constantly thought that my track day may already be over. I was also thinking about whether the track would be cool about refunding my money. I was sure I'd get it back one way or another, but if I had to leave, I didn't want the day to get any uglier.
The meeting consisted mainly of being told not to do anything too dumb. It is a pretty safe track. With the exception of pit wall on the front straight, there is nothing to hit if you go off track. If you came out of the last turn too fast, you can run off the track and into the infield. If you're in the infield, you're in the dirt. If you’re in the dirt, your steering is unresponsive, and over correcting toward the track can have dangerous consequences. When you tires finally get traction on the track, and they’re pointed at the pit wall, guess what you’re likely to hit? We also discussed safety issues about going off track in general, basic passing safety, and pit road speeds. It was all pretty basic stuff. They explained that each on-track session would be followed by a classroom session to discuss new techniques and what may have gone wrong on track. One of the lead instructors was pretty likable and down to earth. The other took himself a little too seriously and was less easy to like. The less-easy-to-like instructor was the lead instructor for my group. Great! I had an instructor that took himself too seriously, an immediate technical issue, and almost no sleep. At this point, my self-esteem was really taking a beating. I generally think of myself as well prepared for automotive adventures. But, today I seemed incapable of getting my **** together. We hadn't even gotten on the track where the lessons I was expecting would start. I guess that was the point. It's the stuff you don't see coming that really knocks you down.
After the meeting I talked to my instructor and told him that I had a battery hold down problem. I asked if he knew of any nearby fabrication shops where I could receive some assistance. He pointed me in the right direction. There was a fabrication shop called “7s Only”. The facility was right on the premises. I jumped in the car and drove over to the shop. Luckily, they were working on Saturday and worked on everything, not just RX7s as the name implies. One of the guys greeted me and I informed him of the situation. We popped the hood. He looked at it for a minute and headed back into the shop. He re-appeared with a socket and ratchet to tighten the bolt. I already knew that wasn't the problem, so I helped him discover the broken tray. Once it was clear to him we would need to fabricate a bracket, he was on it. He made a really nice, very snug fitting bracket that bolted in the factory battery hold down bolt. His bracket clamped over top of the batter to the radiator support using the same welded on nut that the headlight bracket uses. He made a great bracket in about 25 minutes. The bracket was exactly what I would have done in my own shop. He only had to make it once; I would have required 2 attempts to make it fit so snugly. The guy was really nice and only charged me $40, but could've easily gotten away with twice that price. I thanked him for his generosity and mentioned I was expecting to pay double. Of course, I only offered that information after the credit card had been run.
The next thing I should've done was head over and air up my tires. They tell you to run about 5lbs more air pressure to help reduce sidewall movement. I had neither a gauge nor a compressor; once again I was totally unprepared. Luckily, they have a tire shop on site that will perform this service free of charge. However, my group was on the track while my bracket was being made, and I was ready to get out there. I headed over to the pits and found our instructor. He informed me that someone in our group had gone off the track and the session had effectively ended after 5 laps. The session was basically over, and he told me to come see him after the classroom session at which time he'd give me a couple of orientation laps. I was glad that missing the first session was not going to hinder my day at the track too much. I was really ready to relax a little before my first on track session. So, we headed over to the meeting room as a group and discussed more techniques. Due to the short first session there wasn't much track time to discuss.
Once it was our turn on the track again, I found our instructor and reminded him of the orientation laps I needed. He grabbed his helmet and my keys and wedged himself into the driver’s seat. The Camaro has little head room to begin with, and adding his height plus a helmet was not helping. Once we pulled on to the track, I got very nervous. He explained all about how to handle the car on the track while going fast enough to scare me to death. He then hurtled us down the first long set of S turns as if it was nothing in a totally unfamiliar car. He talked a mile a minute and seemed to barely pay attention to the road. By the time we went over Phil Hill, a weird little hill that has a right turn for hill entry and a long fast left for exit, I was sure I was gonna die in that car. You couldn’t even see the left hand turn at the top until you rise over the crest of the hill. I was re-thinking the whole track day plan, and he was again barely paying attention while driving at speeds that were clearly too fast. As he bounced the car off of the rumble strips just to show me now it unsettles the car, I wanted to throw up. Hitting the aprons at that speed nearly unsettled my bowels. By the time we reached the other hill about half of the way around the track, I had decided that there was a slim chance we weren't going to die in the Camaro. I wouldn't say I was enjoying myself yet, but I had stopped fearing for my life.
I thought about a story a friend of mine tells. He and his racing partner both had children of nearly the same age, around 8 years old. While at the track for the weekend, the driver of the car gave both kids a ride. The driver's son came back crying and scared. The crew chief's daughter came back smiling and giggling and having a great time. I was sure I didn't want to act like the little boy in the story, so I tried to smile and pay attention to what the instructor was doing. By the time we hit the front straight away, I was starting to relax until I realized we were hurtling ourselves down a straight that ended in a 90 degree right hand turn. We were well past half way down the straight and still accelerating. I saw the speedo, we were doing 90 and still climbing. The corner was approaching fast, he shifted into 4th, and kept accelerating. I could see the turn in cone, yet still no brakes. Once again, I was sure we were gonna die. Then we made the corner without so much as a squealed tire. I clearly underestimated my brakes and his skill. At the same time, I contemplated the worst case scenario- off track into the dirt, where there's nothing to hit. By the middle of the second lap I was starting to feel comfortable, and he must have sensed it because he picked up the pace along the backstretch and thru the bus stop. . The rest of the ride was without incident. I emerged smiling, giggling, and ready to get out there myself.
The first session was great. I began to feel comfortable with the speed and handling of the car. Getting familiar with the track helps a ton. It was much easier to believe there's a left hand turn that apexes at the top of Phil Hill with plenty of track to drift out onto when you've done it a few times. The track was always in the same place, you just have to keep believing that and not rely on your eyes or self preservation instinct to tell you what to do. By the end of the session I was getting one or two corners right pretty consistently. I still didn't downshift right, nor brake late enough, nor get the other 354 turns right, but I was catching on to a couple of them. Then it happened. I went off track. On the second to last turn of the track, there's a double apex corner that has one apex completely obscured until you're right up on it. It also follows a pretty quick little straight section, and if you're not careful, experienced, disciplined or skilled enough, it's pretty easy to drop the right side tires in the dirt. I did. I recovered and got back on the track by turning into the skid as we were taught. I'm pretty sure I didn't think about it and remember to do the right thing. I just lucked out and my instinct was right. It was automatic that you return to the pits at the next opportunity after going off track. The instructors wanted to make sure the driver and the car were okay. They also wanted to help us understand how you ended up in the dirt and how to avoid it in the future. I pulled into the pits and an instructor checked out the car. It was fine and so was I, so they sent me on my way. I did a couple more laps and the session ended so it was back to the classroom.
The classroom session was a little more interesting this time as we all had some questions about navigating the track. The instructor gave me some good advice about negotiating the turn that put me in the dirt, and we discussed a few other drivers’ problems. The group who was on track came back to the classroom, and lunch was served.
The instructors had been talking up the quality of the cafeteria all morning and they were right on. The food was great. Not great for a cafeteria, not great for a race track, it was flat out great. We had chicken enchiladas, Spanish rice, salad, and cookies for dessert- all good stuff.
We broke up into two groups for the afternoon sessions, a fast group and a slow group. There were some truly fast cars and some truly fast drivers, and occasionally the car matched the driver. It was kind of funny when they separated the drivers into the fast/slow groupings. Cars in the fast group: C6 Z06, Porsche 911 Turbo, M3, 2 Saturn Ion Redlines, 05 Mustang GT, Mitsubishi EVO. Cars in the slow group: 98 Camaro Z28 (mine), Mini Cooper, 09 ZR-1 Vette, a very new looking Porsche Carerra 4, Mid-90s Mercedes E class 4 door. It's obvious that some cars were fast, but were driven by drivers that were slow. I was one of the faster drivers in my group, and also had one of the faster cars for my group. I think I lapped the Carerra 4 two times in a 20-minute session. I had no business doing that as his car should be better in every way. I'm far from skilled in a car, but apparently I was a little more developed than the Carerra driver. I didn't expect that I'd be faster than anyone, so that was kind of surprising. I was expecting that there would be some less powerful cars that would be much faster than I was. Case in point, the two Saturns were much quicker than me, despite being down on torque and horsepower compared to the Camaro. They were also some of the fastest cars on the track all day. The Ford GT sounded awesome, just like a racecar should. The driver however, was not nearly as capable as his car. He continued to stay on track with the fast cars, despite being visibly slower than all of the cars in his group. I was passed by plenty of faster cars, even faster cars in my group. In what was probably the most interesting on track encounter I had, I found myself closing the gap on the ZR-1. I was right up on him for half the track, and then we got to the main straight away. I was expecting his car to be dramatically faster, so I got myself in as good a position as I could coming out of the corner. I hit the apex just right, and was in 2nd gear, around 3k RPM, perfectly in the power band of the motor. I hit the gas first, launching out of the corner with all my Camaro had, and then the ZR-1 hit the gas, and just ran away from me. It wasn't even a contest. It was so far from a contest, it was like we didn't even play the same sport. I might as well have been chasing on foot. I knew before we even got to the turn that he'd be way faster, but I didn’t expect that. My Camaro doesn’t get left like that very often, at least not on the usual freeway commute.
The afternoon was pure track time without alternating classroom sessions. Cycling on and off the track every half hour gets you a lot of time on the track. It also gives you time to inspect your car. My tires were showing a fair amount of edge wear so I decided to put a little more air in the tires. Of course, by now the tire shop was closed, so I set out to find someone's mini compressor and borrow it. Luckily a guy right next to me had one and was real cool about lending it to me. I put 5 PSI in each tire to see if I could notice the difference. I couldn't. Maybe I didn't raise the pressure enough, maybe I'm just not good enough to feel it, and maybe the tires really didn't care. I couldn't see that the edge wear on the tires was any worse or better, but the tires squealed more on my last session. Probably because I was overdriving the car and trying to use brute force to go faster rather than better fundamentals. I did take the opportunity to have an instructor ride along with me. His main advice was to concentrate on how to exit the turn. His observation was that I was trying to carry too much speed thru the turn rather than getting my exit correct and powering out of it fast. I 'm sure he's right, I just don't know exactly how to work on that. Slowing down would probably help.
I could feel my focus fading, so I figured it was probably time to do something else for a while. I headed over to the skid pad with the intention of finding my car's limits of traction while driving in a circle. I was pretty surprised at how fast I could get going in a circle before the rear tires would lose traction and swing around. Varying the throttle without varying the steering input allowed me to get a sense of how you can drive the car with the throttle. I never really had an understanding of how that works, but I do now. I also played around with how fast I could hit the gas before the rear end started sliding. It turns out that can add a lot of throttle slowly without losing traction. However, a quick blip of the throttle will quickly bring the car around. Naturally, smoothness always wins out over brute force.
When I was done goofing around at the skid pad, I headed over to the pits to get ready for one last on track session. I started to pull into the staging lane to enter the track, and realized that the short sleep and early day stress had really caught up with me. I thought about one last lap, and then thought better of it.
I turned in my rented helmet, collected my hat from the gift shop, and headed back to the fuel stop on I5. I checked the mileage on the odometer. I had run 60 miles on the track, and used about 9 gallons of fuel. Single digit fuel economy! God only knows how many thousands of miles of wear I took from the tires.
All in all it was probably the most fun I have had in a car since I could start affording somewhere else to get laid. It’s really an awesome way to push your own limits and maybe a great way to cut down on the desire to speed. 100 MPH on the freeway just isn’t as fun when there’s no 90 degree right hand turn in sight.
65 Fastback
09-11-2010, 06:41 PM
Not my first time to the track, but my first time back in a while and after some modifications.
Tim
Well, I finally got my car back out to Summit Point for a Friday At The Track (FATT) event. FATT is a high performance driving school put on by BSR. I have been out to Summit Point three times previously, but not in 6 or 7 years.
I've got to tell you, I was a little nervous about how my car would do, as I just replaced my front brakes (with the infamous Granada spindle) and have been fighting some bump steer issues. I installed a Baer Bumpsteer kit, but was having problems finding a qualified shop to measure the toe change dynamically. The day before the event, I went to a new race prep shop and the mechanic eyeballed the bumpsteer kit, moved some shims and sent me on my way. On the test drive the car stayed dead straight on hard braking but seemed a little twitchy around 70 mph.
I decided to go ahead out to Summit Point and at least see how things felt as I pushed the car progressively harder. As part of the saftey tech, the instructor drives the car 2-3 laps. I warned him about the bumpsteer, but it never showed it's ugly head - the car handled superbly! The instructor was very impressed and full of praise for my 41 year old piece of American iron.
This was, also, the first time that I have driven the Shenandoah Circuit and after the thrill ride the instructor gave me in my own car, my blood pressure was up quite a bit. The Shenandoah Circuit is a much more technical track to the main track. There are over 18 turns in it's 2.2 mile length. Many of the turns are off camber and of decreasing radius. Turn ins, apexs and track outs are not necessaryly intutitive. And there is the infamous banked "Karussel", which is a single lane banked curve of around 270 degrees (curve degrees, not banked degrees). Man my paws were sweating as we lined up on the grid.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/Timspics/Mustang/Summit%20Point/SP-12-Grid.jpg
But after a few laps on the track, all of the nervousness was replaced by pure adrenalin. The day was outstanding and just reaffirmed my addiction. Another interesting section of the track is a prominate rise in the track, 3/4's of the way down the Bridge Straight. If you look at the picture, you can see how my front suspension is at full extention as I crest the hill.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/Timspics/Mustang/Summit%20Point/SP-26a-Turn9overtheHump.jpg
Here's a couple of more pictures and more on my experience later.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/Timspics/Mustang/Summit%20Point/SP-37-Turn14Corkscrew.jpg
I may have to use this one in my signature.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/Timspics/Mustang/Summit%20Point/SP-47-Turn16BigBend.jpg
NOT A TA
09-11-2010, 08:25 PM
Motorlust: Thats gotta be the best 1st post I've seen on a forum! Welcome!
My first was at Lime Rock Park with my 70 Firebird. I found out on that there new interweb thing (at 14.4 BPS) that regular folks could take cars on track. I mailed away for the forms to fill out and then sent in my check months ahead of time because snail mail was the only way.
I had signed up with the SCDA who ran an HPDE but called it something else. Brought my dirtbike helmet because they were legal on track then. Tech inspection was uneventfull and I'd swapped brake fluid and checked the car over during the week. An hour class of track etiquette, flags, procedures, etc. then we all (new guys) take our cars down to the hot pits and wait for our in car instructors. A gentleman walks up to my car wearing his full speed racer suit with a serious looking helmet, driving shoes, gloves etc. and peeks in my car. "Where's the shoulder harness?" "I don't have one" He gives me a disgusted look and announces that he's not getting in a 30 year old car with only the original lap belts, then walks away.
I jump out of the car and go explain what happened to the school director. Another instructor overheard and said he'd be glad to get a ride in my car, so I was set. Jump back in, fire it up and off we go. Instructor had a motorcycle intercom system which was great. I go a couple laps slow and start getting the feel for it. The 350 2V was not very powerfull so it was important to learn how to cary momentum through the corners smoothly. Since LRP doesn't have any really long straights I wasn't at much of a disadvantage.
The classroom sessions between track time were very good. The instructors were both knowledgable and good teachers. The difference in my speed and smoothness on track by the end of the day was incredible. There was a Ferrari I'd gotten a point by from during the second lap of my last session that I got far enough ahead of to be up on him again toward the end of the session. He seemed to not want to give me another point by so I followed.
When we came around the last corner I was on him, so I figured during the next lap his instructor would tell him to give me a point by during the lap on one of the designated passing zones even though his car was faster on the straights. He braked too late for the first corner and started turning in while trail braking. The back end came around and he started sideways. I braked hard checking my mirrors as soon as I saw what was happening and kept the wheel straight figuring I'd go straight into the runoff area if necessary. Meanwhile he'd shot into the infield, then hit the backside of the angled curb sideways which ripped off wheels, exhaust etc and the whole mess slid across the track spewing dirt all over the corner. I'd slowed way down without incident so I turned in sharp and slowly drove straight across the dirt on the track, turned again, and continued. At that point I realized my instructor was yelling "That was awesome!" which I thought was kinda rude since the poor guy just wrecked his car really bad and most likely done more damage than my car was worth! What he meant was that I had done the right thing by not panicking or watching/following the crashing car and then took us safely through to continue on our way. Of course flags were flying by the time we got to the next flag station and the track session was ended.
Seeing how quickly that nice car was trashed right in front of me made me realize that you've gotta be willing to walk away from the car if you're going to track it. It's one thing to see a crash from a distance off in a corner or see wrecked cars come back to the pits on a rollback but seeing it up close you can really appreciate the violence that occurs when a 3000 lb object hits solid things.
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2007/12/LimeRock-1.jpg