More Track Days... Mid-Ohio Edition.

So three days on the track over the course of nine days.

Back to Mid-Ohio this round. This was probably the most fun track day I’ve had… in a while at least. The car and I were getting along really well. I’ve gotten really good at steering with the brakes… come into a corner really hot, light brake to get a nice turn in, then trail-brake pretty aggressively to kick the back end out and set up. If you do this correctly, it all but eliminates understeer… and it’s crazy fun. This is definitely a momentum car and is making me a much better driver.

I am thinking of sticking with this car for the long haul. If the powerband kicked in at about 4,500 rather than 6,000, it would be exponentially better… hmmm, I might have to make that happen over the winter.

Anyway, a good group of cars showed up, no wrecks, nothing blew up, and I totally destroyed and clogged one of their toilets with a massive duce, so it was a good weekend.

Turn nine was my favorite on the whole track… even though the camera angle isn’t the best, you can kind of see what I was describing earlier by inducing oversteer to set up to go flat out through the mini-straight and kink under the Honda Bridge.




Can’t seem to get by these little bastards on the curves, so I have to do it on the straights.









My buddy’s 350Z in Time Trials. Other than a cat-back exhaust and a K&N drop in filter, this car is all handling and lightening mods. Weighs 2900lbs with him in it.



Yes, that’s a GTR, and yes that’s me riding shotgun. It’s not who you are, it’s who you know…



This was cool.



Here’s an in-car vid of the third run on Sunday. Probably the most fun of the weekend. A lot of traffic and side by side driving. If you make it to the end, I let a few cars go buy cuz they were faster and could see the checkers from the little left kink... since I was already going slow I decided to half a little fun around carousel... didn't do too much right turning through the first half of the turn.

(Recommend you watch on youtube for higher rez)

The Porsche at 3:57

And 5:10

And 10:30

Holy fucking turbo'd Integra!

Hey get me the VIn of the RX8, I wanna brand his warranty at work.

Seriously, I'm jealous. I want to do this so bad, buy a cheap Miata and take it to RA.... but I can't. Closest I'll get is the new Track Day mode in Forza4.

Benfolio wrote:The Porsche at 3:57

And 5:10

And 10:30

Holy fucking turbo'd Integra!

Hey get me the VIn of the RX8, I wanna brand his warranty at work.

Seriously, I'm jealous. I want to do this so bad, buy a cheap Miata and take it to RA.... but I can't. Closest I'll get is the new Track Day mode in Forza4.

Yea, there were a lot of nice cars there. A couple white GT3s (???) and a nice black one. Also a moded out Caymen, as well as some Z06s that made me feel like I was in reverse on the straights. I don't know how people afford it. One guy there running in American Iron had a Chevy thing that looked like a NASCAR, a two story trailer (which the NASCAR thing wet on the top via elevator), being towed by an RV that cost more than my house. Oh, and he also had a Grand Cherokee and ATV to tool around with on site.

THat boosted Integra was pretty fast. He used to pass me back in the Eclipse days. No idea what kind of power it's putting down but it's completely gutted and on race tires.

It was nice running with that RX8. Finally grouped with a car that has no torque like mine. I was hoping to get around him and thought I could a couple of times, but alas, I could not.

Did the GTR pwn everyone?

clockbreaker wrote:Did the GTR pwn everyone?

No, not necessarily. Keep in mind Aaron (dude’s name) was in TT class. There are some legit cars out there and most are quite heavily modified: stripped, Hoosiers, suspension, horsepower, etc. That GTR was actually a back up car to his TT Civic, which unfortunately, lost a rod bolt and blew a whole in the bottom of the block on Saturday. Not a bad back-up car, eh? :jay:

To the GTR’s credit, it was bone stock… stock brake pads and running on all-seasons. It did pull really well, and we were getting to about 140 down the back straight.

Not trying to be negative Nancy, but I was talking to Aaron and Keith (Pure Tuning guys) about it and while they agree it’s a phenomenal car, they said it’s like driving a computer. After driving in it, I can see what they mean. There are buttons and gauges everywhere, only available in paddle-shift, and computers making driving corrections. Put the AWD and suspension into track mode and the car takes care of the rest. If you’re wanting the absolute fastest times, probably a good car for you; if you’re wanting some more driver interaction, probably not. For the money, I’d take a C6Z06.

A gtr backing up a civic? That must be some civic..

Yeah Z06s are awesome. I was thinking of getting a used C5 since they seem to sell for around 25-30k or so. They're just too impractical though as a daily driver. Maybe I can get one to compliment my wrx someday.

clockbreaker wrote:A gtr backing up a civic? That must be some civic..

Yea, it is... er, was... er...

This is it:
http://www.pure-tuning.com/pages/projectcars/pureek24tts.htm

That thing is so gutted. It's literally a seat, three pedals, a shifter, a wheel, and an electronic gauge and that's it. He weighed it last week and it weighed 2050 w/ him in it, so prob ~1875 empty. It uses a modified CR-V 2.4l motor revving to 8500. They're hoping to get it up and running again before nationals in Sept.

clockbreaker wrote:Yeah Z06s are awesome. I was thinking of getting a used C5 since they seem to sell for around 25-30k or so. They're just too impractical though as a daily driver. Maybe I can get one to compliment my wrx someday.

Used Corvettes are going for stupid cheap. That would be a great track whore. Just so long as you're not one of those gd Vette drivers that walks you in the straight but holds everyone up in the turn cuz they can't drive it. They see Mid-Ohio as three drag srtips with a bunch of annoying turns between them. Not that I have any experince with these said drivers.

pretty sweet man, not sure the ol 240 could hold up to that just yet lol..very cool though

dammit, I really wanna go on a track day.

Me too.



http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/cto/2458526137.html

I'd rock that.


Anyway, Talon, aren't all the electronic driving nannies completely defeatable in the GTR? or can you not fully turn them off (like in a Mercedes)?

Turbojett wrote:I'd rock that.


Anyway, Talon, aren't all the electronic driving nannies completely defeatable in the GTR? or can you not fully turn them off (like in a Mercedes)?

I don’t know really. I do know there were three switches down towards the shifter to put the car in sport mode: one for AWD, one for the suspension, and I can’t remember the third.

It was like sitting in a cockpit. There was an LCD display that showed more information than one could ever hope to absorb while driving… throttle position, boost, steering angle, oil temp, diff temp, trans temp, oil pressure and so forth. You could change it to read any of four presets (letters) or any four custom set-ups (numbers). Graphs and charts and shit… lap timer. We hadn’t even started moving yet and I was all “ "

Just opening the door was weird. You can see in the picture there’s a silver slit that opens the door. You push in on one half, it pivots out and you pull the other half. I was at their shop a month or so ago and they let me sit in it and fire it up. I didn’t want to touch anything because I thought it might auto-pilot me to Mars or some shit.

Don’t get me wrong, not trying to diss it or anything. It is a bad ass machine, but at the end of the day it’s only available with two pedals and if I am going to pay attention to that many gauges, graphs, charts, and datalogging, I’d rather be in an F-16.

With zero experience driving either, and only a 20 minute ride in one, I’d take a C6Z06 for the money.

Talon wrote:

Turbojett wrote:I'd rock that.


Anyway, Talon, aren't all the electronic driving nannies completely defeatable in the GTR? or can you not fully turn them off (like in a Mercedes)?

I don’t know really. I do know there were three switches down towards the shifter to put the car in sport mode: one for AWD, one for the suspension, and I can’t remember the third.

It was like sitting in a cockpit. There was an LCD display that showed more information than one could ever hope to absorb while driving… throttle position, boost, steering angle, oil temp, diff temp, trans temp, oil pressure and so forth. You could change it to read any of four presets (letters) or any four custom set-ups (numbers). Graphs and charts and shit… lap timer. We hadn’t even started moving yet and I was all “ "

Just opening the door was weird. You can see in the picture there’s a silver slit that opens the door. You push in on one half, it pivots out and you pull the other half. I was at their shop a month or so ago and they let me sit in it and fire it up. I didn’t want to touch anything because I thought it might auto-pilot me to Mars or some shit.

Don’t get me wrong, not trying to diss it or anything. It is a bad ass machine, but at the end of the day it’s only available with two pedals and if I am going to pay attention to that many gauges, graphs, charts, and datalogging, I’d rather be in an F-16.

With zero experience driving either, and only a 20 minute ride in one, I’d take a C6Z06 for the money.

Yeah, I've never sat in one myself, but I've always heard it's a complicated vehicle...F-16, space shuttle, HAL9000 complicated.
I'd drive a GTR one the street. but for the track, I'd most certainly go with a Z06.

Talon, was this the stock car? It was at Laguna too.

Na, it was all orange with black numbers on it.

Talon wrote:Na, it was all orange with black numbers on it.