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Any Track Rats Still Active?

ChrisAttebery

Drag Racing Champion
I went to Laguna Seca with NCRC again yesterday. It was a 103dB day so there were a lot of fast cars. I wanted to run in Point By but was told that I should stick to Solo for this day since there wouldn't be a driving school and everyone in Solo was supposed to have previous track experience. There were 3-4 drivers in the class that clearly should have been with an instructor. I was passing some of them 2-3 times in a 20 minute session. Some of them were fine but one guy in a Mini was braking hard and pointing people by in the middle of corners. Another guy in an Elise was braking really early, in mid corner, not following the line and not pointing people by. He was really pissing me off.

Anyway the car felt really stable even under hard braking, turned in well and felt balanced mid corner. The RS4s were nice. I set them to 37 PSI hot and had to remove some air after each session. They are a little squirmy, but they had better traction than the Direzza IIs that I had before. The tires had even temps across their faces. The fronts were in the upper 130's and the rears were in the upper 110's to lower 120's. I set both sway bars (H&R 26mm F, H&R 24mm R) to stiff and left them alone.

Right when I got home the TPMS light came on. The tires must have finally cooled off enough on the way home to lower the pressure. I'll check the cold pressure today to see where I wound up.


Yes, that was a Viper ACR passing me at the beginning of the front straight. He was by far the fastest guy in my group.
 

jay745

What Would Glenn Danzig Do
I'll be interested to see what you come up with. I had a set and couldn't find a way to mount them that made me feel comfortable.
There's a good chance I'll come to the same conclusion, I bought them on a whim because they were $4 each and figured if I couldn't make it work it's no harm no foul. Do you have oem control arms?
 

jay745

What Would Glenn Danzig Do
I went to Laguna Seca with NCRC again yesterday. It was a 103dB day so there were a lot of fast cars. I wanted to run in Point By but was told that I should stick to Solo for this day since there wouldn't be a driving school and everyone in Solo was supposed to have previous track experience. There were 3-4 drivers in the class that clearly should have been with an instructor. I was passing some of them 2-3 times in a 20 minute session. Some of them were fine but one guy in a Mini was braking hard and pointing people by in the middle of corners. Another guy in an Elise was braking really early, in mid corner, not following the line and not pointing people by. He was really pissing me off.

Anyway the car felt really stable even under hard braking, turned in well and felt balanced mid corner. The RS4s were nice. I set them to 37 PSI hot and had to remove some air after each session. They are a little squirmy, but they had better traction than the Direzza IIs that I had before. The tires had even temps across their faces. The fronts were in the upper 130's and the rears were in the upper 110's to lower 120's. I set both sway bars (H&R 26mm F, H&R 24mm R) to stiff and left them alone.

Right when I got home the TPMS light came on. The tires must have finally cooled off enough on the way home to lower the pressure. I'll check the cold pressure today to see where I wound up.


Yes, that was a Viper ACR passing me at the beginning of the front straight. He was by far the fastest guy in my group.
LUCKY! I want to drive laguna seca soooooo bad.

Try around 33-34 hot, for me that's the sweet spot on RS4's
 

ChrisAttebery

Drag Racing Champion
There's a good chance I'll come to the same conclusion, I bought them on a whim because they were $4 each and figured if I couldn't make it work it's no harm no foul. Do you have oem control arms?

Yes, I have the OE stamped arms. Maybe the aluminum ones will work better with the Porsche ducts.
 

ChrisAttebery

Drag Racing Champion
LUCKY! I want to drive laguna seca soooooo bad.

Try around 33-34 hot, for me that's the sweet spot on RS4's

It's funny I've been there 4 times and now I'd really like to check out something that is a bit more flowing with some esses and connected turns like Thunderhill or Buttonwillow. LS is turn straight turn straight, etc. The Corkscrew is interesting but if you listen to the instructors it really isn't too difficult. Actually turn 6 before the CS is hard to get right on the apex and carry momentum up the hill. Turn 9 right after the CS is harder to get right. It's downhill, slightly off camber and the apex is pretty far down the hill.
 

MrFancypants

Autocross Champion
My last time out there were some novices on track that had clearly never been on a race track before and it was as sketchy as you describe. There's nothing quite like seeing someone in a Hellcat that has absolutely no idea where the driving line is. I chose to run novice since I'm knocking the rust off after years of no track driving, but as it turned out I was giving tips to intermediate drivers.

What sucks is that I can't get in with better organizations right now because all of the good ones want you to run with an instructor in the car if you've never run with them before. That's great and I'm all for it, but that means I'll have to wait until the Covid thing is under control. I guess I can just use the money I'm saving on upgrades.
 

zef

Drag Racing Champion
My last time out there were some novices on track that had clearly never been on a race track before and it was as sketchy as you describe. There's nothing quite like seeing someone in a Hellcat that has absolutely no idea where the driving line is. I chose to run novice since I'm knocking the rust off after years of no track driving, but as it turned out I was giving tips to intermediate drivers.

What sucks is that I can't get in with better organizations right now because all of the good ones want you to run with an instructor in the car if you've never run with them before. That's great and I'm all for it, but that means I'll have to wait until the Covid thing is under control. I guess I can just use the money I'm saving on upgrades.

Our club is doing lead follow sessions in lieu of an in-car instructor. Win-win for everyone - I learn much more from a lead-follow from a faster driver than having someone in the passenger seat giving directions
 

ChrisAttebery

Drag Racing Champion
Our club is doing lead follow sessions in lieu of an in-car instructor. Win-win for everyone - I learn much more from a lead-follow from a faster driver than having someone in the passenger seat giving directions

My first track day we did with 2 sessions of lead-follow and then they let us loose. My instructor was in a Ford Fiesta rental car and he proved that you don't need a fast car to go fast.

A couple track days later I wound up getting a couple sessions with the instructor in car. He happens to have a older (Mk2-3?) GTI track car with a supercharged VR6. Our cars are actually fairly competitive. He pointed out that the twitchy feeling my car had in corners was actually the stability control kicking in because I was trail braking too much. I wouldn't have know that from a lead-follow. He came out on track and did an impromptu lead-follow later in the day. If you have a good instructor you will learn a lot from in car and follow up. My instructor has also looked at my track day videos from more recent track days and given me feedback.
 

jay745

What Would Glenn Danzig Do
My first track day we did with 2 sessions of lead-follow and then they let us loose. My instructor was in a Ford Fiesta rental car and he proved that you don't need a fast car to go fast.

A couple track days later I wound up getting a couple sessions with the instructor in car. He happens to have a older (Mk2-3?) GTI track car with a supercharged VR6. Our cars are actually fairly competitive. He pointed out that the twitchy feeling my car had in corners was actually the stability control kicking in because I was trail braking too much. I wouldn't have know that from a lead-follow. He came out on track and did an impromptu lead-follow later in the day. If you have a good instructor you will learn a lot from in car and follow up. My instructor has also looked at my track day videos from more recent track days and given me feedback.
turn those nannies off!

https://www.goapr.com/support/esp-defeat.html
 

ChrisAttebery

Drag Racing Champion
I have a 2011. The only way I've been able to turn off the ESC is to disable the steering wheel sensor. The problem with that is that I also lose traction control. If I had an LSD I would think about it. I've done a lot of reading on the matter and it can actually be helpful as a training aid. For example at Laguna turn 9 is downhill and off camber. My natural response has been to trail brake on entry. I noticed the ESC kicking in so now I resist the urge to brake and instead give the car a little maintenance throttle to settle the suspension.
 

zrickety

The Fixer
33 front 32 rear has worked best for me. I'm going to be tracking the R56 Mini Cooper this fall...just for something different. The fact that PO put an LSD in the transmission is a plus.
 

MrFancypants

Autocross Champion
My first track day we did with 2 sessions of lead-follow and then they let us loose. My instructor was in a Ford Fiesta rental car and he proved that you don't need a fast car to go fast.

A couple track days later I wound up getting a couple sessions with the instructor in car. He happens to have a older (Mk2-3?) GTI track car with a supercharged VR6. Our cars are actually fairly competitive. He pointed out that the twitchy feeling my car had in corners was actually the stability control kicking in because I was trail braking too much. I wouldn't have know that from a lead-follow. He came out on track and did an impromptu lead-follow later in the day. If you have a good instructor you will learn a lot from in car and follow up. My instructor has also looked at my track day videos from more recent track days and given me feedback.
In this car, generally speaking, I only trail brake to keep enough load on the front tires to get the turn in response I want. After turn in my car runs out of grip at the rear before the front, so I'm usually at least slightly breathing on the throttle very early to keep the rear end settled and to fine tune my line.

What you're doing sounds like what I used to do, which was trail the brakes really deep and wait for the car to feel like it's rotating just before I open the throttle. That always ended in stability control kicking in for me, so I adapted to what I just described. I can't say for sure if it's faster or not, but I feel like the way I do it now carries an awful lot more speed through the apex and I no longer care that I can't turn off stability control without recoding the ABS controller because it never engages.
 
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ChrisAttebery

Drag Racing Champion
In this car, generally speaking, I only trail brake to keep enough load on the front tires to get the turn in response I want. After turn in my car runs out of grip at the rear before the front, so I'm usually at least slightly breathing on the throttle very early to keep the rear end settled and to fine tune my line.

What you're doing sounds like what I used to do, which was trail the brakes really deep and wait for the car to feel like it's rotating just before I open the throttle. That always ended in stability control kicking in for me, so I adapted to what I just described. I can't say for sure if it's faster or not, but I feel like the way I do it now carries an awful lot more speed through the apex and I no longer care that I can't turn off stability control without recoding the ABS controller because it never engages.

I think that in stock form the car probably could benefit from some trail braking. Once you start adding sway bars, camber plates and a better alignment it goes out the door.

Turn 9 at LS is the only place I really noticed DSC kicking in at my last track day. It really just comes down to being confident in the car's abilities. If I'm not feeling confident I tended to use some brake through the corner and it unsettled the car and DSC kicked in. When I noticed that tried to use some maintenance throttle. Then the rear end stayed settled and the car turned smoother.
 
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jay745

What Would Glenn Danzig Do
Interesting to hear others opinions on trail braking. I have a stiff chassis with bracing, sway bars, camber plates etc and trail brake all the time to get some more rotation, analyzed it with the GPS data and it definitely makes for a faster turn vs not trail braking for me at least. I usually run with tc and esc off though
 

ChrisAttebery

Drag Racing Champion
I think that makes sense. With DSC on the second the rear end starts to come around DSC hits the brakes and slows the car down. Without DSC on the car can rotate freely and carry more speed.

Interesting to hear others opinions on trail braking. I have a stiff chassis with bracing, sway bars, camber plates etc and trail brake all the time to get some more rotation, analyzed it with the GPS data and it definitely makes for a faster turn vs not trail braking for me at least. I usually run with tc and esc off though
 
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