Tag Archives: Track day

Spa Trip – Nürburgring

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The Nürburgring is only 100km from Spa. It would be senseless to come all this way to drive at Spa and not also visit the world’s most notorious track. Wandering around Brussels was the appetizer; lapping at Spa was the main course; now for the dessert.

August 6

The other day, when I was on the phone with the woman at my hotel, she said my breakfast would be delivered to my room the first morning but that I’d be served in the restaurant today. I assumed this meant I was no longer the hotel’s only guest. Poor assumption!

I walked into the restaurant at 8 and was greeted by a friendly dog. I didn’t see anyone and called out, “Bon jour! Good morning!” Nobody was there. But there was a table laid out for one, with all the items that were brought to my room yesterday. So I sat down and tucked in. A few minutes later, the gentleman who brought me my morning feast yesterday arrived. I have to say, it’s fairly odd being the only guest at the hotel and restaurant. I don’t expect it’ll ever happen to me again.

The drive from Spa to Nürburg was a pleasant excursion through rural Belgium and Germany. We were on back roads all the way. Even if the navigation system didn’t tell us we were only a few kilometers away from the town, we knew we were getting closer when we started seeing all the sports cars.

I couldn’t check into my hotel until after 5, and we couldn’t check in at Rent-4-Ring until 4, so we had some time to kill. We grabbed lunch (bratwurst and beer, with my beer being cheaper than Ryan’s Coke), then took a wander through the ruins of the 12th-century castle. They say you get a nice view of things from the top of the tower, but as my luck would have it, it’s encased in scaffolding, closed for renovation. They’re not going to renovate a castle that was destroyed about 350 years ago, but I guess they need to make sure it’s good enough that tourists don’t die when they climb to the top of it.

Nürburg is a unique place. My home race track, High Plains Raceway, is in the middle of nowhere. It brings quite a bit of business to the gas station and motel in Byers. Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is surrounded by little towns. The track drives most of the visits to the hotels and restaurants in these towns. Aside from being close to a world-famous race track, though, they’re just normal little towns.

Nürburg takes it to a whole different level. The track is an industry in and of itself. Without the track, this place wouldn’t exist. BMW has its M test center here. There’s a mall here filled with stores I’ve never seen in any other mall. Want a driver’s suit or gloves? Stop at the race gear store. Looking for a new car? You have choices: there’s a store full of BMW M vehicles and a Caterham dealer. Scale models and memorabilia abound. The most normal thing at this mall was the Subway sandwich shop.

I was thinking we’d get to take our laps pretty much right after we registered, but that wasn’t the case. The track was having some sort of race driver training/education day. Touristenfahrten (“tourist drives”) didn’t start until 6, so we just sat for a while on the bench outside the rental office. It was a beautiful day, so why not? There really wasn’t much else to do.

There are dozens of places in Nürburg where you can rent a car and coach, hotels galore, even a casino and a roller coaster. To top it all off, there’s a Grand Prix race track here, too. The Nordschliefe, the track we’ll be driving on, hosted F1 races back in the 60s, but it’s far too dangerous for modern F1 cars. Today, they’re getting the place set up for a DTM race on the GP track.

At 5:30, we had our briefing. Today, the Nordschliefe is not a race track. It’s a one-way public toll road with no speed limit. Keep right except to pass. Pass only on the left; if you pass on the right, you’ll get ejected. Anybody can drive it – track rats in their Porsches, novices in VWs, and grandmothers in station wagons. You can drive just about any vehicle except a bus or a motorcycle. And, because it’s been closed all day, there’s a big line revved up and waiting to go.

At the ‘Ring, at least on Touristenfahrten days, you aren’t required to wear a helmet, which always struck me as odd. There’s no way I’d lap this place without a helmet. Also, the car I’m renting has a roll cage. I’d never drive a caged car without a brain bucket. Rent4Ring’s rule is that if you have an instructor, they’ll wear a helmet and therefore require you to also.

My coach, Nashe, had a pretty good American accent. I asked him how. A great way to develop an American accent is to grow up in Missouri, which is what Nashe did. He has been living here for five years. He used to race motorcycles. He’s the “new guy” at Rent4Ring with “only” about a thousand laps of the Nordschliefe under his belt. That’s about 13,000 miles.

The prospect of trying to drive fast around this track intimidates me. I’m all sorts of apprehensive about it. There are YouTube channels devoted to showing crashes here. Rent4Ring has a sign in their briefing room: “Don’t feed the YouTubers – Drive safely!” People die here every year. Let’s just say I have a healthy respect for the place. I’m not going to drive beyond my limits, but shit happens.

Nashe did a fantastic job of talking me around the track. I struggled with instruction at Spa, and I was worried about how it would go today. But it’s two very different sorts of instruction. Kostas was trying to teach me the proper racing line, which I would get to practice lap after lap. Nashe was telling me exactly what to do. “Stay right, there’s a Porsche coming up on you. Brake, brake, brake, let off, let the car go wide, give it some throttle, turn in now and keep it tight, give it some throttle and go as fast as you’re comfortable,” pretty much non-stop for the entire lap.

It took me about three turns to get comfortable with this sort of instruction. My pre-lap jitters were unfounded.

When we registered, I said more than once that I’d only do one lap. We reached the Karussel (about 8 miles in) before I knew it. It went by so quickly. Between there and the end of the lap, it was clear I had to go around again.

The second lap was a bit more hectic – more traffic. I didn’t check the time when I got on the track for the first lap, but they were running three lanes of cars past the card readers, so there was a steady stream of cars getting on the track, and not very many of them quit after one lap, so traffic was getting worse every minute. I haven’t checked the video, but I’m guessing I encountered at least thirty more cars on the second lap than I did on the first.

I always thought driving a car on a track required your full concentration. At the ‘Ring, it’s like that, but on steroids. Staying right when cars come up from behind, working out how to get around slower traffic, and driving fast, all with almost no margin for error, because if you go off the track, you’ll be in the barrier.

Two laps was plenty. If there’d been half as much traffic, I might have been tempted to go around again, but I knew it would only get worse. I don’t care how much you like driving on a track – traffic never makes things better. My first lap probably had as little traffic as you’re likely to get here, so I feel quite fortunate.

  • In Germany, beer is cheaper than Coke
  • Renovating the Ruin (not Renovating the Castle)
  • My car today
  • Skeleton key!

In the end, I had much more fun than I expected. I put it all down to the coaching. No amount of practice on a simulator or watching YouTube videos could prepare me to be both as fast and as safe as I was with Nashe. It was a lot of money – each lap cost more than a full day at HPR – but it’s truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me.

It was a full day – I didn’t get back to my hotel room until 9 pm.

My hotel is maybe thirty yards from the entrance to the castle ruins. I didn’t try to estimate the age of the hotel. Like at so many other buildings I’ve been in on this trip, I thought, jokingly, “This place isn’t up to code.” Small, steep stairs, the door at an angle to the little entry. And I mean little. It’s only an inch or so wider than my suitcase. The pièce de résistance was the skeleton key. Skeleton key, how quaint. The last time I used a skeleton key was in February of 1975, in the Soviet Union.

Spa Trip – Curcuit de Spa-Francorchamps

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And now we finally arrive at the reason for this whole trip to Belgium.

I first saw Formula 1 at Spa on The Wide World of Sports in the late 1960s; you’d get about a fifteen-minute highlight clip from the broadcast with Jackie Stewart doing commentary. But it wasn’t until I started watching F1 in 1994 that Spa really grabbed my attention. For about thirty years, if you’d have asked me what my favorite track is, the answer was Spa.

I don’t golf, but I imagine my driving a car at Spa is akin to a golfer getting to play a round at St. Andrews. For me, a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Wow. I’m here.

August 5

I’m sorry to sound like a broken record, but I had yet another bad night’s sleep. Two and a half hours of sleep, about that much tossing and turning, then a couple more hours of sleep. It was raining the entire time I was awake.

My breakfast was delivered promptly at seven. It put the fare at my Brussels hotel to shame: a basket of bread (three different rolls and two pastries), orange juice, grapes, cold cuts, cheese, a few cherry tomatoes, peach yogurt, fixings for coffee, and an assortment of packets: Nutella, honey, two different jams, and butter. Far too much for me to eat!

Ryan picked me up at 7:20, and we were at the track a few minutes later.

First on the agenda was the drivers’ briefing. I’ve driven quite a few tracks now, and although there are many similarities, each track runs things their own way. As Dorothy said, “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore!” Here at Spa, things are quite different than any of the tracks in the USA. I’m pretty sure it’s a European thing and not just this track.

At home, we’re required to have our windows down. If you get in an accident, the glass from the side windows won’t go everywhere. And the rescue crew won’t have to break a window to get you out of the car. Here, windows have to be up. Even for convertibles!

At home, when faster cars catch up to you, you give them a “point-by”: use an arm signal to tell them which side to pass. At Spa, with windows up, you can’t do that. Here, you use your turn signal to indicate which side you’ll go to, and the overtaking car goes on the other side. That took me several laps to get accustomed to.

I will point out a few more notable differences later.

After the briefing, we met our instructors. Mine was Konstantinos Zannos (Kostas), a native of Greece now living in Spa. In over 70 track days, I’ve never had an instructor before. A couple of times, at Portland and COTA, I’ve given rides to instructors, but it wasn’t for coaching – they just wanted rides in a Lotus.

Kostas set up some helmet-to-helmet communications so we could talk to each other. In my car, top off, window down, and engine behind your head, without an intercom, it would be impossible to communicate other than by hand signals. In my Spa rental car, a BMW M240i x-Drive, a comfy coupe, we’d have had little problem. Still, a comms setup like this is the way to go.

During the briefing, it was mentioned that the most common accident on track is a driver going off in the first turn. This made me think of my day at Harris Hill, where I did exactly that. Naturally, today I again did exactly that. The Kemmel straight is the fastest part of the track. The track was still wet from the overnight rain. But most importantly, the turn is much tighter than I expected. I was tentative, too light and late on the braking. I missed it big time! It won’t be in the highlight reel, though, as I wasn’t running the camera in the first session.

I really struggled that first session, despite Kostas’ excellent instruction. It’s a new track in damp conditions (still wet from the overnight rain) in a car I’d never driven before, which is about twice the weight of my car and also a fair bit faster. On top of that, it’s a long lap – the longest I’ve driven. It felt like every time around, I’d forget half of what he told me the previous lap. I probably frustrated him a bit, but he was very patient with me. I had his services for an hour, where I drove a six-lap session. That was my second-longest session of the day. Later in the day, we had a good laugh about my off.

His instructions did help. On my next lap, my first without him, I was 9 seconds faster, and on the lap after that, an additional 7 seconds. I ran into him several times throughout the day. When I came back from those two laps, he asked how I did. I told him I did a 3:12. He asked if I thought I could do a 3:00. I wonder why he picked that time. Because it’s an even three minutes? Or what he thought a good (average? novice?) driver should do a three-minute lap in that car? I managed a 3:02. I don’t know if that’s fast or slow, but I’m happy with it. I showed consistent improvement throughout the day and was getting comfortable with the track.

He was very perceptive. I was very tentative those first laps. Rather than saying I was tentative, he described exactly how I was applying the brakes. I couldn’t have described what I did any better myself. I had a couple of moments where the car got a bit squirrely, and he diagnosed them immediately. Once, he told me not to watch the car ahead too closely, because I’ll follow them instead of going where I need to go. He was right. I realized I was doing that just a moment before Kostas pointed it out. He was very attuned to what the car was doing, what I was doing.

Almost every track day I’ve done, drivers are broken into groups, either by experience (novice, intermediate, experienced) or speed (fast, slow). Today, we had no groups. We could just go out any time we wanted. That was nice, but Ryan and I both agree that a fast/slow grouping would have made us happier. There were some very fast cars out there and some classic small sports cars, so the closing speeds were sometimes … frightening isn’t the right word – maybe unexpected is better.

One of the other big differences in operating is the way red flags work. At home, if a red flag is thrown, everybody is supposed to come to a prompt stop. Here, everyone is to proceed to the pits until whatever incident occurred is cleared up. Once cleared, the track goes green and cars can return to the track. Pretty much like F1. I suspect, with no supporting evidence, that our flaggers today also worked the F1 race.

Unfortunately, we had a lot of red flags. I lost count. I generally expect to get four sessions, 20 to 30 minutes each. I had more sessions today, but that wasn’t a good thing. There were several times I got only a couple of laps before the red flag appeared. Twice, it happened on my out lap. My lap timer recorded nine sessions: 6 laps, 3, 0, 3, 4, 9, 0, 3, and 5 laps.

My car rental was for 300km, and I had to buy my own gas. When I first registered, I thought 300km wasn’t enough. So when I got an email offering an additional two-hour session, I signed up. I wasn’t thinking, though, that it was just extra time, not extra kilometers. It might have come in handy had the weather been bad, though.

As the regular session neared completion, I knew I’d do my 300km without needing the evening session. RSR were kind enough to refund my money. They normally don’t do refunds, instead giving vouchers good for three years.

The gas pumps didn’t offer me receipts, so I don’t know how much fuel I used. Heck, until I get the credit card bill, I won’t know how much I spent. The cost works out to a bit more than $7.50 a gallon. I think I spent nearly $200 on gas. My car would have been half that, or less.

I had a short moment of panic when the fuel pump didn’t accept my Visa card. The whole trip, I’ve been trying to use my AmEx card, but many places didn’t take it. I had not been anywhere that took AmEx but not Visa, so when the pump declined my Visa, I thought I was in trouble. But the AmEX worked. A few minutes later, Ryan called me with the same complaint – his Visa wasn’t working. I offered to let him use my AmEx, but Laura had her AmEx card. I mentioned this to another driver a few minutes later, and he told me it had to do with a PIN number. If the card didn’t require a PIN, it declined the card. But… but… my AmEx card doesn’t have a PIN.

It took me a while to get used to the car. The fastest I’ve gotten my car is 121 or 122 mph. I’ve driven a Ferrari 458 and a McLaren 650S at HPR and got neither of those cars over 125 (not that they’re not easily capable of it). Today, I managed consistently to get the BMW to 138 on the Kemmel straight.

Ryan’s car was race-prepared. That is, it has a roll-cage, racing seats, and the fancy dashboard was replaced with basic gauges. It’s equipped with a 4-point harness. This is another difference between here and home. In the US, 4-point harnesses are not allowed. A 5- or 6-point harness is required if a harness is used. The 4-point does not prevent “submarining” – in an accident, the driver is not prevented from coming out of the seat below the steering wheel. You really want a harness that keeps you securely in the seat.

The seats in my rental car have substantial side bolsters. They keep you from moving very far laterally. By the end of the day, I was feeling it in my kidneys. I’m not saying I felt like I was getting kidney-punched, but I was getting pretty sore. In the Lotus, the seats have very little padding, and after a long day, I can get a little tender along my spine, but I find the seat is otherwise comfortable. And I like my CG lock. The day after Spa, I did feel a bit like I got a little worked over.

I brought the vent mounts I use in the Lotus for mounting the phone, but the vents in the BMW would not accommodate them. I like being able to see my lap timer. I think it’s an important tool. If I couldn’t mount the phone, I’d have to keep it in my pocket. I’ve done that before, and the data quality suffers. Badly. When he got in the car, Kostas put his phone in the cup holder. He said he does it all the time, no problem. I can’t see the timer, but at least I’m collecting the data. (Yet another difference – at home, we are to remove all loose articles from the car – nothing should be able to fly about the cabin in the case of an accident. I’d never leave anything like a phone unsecured.)

  • My breakfast
  • Today’s rental car – BMW M240i x-Drive
  • Me and my instructor
  • I got passed by these guys
  • F1 pit box markings

As is my habit, I try to talk to my Lotus people. Today, there was only one Lotus. I did manage to introduce myself, but it was a brief conversation. He’s Swiss, has run at Spa many times. He volunteered that it’s a six-hour drive for him. A man after my own heart – he doesn’t trailer his car, either.

All day, the car complained about low tire pressure. A warning showed up on the display – it took up most of the screen. I had to clear it every time I started the car. And I had to remember to do this before I put my gloves on. The low tire pressure is expected – at the track, we run pressures lower than appropriate on the road. The mechanics said they couldn’t configure the car to turn the warning off.

Fairly often, the dashboard would beep and flash red and tell me I needed to brake. It’s sensing cars that are a fair distance ahead of me that are in their braking zones while I’m still accelerating. (Listen for it, if you watch the video.) One time, I got a message that I had a serious drivetrain problem and should get service. I was low on gas, but I’d been lower earlier.

I completed my 300km just a few minutes before the end of the day’s session. RSR were serving champagne, beer, and snacks. Ryan and I had a beer with Kostas and a couple of guys he was chatting with. I mentioned that I’d like to go to England and visit the factory in Hethel. One of the other guys responded in a deep Scottish brogue, “Oh, a Lotus man!” He now owns his 4th Lotus, a V6 Exige not available in the US except as a track-only car.

The other guy in the conversation, Dave, a Brit, was looking for a particular one of the snacks being served. There were none at our table. He flagged down a server, who came by a few minutes later with another little basket of them. Kostas and the Scot gave him grief about liking them. They’re a Dutch treat called bitterballen. They said I should try one, so I did. They’re little deep-fried meat concoctions. After I bit into one, they told me they’re generally called “dog’s balls.” Ryan and I instantly asked if they’d tried Rocky Mountain Oysters.

All done at the track, Ryan, Laura, and I went in search of dinner. The first place we tried was closed. The second was open and looked to have many empty tables, but we were turned away because we didn’t have reservations. We ended up at a fast-food joint called Canadian Burger and Pizza. Outside stood an old Bob’s Big Boy statue. I had a BBQ burger. It was much like the BBQ burger I had in Brussels – not at all BBQ.

So that’s my Spa experience. I had a blast.

LOG 43: Harris Hill Raceway

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Harris Hill Raceway (H2R) is a private track in San Marcos, TX, not far from Austin. The track is 1.8 miles long and can be run in either direction. In addition to always being given numbers, race track turns are generally given names as well. Not all of H2R’s turns have names, but turn 4 is named for the patron saint of impossible tasks: Santa Rita. In the drivers’ meeting, they said there’s something like 180′ of elevation change. I like elevation change. Looking at the maps, the lowest part of the track is at 645′ above sea level and the highest point is 703′.

It’s the site for the LOG 43 track day.

Monday, September 30

I didn’t get a car count, but it was about thirty. We ran in two groups. Scott ran the drivers’ meeting. He clearly had some experience participating in GGLC track days, as he said anybody who spun or put four off would get to display a “Bozo” sign for the rest of the day.

We had a short lead/follow session and I was right behind Scott. We did four or five laps. I had decided to exit the track and let the next guy follow Scott when the session ended.

On my out lap for the first session, that is, my first lap not in the lead/follow session, I overcooked it into turn 4, Santa Rita. I went right off. When I reported, the track manager said, “Cold tires?” That’s a poor driver’s excuse. It wouldn’t have mattered what temperature my tires were, I was never going to make it.

I said, “I’m Bozo.”

He said, “I’m not going to put that on your car.”

After the session, I talked to Kevin and Ryan. I pointed over at the hill. “See those birds circling over that turn? My confidence died up there. I went off on my out lap.” I didn’t disclose my error to Scott. Then we had a debriefing session. Scott asked how things went and if there were any incidents. I did not admit it to the group, and Kevin and Ryan kept my sordid secret. At the end of the day, when I said my goodbyes, I finally confessed to Scott that I’m a bozo. “Now you tell me!” he said, laughing.

Our speaker from last night, Sam Smith, was in attendance. I introduced myself and we had a nice conversation. I told him I always tell people I’m the idiot who drives his Lotus across the country for track days but that I learned this weekend that I’m just an idiot who does that. He said driving cross country for track days sounded reasonable to him. We also discussed dream jobs, reprogramming our brains (for example, because I don’t want to hit the curbs on the track, I have difficulty making myself hit the rumble strips), and the modern lack of love for the written word.

We were scheduled to run four sessions, but because we had a leisurely morning, the last ended at five. I wanted to minimize my night driving, and it is four hours to Abilene, so I skipped the last session. Ryan skipped it, too, and was already loading his car into the trailer when I started swapping back to my road wheels. Half an hour of sweaty work later, I was road-ready and headed into the setting sun.

Later, when I was putting together the videos I saw that none of the car’s data was recorded. I have a dongle on the OBD port that sends data to the phone. Over the weekend, I’ve had to reboot the phone several times due to flakey behavior. Evidently, one of these reboots disconnected my device. So it goes.

  • The track as seen from the clubhouse
  • Paddock
  • The fast cars
  • Paddock

I have more information about my shifter overheating. It was hot, and the sessions were half an hour long. I never had problems downshifting today. However, when attempting to back into my spot in the paddock, I’d grind trying to get into reverse. A couple of those and I quit using reverse and just pushed the car back.

I didn’t meet KFennel until I was saying my goodbyes. He has the very fast Exige. We ran in the same group and he passed me more than once. When I introduced myself, he asked which car I drove. He didn’t remember seeing me on the track. If he never noticed me, I guess that means I never held him up.

Over the three sessions, I passed exactly one car: Kevin, in his McLaren. He caught me, I pointed him by, then a couple of laps later, he returned the favor. On a short track like this, horsepower is overrated. There were two other cars that I thought I’d pass, but each time I got close, they left the track. (Correlation is not causation.)

If I had run the final session, I think I could have improved my time by as much as 2 seconds. My best time improved by 2 seconds from session 1 to session 2, and 3 more seconds from session 2 to session 3. Watching the video, I see many places I can improve.

It’s a fun little track. It’s good for my car. It’s on the short side, but because it can be run in either direction, it’s like two tracks in one. If I lived in the area, I’d enjoy multiple visits.

LOG 43: Circuit of the Americas

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Sunday, September 29

I had to get up early. The drivers meeting was at seven and the track is forty-five minutes from the hotel. It was dark when I pulled into the paddock. It looked nothing like it did last time. They’re preparing for the Formula 1 race. It’s one of the bigger paddocks I’ve been in, and it was jam-packed. Ryan brought my track wheels, so I needed to find him. I got lucky and found him almost immediately, and was doubly lucky that there was room for me.

We were parked east of the east end of the garages. The rest of the LOG people were clear at the other end, just about as long of a walk as is possible in the paddock. I made that walk several times. It was a lot of walking, but it did mean I saw just about every car that was there.

For F1, they’re building a bunch of two-story buildings behind the garages. They do this every year: put up all these buildings before the race and take them all down afterward. I wonder where they put all the materials between races. We were told to keep clear of the work areas. If anybody walked through without a hard hat, work would stop. I wondered if a helmet was a substitute for a hard hat, but didn’t really want to find out.

It’s important to have goals. Because Ryan brought my track wheels, I didn’t have to run on the hard street tires. I ran a 2:51 last time and with the stickier tires, I expected to knock ten seconds off that time. An ambitious goal, but one’s reach should exceed one’s grasp.

Chin always starts the day with a yellow-flag session. Get familiarized with the track but no passing. I ran with the street tires. Even at relatively low speeds, they were singing a little protest. I was glad I didn’t have to run with these tires.

But even with the much better tires, I never came close to ten seconds faster. In fact, I was never better than two seconds slower. It was hot and windy. They’ve repaved much of the track since my last visit. I don’t know how much either of those affected me, but I pushed pretty hard. There’s no way I’d have done a 3:00 on the hard tires.

I was the slowest Lotus in my group. I may have one too many words in that sentence. I only passed two or three cars all day. As at Barber back in March, I was trying to figure out which cars I had to get off the throttle for when I waved them by. I kept my foot in it most of the time. The corner workers wave a blue flag at you if you’re holding somebody up; I only saw a blue flag once, so I was doing a good job of getting out of peoples’ way.

In the first session, the car behind me on the grid was an old Subaru Forester station wagon. We line up in two rows and they alternate, so he entered the track two cars behind me. Not only did he pass me, he lapped me. Kevin was parked near him in the paddock. He said he didn’t outrun him by much on the straights with his McLaren, and he was topping 160. That Subaru was fast, a race car, running on slicks. But, damn, it’s a bit of an ego crusher getting lapped by a Forester.

  • The Start/Finish straight, 6am
  • Formula 1, under construction
  • Ridiculous track toy
  • Sublime track toy
  • A bug hit my camera
  • The bug, 1/30th of a second before its demise
  • “Yep, that’s expensive.”

We had very little paddock space. Last time I was here, the paddock was a vast open space. Everybody had room to spread out, and acres of it were pretty much empty. Today, there wasn’t any open space. Also last year, the cafe was open. It was nice to have an air-conditioned space to eat lunch. Today the cafe was closed; we had a food truck burger at a table under a canopy.

I’m having an issue with the shifter. When the car gets hot, I have trouble selecting a gear. This first happened to me last month at Ticket to Ride. I was on the track for an hour. I’d get a passenger, take an out lap, a hot lap, and an in lap, then get a new passenger. I was stopped, idling, for a few minutes at each passenger change. After about half an hour, I started having difficulty shifting. I’d be braking into turn 4, trying to shift from fifth to fourth. I can’t get second or third, but I can get back to fifth. After a few seconds, I could get the lower gear. It only affected downshifts; I could run up through the gears without a problem. It has never happened on the street.

I don’t know what to do about it, but I reckoned I wouldn’t have a problem for regular track sessions. It was a hot day but sessions never last more than thirty minutes, and I wouldn’t be idling without air flowing over the car. My first session was over forty minutes and it didn’t happen, so I thought I’d be in the clear. But the day got warmer and the car didn’t cool off so much between sessions. and it happened a couple of times in the afternoon.

The last session of the day is “happy hour”, where all groups run. At Barber this spring, I ran a few laps each happy hour. They were the most crowded sessions of the event. Today, I skipped happy hour thinking it would be crowded. Also, there wasn’t much of a break between my last session and happy hour, so the car didn’t get as much time to cool down. As it turned out, I’d probably have been okay to run: the session got black flagged and cut short.

Some reflections:

  • I’m surprised at how poorly I remembered the track.
  • I would be faster here with a top on. My head gets moved around quite a bit by the wind.
  • My lap timer recorded 33 laps. I ran another 4 laps in the yellow flag session.

I know I can improve my lap time by quite a lot. I need to use the rumble strips in the turns, but I have to overcome my reluctance to hit the curbs. The rumble strips aren’t curbs, but I struggle with my programming. At least once a session, hitting a rumble strip moved my rearview mirror and I had to readjust it to see anything. And I haven’t figured out the esses yet. I start in fourth gear, but not on the high cam, then it slows down. I’m still working on where to downshift. At most tracks, I’m almost always on the high cam when I’m in fourth. Here, there are two places where I’m in fourth but not on cam. And I know I can brake later into turn 12.

I enjoyed it, but I’m not likely to return. (Yeah, I’ve said that before.) It’s a fun track. The facilities are top-notch. There’s an appeal to driving on an F1 track. I’d love another crack at setting a faster lap time: I know I can still improve quite a bit. But the track is not well suited to my car. These are the most expensive laps I’ve ever run, about $26 a lap just for the event fee. It’s not just a high cost in dollars – I have to drive across West Texas to get here.

Barber Trip 4: Raison d’être

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I figured that it would be my luck that it would rain the entire weekend. After all, the track day gods have been, for more than a year, testing my resolve to run laps at Barber. Last year’s broken windshield and electrical problems and this year’s trailer hitch into my front clam and now my inability to lock the car. It would be trivial for the track day gods to park a rain cloud over the track.

Saturday was overcast most of the day. I saw my shadow for about 15 minutes. Overcast, but not threatening rain. There was much discussion in the paddock about the forecast for Sunday. I’d rather it not rain, but I won’t have any say in the matter so I don’t obsess about it. I had two people show me Sunday forecasts that were quite different. Some said rain at 3:00 pm, others said rain at 7:00 am. It did rain on Sunday, but it was over before 6:00 am.

Driving on the wet pre-dawn roads to the track, I couldn’t know that the weather would be good. I had been joking about the track day gods testing my resolve, exacting a heavy toll. The gods didn’t bring another deluge down upon my head, but they weren’t done with me yet. A quarter of a mile from the entrance to the facility, my check engine light came on.

I texted a screenshot of the code to my trusted advisors, cleared the code, and went on with my business. It’s an O2 sensor. The code hasn’t come back.

This is my third event with Chin Track Days, with a two-day event at Mid-Ohio and last year’s aborted run at Road Atlanta being the others. This experience taught me a few things. First is that Chin Events are more expensive than most. On a per-day basis, including this trip, my five Chin days are five of the six most expensive events. Only a day at Circuit of the Americas was more.

The second nugget of information, related to the first no doubt, is that the vast majority of cars entered are fast and expensive. I neglected to save a copy of the roster before the event (and Chin won’t share that info with me after the event), but the number of Porsche 911 GT3s and GT4s is off the chart. Average cost per car is higher than any other event I’ve been to, except the Ferrari customer appreciation days.

They put me in the Yellow group. This group includes all the novices and the solo intermediate drivers who haven’t been to this track before. I think It’s the best group for me. Passing is by point-by only, and only on the straights. Other groups are point-by, but passes can be done anywhere. Another advantage to this group is that it could get smaller. After Saturday, some yellow group drivers may graduate to a higher group leaving less traffic for me.

And, theoretically, running with the novices might mean that some of these fast cars won’t be going so fast because the drivers haven’t figured things out yet. A downside might be that novice drivers are struggling to cope with information overload and may not be as attentive as they should be to their rear-view mirrors.

Okay, enough prelude. On to the track.

What a track it is. The first thing I noticed, even in the pre-dawn dark, was that there is art all over the grounds. It’s mostly sculptures, from a giant woman soaking in a pond, to a bear in the woods, to trolls peeking out from under drain covers. There are impressions of leaves in the concrete like fossils, there’s a skunk on the stairs, there are giant dragonflies and metal insects. There’s a small herd of bison in the infield being hunted by some big cats. And a giant spider. Three different people told me “Barber is the Augusta of race tracks!” I’m not a golf fan, so the allusion is lost on me, but if everybody says it, it must be true!

  • Hunting party
  • Lounging in the pond
  • Look under the stairs!
  • Sleepy cat
  • Sasquatch
  • Testing my resolve
  • Optimal

Each day at a Chin event, the first session is open to drivers from all run groups. It’s a yellow-flag session, no passing allowed, to allow folks, especially those of us new to the track, to familiarize ourselves with the track and locate all the corner workers.

Two pedestrian bridges cross the track. I later walked across these bridges when I visited the museum. On my first lap of the yellow-flag session, I spotted the hanging lady under the first bridge. It’s a mannequin, and she’s hanging by her arms underneath the bridge. It was a little jarring, given the lynched doll I spotted hanging over the road yesterday in Mississippi. For just an instant, it freaked me out.

After that session, one of the other drivers asked me if I’d seen her. Of course I did! He told me that he ran an entire day without spotting her. He didn’t know about her until one of his friends asked him at the end of the day if he’d seen her. How can you go under that bridge 40 or 50 times in a day without noticing? Is it an unintentional test of a driver’s observational skills?

There are a couple of other notable mannequins on the track. There are two of them sitting on the wall where the cars enter the pits. I’m not sure if one of the mannequins is pushing the other off the wall or not. I’ll admit to another quick feeling of shock when I first saw them.

I have a practice of walking through the paddock looking for other Lotus drivers. For a short while, four of us were registered but two canceled. The only other Lotus was a blue 2005 Elise. I chatted briefly with the owner. He’s an instructor, his car is supercharged (265hp, he tells me), and he’s running on slicks. I tried to track him down a couple of times on Sunday, but we never reconnected. I was going to jokingly ask him if I could run a few laps on his slicks.

As usual, I’m running on my hard street tires. I get a lot of grief about it. Not so much grief on these road trips, but most track rats make it sound like they run on slicks or not at all. I’m not racing, so I don’t really care how my lap times compare to others. I’m competing with myself. How close to “maximum performance” can I get? For me, the skill is getting as close to the edge of performance as I possibly can. With hard tires, you get to the edge at a slower speed.

This weekend, though, I think I’d have been happier on stickier tires. There were only two cars in my group that were slower than I was. I looked at all the videos to count how often I was passed, but I did count passes in one session: I got passed 13 times and made 3 passes. If that was a typical number of passes in a session, and it was, over the course of 8 sessions I was passed well over 100 times.

Every time I pointed somebody by, it cost me about a second. Getting passed on the front straight compromises two laps. To get a decent time, I needed a “clean” lap – neither passing nor being passed. Because I was so slow, I got passed nearly every lap. Some of the Porsches were fast enough that I didn’t need to get off the throttle to let them by, but there were so many of them, I couldn’t always tell before the pass if I had to lift.

Had I been on my track wheels/tires, I reckon I’d have been 6 or 8 seconds a lap faster. That would have been fast enough to get me quite a few more clean laps. Cars that passed me twice would have only caught me once. And I’d have sometimes gotten an extra lap.

I didn’t have a target lap time in mind. My goal is constant improvement: to be faster in my last session than in my first. This I achieved: my fastest lap of the weekend was my very last lap. And that lap was compromised by letting a Porsche pass me on the front straight. Even with these tires, given a few extra clean laps, I might have reached a 1:50 lap time. Tall order, yes, as my best was a 1:53. But in one session, my timer said my optimal time was 1:49.

In addition to my eight sessions as a member of the Yellow group, each day ended with “happy hour” where people from any session could run. I joined in near the end of the session, thinking there’d be fewer cars. I lasted only 2 or 3 laps each day. On Saturday, I was getting passed left and right without giving point-bys. That didn’t happen on Sunday, so I’m guessing somebody mentioned it. In any event, the other cars were just too fast for me to enjoy myself and it was clear I stood no chance of getting a clean lap. So it goes.

Here are some more photos, including the giant spider.

  • Charlotte
  • The Exxon Valdez

I had a great time. I spent two days hanging out with people who share a common passion. Everybody played nice on the track. Nobody bumped into anything, but there was one red flag. A brand new Toyota Corolla GR lost its oil drain plug in turn 15 and spilled oil all the way down the main straight and into turn 1, where he spun out on his own oil. I’m guessing the track charged him four figures for the oil-dry they had to deploy.

Here’s the obligatory lap video.

Them’s the Brakes

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I’m quite tardy with this post.

Last Saturday was another Emich sponsored day at HPR. Usually I sign up for just the afternoon. You get four sessions, with fewer cars each session. And you can sleep in. This time, though, I signed up for the whole day. It would be a “maximum” day: seven sessions.

Tires

I used up the slicks a year ago and since then I’ve been pondering what tires to put on the track wheels. Not slicks again, as I can’t drive to and from the track on them. And slicks are so much harder on the car. Anyway, I’ve been looking at the various alternatives and haven’t come to a decision. Because I loaned the wheels to Kevin for use on the Lemons car, I didn’t need to come up with a decision yet.

Kevin has solved the problem for me. He just bought another set of wheels for his Lemons car, so he returned mine. “Have fun with the tires,” he said. We didn’t use them in the Noah’s Ark race in June and our overheating issues in the September race resulted in running only 40 laps on them. Thanks, Kevin. Much appreciated.

They’re Advan Neova AD07 LTS2. The LTS2 means made for Lotus. The fronts are smaller than I normally use, 175s instead of 195s. I was thinking they were 200 treadwear tires, but they’re 180s.

These tires come with a few questions: How fast can I go on these tires? How will the narrower front tires affect me? How long will they last?

Only time will tell as to how long they’ll last. If I only do two or three days a year, they could last a couple of years.

As to expected lap times, I pulled a number out my ass: 2:10.

In the movie Rush, Niki Lauda says, “God gave me an okay mind, but a really good ass, which can feel everything in a car.” I’m pretty sure God didn’t give me a really good ass. By putting these tires on the car, I’m changing two things: the grip of the rubber, and the width of the front tires. Which means I’m changing the grip in the front a different amount than I’m changing the grip in the rear. Is my ass good enough to sort that all out?

On the way to the track, I’m not in any hurry. I’ll drive fast at the track, I don’t feel the need to go fast on the Interstate. The first guy who passed me who was clearly going the same place I was, zipped by at about 130 in a Porsche. A few minutes later, a string of BMW M3s, followed by a McLaren and an Audi R8. I caught all but the Porsche at the gas station. I finally picked up a decent gas can, a Kawasaki green 5-gallon one. About four gallons went into the car, and I filled the new can. Depending on the day, I can get 4 sessions on a tank, so with the can I will get 6 and probably 7, if I cut a session or two short by a couple of laps.

The Laps

When I got my wristband, I asked about the car count. Fred said he limits the day to 75, but we had less than 40. I’m guessing that’s really 60 cars – something like 20 morning, 20 afternoon, and 20 all-day. Good for me, my group wouldn’t be more than 20 cars.

I didn’t get out right away for my first session. I took it easy on the out lap, as the car was cold. I was cold, too. It was probably only 50 degrees F (10 C). I had my t-shirt and flannel on under my driving suit and a hoodie over it. It’s chilly at 110mph with the top off.

The first session, I caught up to a black R8. He pointed me by, then managed to keep up to me. That’s a much faster car than mine, and I reeled him in pretty quickly, so I was a little surprised to kept up with me. I was faster in the turns, but he could always catch me on the straights. He was about the only interesting traffic I dealt with.

After the first session, my wheels were dirtier than I expected. I’ve been spoiled with the CL RC5+ pads I’ve been using for the last seven or eight years. They’re relatively dust-free, and the dust is more gray than black.

I really enjoyed the second session. Because of the low car count, I was able to run quite a few laps without any traffic. I was consistently running in the 2:11s, thinking I could easily manage a 2:10 by the end of the day.

When a session is ended, the worker at turn 1 picks a car to be the first to get the checker flag. The lights at each bunker will display the checker as this car approaches it. I’m pretty sure they picked me to be the first car to get the checker for the first two sessions. Woo hoo! I won!

I try to treat my in lap as a cool-down lap, and never use the brakes. So it wasn’t until I pulled into my spot in the paddock that I heard the noise my front brakes were now making. I’d used them up completely.

The brakes

Regular readers may recall that I just put these pads on after my Atlanta trip. I used OEM pads rather than my usual CL RC5+, which nobody had in stock at the time. I had used the OEM pads for years before I switched to the RC5+s and never had any abnormal wear. They weren’t as good as the Carbon Lorraine pads, but they weren’t bad.

I have less than a thousand street miles on these pads, and no track miles before this morning. The fronts are completely gone. I’m lucky they didn’t score the rotors.

Halfway through the session, I was passed by a BMW race car. The owner came over and chatted with me. He said he was sorry he didn’t have a camera on his car, because he had a nice view of the smoke coming off my brakes when I was under heavy braking. He thought at first I was bedding in new pads. He asked if I had changed rotors when I changed the pad compound. I hadn’t. He suggested that this was the cause of my abnormal wear. That there’s some transfer from the pads to the rotor and if the new pad doesn’t play well with whatever the old pad put on the rotor, this could be the result.

When I last ran the OEM pads, my front rotors were drilled. My current rotors are slotted. Other than driving faster now than I did then, that’s the only change that comes to mind. Perhaps that’s part of the story? I doubt it.

So that was a disappointing end to my day.

Now, about the tires.

Turn 7 is a right-hand uphill sweeper. On my hard street tires, I take this in third gear, shifting into fourth as it levels off. On slicks, I’m in fourth at the bottom of the hill, well onto the high cam. In the second session, I was trying to figure out which was better with these tires. In fourth, I was barely onto the high cam and couldn’t really accelerate up the hill. If I could have entered the turn just a little bit faster, just a few more RPMs, I’d have been able to accelerate. Here’s where I think I felt the narrower front tire. I was getting a bit of understeer, and maybe the wider tire would have made a difference.

In any event, I’m quite happy with the tires. I have no doubt I’ll be able to get under 2:10 with them.

Chat with Pettiford

My day done mid-morning, I took a tour of the paddock. Mike Pettiford was there – he’s always there on Emich days – so I chatted with him a bit. He’s a driving instructor/coach.

Naturally, we talked tires.

He says he drives to and from the track on slicks all the time, even on thousand mile trips. I’m skeptical. I might believe he doesn’t get too much wear on the streets to and from HPR. But a thousand miles of highway driving? The original equipment tires for my car were 60 treadwear with giant tread blocks. They were good for about 2,500 street miles for the rears and not a lot more for the fronts. I can’t imagine that slicks would last as long.

When I mentioned rain, he shrugged it off. “I just go slow.” I got caught in a nasty storm on my way home on my street tires. Twenty miles an hour was too fast. Slicks would have put me in a ditch, or worse.

He doesn’t think much of me and my 460 tires. “What’s the point of having slow tires?” Not his exact words, but close enough. The other two guys in the discussion nodded. Different strokes. For me, the enjoyment is in driving the car as close to the limit as I can. With soft, sticky tires, the limit is a lot faster and with faster speeds are higher consequences. So I can get at least as much enjoyment out of hard tires as soft.

One other exchange got me shaking my head a bit, too. I’d mentioned that my top speed wasn’t any better on slicks than on other tires. One might think that having a higher speed on the exit of the turn before the straight would allow for higher speed at the end of the straight. That was his thinking. It’s not my experience. He didn’t say he doubted my statement, but he wasn’t convinced. The fact of the matter, though, is that top speed is related to horsepower. Slicks don’t give me any more power, so they don’t increase my top speed.

I ran three cameras on the car for the second session, but none for the first. I was thinking I’d rather have video of later sessions than early ones and didn’t think I’d be able to keep them all charged, so missing the first session was no big deal. First time with three cameras running. It’s probably better for a highlight reel than a lap.

I drove home trying not to use the brakes at all. Like a 70-mile cool-down lap. I didn’t need the brakes until I was a couple of blocks from the house, so I’ll call it a success. I found a set of pads (both axles) at Blackwatch and ordered them. I got a call from Fred at Blackwatch on Monday. “Your name is good and your phone number is good, we were just concerned about the email address. We didn’t want to send your order to Russian hackers.” He bumped me up to 2-day shipping.

I told Fred the story of my 18 lap brakes. He says the material transfer theory doesn’t work as the RC5+ are sintered and don’t transfer material the way other pads do. He said, “Maybe you’re driving faster now.”

I did the front passenger on Wednesday and the front driver on Thursday. I set a personal best on the time. Not a high bar, for sure.

The car is driveable now, but I can do the rears at my leisure.

It took me about an hour to clean the wheels. They’re much easier to clean when they’re not on the car, but they were the dirtiest they’ve ever been, not even close. And the dust was a deep black and didn’t always come off easily.

And, finally, the obligatory video. Sorry, I didn’t realize the OBD dongle in the car quit talking to my phone, so no data from the car.

Emich, Spring 2023

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I paid for this event in December, long before I started planning the Atlanta/Barber trip. This was originally scheduled for the 16th, which meant I’d miss this as I’d be lapping at Barber that day. Then, not long before my big trip, I received notice that it had been delayed for a week. This doesn’t make up for missing Barber, but I’ll take it as a consolation prize.

Michael and I checked over the car. I’m good to go for the day, then we’ll do some maintenance.

April 23

The weather was nearly ideal. A bit chilly early, but ultimately was about 60 and sunny with a slight breeze. Great weather for lapping.

There were more Corvettes than usual, probably a few more Camaros than usual, and only a few Porsches. Throw in the usual Miatas, Subarus, and VWs you have your field. There was a McLaren 570s. And we three Lotus: Ryan, Eric, and myself.

There was one more noteworthy car: the Autozam AZ-1. He drew a crowd. He ran the afternoon session. Well, part of the afternoon: he got a few laps then started overheating.

Ryan is chasing a two-minute lap. I’m thinking a 2:16 would be the best I could expect.

Dennis came out for a ride. I failed to go through my usual spiel about how we’d need to use hand signals, and how to show me that he wants to stop. After a few laps, I gave him a thumbs up and he nodded, so I kept going. At Road Atlanta, Dan lasted six timed laps. Here, Dennis made it five. I gave Mike, the owner of the AZ-1, a ride. We don’t know if he was made of sterner stuff, as we got the checkered flag after four.

Road Atlanta was my first track day with the new GoPro 360 camera, but because I was able to run only a few laps I don’t have much of an idea what to do with it yet. So I threw together a little highlight reel to get some experience with the tools. It was all much more time-consuming than I would have guessed, but so it goes.

Some highlights and a moment of brain fade

The Atlanta Saga – Part 5

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April 10

Today is my day at Road Atlanta. How will this go?

I’m well past the last day refunds would be available, so even if I don’t get any track time, I may as well go. I should be able to run a few laps at least. But the fuse is one that controls the VVTI business. Would the fuse blow as soon as I hit the second cam? If that happens, I may as well park it. We shall see.

The organizers, Chin Track Days, wanted drivers to get signed in before 7:30 and to have the cars through tech inspection before the 7:40 drivers’ meeting. I planned to arrive at 7. The track has a gas station, so I didn’t fuel up on my way. This was a minor mistake. Premium unleaded is about four bucks a gallon in these parts, but at the track, it was six. I could have saved about twenty bucks. So it goes.

I got checked in and took the car through the tech line. They don’t actually inspect the car. All the tech line is for is to submit the paperwork and have a sticker applied to the windshield. It’s pretty quick. I found a place in the already full paddock, unloaded my stuff, and introduced myself to my neighbors, relating to them a short version of my fuse woes.

After the drivers’ meeting and a quick second meeting (broken down by run group), the first session on track was a yellow flag orientation session. No passing, and not at full speed, it allows folks like me who haven’t been there to get a sense of the place. Drivers in all groups were allowed. Even though it was standing yellow flags all the way around and no passing, people were moving at a pretty good clip. Still, I wasn’t exactly sure what gear to use for each corner or where my braking zones were. But it was a useful session. Until, eight laps in, the fuse blew again.

Luckily, it blew near the end of the lap, and I could easily and safely limp back to the pits and paddock. I pondered what sort of fun it would be if it were to blow just as I was getting on the track. I swapped in another fuse and went in search of anybody who might be able to help me. I was the only Lotus, so I figured my hopes were slim.

First, I met Angel. He has a trailer and tools and even a couple of cars for rent (not cheap; I didn’t even ask). Unfortunately, he didn’t have a multi-meter and wasn’t confident he could be of any help. He did say he’d likely charge me $50. The first thing he did was take the cover off the fuse box, which he promptly fumbled down into the engine bay. He managed to get it out after 20 minutes of struggle and when he was done he told me he wouldn’t charge me the fifty to retrieve it. I pocketed it to make sure it didn’t get lost. Naturally, I realized a couple of hours later that I had lost it. Sometimes I’m my own worst enemy.

Angel then directed me to another fellow, Kirt, who told me he used to build Exige race cars. He loaned me his multi-meter and gave me a list of things for Angel to check. This proved fruitless. I talked to Kirt again and he said he’d reach out to Dave Simkins, the chief Lotus tech in North America. Dave is in California, so we were dealing with a 3-hour time difference.

Not yet ready to risk another fuse, I skipped my first couple of sessions and wandered the paddock chatting with people. I met another gentleman who told me he used to work for Lotus of Atlanta. I said I’d likely see if they could fix it; he said I shouldn’t go there. He tracked me down later in the day to tell me that he, too, had reached out to Dave Simkins.

  • First sight of the track
  • What’s going on in here?
  • Panoz Coupe
  • Toyota Supra
  • Dodge Viper ACR 1:28 (only 128 made)
  • The Mad Turk’s Ferrari F355
  • Stricken Porsche 911

By the end of the day, even people I hadn’t talked to knew that I was having issues. To be fair, I wasn’t the only one. One Corvette was up on jacks all morning and half a dozen guys were taking the turbo apart on a Porsche. Just before they packed up and left, I recognized that one of them was Randy Pobst.

I had met Randy a few times at the RMVR Race Against Kids Cancer events over the years. He’s a really personable guy, always pleasant. I’m sure he doesn’t remember me, he meets people all the time, but he might remember my car. I approached him.

“Rocket Randy Pobst! How are you?”

I told him we’d met a few times at the RAKC events. We chatted for a few minutes. I gave him my usual line: “I’m the idiot who drives his Elise cross country for track events.” He responded with “You’re my hero!” and gave me a fist bump. Then he left with the guys working on the Porsche. They went to his place to see if they could get it cured.

I decided to run in my next session. After three laps, I saw a black flag. Each corner station was presenting the black flag, so I knew it wasn’t personal. Then I saw the Mustang parked on the track. These guys don’t fetch stricken cars without stopping the session. After a few minutes idling on pit lane, they green-flagged us and we went out again. I got another 4 laps in.

Shortly after that, Jayne and Dan showed up. We got Dan his passenger wristband (sign the waiver, pay $20) and I gave him a ride. I know that being a passenger isn’t the same as driving. I’m not a great passenger. Once, after a few laps as a rider, I started feeling queasy and was happy to get back to the paddock. So I understood fully when he gave me the signal that he’d had enough.

Dan then suggested that Jayne get a wristband for a ride. Unfortunately, just out of the pits, the fuse blew again. Right at the start of the lap, the worst possible time. I had to limp the 2.5 miles back to the pits. There weren’t very many cars left this late in the day, so it could have been a lot hairier. Still, crawling along the back straight with 4-way blinkers on, seeing the Porsches blast by with about a hundred-mile-an-hour speed differential was unsettling, to say the least. But I could see the corner stations flying a white flag (slow-moving vehicle on track) as I went by.

So that was the end of my day at the track.

A Lap

Here’s the obligatory video of a lap of the track. This is my first track day using the new 360 camera. By the time I put the data and rearview on, I’ve taken away the ability of the user to move the camera’s view and all that’s left is the “horizon lock” and picture stability. Maybe next time, I’ll take more advantage of the capabilities of the camera.

“They’re Dead, Jim”

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I think it’s pretty cool to use racing slicks at the track. The grip is incredible. My best lap on slicks is 2:07, which is seven or eight seconds a lap quicker than with my street tires. Seven seconds may not sound like much, but it’s like driving a different car. I use a different gear in several places and I use a different line in a few turns. I can take turn three flat (foot flat to the floor) on slicks. It’s fun.

On the other hand, slicks are a bit of a pain. I can’t drive to and from the track on them, so I need to have somebody carry them (and a jack and impact wrench) for me. And even though seven seconds may not sound like much, the extra g-force in the turns is hard on the equipment. I spun once in turn 7 on slicks. The force was so hard one of my motor mounts broke.

So although they’re a lot of fun, I don’t think the cost/benefit ratio is favorable. I think I have a day left on the slicks and I want to use them up so I can put streetable tires on the track wheels.

Objectives, Goals, and Results

An F1 car can wear out a set of slicks in as little as a dozen laps. Obviously, Hoosier wouldn’t sell very many racing slicks to the track day crowd if they wore out that quickly. I bought these tires used. Years ago, I had a set of 60 treadwear tires that lasted four track days. I’m thinking these A7s would last about as long. So this is the last hoorah for slicks.

Ryan was kind enough to carry my slicks for me. It’s the second time: he brought them out for our Thursday evening session, but I didn’t use them because of the rain.

So, the objective for the day is to use up the slicks. What about goals? It’s important to have a goal every time you go to the track. Today’s goal is a big one: set a new personal best time. I did a 2:07 with Michael in the passenger seat. A passenger costs me about two seconds a lap. If the conditions are good, I should be able to do a 2:05.

The forecast high for Denver was 60, but the morning at the track was blustery and overcast. The ambient temperature was probably not much over forty and for the first couple of hours you couldn’t see your shadow; the track was cold. I wondered how that would affect my times. The usual case is that my times improve throughout the day. I expected the weather to improve somewhat, so that should help, too.

My best lap (2:09.95) was the 5th lap of the day. In spite of the improving weather and lighter fuel load, my times steadily got worse. My first clue that the tires were done was that I was never able to take turn 3 flat. By my fourth session, I was down to a 2:13.52. That was the last session for the slicks: I was down to the cords. The slicks were dead.

To end the day, I ran three sessions (more like two and a half) on the street tires and ran in the upper 2:13s.

Cars and Drivers

The paddock was a bit more upscale than I was expecting. There were some nice cars there.

I’ll start with the Lotus. Ryan and myself, of course, plus two Elises and an Evora GT for a total of five. In the red Elise was Cory, who I had met a few years ago. Neither of us realized we’d met until he mentioned spinning his car and hitting a stanchion. I was riding with him at the time. Buzz had a silver Elise with out-of-state plates. And the gray Evora was Kris, who also brought out his McLaren 570S.

  • Lamborghini Huracan
  • McLaren 570S
  • “They’re dead, Jim!”

There was a red Lamborghini Huracan there as well. I’ve seen a few Lambos at the track, but only in the paddock. This one ran laps. At one point, I thought I saw a red Evora, but I was mistaken. My view was partially obscured by a wall; it turned out it was an Alfa 4C. I never saw it in the paddock. Another car I’ve seen in the paddock but not on track was an Audi R8. This one ran some laps. The McLaren, Lamborghini, and Audi were fast on the straights, but were not turning quick laps. I’m not surprised – I don’t expect them to get driven hard. Even though they were running in the Experienced group, let’s just say they hit very many apexes.

I had some nice “battles” with a Miata and a Lemons BMW. On one of my street tire sessions, we found ourselves running together, nobody able to open much of a gap on the others. I had some nice conversations with the drivers. The BMW owner said he was surprised my last sessions were on street tires. He thought I was faster than earlier.

Conclusion and Highlight Reel

I shouldn’t have gone out for that seventh session. I cut it short, but not short enough. I had to buy five bucks worth of 91 octane at the track ($7 a gallon) to make sure I could reach the gas station in Byers. Good thing I did, because I’d have fallen eight or ten miles short otherwise.

Six sessions was plenty. With the abbreviated seventh session, it added up to three hours. It’s more physically demanding than most people think. A day later, my arms were still a bit sore and my spine, while not bruised was tender. I managed to keep my kneepad in place the whole time, so my knee isn’t very sore. It’s a thrill ride.

HPR, Wet and Dark

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My visit to HPR courtesy of Ferrari of Denver seems like a long-ago memory. It’s definitely time for another track day; time to scratch the itch that cannot be satisfied.

I asked Ryan if he wanted to do a Thursday evening session. I had an ulterior motive. Ryan is a great guy, and I enjoy spending time with him, trackside or not. But the real reason I asked was: he trailers his car to the track and maybe he’ll transport my slicks for me. I’m so selfish.

It’s quite fun running on slicks. But I probably won’t buy another set. First, I can’t drive on them to and from the track, so I have to have help. Second, they’re really hard on the car. Before I used them, I’d never have thought going just a few miles per hour faster would be that big of a deal, but the additional stresses and forces applied to the car really are significant. Most notably, for example, is when I spun and broke one of the motor mounts.

I think I have about one more good day of use left on the slicks. Once I wear them out, I can buy some track tires that I can drive to the track on.

Thursday, September 15

Ryan kindly agreed to cart my wheels and jack to the track for me, so we signed up for our Thursday evening session. These Thursday evenings feature a hot track from 5 pm until 9 pm, or until nobody is still running. I’ve done a few of these and, because the track has no lights, I’ve never lasted more than a lap or two in total darkness.

One thing to keep in mind in this part of the world is the weather. For years I’ve joked that you could use the same weather forecast for any August day in Denver: “High in the mid-90s with scattered afternoon and evening thundershowers, possibly severe.” It’s September, not August, and we’re an hour east of Denver. But we’re pretty much still in that August weather pattern, so it still very much applies.

On Tuesday, Ryan texted me, “So rain and slicks tomorrow?” The forecast was for a 30% chance of thundershowers. The proper interpretation of a 30% chance is this: it will rain. But you have about a 1 in 3 chance of it raining on you. I responded that I would remain hopeful that it’ll rain north or south of the track and miss us.

We arrived at the track a few minutes before they opened the gates. I chatted with a couple of the other drivers, with our eyes to the skies. There was a significant weather cell to our south: rain, lightning, thunder. Typically, these storms move mostly west to east, so anything not west of us might not affect us. One of the guys got his phone out and brought up the current weather radar. The storm we were watching was headed straight for us.

Sure enough, by the time the drivers’ meeting was over, we were getting rained on.

Sometimes, these storms can dump almost biblical amounts of water, accompanied by quite the light show. These Thursday night sessions are “rain or shine”, and will be stopped only for lightning in the immediate vicinity (so they can get the corner workers off the track) and if the rain is really extreme. We didn’t have either of these issues, so we ran.

I elected to not mount the slicks, but Ryan had no choice: all he had with him were slicks. I went right out and ran some laps, while he stayed in the paddock watching the size of the roostertails the cars were throwing off.

My fastest lap of the day was in this first session. The track wasn’t yet wet. At first, I only needed to put the wipers on intermittent. It wasn’t long before I had them wiping continuously, and the track started getting pretty wet. I only ran 5 timed laps (that’s 5 laps, plus the out lap and the in lap, or about 18 minutes). It rained pretty steadily for the next half an hour, with very few people brave enough to go out.

We spent the time watching the weather from the relative comfort of Ryan’s trailer. It was parked with the ramp to the south, where the storm was coming from. For a while, the wind was stiff enough to blow the rain six feet into the trailer. Then the wind died down, meaning the storm almost stopped on top of us.

With Ryan and me in the trailer was Tony, owner of a Dodge Challenger, who was participating in his first track day. We gave him some tips, mostly having to do with the sensory overload that first-timers experience. When the rain more or less stopped, I went out for a few laps to scout the conditions. Tony rode with me. I knew I wouldn’t be going very fast, so it was probably a great way to show him the racing line. Provided I was able to stay on it.

I’d never driven laps in wet conditions before. On a Thursday a few years ago, we got sprinkled on but it was never enough to turn on the windshield wipers. I got sprinkled on at Mid-Ohio, too. That track has a very low-grip surface, and even a few drops were enough to cause me to lose control twice in a single lap. I called it quits.

Tonight I wouldn’t give up so easily.

Let’s just say it was challenging.

The laps with Tony as passenger were the most interesting. I learned the places where standing water formed puddles and where water flowed across the track. A good lap time in the dry on my street tires, with a passenger, is in the 2:18 range. We only did 3 laps, with 2:56 being the best.

In the drivers’ meeting, we learned that they installed small reflectors on the track last weekend for the Lemons race last weekend. I couldn’t see them until it got pretty dark. They were fairly small, and a number of them had already been broken off. Even these small and incomplete reflectors are a big improvement over not having them.

  • The Approaching Storm
  • Is There a Pot o’ Gold Nearby?
  • Sunset

Overall Impressions

It’s easy to think that the amount of fun you’ll have is directly related to how fast you go: if you’re going faster, you’re having more fun.

That isn’t really the case for me. Sure, speed is a part of it. But I definitely have more fun when I’m pushing myself and the car to the limit. Can I brake at the last possible moment and still make the turn? Can I put the throttle down? How fast can I take this turn without going off?

The limit for me and my car on a dry track with these street tires is maybe 2:15. When everything is wet, it’s quite a bit slower.

As the evening progressed, the track was drying out. As I said, it was bad enough at the start that we had puddles and rivers. By my last lap, the track was getting to be dry. The braking zones for many of the turns had completely dried. The places where water obviously flowed across the track weren’t dry yet, and there was no obvious flow of water, but I could see they were still quite wet and wouldn’t dry for some time.

I tried to drive to the limit. I never lost control – managed to keep the car pointing (more or less) in the right direction, never spun, and never put a wheel off the track.

At one point, there was a BMW catching me. We were heading down through 9A and 9B, into 10, where I planned on pointing him by in that short straight. At the entry of 10, I got quite sideways. I wasn’t looking out the passenger window at the BMW, but I wonder if I gave him a bit of a “code brown” moment. I gathered it in without too much drama and pointed him by, but it was a bit of a thrill.

Most of the rest of the evening featured incipient drifts, slight drifts, occasional wiggles, and quite a few instances of applying the throttle too quickly exiting turns, resulting in some oversteer.

I had a blast.

Later, Ryan posted video of a few of his laps. As I said, he was running slicks. In retrospect, once the standing/running water was gone, I think I’d have gone faster on the slicks, even though it was still damp. In his video, it looked like he had no issues at all with traction. Even in my last session I was struggling for grip and could manage nothing within 20 seconds of my dry times. Live and learn.

Cameras

Because it was raining, I left the top on the car until the last time I went out. So I mounted the older GoPro on the nose and the newer one on the tail. Any camera on the nose will get pelted with small stones; I have a couple of replacement lens covers for the old camera but none for the new one.

When you turn on the newer camera, it takes a few seconds before it’s ready to start recording. Sometimes I’m in a hurry and fail to wait long enough. When I press the start button, nothing happens. This happened for the first session, so all I have for that one is the front camera. That’s okay: if I’m only running one camera, it should be facing the right way! When I got out of the car after my last session and went to turn off the nose camera, I saw that the battery had died. So for the last session, I only got a couple of laps with good video. No big loss here. Those laps included my fastest lap of the day, but as that was still 20 seconds slower than a good dry lap, and I never had any cars around me, it’s no big loss. None of those laps would have been as visually interesting as my earlier “night” video at HPR.

The Video

I didn’t bother with a lap this time. I present five clips. First, passing an older 911 in the rain. The second and third clips involve a Mustang GT 350 (at least, I think it’s a GT 350). First, I pass him, then he passes me under braking into turn 4. Technically, we aren’t supposed to pass under braking, but no big deal in this case. Next, a short clip demonstrates water flowing across the track and standing in puddles. Finally, my excitement entering turn 10 with a BMW behind me. Note that the light level is more accurately shows in the rear-view camera. The front camera is adjusting the exposure.