tvr-4

I love DEs and find them a great, safe environment, but i dont think its the place to find the limit given the DE safety objectives (which is a good thing).

The obvious pieces seem to be lots of seat time, coaching, data analysis, and guts... but the question is how and where to accomplish this in a (somewhat) safe and progressive manner?

Couple of thoughts i had are private track time with less cars and more seat time, time on skid pad (wet/dry),but would love to get the thoughts from all the experienced folks here.

Lets discuss

Juha G

Seat time, seat time, seat time... there's no way around it.
When you get more experienced you can start pushing more. Start with slower speed corner where there is good run off.

1990nein

--

Veloce Raptor

Wet skid pad. Karting. Lots of seat time in a wide variety of weather conditions. Coaching. Data.

rlm328

The coaches on here will eventually pipe in.

But this is my approach.
1) Always go into a weekend with a plan, what do you want to improve.
2) I will try and have an instructor ride with me at least once a weekend, their insight is deeply appreciated as they will see problems you are having or developing. I like to change instructors as they will have different insight.
3) My first session I do late apexes, and see if I need to adjust my plan as a corner I thought I new has slipped out of my grasp.
4) The remaining sessions I usually concentrate on 1 or 2 corners or a series of corners and drive more relaxed the rest of the lap.
5) I will pick one of my sessions during the weekend and I will try and put it all together
6) I will review my data and compare it against the same track from other weekends to see if I improved.

jscott82

You don't say what your current experience level is, so I'll assume new'ish...

First thing is consistensy. You need to be able to thoughtfully drive the same line, and same laptime lap after lap...the only way to cross this threshold is seattime..

Once you are able to do that consistently, then you can start sneaking up on improvements... That is where data and coaching can help a lot...

gbuff

+1000

Case in point--this weekend @ Mid-O had a driver in an uber VW GTI ask me how I was getting through the turns so much faster than him in my stock Cooper, so I asked him how many days he had driven at the track and it wasn't very many.....you simply cannot learn the nuances of any track, especially one as demanding as Mid-Ohio, w/o driving it again and again in all conditions as noted. This weekend was perfect in that Friday was wet and Saturday was dry and fast!

Seat time--there is no substitute

Gary

C-gt3

have you done Daytona yet?
have you hit 180mph in a track street car coming into turn 1?
have turned into the bus stop when it was raining on the back straight just for fun but dry on the exit?
i have found my limits at sebring and daytona and still try to break on through to the other side.

tvr-4

As expected, lots of valuable advice!

Somone asked about my experience - did lots of karting young (never competed), and have always been around cars... I have an SP3 944 car running R888 tire and usually get within 5-10secs of fastest class race lap times for the class, but get nervous pushing beyond this (I only do 3-4 weekends per year, so I completely realize seat time is the major outage).

I'm comfortable with car control and have a pretty good seat feel, but in a DE environment, I get nervous about pushing beyond comfort level because I don't want to be "that guy" causing the session to end or getting booted for two spins.

I heard wet skid pad advice - how does one get access? What are other venues that are more receptive to pushing the car and getting into some spins / grass excursions without risking car contact or being booted?

gbuff

It's funny, but we talk about reps/seat time as essential to learn but how do you learn to spin w/o actually doing it? Years ago many of the DEs did have access to a wet area to practice just this--I don't seem to see it as much any more, if at all.....then again, finding a snow-covered parking lot during the winter months in Buffalo gives ample opportunity for practice

Gary

Veloce Raptor

Yeah, OP, where do you live?

A snow covered parking lot early on a Sunday morning is a great option

tvr-4

Ha, awesome - have done this wih my dads car as a teen and with most of the cars since... unfortunately, the current track car is stored in the winter and I'm not sure cops would appreciate seeing me unloading a race car off a trailer... or maybe they would 😀

Id love if clubs stared scheduling wet skid pads during DEs. For one, I'd be glad to pay the extra fee to get some car control sessions in between runs - I know not every track would be conducive to this, but would be awesome if this could be arranged...

gbuff

Nah, just do it with your DD, whatever it is--you just want to feel what it's like to go around (and around ) and how to correct....

Just beware of those light poles in the middle of the lot

Gary

NYoutftr

This is the route I am on.
So far 3 DEs, 2 WGI and 1 NJMP Lightning
First DE at Watkins Glen had rain first day dry the second. I did not have a camera in the car, but instructor feedback, I was improving steadily.
This year at Watkins Glen, I had a camera with free race render and thus lap times.
First day , run groups 1&2 were all right around 3:00, groups 3&4 were all between 2:54 and 2:43, depending on how many cars I signalled past me.
Second day, group 1 all in 2:40s, group 2, I was getting through the corners much faster, but my instructor and I were letting cars get past, so I could improve at certain points on the track. We continued this throughout the rest of the day.
Group 3, turn 9 and 10, instructor said just as fast as possible. The bus stop, going through the esses, a couple times I had to let some high horsepower cars go past, so my entry speed going into bus varied from 65-70 to 45-50, but exiting pretty consistent and setting up for turn 5 , the same way each lap, this is what we worked on.
Turn 6, I could not hit the apex consistent, but could set up perfect for turn 7, this we had worked on.
I wanted to improve on turn 8, but the cars I could catch or pass in the corners, were on my bumper in the straight aways.
Turn 9, lets just say that needs some practice, the farther out you can exit that corner the better it seemed, but the blue wall keep looking like it was moving toward me.
Anyway, the point I wanted to make was agreeing with finding a standard and then improving 1 piece at a time.
Best laps, were 2:37 & 2:38.
This is me in the green group with 5 total track days, I know, not fast, but loving it!!!

tvr-4

Well, I do 1:45s at WGI in a Cup Car and have won races there.... umm, yeah but on a simulator... and after trashing several million $$ in cars till I got into somewhat of a rhythm :-)