Your Schmo of Schmos is back! No, not on TV

Sounds like all of you had a great time, and so did I.....the trip out to Mid-O went much better than usual as there seemed to be far fewer trucks on the road for some reason.

This was a Fri-Sun event with Friday being open track from 8a--430p minus lunch hour for advanced drivers and instructors. No checkers thrown every half-hour, just get out there and rock, which I did until my bladder yelled at me as it did many times with all the water I ingested in the heat and humidity. Took care of it, went back out, and so on...by day's end I was up to nearly 4 hrs of actual track time and I was far from the only one--very thankful I brought all 4 spares with me as I would end up needing all but one by the end of the event. I think everybody was so thankful that it didn't rain as they were calling for on and off all weekend that they just didn't want to come in! Very happy with how the Mini acquitted itself in the forest of uber-Porsches in this PCA event but did manage to pass a few of the more humble ones, as well as one old and one newish Corvette and generally was able to hang with a LOT of these cars in the twisty back half of the course (got some very kind words from a GT3 driver as I drooled on his car). Also managed to get a race-prepped E36 325 black-flagged as I was bump-drafting him in the turns lap after lap while he ignored all of the blue flags thrown his way. I just did not have enough juice to get by him on the straights and he knew it so just kept telling myself "we're not racing..." He was very much the exception rather than the rule, though, as everybody else was very well-behaved in my view. We did get a few bursts of rain here and there but it was so warm out that it dried in short order, followed by sunshine, but for one short period on Sunday the front half of the track had dried completely but the back (twisty) half did not and two cars were caught out by this and found the wall coming over Thunder Valley. No injuries, thankfully, and very short delays before we could resume. On a sad note, my friend Brian had his 1st Gen Cooper S out there with brand-new suspension including Vorschlag plates (more drooling) but unfortunately he came back behind the tow truck as his engine let go. This car has very high mileage and he got it for a song ($700 IIRC) which eases the pain a bit. Weird thing is that our group went out right after it happened and there was no oil to be found anywhere on track, even though his dipstick showed no oil! Where did it go? Cooling system? I'm not knowledgeable enough to know but I'll see him at a later event and get the scoop.

Speaking of Miatas, there were a bunch there including one with a giant wing but an instructor was driving an older one set up for the track and on slicks--I swear he was one of the fastest cars out there, at least in the turns! I lifted for him on the back straight (I generally don't have to lift for ANYone) and he was just GONE. I can just imagine Elivan in this car with his talent. I recall a while back talking to someone who said that Elivan told him that he will purposely get the car out of shape in trying to find the fastest way around. Don't know if that makes sense but, regardless, that approach would take skills that we residents of Schmoville can only dream of!

So six of my eight RE71Rs are shot and are being replaced with the A052s, and can't wait to try them with the weight difference and purported grip. I do have two 71Rs left in pretty good shape which I will probably use in the rear, at least at first to see how it feels. They will last for a while back there. Back to Mid-O Monday for the first, and only, Gary's Medicare-Years-Old B-Day Track Day with Autointerests!

 

gbuff - welcome back to the land of the living. Sounds like quite the adventure and marathon of driving... Was that 4 hrs for each day? And did you use even a tank of gas at that event? I was out with some GT3s at NYST and they went through something like 3 tanks of gas in a day...

The funny thing is, I tend to drive less when I have an open track day than a day with a schedule...

I know you have a lot of experience with swapping tires around; a lot more than us other Shomos. But, I would caution you about running the used RE71Rs on the rear with new A052s in the front. Problem will be that you have more grip up front and less in rear and the car will want to swap ends... I also understand that the handling characteristics of the A052s is quite a bit different from the RE71Rs. I saw that arrangement not end well for an instructor at LRP a few years back. I have experienced issues with swapping the same model tire from front to rear when I have had a lot more time on the fronts than rears... Personally, for what it is worth, I would run a full set of A052s for a while, and at the point you would rotate them, I would put the fronts on the rear, and the used RE71Rs on the front. Still I would be wary of the difference in handling characteristics.

That said - enjoy your next outing... I am really looking forward to your report on the A052s...

 

Agreed, I would not recommend mixing tire types front to back unless you are planning to drive very conservatively. Like me!

 

Thanks Eddie and VV--I have never used two different brands of tire on the same car so I would be very careful until I got a good feel out there--wanted to put the 71Rs in the rear to help rotate the car but hopefully not 360deg or more as you say! I actually asked around the dealer y-day if anyone wanted them (for free!) but got no takers as those who do track events are on 16s. So we'll see--hate to see them go to waste but also am anxious to drive the 052s.

Eddie, it was "Four-Hour-Friday" as the rest of the weekend was the "normal" 4 sessions each day (thankfully)--I did fill up at the end of Friday as the computer told me I had 13 miles left! And I don't ever recall breaking the $50 barrier for a tank of gas but I did this time as it took $50.25 so it was purty empty.

 

Years ago I did the car control at Lime Rock. The owner of some hot new BMW let Elivan take it onto the skid pad. The car's owner was in the front seat and somehow I found myself in the back seat. Elivan kept the car in full drift mode for lap after lap around the skid pad. It helped me understand how talented real racers are, how connected they are to the car and how quickly they can respond when the car hits the limit.

 

I had a ride like that in an M5 with Simon (the head instructor for the LRP Club) at the wheel. It was for 2 laps around the race track though. Full drift mode. He was amazing. I asked him about his background. All sorts of racing including rally racing. Yes, a big difference between us Shomos and the Pros

 

Current weather forecast for Mid-O (Lexington, OH) is rain from Friday to Monday (my track day). Of course that's what it was this past weekend and we got a total of about 30min of rain at the track the entire weekend. Anyway, looks like I'll be putting four 052s on the car and we'll go from there.

Speaking of driving talent, years ago I watched a GP on TV and on the prerace they had Mark Webber driving some uber sedan (may have been a Jaguar as he drove for them for a bit--don't recall exactly) on a racetrack with a journalist in the right seat. Webber was driving with one hand on the wheel and just going side-to-side full-lock while chatting/laughing with the passenger the entire time. They showed the outside view of the car and it was in drift mode most of the time. Ridiculous. "Talent" is one of the most overused words there is but these guys, as well as pros in any sport (if you've ever played golf, then watched the pros, you know what I mean) certainly possess it. That's why they're pros, and........

 

Like I said, take 6 tires/wheels with you. 4 A052s and the 2 71Rs. Run the 4 for a while, then move the fronts to the rears and put the 71Rs on the front. See how it drives. If it is OK, then run them out. If not, it should be the safest way to try the mix. You can always go back to the 4 A052s if you don’t like the mix. Just a thought. I am too far away to take them off your hands. If I could, I would.

I follow a guy who is the true Iron Man of Track Days...
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4587695

6 hrs of driving in 2 days...

 

Up at Palmer today, in one of the classes, Trevor threw out a tidbit that still has me thinking. He said that if you have two tires that are worn and two tires that are not-so-worn, the better tires should go on the rear — even on a FWD car. Do any of you chaps have experience with that? I've always put the better rubber up front. He said he was at a two-day workshop with Pirelli that proved rear grip is better than front grip, on ANY car. Thoughts?

 

That seems to be the prevailing wisdom, at least as I've heard it, for a FWD car, but I'm with you, gkp......I have tried it on the track i.e. putting the best tires in the rear and the car felt downright strange. The rear of the car felt very "tight" and really upset the handling. First and last time for that experiment. I rarely have really good tires in the rear as they have usually migrated there from the front which wear much faster.

 

I've always put my best tires up front; I'm sure the car would feel very different if I reversed the process and put them in the back. Not going to try it on the track anytime soon! Anybody heading back to LRP on July 6th? Afternoon session makes most efficient use of time, plus it's unmuffled, so sure to be some very fast cars there. Also, Palmer coming up at the end of July, running counterclockwise, which for me at least, has a much better flow than clockwise.

 

Trever is absolutely correct. Best tires on the rear.

The stability of a car is determined by the rear tires. A stable car is defined as one that the front always wants to be in the front and the rear always wants to stay in the rear. An unstable car is one that wants to swap ends. A shopping cart pushed (and let go) from the handle end will want to go straight. That is a stable design. A shopping cart pushed from the caster wheel end will want to swap ends. That is an unstable design. Difference in traction front to rear on a car will do the same thing. The less traction in the rear (poorer tires) will result in the car wanting to be unstable. A stable car is easier to control than an unstable cat.

Here is a thought experiment for you. Imagine your MINI with a brand new set of RE71RS on the front and a brand new set of Hoosiers on the rear. In the dry, the front will have less traction and the car will tend to want to understeer, but the car will be controllable. Now add a rain storm. The fronts will now have more traction. Try driving around a turn. I bet the first thought that comes to mind is the back end will want to swap ends with the front. The car will be uncontrollable. Clearly that is an extreme case, but it remains true for lesser differences.
And that is the reason for always putting the best tires on the rear.

The better idea is to rotate tires so they all wear and heat cycle evenly.

BTW - BMWCCA doesn’t allow mixed brands and/or tire types on the track for that reason.

 

I may be at LRP on 7/6 as a pit crew, not as a driver, so maybe I'll see you. A friend of mine has a Radical and wants me to drive up with him to give him a hand. I'll see how that pans out. I didn't sign up for 7/6 because my son and family will be in from CA, leaving on the 5th but the airline has been changing dates around so I didn't want to sign up and have to bail out. Palmer CCW is a possibility — you're signed up?

 

This is a great and funny video about understeer and oversteer....

In FWD, AWD and RWD... Enjoy!

BTW - I am headed to WGI in a week - Wooo Hooo!

 

So you've tried it — that's good to know. My MO has also been to migrate from front to rear.

 

That was the argument — understeer is more controllable than oversteer. But, coincidentally, there was a VW Corrado up there that was running Hoosiers on the front and extreme summers on the rear to get rid of understeer. He wasn't terribly fast so it was difficult to tell if that little experiment was worthy of respect. It seemed somewhat silly to me.

The theory argues for NOT rotating MINI tires, doesn't it? The fronts wear quicker so keep them there. Also, when Trevor was explaining, I was asking myself why on a FWD car I want to promote understeer. It's not hard to find, even with a good suspension setup.

Anyhow, Eddie07S, thanks for the analysis — I thought the question might inspire you and it did!

 

Not only silly but dangerous.

Randy Pobst would puke at hearing about this one...

That is the absolutely the worst idea... This is right up there with the guy who told me that you need to put the largest RSB you can find into a FWD car and get rid of the front bar... These guys need to learn how to drive correctly.

In a way, you are correct, if you take the theory to extremes. However, if you have 25% wear in the front and 5% wear in the rear, but the heat cycle are the same, then the rubber compound will be about the same and will give you about the same traction front to rear when you swap them. On dry pavement that is what counts. Even in the rain, this won’t be a problem until the wet makes the rears hydroplane before the fronts. Little difference in traction front to rear you can accommodate. You do this all the time as you drive the car. The fronts will wear differently than the rears; the left will wear differently than the right. You compensate for this as you drive, even if it is not consciously done... It is extremes you want to avoid. One of these extremes is having 2 different manufacturer’s tires front to rear, as you won’t have matched handling characteristics. Another is having different rubber compounds...

 

I missed this one...

You should look at this one as “not promoting oversteer”.... instead of promoting understeer


Again, understeer is safer than oversteer and it is easier to deal with, especially on the street.

That said, even a pro like Randy Pobst would prefer to have a car with a touch of understeer than one that easily transitions to oversteer. It will be faster around a track. According to Randy, a bit of understeer promotes later braking and trail braking into a corner. Done correctly this will eliminate the understeer by increasing camber and traction in general on the front of the car. And this is the fastest way to take a corner (in most cases)...

If you try the same technique with a car that tends toward oversteer, that added traction resulting from the trail braking will cause the car to want to swap ends. The correction for that is to get off the brake and/or get back on the gas, but the problem is you have already entered the corner too fast to do either, which is the reason you were on the brakes in the first place. So, now the conundrum- do you get off the brake/on the gas to keep the car from swapping ends, which will cause you go wide and go off the track on the outside of the turn and crash? Or do you slam on the brake, further increasing the traction on the front wheels and reducing the traction on the rear wheels, thus completing the rotation of the car in the middle of the track with other cars bearing down on you? And you crash.

For a car that tends toward oversteer, the only way to take a corner is to brake early and straight line brake, then get on the gas before the apex of the turn. Getting on the gas while turning in will cause the car to understeer and this bad while trying to turn in as you are trying to tighten the steering up in order to get down to the apex. Because the car is under steering and the convention wisdom is that FWD understeer, people think it is the car that needs to be fix, which is why people want to put a really big RSB into a MINI. They think the car is at fault, where in reality the driver is at fault. Even a RWD car will understeer with that style of driving. Getting on the gas while driving around a corner will cause any 2WD car to understeer... The difference for a RWD car with enough HP, you can promote oversteer with the application of gas and breaking the rear loose (drifting). But this isn’t the fast way around a corner, either.

A rejoinder to this is - so what? I am straight line braking but I have the same apex speed as someone that has trail braked into the corner. I am still as fast coming out... The problem with this thinking is that in order to straight line brake you have to brake earlier and there is time lost getting to the apex...

I beat a lot of faster cars to the apex of T1 at LRP by braking later and trailbraking into the turn... Plus, because I have a car that is “stable” and I am already on the brakes, if that car ahead of me that I am close to rubbing bumpers with, checks up on me (which I have had happen) I only need to get on the brake harder without fear of loosing it.

 

Happy Father's Day to you guys! Enjoy the beautiful day 😁👍

 

 

Hey, I just learned that, according to the WGI web site, the IMSA Sahlen 6 hr at the Glen will be run this week end. I will be getting there just as they pull out. The best part will be that the track should be well rubbered in for my event with GVC...

 

Add some more rubber for when I'm there right after you

What a day at Mid-O today....sun, damp, and HEAVY rain on a mixed set of tires. Very educational More on that later--it's bedtime.

 

I will do what I can, but with a chance of rain during both days, we may do more to just wear it off

This should be an interesting story...

 

No chance of snow, though