Prepping your car for HPDE and the Road Course.

[wakespeak]

Originally Posted by TBone

Wakespeak,

Some good info about reading your tires in here.
http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=356787

T.

Excellent thread thanks T.

[Balok]

Thank you to everyone who gave me encouragement and helped me prepare for my weekend at the track! Just a couple of quick highlights!

- Home in one piece and had the blast of a lifetime!!!

- Brakes worked magnificently! My instructor really had me working a LOT on threshold braking before entry, especially turn 1. I now love the smell of hot brake pads!

- I know I at least ran a 2.33 by checking one of my videos, but I think I have something quicker than that. For some reason my data tag info isn't posted so I need to find out what's up with that.

- Sadly, my memory card filled up at the start of my very last session yesterday, so I don't have video of it. But I had a clean track for at least 5 or 6 laps and it felt like those were some of if not the best laps I ran all weekend. I was really pushing harder from Nascar Bend and up through the climbing esses and got some great runs around South Bend. So I hope that data tag info got registered as I'm dying to know what I ran.

- I'm going to be editing and going through all my other video to see what times I can find.

More details, pics and video to come.

[BaylorCamaro]

Originally Posted by Stephen12ZL1

my opinion on your first track day is to relax and enjoy the car...I doubt you will be pushing the car hard enough to boil anything

Well I think that really depends, the Houston Camaro Club had our first track day at MSR Houston a week ago (mlee and myself both attended) and one of our members was running stock fluid in his SS and he boiled them over. I swapped to Motul 600 and I'm very glad I did. I was really pushing my car hard after I learned the track, on one of our sessions I passed the lead car which gave me about four laps of completely open track. I decided to see how far I can go into the corners, the straight coming off the pits I would hit ~130 mph and go into a turn. Typically I would be on the brakes at around the 150-175' mark. I got too cocky and tried braking at the 100' mark. NOT a good idea, went off the track, no damage to the car. Like I said, you're not trying hard enough unless you go off the track at least once I am very happy I put a tow hook in the night before.

This was my first time at an actual track, so my racing lines are a bit MEH, but this was the most fun I've ever had (with clothes on), and am hooked now. Just wish I would have remembered to take my valve stem caps off. Definitely melted the fronts..

Here's some video..

[TBone]

Congratulations to both of you.

Balok,
You NOW understand why I preach brakes, BRAkes BRAKES. And to think you said you were not going to push your car very hard, yea right. LOL. See why we called BS?
"I love the smell of HOT brakes in the mornings, afternoons and evenings!"

BaylorCamaro,
Welcome to Four Off Landscaping... Now you can order the shirt....


Nice vids too. You probably could have made that turn, with more experience you will understand that.

T.

[Balok]

Originally Posted by TBone

Congratulations to both of you.
Balok,
You NOW understand why I preach brakes, BRAkes BRAKES. And to think you said you were not going to push your car very hard, yea right. LOL. See why we called BS?
"I love the smell of HOT brakes in the mornings, afternoons and evenings!"
T.

I talked to my father Saturday and told him this was the most terrifying, but exhilarating thing I had ever done, lol. Data up for some of the weekend. Sunday, 3rd session of 4 after I got a clean track:

00:02:49.08
00:02:42.37
00:02:36.64
00:02:41.70
00:02:38.75
00:02:33.99
00:02:36.58

I think it's pretty consistent for a total rookie. After I get my vid's done, I'm going to start my own thread so I won't clutter up this thread with my report, but I wanted to post those now.

[thahemp]

Really cool videos! You guys look like you're having a blast.

[TBone]

Consistency is good but can easily get boogered up by one slow car who will not point you by when you need it and slow you up so as a beginner don't get caught up in the numbers just yet. Focus on learning all the things that are real and listen to your coach. But most of all JUST HAVE FUN!!!!!

T.

[Balok]

Originally Posted by TBone

Consistency is good but can easily get boogered up by one slow car who will not point you by when you need it and slow you up so as a beginner don't get caught up in the numbers just yet. Focus on learning all the things that are real and listen to your coach. But most of all JUST HAVE FUN!!!!!

T.

Roger that! This was fun!

[BaylorCamaro]

Originally Posted by TBone

BaylorCamaro,
Welcome to Four Off Landscaping... Now you can order the shirt....

Originally Posted by TBone

Nice vids too. You probably could have made that turn, with more experience you will understand that.

Yeah I probably could have, it went into serious understeer I probably could have kicked the back end out some to help. Unfortunately I was in PTM 3 and when I tried doing just that, it cut power

[ZWA SS]

I need that shirt!!

[Norm Peterson]

Originally Posted by BaylorCamaro

Yeah I probably could have, it went into serious understeer I probably could have kicked the back end out some to help. Unfortunately I was in PTM 3 and when I tried doing just that, it cut power

I'm going to guess that you were still too hard on the brakes (and maybe going for harder still once the situation looked like it was headed South). I doubt you'd have needed the power, and probably shouldn't have used that "tool" anyway. Getting out of the brakes at the right instant briefly leaves you with excess front tire loading (due to front suspension compression - what you see as nose dive) but without the longitudinal braking demands on grip. So all the available grip including (briefly) the "nose dive effect" is available to get you turned in, and it works. At least that's what I keep finding out. However, it does take some time & experience to develop the confidence that your car really will stick through the turn.

It's a bit more of a seat-pucker feeling to quit trying to slow down and start turning if the turn is also cresting a small rise (like T11 at Mid-Ohio or T1 at NJMP/Lightning). And very satisfying when you find it worked.


This is one of those things you aren't likely to learn in street driving, because unless your sanity is seriously questionable you won't be going hard enough to need it. Trust me on this.


Norm

[White_SS/RS]

Originally Posted by Norm Peterson

I'm going to guess that you were still too hard on the brakes (and maybe going for harder still once the situation looked like it was headed South). I doubt you'd have needed the power, and probably shouldn't have used that "tool" anyway. Getting out of the brakes at the right instant briefly leaves you with excess front tire loading (due to front suspension compression - what you see as nose dive) but without the longitudinal braking demands on grip. So all the available grip including (briefly) the "nose dive effect" is available to get you turned in, and it works. At least that's what I keep finding out. However, it does take some time & experience to develop the confidence that your car really will stick through the turn.

It's a bit more of a seat-pucker feeling to quit trying to slow down and start turning if the turn is also cresting a small rise (like T11 at Mid-Ohio or T1 at NJMP/Lightning). And very satisfying when you find it worked.


This is one of those things you aren't likely to learn in street driving, because unless your sanity is seriously questionable you won't be going hard enough to need it. Trust me on this.


Norm

+1, it doesn't feel right but it works. With experience it will become a natural reaction.

[wernergmhtp]

Just picked up a '14 SS and looking forward to hitting the track soon. I instruct for NASA Mid Atlantic and Northeast and there is a lot of good info in this thread.

My first question is, anyone out there using EBC Yellowstuff? I've had good results with them on both my C5 Z06 and Cobalt SS.

I'm a little wary of the stock pads given some of the comments above.

Chris

[mlee]

Originally Posted by BaylorCamaro

Yeah I probably could have, it went into serious understeer I probably could have kicked the back end out some to help. Unfortunately I was in PTM 3 and when I tried doing just that, it cut power

That turn kicked my ass all day long. Don't know how I stayed out of the pebbles. Came close 4 or 5 times. Just checking back in here and hadn't seen the actual video.

I think I'm prepped and ready for next month. My new tires took a beating though.