RickBetterley

I'm helping the BMW club DE this Monday and Tuesday; rain/snow showers Monday, showers Tuesday. And cool (40s/50s).
I've driven and ridden with Peter Argetsinger in the rain at the Glen and have a pretty good handle on the basics of driving in the rain.
But I'd love to get some tips specific to the Glen.
Thanks

Frank 993 C4S

From my limited experience: Last year WGI used Tide to clean up oil spills on track. The Tide seemed to come up through the new porous surface as it started raining and made certain areas of the track quite treacherous until it was fully washed away. The worst for me was T7 to T8, the sole of the boot as the water runs from left to right. I made a full 360 there last year in a straight line. My recommendation in that area is to stay on the high (left) side of the track.

bpu699

You mentioned Snow?!

jlanka

This is exactly where this happened during the Metro DE before the clash at the Glen last year. I guess my son got bit by this. Interesting.

dan212

The secret to teaching a rain line is to know it yourself

WGI is actually one of my favorite rain tracks. I actually liked the old surface because you really needed to understand the differences in surface. Less challenge on the new surface, but even one year later wear and use have effected the surface:

Asphalt has one grip level, concrete becomes glass. Even with the new surface, asphalt that has been ground down for for surfacing will be more slippery.

Wear:
Normal line wears smooth, offline less worn, more grip. Look at the color... Worn shines.

Color / sheen:
If its shiny, its slippery. This was really obvious on the front straight for example. Left side was shiny. Try braking there (haha), but inside line you can nail the brakes. Same with 6-7, 7-8.

Stay the F$CK off the curbs! If concrete turns to glass, curbs even more so.

Look for pooled water collecting in corners. Some turns will collect water near curbs. This can change from one lap to the next as water accumulates. Things always change. Keep watching and look for changes. Pay attention.

I try to show students just how much grip there can be offline, where people don't normally go, the track is less worn and how to read the surface. Left (normal) side shiny. Right side dark and grippy.

I'd show them: "Brake hard (and early, this is to demonstrate) and try to get on the ABS going into lets say T7. They won't brake hard enough. Brake even harder next time". They would be shocked at just how much grip there could be. The point was not to get onto ABS. The point was to show them how much grip there was if you knew where to look.

Even for yourself. Experiment with safe outs on where limits are.

Strategy:
The car will slip.. Plan for it. Sometimes that means give yourself room. Sometimes that means squaring corners more

Look for collecting pooled water as well as running water as is sometimes found in the outer loop. If there is a puddle, go straight through.

Ross Bentley (I think) said that the best way to drive in the rain was to keep the car a little loose. That way, you were not driving on rails with sudden slips. I don't have the ***** to do that and I am certainly not going to encourage a student to, but you get the point. The car will slip around. Driving as if it won't slip will get you into trouble.

As an instructor, you need to be prepared for things to get loose and keep your student calm.

Watch your student. This was from a couple of years ago. I could tell from the speed of his first input that he was going to counter too fast and too much. Calmed him and told him to boogey on.

Wild Weasel

We had some pretty heavy rain last year at the Zone 1 event.

I've got some experience at Mosport in heavy rain and there, you drive an entirely different wet line and pretty much avoid the dry line as much as possible.

At WGI, because of that beautiful new surface, we were sticking to the dry line in the rain mostly without issue.

Frank mentioned that there could be issues in some parts, so definitely take that to heart. All I'd really like to stress is to brake very early on the front straight heading toward turn 1. Get a feel for it. That was the only part of the track that scared the crap out of me because there seemed to be standing water gathering there or something. I hydroplaned enough to wonder if I was going to slow for turn 1 at all and missed the apex by a couple car lengths when I finally did get turned for it.

I got a good lesson from my instructor in how to deal with hydroplaning after that and backed up my braking by a fair margin. That first shot at it was harrowing though.

Wild Weasel

DANG!! That's some serious heads-up instructing right there!! Well done!

Matt Romanowski

From the middle of last year when I was last their with rain, the dry line still had more than enough grip. There was some puddling between the curbs and asphalt, so you had to stay 1-2' wide at the apex, but the track had plenty of grip everywhere.

CosmosMpower

Tell your student you don't want to die and make them run the whole track in 4th

TXE36

I was going to make some smart-assed comment about using the St. Louis method for driving in the rain and snow - pretend it isn't there. But damn, thankfully we don't have anything that like that in the rain here in TX (well, at least COTA, TWS, and MSRH).

Do the typical rain line rules such as where the dry line isn't apply to WGI? Generally around here, cold and wet is much slicker than warm and wet.

-Mike

ProCoach

^^This^^

Greater percentage of fore/aft dry grip available in the wet than lateral...

Watch the speed of the control inputs.

Frank 993 C4S

Wow - you are so much braver than me.

LuigiVampa

The other biggie, which includes the curbing, is stay off of painted surfaces.

NYoutftr

Throw up one of your videos, especially when it was pouring down rain

mannym5

Here is a recap of last years enduro on the new surface with spb and sp944's. Conditions went from wet- to damp/drying- to very wet for the last 1/4 of the race. With that being said we got an idea of the grip levels in all conditions. I was driving my fathers old sp3 car here on very old hoosier wets. As others mentioned there wasn't much of a "rain line" per say, so staying on the standard line worked for the most part except for the curbing which was extremely slick and puddles formed at the curbing in several sections including the uphill esses(see 25:40). One other thing to look out for is at turn 1.. If you overshoot the turn and have to go into the runoff area, be careful coming back on the track over the wide curbing there as its very very slick in the wet. I saw a lot of cars spin there and I had a few sketchy moments myself.. Once the heavy rain came as Frank mentioned, there was a stream flowing on the straight between 7 and 8 that became very dangerous at the end of our race. It wasn't as much of a problem in the light rain conditions.