THSCC Forums

Who is in charge of the weather this weekend????

Few Snow Showers 32°F

I will have to say like the Donald : YOU'RE FIRED.

Patrice

Damn foreigners.

That's "YOU'RE FIRED", Patrice.

Simon

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< http://usukracing.com >
2011 & 2010 Atlantic Rally Cup 2WD Champion
2010 Rally America Eastern Regional 2WD Champion
2009 Atlantic Rally Cup M2 Champion
2008 New York Rally 2WD Championship 2nd Place
2007 Rally Spec Focus Champion

Why can I hear an English accent (UK) when I read your post?????

Before someone say it, I know, you can hear my French Canadian one also. I will correct my post thanks, but that still doesn't fix the weather for tomorrow.....

Patrice

Hmmm... And where or where did all that cold weather come from my French Canadian friend, eh?

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http://www.greywinds.com

Just to put this post more on "track", I have to say that despite the cold weather, I had a blast this weekend. This was my first time at VIR for an HPDE, but it won't be my last. Had Gilbert Reynolds as my instructor again and I couldn't have a better time and instructor input.

For a first timer, I found out just how technical this track is. It's also amazing that if you follow the correct line from 3 to 6 just how fast you can gain on a car that's not taking the "good" line. I caught more cars in just this one area.

I was also witness to just how quick you can get into trouble on this track. I had a 300z in front of me between 5a and 6 that hit the inside tire wall. His car just got away from him and it was all in the blink of an eye.

I also got myself into and out of trouble in turn 7 when a bad combination of too tight a turn and too much throttle brought the rear end around and I was heading for the foam wall. Lifted and recovered. My butt hurt for the rest of the session because my cheeks were slammed shut!

This was another great event hosted by TriZ and THSCC.

What a freaking blast!!

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Rodney

'08 Bullitt mustang, CAM 7
Autox VP '09-'10, President '11-'12, interim President 2nd half of ‘14
proud recipient of the Bowie Grey service award '12
Now just a guy driving a mustang....

Now there are two words you don't see used together often.

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Vincent Keene
'06 Ford Mustang GT (track rat)
'15 Dodge Charger R/T (yeah, it's got a HEMI!)
'07 Ford Fusion SE (205,000 miles and counting)
'98 Chevy Z-24 (retired)
'93 Acura Integra (Team SWB 24HOL Car)

BMW with tuned suspension VK. been there done that.

Great event. It's been awhile since I've had that much fun in a car.

Thanks to the all the people who make it happen and special thanks to VK for not barfing in my car.

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Not spectacular just decent.
I'm not sure what I'm driving.
Maybe an ITR in DS.
Or half-assed STX prepped 330.

The 2.25 miles of the North course are fun and challenging, the turns are technical and the straight is there for those who are not hp challenged. (My top speed saturday was 118, Rob take note) My main effort this weekend was to polish my left foot braking, I believe that I did that when my instructor told me she could not tell which foot I was using. My first attempts in Feb full course tended to stick the unwary instructor to the windscreen. I could not believe how much that technique smooths the transitions from power to braking to power. The rest of my sessions were spent running down C6's ,STI's, Beemers, CTS-V and Porches. In the turns... Not the straights. On sunday I found that the Porshe Carrera could outrun a stock C5 on the straight away, but braking and turns 1,2,3, 7,11 and 12 could make it all back plus some. As you all can tell I had a great time. and while I was in the car I was warm, however I froze my buns off the rest of the time.
In the kudos department Barry Sewart , TSCCmember, remarked at how well the THSCC/ Triangle Z track events were run, I believe he joined us this year. Every event I go to someone mentions those very same sentiments. So to our event organizers bravo again for a great event.

My tale of it being my first time in the E30, in Blue group, and in TTs:

The E30:

So this was my first time on track w/ the E30. All in all its a pretty damn fun car to drive. It has some real pros and cons over the E36 instead of just cons as i was sort of anticipating.

The pros are that it feels light and nimble and feels really good. Its probably all the hard bushings everywhere but it felt like i could really feel the grip and the steering feel was awesome. It felt like a go kart. (of course i've never tracked a miata which would likely ruin that thought).

The shorter wheel base and primitive rear end is sort of a pro and con. Its definitely less confidence inspiring and less grippy, but its damn fun. Making this car rotate is almost too easy. trail brake, rotate, lift, rotate, full power at the edge, rotate. I've never countersteered so much on track in my life, but it was fun, always easy to catch. Two ppl in my class said it was crazy how much my rear end was wagging.

The cons are low end torque. really, the upper end power didnt feel bad. w/ the stiff mounts, it was really responsive and it felt like it pulled just fine. an E36 M3 would put about 2-3 cars on me down the front straight. not the end of the world

But the lack of low end torque below 3.5-4k really hurt if you lost your momentum. even a little speed scrubbing drift in T4 would noticeably hurt it. The M3 made it easy to power out of those situations.

All in all the car was fun and the bang for the buck is greater than that of the M3.


Blue Group:

This was my first time in Blue. It was definatley a quicker group and i got passed much more than i'm used to, but the awareness and pointing was pretty darn good and things flowed well. I didnt see a train all weekend. It is interesting to start seeing the fast cars seperating fromt he slower cars. These arent Green group z06 drivers.. z06s move in Blue. hah I also liked the classroom material a bit more.

Time Trials:

My plan for TTs was to feel the car out during the morning. Buy and install the fire extinguisher at lunch. Get teched then and sign up if i felt good about things. Well i didnt feel to great. I was a little sloppy and was kind of shying away from doing the TTs saturday when my friend Callahan popped out of now where and told me to man up and run em. hah so i did.

I got teched and signed up, but i had my transponder off all day so i had no qualifying times. I told them to put me last cuz i suck. But then Mark was like well Vincent is out so you can take his spot in Group 3. i was like um... ok... uh oh...

So i was pretty nervous about the pressure of people behind me. There were like 4-5 cars behind. So we're in the grid all lined up in order and then start sending cars! woooooooo!. as i paused, i gave the guy the "gimme some space" motion. haha he stared blankly and said GO! So off i went. I was driving as hard as i could and really pushing it. I surely made the noob mistake of driving hard instead of fast. The car was drifting and sliding all over. it was aggressive, but just too sloppy to be fast. i would check my mirrors constantly hoping i wouldnt see a damn car.

But sure enough i did. a red mini cooper was coming up on me slowly over a 2-3 laps. He finally caught me in the worst place, the crossover. I couldnt let him pass there, so i gave him the "i see you, sorry!" wave and i trucked through as best i could. i stayed right onto the front straight and gave him the online pass. Thats the best i could do i guess. I chased him for another lap and didnt fall tooo far behind. it was nice having a rabbit for sure.

On the next lap i see another car in the distance behind me. and damn, this dude was coming up fast. withing in half a lap he caught me on the front straight and blew by. I think he was the #1 gridded car, a factory five looking something that was loud and fast as hell. He blew by like i was stopped on the straight.

Then i got the checker and it was over. got damn that was stressful. hah it was fun though, i was yelling and talking to myself and stuff while driving. making myself laugh.

I think i ran a 157.9, pretty darn slow

Well whatever, i did it and thats victory enough for one day.

So the second day my instructor (a spece30 driver) is like ok, its time to man up. He "makes" me floor it through places i never thought i could. I was catching 4th gear in places (before T3, steve wonders, before hogpen) i never did before. I felt like i was kicking ass and taking names.

So the second TT comes up and i'm like hell yeh fools. I thought my qualifying times would be like a 1:55 or something. I looked.. it was a 159. damn! thats slower than my qualifying time yesterday. I must caught traffic or they didnt sample a good session for me or something. I hear this qualifying bitching is the norm.

So i'm like ok, here i am in grid 2nd to last. I'm like ok man, gimme some space, i dont want to get passed again. I was right behind brad mackey so i had a good rabbit.

Off we go, i close in on Brad during the warmup lap and the firsthot lap. then i swear i'm maintaining w/ him. Over 6-7 laps he 's withing 100 yards i'd say. i was using all my new tricks, using 4th, flying! Brad begins to leave me a little, but by the time we got the checker, i still saw him through 2-3 as i entered the braking zone for 1. I had to be close!

I'm all excited.. i must havhe dropped like 3 seconds! All i want is improvement! I get the times...

A damn 157.0! practically teh same damn time. wtf. :/ i guess its almost a second faster, but the "157" is still there and that sucks.

But i guess improvement was made and i have a little TT experience under my belt for next time. And next time i'll be on RA1s, woot.

I felt like i bit off a good chunk this weekend doing a new faster group and TTs in a brand new car. But it was a good time and there were no incidents. Thats about all it takes for a great weekend at the track!

Dan, don't feel bad. Brad wheels the Miata along pretty well and a well driven Miata is NOT a slow car! Glad you had fun, enjoyed the blue group and did the TT. It only gets better!

Lots of well driven cars this weekend. I only got out in the Red group and half the fun of that group is getting and giving passes in unusual places. A couple times I'd pull off line (between 7 and and give the pass on the left (very comfortable for me and hopefully for them), and I forget where else but fun. It was funny when I gave the 7 to 8 pass. It was to a yellow corvette (Oscar??). I moved well over, pointed and they paused. I think they were surprised to get a pass there! But it just doesn't take long for a 'vette to pass a CRX! Fun, fun fun..

While the weather was noticeably brisk (OK, cold!) it was dry and mostly clear. I'll take that over warm and rainy every time. The student groups must all have been pretty well behaved. 12 offs (not including drive offs and mechanical issues) is a fantastically low number when you consider we had well over 100 students and around 50 instructors! I must have been dreaming: even the instructors stayed on track (well, most di. I enjoyed writing my name between 11 and 12....Got the S and maybe the E!!). Mark and crew even added an extra run group for the red group who got hosed on Saturday as it seemed each of their sessions on Saturday got shortened. How many places are going to take care of you like that??!!

No surprise that the event ran smoothly and on time. Heck, we EXPECT that now with THSCC. And the student feed back was almost universally good. A few excellent comments about changes that they would like to see which will be evaluated and made if we can.

A BIG thanks to everyone involved in making the program such a success. And another BIG thanks to all the students and instructors that made this event possible. Without both groups this wouldn't happen.

Hope everyone comes out and joins us later in the year for CMP and the Rock. both are fun courses with good challenges.

Thanks again to all!

Ron

[quote="Bernie Baake"]The 2.25 miles of the North course are fun and challenging, the turns are technical and the straight is there for those who are not hp challenged. (My top speed saturday was 118, Rob take note) quote]

You must have been in the Mini or running the vette on 4 cylinders.

Sorry I could not make this one. Sounds like a good one.

A co-worker of mine, whom I aided in the start his track addiction, ran in green group and was commenting how there was a Lotus driving erratically in his group. Now my friend has a done a few events and has a good level head. He also said the Lotus driver took at least one pass with no signal.

Look what I found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tCXj3giNLc

Looks like "Al" needs to make an adjustment or two.

He and I were playing cat and mouse for a bit. Of course, by cat I mean something fairly Garfield-esque.

I never saw anything too out of hand.

The post did lead me to this though.

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Not spectacular just decent.
I'm not sure what I'm driving.
Maybe an ITR in DS.
Or half-assed STX prepped 330.

I've spun exiting that corner with too much throttle ... not from coming into hot as he did. That video makes me think the Lotus chassis is pretty friendly.

I just thought I'd mention it. Green group philosophy in my mind is a little different from others. You have a set of drivers that are typically inexperienced and easily rattled. Its easy for a driver in fast car to lose perspective and not respect the other drivers and school. The alleged pass with no signal is what concerned me most. That may have been brought up in the classroom though.

This may not have been the case, but I wanted to be sure I mentioned and get some other first hand feedback.

All this talk about track, I can't wait until Alfa/VIR-S in May.