I was at a BWMCCA driver's ed event last weekend at New Hampshire International Speedway. I've put in 8 days at that track last year, so at least I'm familiar with the layout of the track there.

This year, I had two very good instructors (different one each day) who started me down the path of getting the car to slide / rotate at track speeds. That was definitely a different experience from last summer, where sliding was pretty much a bad thing, and all my braking was done in straight lines. This time, I was trail braking, lifting, purposely turning in extra sharp, not settling the car completely in left / right transitions, etc all to try to get out of some of the turns a little faster.

Of course, it doesn't always work perfectly the first few times you try it. No bad things happened, but the lap times I pulled off my video were not as fast as it felt like I was going. But I did drop about half a second from my personal best, and made a big drop in lap times from Saturday to Sunday.

Since last summer, I added Helix camber plates to the front of my Cooper and had them set to -2.0°. I'm still getting used to driving the car hard with the new setup.

If I keep the car going more or less straight, with minimal tire noise, I'm pretty sure my lap times are slower with the camber plates than they were without them.

I kept my rear swaybar on the softest setting... my instructor on Sunday, who drives a MINI himself, recommended moving it to the middle setting. I passed on that for this event, but will probably try the middle setting the next time I go to a track I'm familiar with.

I was expecting my lap times to be faster than they were, but considering I was still experimenting (and never really getting the trail braking / rotating thing really right), and I was being tentative on a few corners (thanks to an off track excursion on Saturday morning), I should probably be really happy that my average time was really close to my old personal best, and my new personal best was about half a second better than my old one. But it does go to show that what feels fast might not actually be fast.

So, just how loose is fast? Is it primarily a driver preference thing and you should set up your car to match the style you're comfortable with? I could certainly learn to love a little rotation. :D

I'll have some video at some point, but in-car video never really show things as being as dramatic as I remember it being.

 

I should probably add that even if it's not faster, picking up new skills is always a good thing. You never know when you might either need a little extra rotation to keep the car on the track, or need to be able to recover when extra rotation sneaks up on you.

 

Jason, Really great work . Who was this instructor?
When your ready to just turn that car of yours into a full time racer, give me a call.

 

Peter Bergwall was my instructor on Sunday. I cannot remember the name of my instructor on Saturday, and the organizers didn't have the instructors names on the paperwork they gave us. My Saturday instructor was very good too. He didn't seem fazed when I overcooked the entrance to turn 3, did a lift / rotate / throttle pick up / plow move that left me straddling the evil tall curbing on the outside, and decided instead of jumping back across the curb I just drove up the hill in the dirt and came to a gentle stop. I think it freaked me out more than him.

That's going to be a ways off... right now the goal is to keep it equipped with brake pads and tires and at the track when possible. Now that I've seen that there's another step up in performance just in front of me (without adding new performance parts), I'm re-energized to get out there and learn some more.

I think seats may have moved to the top of the to-do list ahead of R-compounds.

 

Snid,

Glad that you are having such a good time and so energized about learning new driving skills.

Your front camber settings seem fine. I don't think you have a problem there. What are the rear settings?

I have been struggling with the loose vs understeer equation and am slowly migrating toward more understeer tendency as I go faster. The faster you go, the less oversteer you need and want. If I am too loose, I struggle in the high speed rather flat corners and pull back a little. If I'm too loose, my car just wants to rotate in the slow speed turns. Don't have to try very hard and as a result have fallen off the track twice this season already as I work to get faster; not fast or consistent. In high speed sweepers, my rear end wants to step out at anything but WFO. WFO helps the oversteer, but not always best for staying on the pavement prior to the apex. Not in control and hard to "add speed" in a measured manner.

I'm actually back to the stock sway bar for the next two track days. I'll see how that goes.

Hope this helps,
John Petrich in Seattle

 

Any chance your instructor on Saturday was Ed Valpey? I thought I saw him get in your car but could have forgotten whose car I saw him get into (if indeed it was him-thought it was though)

Best Regards,

Tom

 

Rear camber on my car is not adjustable (no aftermarket control arms yet), so it's stock at, ummm, I think around -1.5°.

NHIS is a pretty slow track that doesn't have any high speed sweepers, at least when it's not configured to use the NASCAR oval turns. So high speed stability was not much of a concern for me that weekend. I might have a different conclusion out at Watkins Glen, though. And I certainly wouldn't want things to be too loose at Tremblant.

 

Hi Snid. I don't know if we met but I was at NHIS last weekend on Saturday in our Pepper White Cooper S with an offset black stripe. It took some playing with the rear shocks to get the car loose but I got it dialed in and it was fast in the end with steady 1:20's flat on Falken Azenis. It would go faster if I used all the track but it is our only car and is a pure street car with no cage. **** who runs control was laughing at me during lunch because a few corners called me in for looking out of control and he told them that it was nothing to be concerned about and then they chilled as I was sideways a fair bit. Some of that was just fun and practice but at a track with slower tight corners you can reduce laptimes substantially by rotating the car more and thus getting the turning done more quickly and being on the gas with the steering wheel unwound for longer.

It is worth noting that was was very nice and neutral for an advanced driver at Tremblant (and frightened at least two fellow instructors I took for rides over the 1,2, 3 combo) was understeering way too much at NHIS except on the entry to turn 1 and through turn 10. I had to add air to the rears, remove air from the fronts and dial in some more stiffness on the rear shocks to make the exact same setup on the same tires go ahead and rotate without being "tossed" loose. Before those adjustments I could toss the car loose using weight transfer but in a steady state turn it was really hard to get trailing throttle oversteer and I needed the brakes to get it to come around.

Dave "trying to learn front wheel drive" Miniguy

 

Cool Dave!

I did stop by and admire your car in the garage after watching it slide sideways through the turn 2a / 2b complex while working pit out.

I've got a little footage of my fast lap uploading as I type. It was from the last session as I was chasing Pete B. in his red MCS. That lap, I did get down to a 1:32.4 or so. It was the last hot lap of the weekend, so I slowed a bit before the start / finish line.

As I expected, the video doesn't make it look like my car was rotating much at all. Once google video is done "processing" it, I'll post a link.

 

Dave,

I was there on Saturday at NHIS and always get a kick out of watching you come in to 2B. I worked the corner at turn 2 earlier in the year and was amazed at your control of the car. At that time it looked like the car understeered briefly and then oversteered. Lots of drama but dead on consistent each time. Last weekend I was out in run group 2 when for some reason you were out with us and got to watch you from behind going into Turn 2 and also saw the novice corner workers start to chat about your entry. If I had your car control skills and lack of fear i could probably cut my lap times by 50%. Always a blast to watch you.

Best Regards,


The Slow DS Cooper S with Mod Target on Top

 

Here's my fast lap:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...26833731&hl=en

 

First let me be clear that at NHIS I was rotating the car more than is productive for the best possible lap times. I explain part of why below but please do not think that my lines were the fast ones. I was running 1:20 flat but if I cleaned it up and used perhaps a quarter the rotation in 2a and nearly all the rotation I was using in 2b, 3, 9, and 10 I would have been around 1 second faster.

Earlier in the year the car was only running a rear sway bar (which was set to the middle stiffeness and barely stiffer than stock) only and was FAR more of a handful to control... it is quite a bit easier now and you can toss it around without such a fierce amount of suspension travel and "whip". That said I was letting it come around much further last weekend just for grins and practice. I long ago got bored with the fastest possible line and use of the car around a track, especially when I am not racing or in a race car and thus not willing to even come close to the limits and using ALL of the race track. Not that I was ever the fastest guy, more that I just got to a point where it was all about the equipment and improvement was excruciatingly slow which is roughly the end of interest for a learning junkie like me. That is why I have a Mini, I don't know much about FWD and am having a blast learning and the Cooper is just such a sweet handling and fun car.

I am willing to give rides anytime and while I often arrive at the track with my dance card full the organizers at most events let me go out in other groups to give rides to students and such as long as I play nice in other groups which I always do. I love performance driving deeply and sharing some tricks or just plain fun is often what makes me show up and certainly what makes me get in the passenger seat of other cars (shiver) and teach... if no one had taught me I wouldn't understand what I do now.

I might get some R-Compounds for the Cooper soon but honestly unless I get time to go back and auto-x some I probably won't bother. It is a toss up though as I keep different street wheels and tires anyway so my streets stay super clean and pretty.

Dave

 

Video now on google:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...26833731&hl=en

 

Looks like a good line all the way around Snid Looked like you were opening the wheel with the throttle application and tracking out nicely. Great stuff and with guys like Peter Bergwall helping you improve I am not surprised.

I do beleive you will find you can turn a quicker lap by taking the tight line into 1 on the south chicane but I am not absolutely certain. The wider line allows you to bring in more speed to 2a but you still need to brake and take it off to make it to the far right hand side of the track to intiate the all important 2b onto that big old "straight" down to 3.

Davemon