https://media.chevrolet.com/nextgenCorvette

So you can watch the C8 reveal......10:30pm Thursday

 

Love some of the old stuff in the videos on the page that link takes you to. I remember reading about those concept cars Corvette did when they first came out... .

I’ll have to catch the reveal on YouTube. I have another commitment at that time ...

 

I just watched the motor1 video of the unveiling. You can cut to the chase skipping the first 20 minutes or so. I have to say I am quite impressed. They did say unmistakeable the starting price is $60k for a 3 s 0-60 new Corvette.

https://www.motor1.com/news/360474/c...ng-livestream/

Off to work on my fun wheel drive Mini.

If I want one, I will wait for a factory race car this time as I am sick of throwing away parts to get a car track ready. Bring me a club sport model and I will write you a check.

 

I was at LRP yesterday to see the IMSA practices and walk amongst the cars (BOY DO THOSE CORVETTES SOUND GREAT 5’ AWAY FROM ONE)

And I did see 2 brand new Ford GT road cars there. Beautiful!

Corvette missed a marketing chance by not having a C8 there.

 

My wife and I were there yesterday. Cheered as the GS #82 Bimmerworld BMW moved through the field to take fourth. In the GTLM/GTD race I walked over to watch some of the action at the chicane. Brakes cried for mercy as the cars approached the chicane and the ground shook from earsplitting thunder as the Corvettes and Ford GTs accelerated up the hill. Yikes!

 

Those Corvettes are a rock concert by themselves!
Long live big bore V8s!

Sounds like you had a good time.

PS - it was fun and interesting to take the chicane in the MINI. Something new to learn.

 

Good to see you briefly Glen! Man, was it hot....

 

Quite the stretch to give the rear tire changer room when he gets there...

 

S-Driver: nice picture.

I am headed over to Watkins Glen on Tuesday for a 2 day open track event with the GVC chapter of BMWCCA. I’ve done these many times in the past, but missed last year and I missed being able to try out at that track the new thicker brake rotor BBK I got last year. I have 2 versions of this BBK, which is a one-off Wilwood setup. Both version use a 1” thick rotor, one being 11.75” dia with a 0.5”-ish vane air gap and the other being a 12.2” dia rotor with a 0.375”-ish. The 12.2” rotor has a narrower air gap to give the rotor more mass and strength. This is designed with WGI specifically in mind. The more mass is to give it the ability to better absorb the peak brake temperatures at are produced at Watkins Glen. WGI is very hard on brakes, so I have found out. The 11.75” dia rotor setup is for the shorter tracks I go on, which are not as hard on brakes (So far paired with Wilwood BP30 brake pads). The smaller rotors allow me to use 15” wheels with tires that are smaller in diameter than the 17”ers, which give me a little better torque at the wheel. I have used these at LRP with great success; 4 days on the BP30 pads with probably 3 more days possible out of them. Very pleased with them, which gives me confidence in the larger rotors working well at WGI. Oh, these I will be pairing these larger rotors with Hawk DTC70 brake pads, but will have the DTC60 pads I have used in the past for stand-bys.

I have also signed up for 2 days at LRP with Patroons on Aug 23rd and 24th (Friday and Saturday). The 23rd is an open track afternoon, which should be fun and the 24th is a traditional HPDE. ZRE has also signed up for Saturday. Do we have any other takers? GKP - maybe???

 

Any weekend events at Watkins Glen besidss nascrap? I'm in Syracuse University for a 3 week class

 

If you are in Syracuse now, no there is nothing else at the Glen (other than DEs), or anywhere else near by. The next event at the Glen is a Blancpain event, which would be good to see, but that is Sept 1.

Actually I enjoy watching the NASCAR group run at the Glen. Not a lot of bump and run there as that quickly destroys cars. The drivers who survive the first few laps are the ones who can really drive a real road course and they show some real skill. I have multiple friends who drive stock cars around that track in DEs and love it. If you can stomach the crowd, the NASCAR event would be worth seeing.

Is there a chance that you could come down on Wednesday, even late afternoon? My guess would be, that your class is all day so that would not be likely and it is about a 1.5 hr drive.. But I thought I would ask.

 

All day class we get back to the hotel at 430

 

Darn....

 

Those ex NASCAR makes great HPDE track cars. So easy to maintain and run and buy one. The guys at our club has been talking about them being one of the biggest bang for the buck track cars. Personally, they are too damn loud for my liking.

 

I drove a stock truck at the Glen. Second time out, forgot my earplugs - big mistake. But they make so much HP that a muffler isn’t going to take much away from it. I would have bought that stock truck (cheaper than a new base Cooper), but I don’t have a tow vehicle or a car trailer or a place to put any of that, so that would have gotten real expensive really fast....

I am sure you have watched these...

Just a thought for buzzing down there this weekend.

 

Cheapest tickets were 130 I think? Too rich for me that's almost a day at the track, I prefer to drive vs watch

I'm going to try to find some twisty roads, not sure if they exist here, spoiled down in nc

 

Oh, there are twisty roads in NY. I have a few just a few minutes from my house and some great ones that take a couple of hrs to do the full run (not all of it twisties, though). Syracuse, unfortunately, is in flat lands between the Mohawk River/Hudson river water shed and the Great Lakes watershed and it it built up, so you may have to look a little further out. I have heard of some gorges west of there that are fun to drive, but I don’t know where. Unfortunately I don’t know that part of the state, otherwise I would be happy to help. WGI is a 3+ hr drive for me, so I take highways.

 

My only August date will be the 15th at Palmer (counterclockwise). The last Patroons day kind of soured me on that group. I don't mind having an instructor for one session but not three or four. It's too unpredictable with that group.

 

When you did the evaluation did you say what you were disappointed in?
You’ll be missed. Well, if you change your mind...they were clearly looking for people.

 

Yeah, I did. I don't understand why an instructor is required for a "B Solo" driver. And I didn't like the Hudson Valley chapter event because of the requirement to have the car inspected at a shop (at a cost of $50). I may do a BMWCCA day again, but only if SCDA dates are inconvenient. However, I do like the BMWCCA t-shirts — you must have quite the collection!

 

BMWCCA seems to be heavy into the “Education” part of HPDE. Patroons, lately, has moved a bit away from that for their higher end drivers. I think they need to do more to have driver evaluations done quickly for drivers like you and keep that on record. Maybe have a signup option for Solo and whether the driver has had a check out ride. GVC chapter of BMWCCA has coaches for advanced drivers who you can ask to ride with you to help with technique. The flip side of that is the problems i have had at times with SCDA advanced drivers who don’t think I belong in their Advanced group. Otherwise known as the Porsche GT3 and Z06 group.

Connecticut Valley has the same requirement. It is closer to $100 for me to have someone to a tech inspection... Ugh.
I think they do it to keep the rif raf down....

I’ll see if I can talk to them about it...

 

Mini likes to rub shoulders with the town's riches in the GT3 and Z06 group even though she is of a lower caste. Like this social event. I didn't want to take that point by.

 

Some seriously fast cars in that video.
That gray Porsche at the beginning was having its problems, both mechanically (lockup of the rear tire; no ABS?) and with a driver who needed a bit more instruction on how to drive the track. I recognized that you waved off the point by. I thought you would and nice of the other driver to make the offer. Seem like that was a good group of drivers to be out with.

There is a difference around here in the “personalities” of the drivers who are attracted to the various event organizers around here. The BMWCCA chapters attract many high powered cars and many run in the advanced run group that I am in. I have no problems with them. The BMW chapter demand respect amongst the drivers and it shows out on the track. Some other event organizers, not so much, which leads to passes without point bys and GT3s dive bombing me into tight corners. Neither group is perfect. The BMW groups tend to be a bit too **** and the other organizers could do better on what they demand of the drivers. In the mean time, I watch carefully to what is going on around me. I work at not get frustrated with drivers who don’t see me a car length off their rear bumper; it is just better to pit and rejoin clear of traffic. Frustration leads to making mistakes and, as I have noted, the tracks around here are very unforgiving of mistakes.

That said, Smokey is ready for out upcoming track event at WGI. I am excited to find out how well my latest iteration of the BBK works. The slightly “smaller” version works really well on LRP. I have gotten 4 days out the Wilwood BP30 brake pads and they have, maybe, half the pad left. For WGI I will be running Hawk DTC70 pads on new rotors, with a set of DTC 60 pads in reserve.

 

The Porsche that passed me must had enter the chicane too hot, and the nanny said “silly boy. as long as I am here I am not going to let you hurt yourself”. The smoke was mostly from locking up the inner rear tire. I was expecting a point by from him to the left but he chose to point me by to the right. Seeing he was quite frazzled I didn’t want to take the risk at the subsequent turns even though we can pass anywhere except at the turns after the back straight.

It was with the Portland BMW club (Not regional) and normally it is well ran. However it was my worst HPDE day of the season. Alas that day there were countless issues from the get go. Just before our first session someone dumped coolant on the track. In our first session we were all blacked flagged in early. Before the second session a highly modified MX5 dumped oil from the beginning of the back straight all the way though the last 4 turns. The cause was a loose oil filter and surprisingly he didn’t blow the engine. In the third session a late model Lotus SC V6 Exige blew the motor in our group and the session also was cut short after 2 laps. The forth session was the only whole session we had all day.

One thing that frustrates me countless times is on the turns leading to the straight I would start giving the point by while existing the turn and my signal is very clear. Yet most of the time the high power car driver fail to see the point by long after he existed and I ended up missing (hit the rev limiter) the upshift to continue the hand signal until he saw it.

Driving in advance groups in different organization is a mixed bag. Typically the worst are the very high power cars (500 +) that drive dangerously, passing without point by; passing without point by too late; passing without point by after the checker flag and the list goes on. The worst is TNiA as the low cost attract some of the worst. In one event at PIR the organizer didn’t bother to put up cones including the ones that marks the chicane turns from the no-chicane track configuration. As a result multiple drivers (that yellow McLaren) blew through the chicane thinking it is the continuation of the front straight. He could easily hit someone coming out of turn 2 at 40 MPH when he was at 120.

On the same weekend someone totaled a 911 at ORP, another Porsche 911 driver died at Spokane Raceway PCA event after his car flipped end over end. In both cases some “advanced and experienced” Porsche drivers encouraged them to completely switch off the nanny. I was present in one breakfast and I could see clearly that the driver of the totaled 911 was far from ready for that. It was one of those alpha males dominated conversations.

I heard the regional PCA head resigned after the incident. My R53 track buddy lives within walking distance to Spokane Raceway and he told me he won't drive there as it is a very dangerous track.

 

The best, well run, events I have done are the “invitation only” events where you need a recommendation to get to go to them. One of these is where I got to meet the owner/driver of the Porsche 962. A lot of these are used for test and tune and/or practice for an upcoming race, so these are people who really know how to drive. I figure having a slower car like mine on the track is good practice for them for negotiating slower race traffic. At least I have had no complaints.

I know a few years back there was a bad crash at Watkins Glen during their NASCAR event. Some drivers complained about it being a “dangerous” track. However, the fact was they had a group of idiot drivers who tried to go 4 wide through turn 1 because no one wanted to give up a position. There is a lot of runoff there, but not that much and one crashed at the end of the runoff, went into and through traffic like a pinball. The next season, the track miraculously became “safer” (with no changes) and there were no real “idiot” problems. It is the only one of the NASCAR events I’ll watch as, since then, it has attracted drivers who can really drive a rode course.

A few years ago I saw a brand new Corvette that was shortened by a foot or 2 in the front end. Clearly the driver thought the nannies were hindering him. With cars like that and the newer Porsches and the like, you would have to be a fool to turn them off. I run with them on in my MINI. Fortunately on my Gen MINI the optional DTC nannies have a great track setting.