cgomez

A clip from one of the sessions last Friday:

Car felt great, and the power is unbelievable. The rear end is easy to control and despite being a turbo car the throttle can be nicely modulated.

First time out with the car at VIR. Weather was extremely cold and the front end had little grip on the tighter sections (too much understeer and an exercise in patience). Also, OEM MPSCs don't seem as grippy as real RComps, so the setup might work with proper tires; or otherwise will try to soften the front end a bit (Swaybar was 2nd hole from full stiff)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZzgQKLVw9s

With RComps (hoosiers, V710 or real MPSC) and sorting out the balance <2:02s should be very doable.

zmann

CGOMEZ,

great video. I was up there with you last weekend. First time at the track. What a great course.

Loved your car. Sorry that you had to run home after Friday's sessions. The weather was much nicer as the weekend went on - especially Sunday.

I love the fact that you were turning sub 2:10 laps and then left the track and drove the same car home to NY. Pretty impressive all around car.

eclou

great work! Putting you into the 6speed laptimes database

datax

Very good times for a car that is right off from the show room. I like the opposite lock action at the Oak Tree. Did you turn off the traction control? How is it on the highway as someone mentioned you drove it to the track? Hope to see you at VIR someday. Never seen a 7GT2 at the track before. The car is a beast!

cgomez

I wouldn't do it any other way. GT3, RS and GT2 are great street cars, and the idea of driving a Diesel Truck 16+ hours over a weekend for 2-3 hrs of track time on such streetable cars is still incomprehensible to me (+ the nightmare logistics of a trailer). I would only do it for racing in a real racecar (Cup Car? ...that's another level...).

The 500+mi drive each way was a breeze with SatNav, Bluetooth, good stereo +Ipod..

cgomez

I always drive with TC and SC off. I like to be under total control + it is always fun to fool around where its safe (Oak tree exit for example). Despite the turbo, the car is very predictable (however, N/A is always more predictable), and just becomes a handful in very lousy grip conditions (wet).

For DEs I always "drive what I run" to the track... unless I do Racecar rental.

NJ-GT

CG,

Where did you attach the camera?

cgomez

It's attached to the passenger window with a suction cup mount.

If you use a good camera, the best angle is from the rear window, but the white balance of the bullet chasecam is very bad and therefore you will not be able to see much out of the front window

http://axisofoversteer.com/blog/movies/3upB.mov

NJ-GT

I just got a Sony HDR-TG1. Quite compact, very light and it records to memory stick.

I ran a sample video from the rear window as you mentioned, and it works quite well. Thanks. I ordered the 6 suction cups mount from ChaseCam to try it.

In the meantime, I have been using the GoPro wide lens hero camera. Ultra small and portable, but only good for shooting outside the car.

iLLM3

Crazy drive, I did it twice but with trailer, it sucks but my suspension would have been all out of whack by the time I get out of NY on my GT2 :/

Sick laps, thanks for sharing!

930man

im sad i never took my 997 gt2 on the track it would be a 2: 04 car all stock I know... i know what i did in the 997 gt3 all stock

930man

in fact might do a 2:03

cgomez

Agreed. My bet is <2:02. Even that day I ran 5-6 consecutive laps in the 2:07s in the last session and I was loosing a good chunk of time in T2 - T3 - T4 as I just couldn't see where the track went (5pm no sunglasses..). 2:05s would have been very doable under those far from perfect conditions.

Looking at the Telemetry from other times (in other cars), I have faster times in T1 - T5a and T14 - T17a in my Exige S, when I know that in my old well setup 997S on RA1s I was still faster in the 997S than in the Exige S (in tight sections) due to corner exit acceleration despite a minor loss in apex speed.

Also there are 1.5 -2secs to be easily made in the uphill esses once you have a confident setup that allows you to commit and have that needle pinned above 120mph min speed (bigger hairier organs help too!) with a probable 95+ apex speed at South Bend.

It is also possible to go deeper into the carrousel and you will hit 160mph+ before braking.

A bit more grip (higher temps) and neutral setup (maybe no need to change anything but just get more grip from better temps up front) will allow for a killer lap time (I didn't use 2nd gear anywhere T1 - T5a as I just couldn't use full throttle without spinning the tires).

My bet is the GT2 should be 4-5.5secs faster than a GT3.

This is the "Theoretical best lap time from that day":

cgomez

I have a similar camera, but prefer to use the Chasecam as it is nicely sync'd to my traqmate data (or are you being able to connect that Camera to the chasecam - sync'd - PDR?)

930man

agreed... 2:02 is tough 2:00 is tough did both in the 996 gt2, but ran 2:06 the first day i drove the 997 gt3 with out any set up, or alignment