ProCoach

True. Agressive acceleration and braking, even dragging the brakes agains the accelerator, while respecting what other posters have said about not catching out the folks behind or ahead.

What this does is to move the laterally (and diagonally) woven belts internal to the tire carcass against each other, building heat through friction, permeating the tread evenly and (relatively) quickly raising tire pressures closer to nominal levels.

One of the practice drills I recommend is to build experience going as quickly as you can, as soon as you can, in test or practice sessions, so that you accumulate a) the knowledge of which end of the car gains grip first and at what rate, evaluating handling balance and how it changes coming up to speed and b) the knowledge of what the car feels like with slightly suboptimal temps and pressures.

This is an important exercise, especially with slicks, where the differential between "cold" and "hot" is usually significant. Do your out lap like a quick pace lap and then, in measured steps, raise your second lap speed to probe the balance and overall grip. Usually, by the third lap, tires (and you) should be normalized and up to temperature.

So many races are made or lost not on passes early but simply coming up to speed quicker than the next driver. An opening lap two-three-four seconds quicker than the next person, even if that person does ultimately a slighly quicker lap in the race, can really help you and put the monkey on their back.

When I look at time cards (a page of EACH race lap for each car in a race), there are often a wide variety of opening lap times between cars, followed by MUCH narrower differentials between fast laps for the SAME cars, later in the race...

Frank 993 C4S

So true!

Juan Lopez

^ this

I accelerate and brake as many times as i can (as can be confirmed by the other Cups this weekend). I then do long squiggles to cleanup the klagg from the tires.

Rich, glad to see you came out ok, Stu just scared me, where did that car come from?

smf32s

Juan, he just came up quickly on my inside. I left a hole so I am partly to blame. Could have been more defensive of my position. I was just a little unsure of who was around me so I erred to the safe side which cost me many positions in each sprint start. I assumed I could get my positions back in a 10 or 12 lap sprint but both were sadly only 1-3 hot laps and the rest on yellow due to other on track mistakes by many drivers. Lesson learned on my part. Finally had a good start in the enduro and pitted in 4th after 40 minutes but my fuel pump failed and my ringer codriver never got to make the run I had hoped. Oh well. Next time.

Stu

Juan Lopez

I think you did the right thing about "defending your position". If he is faster than you, then give him room and be predictable. I don't defend, I race them to the end and they better not breathe

Next time, just stick next to or behind me and let's get out of the 1st lap madness. Making up 3/4 seconds is very hard and perhaps impossible except if the other driver makes a mistake. Most GTA2 cars were driven well and consistently!!!

We all have incidents when we or someone else spins and we find ourselves in "close quarters" but in your case, that looked too close. Hard to see without video of the other car but looked like he really cooked it in a desperate try to out brake you into the turn. I would have held back and tried to race you out of the bowl and all the way into the safety pin.

I ran 3rd overall on the enduro until I killed my tires when I locked them up to evade a spinning car on T10. Had to do a second stop and that killed my race.

Funny thing, I was flying on the WarmUp (2:07.0), have it on video, Motec, etc but I can't see it on RaceMonitor ???

uscarrera

Krause glad to read your post on tire warm up Dave White taught me that years ago and it worked well on my Hoosier R6s and Hankooks on my 993 I found the Pirelli slicks needed even more effort to heat up.
Thanks
Rich

Juan Lopez

I forgot to mention, don't be surprised if you get tire rotation on the wheel. I have found this to be more common when running Hoosiers on my Fuchs. The Toyo's and BFG seem to have a tougher/stickier/whatever bead which is less prone to that.

ProCoach

Good old Dave White!

Taught more people about how to endurance race well than anyone else I know!

Looking beyond outright performance and focusing on strategic preparation, then practicing before the race pays great dividends!

ProCoach

Absolutely true. I see more drivers screwing themselves trying to second guess "defensive strategy" against other competitors when driving just driving the car as quickly as it can go fixes or even prevents a potential problem...

Nothing you were going to do would have fixed stupid on the part of the bonzai man... It was his judgement failure, not your mistake in not taking a "defensive line."

JLS, I SAW it as it was happening on Race Monitor in Palm Beach Sunday morning, so it was up for all to see!

sbelles

Anyone heard from Dave lately? I know he was having some health issues a while back.

Juan Lopez

Well I hope I have made you proud! The day I put all of your input together... it will be even faster

al@cpt

+1000000000000000000

Viperbob1

He stops by the old shop every now and then. He continues to fight (not in his nature to give up), but taking a toll. He is going to 12 Hour with our old tractor trailer driver in his camper. Always good to see Dave out at the track. He has a 3 wheel scooter for cruising the pits. And I can tell you from experience, watch out for the cane

uscarrera

I still see Dave on a regular basis the Parkinsons is taking its toll but as Bob said he is a fighter and a hard competitor no matter what the foe. He is still the crusty old bastard he has always been and we all love him for that
Rich

ProCoach

He's a terror on the golf cart, even now...