Who was there? I saw a lot of well-driven boxsters!

 

I was there driving an Arctic silver Boxster with the hard top on. Blue group. There was a lot more Boxsters than I have ever seen at a DE.

Chris

 

I was in the silver boxster S (car 871) parked near the entrance to the paddock.

What a great event even with the brisk weather!

 

Hi guys, You are right there were a good amount of boxsters at the event. Its good to see it as well as the mods y'all have been working on. The only thing bad about the cold weather was my tires could not hook up after 10 laps. It was hard to get the right starting pressure. Also, I went through a complete set of minox c tech pads. When I got home I checked them out and I have maybe 4 mm left. I ordered up a set of Perf friction 01 comps which I guess are comparable to pagid blue. we will see how it goes. these pads are pricey so I might start changing out front pads at the start and end of all future events. Not so bad when its 40-50 degrees out but a bummer when its 90 to 100 degrees this summer. Brian, where did you get the trailer hitch. I have to start thinking about a trailer.
Scott

01 986 Black/ Savanah
Gmund tag

 

I got my trailer hitch from EVO motorsports and you can find their website at http://www.evoms.com. I don't see the hitch advertised on their website anymore, but you can call them up to see if they still sell it. Otherwise, if you go to the Boxster Racing Board, you'll see a few other recommended hitches.

Gmund, you are cruising along pretty well out there. I would strongly suggest going with the Pagid Oranges (or something comparable) rather than the blues. Otherwise, you are going to be changing pads very often.

From what I heard in the paddock, most people who keep track of lap times were down by about 2-3 seconds due to the cold weather. It sounds like we didn't get the tires to hook up for most of the event!

 

Yea, Mark Lee says I was doing 131-132.4s. on his stopwatch at the Start/finish tower. Skip did some 129's in hia 993 4/s. I could only keep with him for 5 laps then he DID get his sport cups to hook up, & my brakes faded, tires faded, my energy faded... all that. I'll see you if you post at the 4/9 & 4/10 event with shattenbaum..Do you have a hot lap gizmo? what were your times?
Scott

 

No hot lap gizmo

However, I do set up a video camera and check out lap times after the event with it. My best time was a 1:32.5 with quite a few in the low 1:33 range.

Seems like I was the slow guy out there - I'll make the HWFMR team proud!

 

Both of you guys were running sport cups, but I had no problems with my RA-1's on the cold track. They did pretty well at VIR in November too.

I'll have to go back to my tape a get an idea of my lap times, but I think they were getting better until my brakes faded Sunday before lunch. I put in a new set of Pagid oranges (definitely worth the money) at lunch; so part of the first afternoon session was spent bedding my brakes.

Brian, this was your first event in your S? I'm assuming you got used to the shifting by the end of the weekend, but did you find the gear ratios and new power much different? I wish I had a few more horses for climbing up the hill coming out of 9.

Chris

 

Yes, first event in my S. So, while I'd like to blame the sport cups for my being slow, I think I know where the problem really lies...

The gearing is quite a bit different from my old boxster (a 2.5L tiptronic) Being able to hit 105 in 3rd gear is a huge change. For the most part, I didn't even do that much shifting on the track. I'd downshift to 3rd at T1 and then leave it in 3rd all the way to T9. Then, I'd upshift shortly before the bridge and leave it in 4th for T10.

Granted, I was probably leaving some time on the table by not shifting as much, but trying to shift more had me overslowing the car in order to make the shift.

I think my biggest problem was that I was just on the brakes too much for T3 and T10. Next time I go back, I'm going to brake a lot earlier and lighter and just focus on my corner entry speed. Once I get that figured out, I'll move the brake points back to a normal spot.

Oh, about the extra power. It was nice, but gmund was significantly faster than me through T10. I don't think the power differential was enough to overcome better driving.

 

That's interesting that you stayed in 3rd for most of the lap. In my non-S if I don't shift down to 2nd going into T1, I have no torque to help pass before T3. The only problem with being in 2nd is that I have to upshift really fast while exiting T2 or my rev limiter shuts me down. It's really hard to do that in stock seats when you're getting thrown to the outside. I also worry about slowing down from around 120 to a speed aceptable for 2nd. When there is clear sailing, I just drop to 3rd, but use second for T5,6,7.

I agree that Gmund is pretty fast coming through T10. He's either an animal or has real confidence in those sport cups and the rest of his car. He should also definitley move to Pagid oranges or some sort of equivalent. It's worth the time changing out your pads at the track.

 

I tried downshifting to 2nd for T1, and I also ran out of revs at the end of T2. Since I didn't feel fully confident in my shifting, I figured it was safer to just leave it in 3rd rather than trying to shift at the end of the turn. I'll have to analyze the tape closer to see how much time that decision is costing me.

I had a similar issue with T5,6,7 - I didn't bother going down to 2nd as I felt I didn't have a good place to shift back up.

T10... Ugh. All I can say is that I'm definitely overbraking it. At my fastest, I was exiting it around 90MPH. Usually, though, I was around 84 MPH. I also think I should be able to exit faster than 90 if I entered the turn better.

As far as switching out pads at the track. I don't even bother anymore - I just use Pagid Oranges all year long. Who has the time to keep switching?

 

I think I'm braking a little too hard in T10 also. I'm exiting at just under 90. I looked down once and saw that I was entering at about 81. I felt more confident with a hard brake to really plant the front wheels but might be carrying it too long. BTW I take it in 3rd and can't even hit 4th until the pit out.

If you're changing tires at the track anyway, it's only an extra 2 minutes a wheel to change the pads. I actually picked up the trick of using Robogrips to compress the pads from you the last time you were at SP with Schattenbaum. I guess when I run out of street pads (Pagid Blues) I'll have to decide whether or not to spend money on more pads or just use what I've got.

 

Wow, Good Banter all around. I used to run 3rd all the way around only shifting to 4th on the main straight. I still do for the first couple of laps. when I'm really concentrating (which I should always be) I shoot for second in 1 & 5. Since 1 is such a long & relatively stable turn by the exit, I have no proplem shifting before the hole/exit point smoothly. with this extra grunt I don't lose anything on the run to turn 3 which I gett right only 50% of the time. Now in the Chute I'm at redline in third at about 105. I can always seem to heel toe into second which is crucial to powering through the Carosel. You modulate power and shift at the exit of turn 7. By the time you exit 9 ( the # 2 primary turn) your car is stable, fast and you may have the opportunity to go to 4th. The point here is the heel & toe shifting into second of which I was never able to do until sunday. after I figured it out with the help of tom Trew, I was able to lower my lap times. The other consideration was that smoothness & consistancy was better for the laptimes as well. When I was belting out 131-132.5's I whould have laps that I thought were fast but were 138-140's. I think my goal would be to run all 131-132's... quick, no mistakes,smooth. I think this would be better from a racing point of view counting on a competitors mistakes. to move you on up the field. One last comment. My exits on turn 10 were consistantly 85-87mph with only one or two at 89 or 90. I look everytime at my farthest left track out ie when I hit the stripes. Scared as hell half the time too.

 

Scott,

Do you brake at all before 4? I've tried both and don't really feel much difference but feel more confident getting my front tires planted a little before turn in.
I would agree that a smooth heel and toe shift into 5 works pretty well. I find that being in 2nd I can almost throttle steer through 6 and 7. By shifting up exiting 7 I'm on the gas all way through 8 and 9 which is crucial climbing the hill with a 911 or a 944 turbo in front of me.
BTW are you doing the Schattenbaum DE in April?

Chris

 

Chris,

Be careful of that "braking to plant the front tires" thing on high speed turns. In general, that's inviting some oversteer, which can be a little exciting at 80-100MPH

Usually, you will want to have your foot lightly on the gas entering a high speed turn. If you want to "plant the front tires", then your foot could be in the transition state from brakes to gas. That transition should buy you all the planting that you need.

Even if you don't get oversteer, you are likely causing yourself to overbrake the corner if you are still on the brakes by the turn-in point (this advice is for high speed corners, lower speed ones have different techniques)

I'd suggest for both T10 and T4 to brake much earlier so that you can have the car well balanced by the time you actually turn in. The next time I'm at the track, I'm going to experiment with braking at the bridge for T10 and at the top of the hill for T4.

Also, use your first few laps (they should be warmup laps anyhow) to approach these turns without using any brakes. Obviously, you'll have to not hit the gas so hard out of T9 to do this, but I think you might surprise yourself by how fast you can take T10.

Personally, I was doing much the same thing as you were doing, and it's the first thing I plan to fix on my next visit to SP. If I were to guess, with warmer weather and better technique, T10 might be a 100MPH corner.