I spent the weekend at Buttonwillow with Green Flag. They put on much more of an open track event than a school, although I've heard they have instruction available for the novice group.

I wouldn't recommend the intermediate or advanced group to anyone who's not real comfortable driving on track in traffic. Although passing is limited to straights, sometimes there's a liberal interpretation of "straight". (E.g., passing in the Bus Stop, or between the Bus Stop and Riverside.)

A lot of big iron shows up at Green Flag events. In addition to three MINI's, some bimmers, several Miata's, there were Vipers, Corvettes, at least one NASCAR, and some full-race muscle cars with straight pipes coming off their V-8s.

In my experience Green Flag has always run a tight ship. But even the organizers admitted that Saturday was not quite up to their standards. There were too many people putting wheels off, including some four wheels off. The exit of Lost Hill was particularly popular. (We ran configuration #1 clockwise.)

Sunday was an entirely different thing. Most people had left, so there weren't many cars on track at one time. Sometimes less than 10 cars spread out over three miles. The inconsistent drivers stayed within their limits, the fast drivers were very consistent. The advanced and intermediate groups were allowed to double up, so I ran seven (out of a possible 9) sessions.

This is the middle corner of Cotton Corners.




This is the entrance to Lost Hill. I was working on getting a lot of rotation at turn-in so that I could be as straight as possible over the crest. I left still sorting out the best way through that corner ( ... and others).



Sunday was a just an awesome day at the track. This was a great way to break a several year hiatus from motorsports.

 

A friend who attended Saturday sent me a link to lots of photos, primarily from the advanced group.

Video of receding muscle cars. This was shot from an E46 bimmer.

 

Great writeup, I always like hearing about how other groups run their events.

Have you had the chance the drive the R53 on track as well? I'm looking for comparisons from those that have driven both.

 

The only MINI I've ever driven is an R56.

I can tell you that an R56 with the JCW engine kit knows the difference between 91 octane and 100 octane. I put some race unleaded in for the last session of the weekend. I had to buy fuel anyway, and there was that 100 octane staring me in the face. I noticed especially at the entrance to the Esses, as that's a set of corners that you don't do any braking in front of. The first time, I thought I'd somehow gotten a really good run out of the hairpin. The second time around I realized: it's the go juice.

 

I got a PM, and thought I'd put the reply (to the anonymized question) here.

My background includes about 50 weekends of motorsports, mostly in the late nineties. I've done auto cross, car control clinics, high performance driving schools, racing schools, racing practice, and some racing. This was primarily in rear drive Bimmers, with some open wheel stuff.

But ... I've been away from motorsports for about 5 years. I've never tracked a front driver. And, I've always driven normally aspirated cars. So after two days at the track with this car, my impressions are far from definitive.

I ran fully stock set up on the brakes and suspension. I ran high performance street tires (sticky, but not R compound), and have the JCW engine kit. I was generally conservative on the brakes, concentrating more on optimizing the turn-in, apex and exit.

The ABS seems fine. Under heavy breaking into a hair pin I felt it kick in a couple of times, but unobtrusively. I'm pretty good at threshold breaking, and usually don't get into the ABS on my E30 unless the braking zone is uneven for some reason. The MCS felt similar, but again, I really wasn't maxing out the braking.

The stock pads and fluid are not adequate for track use. I was able to baby them through 4 sessions on Saturday and 7 sessions on Sunday at Buttonwillow. But I don't recommend it, especially on a track that eats brakes. Buttonwillow doesn't have much in the way of elevation change, so it's pretty easy on brakes. Laguna Seca, on the other hand, would toast the stock set up.

I started getting a soft pedal in the middle of the first day. I got some fade on Sunday in the hairpin while running back-to-back sessions. I ran through a huge amount of front pad. There's some pad left, but I'm down to about 1/3 with only 5k miles on the car.

The R56 has brakes similar to the JCW brake kit for the R53. However, I've heard there's a JCW pad that could serve as an upgrade to the stock pad. That might help a little. High temp fluid is a must. Braided lines should help. I'm not a big fan of cross-drilled rotors, as I had a set on a race car that formed cracks.

A couple of the Bimmers I've tracked have semi-trailing rear suspensions, which allow you to really point the car under trail braking or trailing throttle. So, I'm used to the technique. In a front driver, racers use the technique to get a lot of rotation right after turn-in so the line through the apex and exit is straighter (which allows putting more power down without pushing). I did a little bit of trail braking, but was conservative about it, not wanting to over do it. I did notice that under heavy braking the back end gets very light and twitchy. So my approach was to work on trail braking in the slowest corner of the track (2nd or 3rd gear). I got some effect, but still need to work on it.

I noticed the twitchy back end in a 3rd gear corner where I really didn't need the help (the corner has some nice camber at the apex), so there I just focused on keeping the car straight under hard braking. I could imagine the car getting pretty loose if I wasn't careful in the braking zone