1st Track Day - Mid-Ohio, Brakes and Tires, HELP!
04-30-2014, 02:04 AM
#18
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I remember my very first track day back in 1996 in my BMW M3 (E36). I had a blast and was quickly hooked, and having been a motorcycle racer most the things came pretty easy. I had the speed, but not the finesse - and quickly wanted to upgrade my car with better tires, brakes, 5 point belts, all the cool go-fast stuff. And I did just that. Truth be told that first year of track days (about eight) I was a very crude driver. Fast, but not smooth. Missing corner apexes left and right but man-handling through them. It was a huge game of fun catching the slower cars in front of me and trying not to get passed in a run group. Very exciting. I ran a lot with NASA and FATT, and they needed Instructors, so I was asked to do that early on before i'd really fully developed my driving skills. Everyone likes to think they are a 'natural', myself included, but the reality is you have to learn the fine points of performance driving and you don't know what they are because no one has taught you yet. You have to learn how to go slow before you can go fast. And that means car control first, speed second. Learn control and the speed will come in time.
Looking back on it all, I would say it was probably three years before I was 'polished' as a driver and could put down consistent laps such a a pro race car driver could, even though I was well into Instructing by then. Probably 25 track days or so....it takes some time. And it also takes time to learn what to do when you get loose, and that's what separates the Men from the Boys. Or, the ones that crash from the ones that don't. Since we don't have simulators like pilots do, we have to learn from experience and listening to classroom instructors, so that when you get into a bad spot you muscle memory will tell you what to do instead of trying to figure it all out while you're going off the track.
The worst accident I was ever in as Instructor was a classic case of an Intermediate student not knowing what to do when we'd been over it in the classroom beginning of the day. That doesn't surprise me, everyone just wants to GO-GO-GO and get out there. We were at Summit Point, "B" Group, Main Track and he's in a BMW 328i - in the Summer of 2002 I think it was. A very good driver but more interested in match racing the other cars in the group than learning/polishing skills. He had 'The Red Mist' going on but he also had good technique and control. so I was pretty good with it all. There was another BMW he'd been dicing with to and fro and going from T2 to T3 at Summit Point Main he was going to get his pass back on the inside. About halfway down that short straight he's dead even with the other BMW and I yell out "YOU CANNOT MAKE THAT CORNER - BACK OFF!" Had he listened right then, we'd have been OK, but he was determined to make the pass. I yell out "YOU ARE GOING TO GO OFF TRACK, TWO FEET IN!" and sure enough, he made the pass but couldn't make the corner. We went all four off and then he made his second mistake...
When students drive off the track into the gravel and dirt, the car makes a lot of noise as we all know. Dirt and rocks fling onto the underbody and the natural reaction is to go back to the pavement. What he should have done was put two feet in (clutch and brake) and stopped the car, but he went back to the pavement when the car was sideways. Once the BMW made it back to the blacktop the tires hooked up and he shot across the track to the inside of the corner at speed where there was a tree line. The 328i rotated in the grass/mud and skidded sideways into the trees on my side of the car where it impacted at about 25 to 30 mph which doesn't seem real fast until you consider that trees don't move. This was a BMW before side airbags and the force of the impact was enough to break my ribs on my right side and his car was totalled, embedded on the trees to hard that it took a Wrecker to pull it out. I was done Instructing for the day and had 6 weeks of healing to look forward to and he needed a new car. My wife was furious with me when I came home busted up and asked me why I was putting my life in jeopardy riding around with strangers in fast cars? I didn't have a real good answer for her.
This is why its important to learn not only speed but what to do when the unexpected happens. And this is also why I'm a pretty firm believer (now) in not rushing out to upgrade your car until you have mastered your skills. If you want to go racing, then get a race car and mix it up with the SCCA guys in Spec Miata. To try to take very fast car like a 991 and try to make it go faster after just a few track days is folly, you need to develop your skill set first. Really and truly. Stickier tires and stronger brakes have the potential to really wind you up and put you into a bad situation you may not be able to recover from, just at a higher speed and with less warning. Be mindful of that before you get all juiced up to modify the car.
Not to brag on myself, but I'm pretty fast around a track and very stable/confident. Should be after 18 years of track days, right? Know what I currently run on my 991S and the two cars before it (Aston Vantage and Boxster S)? Street tires and stock brakes. All I do it make sure my brake fluid is fresh so I have max boiling point. Now i have the Big Reds on my cars, which is a larger brake than a standard Carrera, but I don't run out of brakes and I probably brake a lot more aggressively than most here. They are adequate. And tires - I could use a little more grip but not so much that I felt the need to buy R's. I can have plenty of fun and easily show my students how to maintain good car control on what Porsche gives me from the factory.
The weakest link at DE School is almost always the guy behind the steering wheel...not the car. And please remember you have a passenger in your car that YOU are responsible for their life and well-being (that's your Instructor). He may be there to teach you, but ultimately he's along for the ride so don't drive beyond your capabilities so we can all go home in one piece.
Looking back on it all, I would say it was probably three years before I was 'polished' as a driver and could put down consistent laps such a a pro race car driver could, even though I was well into Instructing by then. Probably 25 track days or so....it takes some time. And it also takes time to learn what to do when you get loose, and that's what separates the Men from the Boys. Or, the ones that crash from the ones that don't. Since we don't have simulators like pilots do, we have to learn from experience and listening to classroom instructors, so that when you get into a bad spot you muscle memory will tell you what to do instead of trying to figure it all out while you're going off the track.
The worst accident I was ever in as Instructor was a classic case of an Intermediate student not knowing what to do when we'd been over it in the classroom beginning of the day. That doesn't surprise me, everyone just wants to GO-GO-GO and get out there. We were at Summit Point, "B" Group, Main Track and he's in a BMW 328i - in the Summer of 2002 I think it was. A very good driver but more interested in match racing the other cars in the group than learning/polishing skills. He had 'The Red Mist' going on but he also had good technique and control. so I was pretty good with it all. There was another BMW he'd been dicing with to and fro and going from T2 to T3 at Summit Point Main he was going to get his pass back on the inside. About halfway down that short straight he's dead even with the other BMW and I yell out "YOU CANNOT MAKE THAT CORNER - BACK OFF!" Had he listened right then, we'd have been OK, but he was determined to make the pass. I yell out "YOU ARE GOING TO GO OFF TRACK, TWO FEET IN!" and sure enough, he made the pass but couldn't make the corner. We went all four off and then he made his second mistake...
When students drive off the track into the gravel and dirt, the car makes a lot of noise as we all know. Dirt and rocks fling onto the underbody and the natural reaction is to go back to the pavement. What he should have done was put two feet in (clutch and brake) and stopped the car, but he went back to the pavement when the car was sideways. Once the BMW made it back to the blacktop the tires hooked up and he shot across the track to the inside of the corner at speed where there was a tree line. The 328i rotated in the grass/mud and skidded sideways into the trees on my side of the car where it impacted at about 25 to 30 mph which doesn't seem real fast until you consider that trees don't move. This was a BMW before side airbags and the force of the impact was enough to break my ribs on my right side and his car was totalled, embedded on the trees to hard that it took a Wrecker to pull it out. I was done Instructing for the day and had 6 weeks of healing to look forward to and he needed a new car. My wife was furious with me when I came home busted up and asked me why I was putting my life in jeopardy riding around with strangers in fast cars? I didn't have a real good answer for her.
This is why its important to learn not only speed but what to do when the unexpected happens. And this is also why I'm a pretty firm believer (now) in not rushing out to upgrade your car until you have mastered your skills. If you want to go racing, then get a race car and mix it up with the SCCA guys in Spec Miata. To try to take very fast car like a 991 and try to make it go faster after just a few track days is folly, you need to develop your skill set first. Really and truly. Stickier tires and stronger brakes have the potential to really wind you up and put you into a bad situation you may not be able to recover from, just at a higher speed and with less warning. Be mindful of that before you get all juiced up to modify the car.
Not to brag on myself, but I'm pretty fast around a track and very stable/confident. Should be after 18 years of track days, right? Know what I currently run on my 991S and the two cars before it (Aston Vantage and Boxster S)? Street tires and stock brakes. All I do it make sure my brake fluid is fresh so I have max boiling point. Now i have the Big Reds on my cars, which is a larger brake than a standard Carrera, but I don't run out of brakes and I probably brake a lot more aggressively than most here. They are adequate. And tires - I could use a little more grip but not so much that I felt the need to buy R's. I can have plenty of fun and easily show my students how to maintain good car control on what Porsche gives me from the factory.
The weakest link at DE School is almost always the guy behind the steering wheel...not the car. And please remember you have a passenger in your car that YOU are responsible for their life and well-being (that's your Instructor). He may be there to teach you, but ultimately he's along for the ride so don't drive beyond your capabilities so we can all go home in one piece.
Last edited by drcollie; 04-30-2014 at 09:23 AM.
04-30-2014, 06:56 AM
#19
I was able to avoid injury but did have my share of close calls with students, enough to make me wonder as drcollies wife did, why are you doing this? My experience taught me that we should be much more conservative with students than we are.
In my region we had a Driver Skills program, very similar to an autocross school, that taught the exact same basic skills covered in the Skip Barber video above, only on courses marked out with cones much the same as an autocross course. What we found is the Novice students showing up at the track for DE, if they had first been through Driver Skills they were much better prepared and able to learn. They understood what they were doing and why. They were in a much better position to appreciate that greater speed brings with it a much greater need for precision. And crucially, they did not scare the bejeezus out of their instructors.
Those who never had any prior instruction, every single one of them without exception (think about that carefully, people- every single one!) would in a matter of minutes have their instructor marvelling how they ever managed to make it to the track that day. This is not arrogance. Myself and everyone else I know, we all started out pretty much like drcollie, or driving like the video uhear posted, all over the place, convinced we're a hell of a lot better than we are. Its just that like drcollie said, it takes years to acquire these skills. In fact I would even say the gap is so vast that the main thing you learn after the first year or so is how much more there is to learn. Then when you "get there" (and you never really "get there", but anyway) you look back and wonder how you ever survived long enough to make it.
The cars today are so much more stable and forgiving, and with so much built-in safety, they can encourage as never before feeling invincible. Well, you are not invincible. To which everyone says, of course I'm not. I know that.
But here's the thing. The thing that makes the instructor scared, its not the speed. What scares him is knowing how many mistakes are being made by a person who has no idea he's even making them.
Its a tough situation. Years of driving on the street, well within the limits of traction, have built up a false image of driving. Because track driving, real driving, is not within but at the limit of traction. A limit determined by the drivers ability to effectively manage weight transfer. Its a whole new ball game.
The safest way I know to experience and practice this is at low to moderate speeds. The best way to do this is autocross and autocross schools. Driver Skills programs such as PCA and BMWCCA run are even better, though often harder to find. Unfortunately so many people want to go fast that in many areas there are more opportunities to get on a high speed track than what newcomers really need which is autocross and programs that teach basic car handling skills at low to moderate speeds.
None of this is meant to discourage anyone from going to the track. Any instruction is better than none. But do try and find these types of schools. They are easier on your car (and your pocketbook) and better experience than anything other than maybe a trip to one of the pro schools like Barber or Bondurant.
In my region we had a Driver Skills program, very similar to an autocross school, that taught the exact same basic skills covered in the Skip Barber video above, only on courses marked out with cones much the same as an autocross course. What we found is the Novice students showing up at the track for DE, if they had first been through Driver Skills they were much better prepared and able to learn. They understood what they were doing and why. They were in a much better position to appreciate that greater speed brings with it a much greater need for precision. And crucially, they did not scare the bejeezus out of their instructors.
Those who never had any prior instruction, every single one of them without exception (think about that carefully, people- every single one!) would in a matter of minutes have their instructor marvelling how they ever managed to make it to the track that day. This is not arrogance. Myself and everyone else I know, we all started out pretty much like drcollie, or driving like the video uhear posted, all over the place, convinced we're a hell of a lot better than we are. Its just that like drcollie said, it takes years to acquire these skills. In fact I would even say the gap is so vast that the main thing you learn after the first year or so is how much more there is to learn. Then when you "get there" (and you never really "get there", but anyway) you look back and wonder how you ever survived long enough to make it.
The cars today are so much more stable and forgiving, and with so much built-in safety, they can encourage as never before feeling invincible. Well, you are not invincible. To which everyone says, of course I'm not. I know that.
But here's the thing. The thing that makes the instructor scared, its not the speed. What scares him is knowing how many mistakes are being made by a person who has no idea he's even making them.
Its a tough situation. Years of driving on the street, well within the limits of traction, have built up a false image of driving. Because track driving, real driving, is not within but at the limit of traction. A limit determined by the drivers ability to effectively manage weight transfer. Its a whole new ball game.
The safest way I know to experience and practice this is at low to moderate speeds. The best way to do this is autocross and autocross schools. Driver Skills programs such as PCA and BMWCCA run are even better, though often harder to find. Unfortunately so many people want to go fast that in many areas there are more opportunities to get on a high speed track than what newcomers really need which is autocross and programs that teach basic car handling skills at low to moderate speeds.
None of this is meant to discourage anyone from going to the track. Any instruction is better than none. But do try and find these types of schools. They are easier on your car (and your pocketbook) and better experience than anything other than maybe a trip to one of the pro schools like Barber or Bondurant.
04-30-2014, 08:03 AM
#20
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Chuck writes:
"In fact I would even say the gap is so vast that the main thing you learn after the first year or so is how much more there is to learn."
>>TRUTH<<
If you are new to the track and don't take anything else away from this thread, take away that quote. This is Wisdom coming at you boyz.....Humility and an Ego Check will serve you well on track days.
"In fact I would even say the gap is so vast that the main thing you learn after the first year or so is how much more there is to learn."
>>TRUTH<<
If you are new to the track and don't take anything else away from this thread, take away that quote. This is Wisdom coming at you boyz.....Humility and an Ego Check will serve you well on track days.
04-30-2014, 09:53 AM
#21
Drifting
I think after reading this (for me anyway) the most important thing when going to the track as a rookie is to assume nothing, become stupid and teachable. Thanks for the insights
"become" ??!
04-30-2014, 10:44 AM
#23
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Simple, and its the same thing I told my 16 year old daughter they day she got her license; The gas pedal can put you in danger in ways the brake pedal never will.
Last edited by uhear; 04-30-2014 at 06:10 PM.
04-30-2014, 11:58 AM
#24
A piece of advise from my first instructor - "go get a cheap low HP car to slide around the track, one that makes you work for your speed"
Driving what is essentially a super car on the track, and passing people will make you think you are fast. My wife passed almost every car in her "c" group last year, on her first lap, due to the 550HP "M" wizardry & nannies on her car.
Passing a well driven 991 in a Miata, and you will know that you are fast. Next time you are at the track get a ride in a fully prepped low HP track car. I thought I was doing great at my first track day till I hitched a ride in a 87 944. Now I am shopping for a old NASA spec Miata, so I can learn to drive better.
Driving what is essentially a super car on the track, and passing people will make you think you are fast. My wife passed almost every car in her "c" group last year, on her first lap, due to the 550HP "M" wizardry & nannies on her car.
Passing a well driven 991 in a Miata, and you will know that you are fast. Next time you are at the track get a ride in a fully prepped low HP track car. I thought I was doing great at my first track day till I hitched a ride in a 87 944. Now I am shopping for a old NASA spec Miata, so I can learn to drive better.
04-30-2014, 12:02 PM
#25
Chuck writes: "In fact I would even say the gap is so vast that the main thing you learn after the first year or so is how much more there is to learn." >>TRUTH<< If you are new to the track and don't take anything else away from this thread, take away that quote. This is Wisdom coming at you boyz.....Humility and an Ego Check will serve you well on track days.
04-30-2014, 12:54 PM
#26
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Passing a well driven 991 in a Miata, and you will know that you are fast
About three years ago I was Instructing an event on the Shenandoah Circuit at Summit Point with the car you see in my Avatar - 2008 Boxster S, bone stock on street tires. A pair of other Instructors showed up with 996 GT3's on Slicks and they knew each other, fully decked out in livery with their Sparco suits and full race gear, they looked very cool. Meanwhile I'm in my jeans, tennis shoes and some short sleeve shirt. I'd never seen them at the track before, but if appearances were anything they looked ready to run the Rolex 24. I made a mental note to watch for them during the Instructor sessions because I expected them to come up very quickly on me and I wanted to give them plenty of room on the track when they did.
Imagine my surprise (truly) when I caught and passed both of them in each session. In a Boxster S. I will admit to a secret little smile under my helmet....mad skilz is mad skilz, eh?
About three years ago I was Instructing an event on the Shenandoah Circuit at Summit Point with the car you see in my Avatar - 2008 Boxster S, bone stock on street tires. A pair of other Instructors showed up with 996 GT3's on Slicks and they knew each other, fully decked out in livery with their Sparco suits and full race gear, they looked very cool. Meanwhile I'm in my jeans, tennis shoes and some short sleeve shirt. I'd never seen them at the track before, but if appearances were anything they looked ready to run the Rolex 24. I made a mental note to watch for them during the Instructor sessions because I expected them to come up very quickly on me and I wanted to give them plenty of room on the track when they did.
Imagine my surprise (truly) when I caught and passed both of them in each session. In a Boxster S. I will admit to a secret little smile under my helmet....mad skilz is mad skilz, eh?
04-30-2014, 04:06 PM
#28
Burning Brakes
