jenk12m

Nice!!!

The Greek

Mike, you able to go to Winterfest?

jenk12m

Nope

Vonschmidt

Ok

For those of you that are interested ie driving COTA in the near future we now have a fully functioning race keeper data and duel camera system installed in our little GT2 along with the idash predictive lap timer so we can post data or possible email out the files if you have Race Keeper.

We are also going to be broadcasting live on the Internet from the car. You can go to the link below at any time before the weekend and click follow and the system will send you an email each time we are on the track. Unfortunalty we were unable to get the race keeper data steam embedded in the live broadcast video just yet but there are some pretty smart people still working on this

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-i...erican-porsche

Beats shoveling snow.......lol

TrackToyz

This...is ...awesome!

I will be buried in the garage swapping a motor in my other track toy, but I'll have the laptop open to this for inspiration.

Thanks!

Drew_K

I reserved a garage for the event and have a spot open. PM me if you're interested. $100 for your share ($300 total, and I have another person who is going to share already).

Rene

Any feedback from the Drivers Edge guys from today?

4forme

COTA is faster than I thought it was going to be. Don't have video or data (accidentally left it all at home), but going into T12 speed is 160-170mph. Switchbacks are not as bad as I thought they would be. Lots of blind approaches, tons and tons of grip and a fantastic facility. The garages will easily fit 4 cars plus gear (some guys had 6 cars in them). Garages include private bathrooms. All in it was a great first day and is a very challenging track. Glad I made it down.

Btwy- no crashes today, a couple corvettes and motor issues, otherwise uneventful day. The track surface is very easy on tires and brakes don't seem to be much of an issue given the hard braking zones. The COTA rep on site apologized for the DE event confusion and asked for patience while they get their operations up and running. He voiced a view that they want DE's to be part of the ongoing activities at COTA. Guess we will see in time.

jenk12m

glad you liked it despite the weather. we will see how cota handles the DE crowd after these 1st few events

kyrocks

COTA rep would also like us to post some positive comments on social media...

zweebach

Thanks for the feedback on the track. It's nice to know that COTA management, or at leat the individual you met, acknowledged the need for improvement.

I was able to watch one of Vonschmidt's sessions - it looked like a good group. How many run groups are there?

Vonschmidt

The track is great, it's so well laid out and flows so well all of you are going to love it. The straights are long enough to build up some real speed, I would suggest everyone bring extra brakes the track will eat them up quickly. I will try and do a technical review of the track later this week.

Due to the rain today I ran nt01 but track is really set up for Hooiser or slicks.

I would strongly suggest that everyone run 3/10 the first session, then 5/10 for the next two and perhaps 7/10 the last run. Save it for the second day, the is plenty of track in fact it's as wide as a freeway and plenty of grip everywhere. There are some deflections in the apex of several corners must be an intentional complication as the rest of the track is perfect.

Stay off the Gators they will eat your car, don't know this personally but I trust the pro that told us.

Bigger thing to everyone is the track is giving us all the opportunity of a lifetime and the chance to prove that amateur drivers can compete with the best int he world and deserve to drive. Take it easy, learn the track, and spend time studying all the video you can.

I ran race keeper full data which I will be happy to send out, but With the rain the speeds were slower also there are limited passing zones and I'm sure MVP will run the same ones.

Here is a link to video that was broadcast.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-i...erican-porsche

Nugget

Here are my notes from day one of the Driver's Edge event:

The track is fantastic. Great surface. It was grippy even in our rainy sessions and has excellent drainage. Very fast in the two straights, but I was surprised to see that the lower horsepower cars seemed to make up the difference in the slower parts of the track, which I always like to see.

I only got one session in the GT3 because I fell victim to the dread coolant fitting failure. Not what I'd hoped for this weekend. Thankfully the leakage wasn't dramatic and I was running water wetter, so I didn't cause anyone else any grief.

I took my (street, tire hauler) WRX out for a dry session after lunch. The WRX was a hoot -- very forgiving car, but two laps in I was completely out of brakes. Definitely take the brake-focused tech inspection requirements seriously. There's plenty of airflow and time for cooling, but the track definitely needs healthy brakes.

Beyond that, I rode with students in five other sessions today -- Corvettes, a Miata, and two 911s. I got a lot of laps from the right seat, even if I didn't get to drive much.

I'd done about 30 minutes of casual F1 2011 (xbox) prior to the event and watched the CJ youtube video a few times. I don't usually get much from videos and simulators, so I don't put a lot of energy into that.

From pit lane the hill into T1 looks incredibly steep but on track it was basically unnoticeable. You just get the gravity assist for stopping, but otherwise no drama. The apex, which was inscrutable and impossible to see on the xbox is actually quite easy to see. Maybe just the different sight picture of a street car compared to the simulated Formula One car.

Like 4forme, I also found the switchbacks a lot easier than I was expecting. You can look plenty far ahead and there's more room in there than you might expect to correct if you end up a little hot.

Corner entry precision seemed to be the key to speed and the track rewards "on power earlier" a lot more than "brake later" driving styles.

T16-T19 felt a lot smaller to me in real life than it did on the xbox -- which I attribute to the ability to use peripheral vision in real life much more than on a tv/monitor. Just seat of the pants I always felt like it was over sooner than I was expecting it to be.

Drivers seemed to consistently mis-judge T10 and T19, overbraking and going a lot slower than necessary through both of them. Visually they look a lot more intimidating than they really are, T19 in particular. T10 does have some wonky camber changes right at or right past apex that can catch you out if you're at the limit, but in general you can go faster than you'll probably feel like you can.

Beyond that, the facilities are fantastic and every single COTA employee, corner worker, gate guard, grid marshall, and concession worker I interacted with today was happy to be hosting us and pleasant to deal with. Whatever ambivalence the track has towards HPDE events doesn't appear to be widespread or universal at all.

Looking forward to a drier, albeit colder day tomorrow -- even if I won't be driving. Riding can be fun too.

jenk12m

nugget when you say switchbacks are yall referring to the esses?

Nugget

Yes.