[flash]

lol - uh - no - wrong. you were behind me. there was way too much traffic to do anything. no way to "walk away" from anything. i was watching you in the mirror the whole time. trying only to make sure to give you enough room to have a little fun. i couldn't go any faster if i wanted to, without screwing up the car in front of me, who was not allowing me to pass when the rare opportunity arose. the first session didn't allow passing at all, and the second one only on the back straight. if you remember, i had an instructor with me the whole time. i was not trying to go fast. i was trying to find lines and tune the car. that's why i stopped early in the second session, and didn't even do the last session. i was done with what i wanted to do, and was not going to have any fun. if you want to go back out, we can see how you really do.



as for hwy 5, i've taken my blue car to top speed there, as well as other roads (back when it was NA). heck, i rang it out for about 20 minutes on 40. just as boring. no need to do it again. maybe the bar of excitement is just higher for me?



rekills - there is no way for me to tell you what is required. you have to learn it to even understand it. it would be like trying to explain quantum physics to somebody with only 6th grade math skills. there just isn't a language that works. the difference between how you drove on that one track day, and how you would drive after a couple of years of DE events is astronomical.



we'll go round and round on this one. i also had no understanding of what was fast until i learned it. it was very humbling.

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[flash]

p.s. - here's a shot of you behind me 2 cars, and me with my instructor:



   



here is one of both of us in the same turn, seconds apart. you had just been passed by the 300z, putting then 2 cars between the 2 of us. note the position of our cars in the turn, and how out of shape you were. that's easily a 5mph difference in that one turn. that's the kind of thing i'm talking about. it's not about little spurts of speed that may fool you into thinking you're faster than you are.



   

   



and another:

   

   



and another, this time with the instructor driving. note again the position in the turn:

   

   



there aren't a whole lot of shots from that day, but they all tell the same story. lots of traffic. very different lines in the turns, which is what determines how fast you can drive. the little dashes between the turns are irrelevant, and very misleading.

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[flash]

by the way, i'm not trying to be insulting or demeaning here. i'm only trying to illustrate that there is a lot more to it than one might think, and in a crowded DE, sometimes you have to choose to do something else productive, when you can't drive as fast as you would like. that's one of the reasons i don't do DEs. it happens too often that i find that i have to bail rather than be frustrated.



that in no way means that i have learned all that i can learn, or that i am as fast as i can be. heck, i'm rusty as an old gate. on that day, for the life of me i just couldn't get the hang of one turn on that track. i never felt like i "nailed it" the whole day. i just didn't want to bother with the rest of it to figure it out, and i think i was going to continue to overcook that turn if i tried.

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[Cloud9...68]

When people ask me to compare track driving to something, the closest thing I can come up with is downhill skiing. Similar degree of adrenalin, need to deal with variations in terrain, need for focus and consistency, riding on the razor's edge between excellence and disaster, risk of calamity if you mess up (worse with skiing than with the type of track driving most of us will ever engage in), etc. Just a different mode of propulsion.

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[flash]

yup - it's really hard to describe, and without the context of understanding what it takes, it is truly lost in translation. it has nothing to do with the car, the setup, or anything like that either. a great driver can go faster in a camry than most people in a ferrari. the amount of focus required between a first timer and somebody who has experience is huge. as an example, you wouldn't even think about having a conversation with the guy in the seat next to you. you don't have the time. it takes all of your focus. on that track day, i was deliberately going slow on the sections between the turns, so that i could talk to the instructor for a few seconds. it wasn't going to make any real difference in entry and exit speeds, and there was no chance of getting by anybody, so i figured i would take advantage of the time and get value for what i was paying him. i wouldn't have been able to do that if i were trying to go as fast as i could.

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[flash]

to get this thread back on track (pardon the pun) this is the kind of stuff that leads one down the slippery slope, and is "the beginning of the end". once you start getting a clue at what is possible, you can easily get sucked into it, and spend a ton of time and money getting there.

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[ds968]

that' s because of the order in which we entered the track and still at the first few segment of the lap. I think if we try, we could find Eric and have him refresh your memory by posting his recollection of the events here to settle the argument. but you were in a considerably heavier car than mine so being a lot slower is nothing to be ashamed of .. you just don't like to admit the reality <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/happy.png" class="smilie" alt="" />

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[flash]

again, at no point was there even any sort of chance to see what was "slower" or "faster". eric's impressions were based on a major flaw. i wasn't pushing it. i wasn't even close to flat out on the straights. that's because i was there to tune the new suspension, and to work on lines. i didn't care about how fast i went around the track. i deliberately backed off between the turns to maximize that. so, everybody would catch up going in, but i would then pull away coming out. that had nothing to do with the car either. it was just from choosing a better line, which can clearly be seen in the pics above. however, it would seem to the untrained eye that another car was faster than me.



i have been known to rent the track for testing. i'll cruise around in areas that i am not working on. it really depends on what i am there for. if i'm tuning a suspension, i'll generally be 40mph slower on the straights than if i was racing. i'll only be at about 75% of speed anywhere that i don't need to be going any faster. that allows me to set up better, think more, and get more out of the data, and have more repeatable events.



oh, and by the way, the cars were pretty close in weight at that point. i had not yet added the stereo, insulation, or any of that stuff. if i had to guess, we were within 100lbs of each other. even a couple hundred pounds of sprung weight wouldn't make all that much difference though. but none of that would have had the effect of me not hitting the floor with the throttle. that's why you think you were going faster than me.

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[Rap]

Ahh yes finally some good explanation of my threads title. The best I way can explain the lure of this is the nano second mental processing which I find exhilarating. For example, this year I was following a 911 into turn 9 at WGI which is a sharp, blind turn. I knew I could pass him coming onto the front straight two turns away. We both executed the turn nicely and there right in front of us is a stalled car situated across the track. I thought uh oh I'm in trouble, then I thought should I t-bone him, smack into the car in front of me or put the car into the wall to minimize damage. I knew I didn't know how to do the last move and would probably mess that up and create a greater problem for myself. Now mind you all of those thoughts occurred in a nano second. Luckily the car in front of me saw a sliver of an opening between the stalled car and the metal guard rail. This required us to go off track and we just barely squeezed by between the guardrail and the stalled car. I expected to scape both sides of my car in that move. We got through with millimeters to spare. A year before my skill level would not have allowed me to process that situation and obtain the result I did. There was also a great deal of luck involved here. I'm still way far from being a good driver in my mind but that is what is so neat about not driving just a straight line.

By the way Dan's cars line is so different from Bob's because of the massive roll. Reminds me of my white car before it was retired!!

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[flash]

lol - actually, the roll is because of the line. taking the line that wide caused more turning than if it were taken narrower. it also means you can't go as fast through the turn. there was also a whole lot more suspension in my car than his. he had koni yellows with 250# springs and rear shocks with 90# springs, M030 bars and 17s. i had better konis with heavier springs, more rear spring, bigger sway bars, and 18s. still, the result would be nearly the same. if i were to have taken that turn that wide, i would have been rolling more too.



but yes, it's these things that are a part of that slippery slope. i spent most of the time that day starting to figure out what my shock and tire settings wanted to be. in the end, i had to call it a day, as i had something slip in the rear suspension, and any laps after that would not have been as productive. that's what happens though. it takes a lot to get a car right, and a whole lot more to get a driver right. the latter takes years. only after a couple of years does anybody really start to get a clue as to what fast is, and how much more of a rush it is on the track than you could ever have on any road.



i'll still likely rent track time from time to time, just to go out and have fun. i won't be doing DEs though. the traffic bugs me too much, as do the guys out there that think it's somehow competitive, and assume that everybody else out there thinks the same way. i don't even want to think for a second about how i am doing relative to somebody else, and i sure wouldn't be comparing anything to make any determinations. i'll do it just to shake off the rust and relax.



hopefully i have gotten off that slippery slope. rap is just starting. i can already tell that he's in for a long journey. hopefully the things he is doing will keep him safe and allow him to have fun. that's the whole point, as for us there is no big cardboard check, big bottle of champagne, or girls with big boobs waiting at the finish.

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[Cloud9...68]

Rap,



Nice retelling of a very challenging experience. But we all have to recognize that this is a case of different strokes for different folks. I can't comprehend how any car person could not find driving at the limit on a road course the most fun it's possible to have with your clothes on, but then others find pleasure from things I wouldn't be caught dead being around. The world would be as boring as a five mile long straight (sorry, Dan, couldn't resist one last dig...) if we all liked the same things.

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[ds968]

I think I actually still had the stock suspension at that time . I could be wrong though..



Btw, speak for yourself when you say that " we " don't have women with big boobs and champagne waiting for " us " at the finish line. In the words of Tonto : , - what do you mean WE, pale face ?!

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[94SilverCab]

[quote name='ds968' timestamp='1415846809' post='163644']

I think I actually still had the stock suspension at that time . I could be wrong though..



Btw, speak for yourself when you say that " we " don't have women with big boobs and champagne waiting for " us " at the finish line. In the words of Tonto : , - what do you mean WE, pale face ?!

[/quote]



I say skip the driving and straight on to the finish line <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/smile.png" class="smilie" alt="" />



Jay

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[Rap]

pale face hmm. from a ca.guy that's a pretty politically correct statement. where do the boobs and champagne come from? Maybe I am missing something here on the east coast!!!

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[Rap]

So after not having my track car since November it finally came home yesterday just in time for next weeks event at Lightning and Thunderbolt. The cams and head were reworked. The inside of the car was stripped out- all carpeting out. The back hatch was taken off and had lexan and a Duetsch nine wing replace the standard wing. Then it was tuned. A data acquisition box- Racekeeper- was installed. I'm told 200 pounds came out? So we will see. I of course am broke after this round of mods. Chomping at the bit to drive the car. It of course snowed on Friday. I had my guy plow the entire road to get the car and trailer in!

The white car got the sc. So I'm driving home and a hopped up Subaru roars up beside me and I give the thumbs up for "Hey nice car". He thinks I want to race and roars off. Now I'm a responsible family man with 5 kids and 6 grandkids with a great high profile job and I chuckle when he does this. Chuckle, yea right. So this guy must have stopped because later on I see him coming up on me again. This time I downshift and get into the lower power band. He pulls up again and smugly looks at me, I nod and glance forward to indicate lets do it. He smiles and I leave the poor bast__d in the dust. I don't go far, just enough to make a point. Ahh the feeling of the sc. Now I get to drive it in my regular car!

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[ds968]

I have to admit that at first I was skeptical about just how much difference the SC would make ( and in no small part due to Flash who downplayed its effect and consequently my expectations - lol, ironic that someone who is selling a product would do that..) but man, it sure transforms the car into one impressive performer .

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[flash]

undersell and overdeliver

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[Rap]

Did an event last weekend at Lightning on sat and Thunderbolt on sun. Man was it cold and windy both days. Sat snow was flying sideways. Not sticking or getting the track wet but just flying. Sun morning I could see my breath even with my helmet on. 4 layers on the upper body when driving. Car performed well with new mods. Thought I felt the new wing once or twice were I had felt squiggly before under high speed braking. Lexan hatch worked fine although I seem to have exhaust coming into the car. I was driving with one window up because of the cold. Didn't really get lots of speed until sun afternoon when the sun was out and temps came up to mid 40's. Wind chill still brought it below that. These first events there is a cloud of testosterone hanging over the track as everyone wants to go fast. Fair number of cars slide off, grip issues of course! Too cold to run Hoosiers so grip being what it was I worked on line. Didn't get to slide and throttle steer until sun afternoon runs. Good opening event. Yesterday I cleaned the car in 45 degree temps and today we had at least 5" of snow.

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[az968]

Man, you guys are hardcore! I never ran in that kind of weather, even in my Blackhawk Farms in Chicago days. Rain yes, but snow? In Phoenix all we had to worry about was melting the asphalt in the corners.

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[Rap]

I might also be foolish for putting myself through such cold weather! Interestingly enough, last year at this same event the weather was quite nice in the 50's with sun and no wind. March weather I guess!

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