Quikag

Haha, just kidding. He goes past me a little after 10:20 into this video and disappears off into the horizon along with a 675LT that blows past both of us on the back straight. Fun session overall. Still need to do alignment as it's chewing up the stock tires. Otherwise, very fun car on track and very capable in the right hands (not mine yet). skip to 6-8 minutes or so for some more action.

Quikag

Also, don't do what I did yesterday. See below vid. I got VERY VERY lucky. Car snapped on me big time and luckily zero damage occurred. I had turned off TC and ESC which I used to do all the time in the ZR1. I think I'm going to leave them on in the GT4 for a while longer or indefinitely as it's not very intrusive and I apparently can't catch a hard spin yet like this one.




view from C7 Z06 behind me (his tolltag was blocking part of his camera, but you get the gist):

vantage

Looks like tons of fun. Would love to run that track one day. How did brakes do?

Around that 10:20 mark when you were being super nice and trying to let the cars by, better to stay on the racing line and turn in a bit late. More predictable and easier for all parties.

On your spin, have you identified a cause? It sounded like you were in a trailing throttle situation (I.e. Weight shifting off rear tires) and also going over a crest. Sometimes that will cause a spin in a mid engined car. Tiny bit of maintenance throttle can settle the rear. Or was it just too much throttle, so power oversteer? Hard for me to tell from the video having not been to Cota either. Glad no harm.

Quikag

Brakes were great. I have SRF fluid and that's it. I do think a better track pad would be preferable as I am chewing up the stock pads. When I washed it this morning, black stuff was running down the driveway as I was hosing out the brake rotors. Of course, I think that's pretty normal after a hard track day.

On the 10:20 part, the Porsche RSR or whatever it was had completely dive bombed me so I was staying left and then he hits his brakes just off my 4 o'clock which is why I stayed off line after turn 10 and let him and Shake N' Bake go by before moving back off as the 675LT blew by.

On the spin, you can hear the engine zip up as the car loses it. I was back into the throttle after the turn and the traction just completely let go which caused the engine to rev up quickly which made it worse. Then the mid-engine (which I guess I'm not that used to) helped rotate the car around probably a bit more quickly than the ZR1 which I'm more used to along with probably some lightness in the rear-end due to a slight crest. Anyway, good lesson learned with no damage.

Need to work on holding the steering wheel more at 9 and 3 too. I shift my hands around sometimes to help hold myself in. I have the 18 ways and they aren't the best for hard track work.

jphughan

I was out there instructing, met Katmeho. Wish I'd met others. White group seemed especially insane this weekend for regular-ish cars like GT4s with all of the supercars and full racecars. That 1964 Ferrari F1 car with the 1.5L V12 revving to 12K was my favorite of the weekend. Also, you'd never know GT4s were hard to come by judging by this weekend, especially if you count the Clubsports that were out!

I left ESC on because it seems to wait until about 50 degrees of yaw before it does anything, which is more than enough leeway. It helped me once when I turned in too hot in T7 and another time when I messed up a shift to 4th in the middle of the carousel and let the rear loose from not being under power, which could have ended rather badly. I found a better technique through there after that in order to make the shift more safely.

bhk1004

What alignment are you running?

doborder

So Jeally... It's been raining cats and dogs in NorCal. Was suppose to go to Sonoma but heard there was a stream across the track today

ccibo72

Thanks for sharing the vids. In the spin, did you come off throttle? Can't really tell. Having driven COTA the video doesn't really capture the degree of camber (off) and elevation change right at that point.

myBailey07

What gear were you in for the turn? I could not clearly see on vid, but it looks like 2nd. If so, try 3rd in that turn. Car is much more stable in third and throttle less sensitive over that crest in third and you have enough speed to carry through. You can be on power 100% in third there while second might give you trouble. Dave Scott really helped me on the gearing and getting on throttle much sooner there, but had to be in third.

Just something to try...good driving as always.

As far as ShakeNBake goes, don't worry, he's "cheating" on those massive hoosiers of his. In my mind they are worth at least 10 seconds a lap...

ExMB

From the vid, at about 10 min, it looks to me that you took a little too late apex on ten which didn't allow you to track out properly and then set up for the hairpin turn 11. It looks like you then saw the RSR and got a little flustered and stayed off line all the way thru 11.

I would agree with your self assessment of your hand placement. You got them too close together numerous times especially in turns.

jpgunn

What are/were your tire pressures at hot?

RocketGuy3

Driving looked pretty good to me, haha, but I'm still a track n00b, so what do I know.

Was that the unmolested factory exhaust, Quikag? Man that was loud.

Mvez

COTA looks fun.

If you plan to use stock seats and 3-pt belts, I would certainly invest in a Simpson Hybrid Sport for some head and neck protection. They work regardless of what belt setup you have.

jphughan

It definitely has its thrilling segments, and it's unquestionably a challenging track that many will find rewarding for that reason, but I drove it after doing a lot of track days at TWS, and in some ways I like TWS better. CotA is very "rubber band-y" in that there are so many segments where you build up a ton of speed, but then you've got a hairpin that requires you to bleed most of it back off, then you build up a bunch more speed, then bleed most of it back off again, rinse, repeat. TWS on the other hand is an easier track both for novices to pick up and for skilled drivers to master, and the lack of any nice run-off is certainly disconcerting, but man it lets you build so much momentum and then maintain it due to not requiring very much braking overall, so if you know your way around that track you can just keep flying around lap after lap on that track, which is a whole lot of fun. But CotA being as nice of a facility as it is, complete with generous paved run-off, and being located so much closer to where I live is definitely a plus.

ShakeNBake

Great seeing ElectronMike, Quikag, and Katmeho out there this weekend (probably forgetting a few others I met...). There were a lot of GT4s and a dozen or so Clubsports. It was fun watching the front runners in the Pirelli Trophy series GT4 class beating up on many of the GT3 Cup guys. There was about 10 seconds between the fastest drivers in the GT3 Cup and the Clubsport. Not too bad given how close the clubsport is to the street car. Another tidbit I learn is that they are also running 101 Octane, in addition to having 100cell cats and a very different tune. So they are probably running 10-15HP more than the street car.

A little waggle from Katmeho (he wanted me to post it) - FF to 2:05 and watch T20.



If you are going to win the DE, you need to come prepared
Hoosiers are cheaper than Cup2s!!

Hoosiers are worth about 5-6 seconds when new, about 3 seconds after 5-6 heat cycles, and 1-2 secs after 8...compared to Cup2s that are still have front bite.