I think I found a way to mount a camera more forward. I will be trying that on the Black Hills Run.

 

Not really a track, but it was fun. Yesterday we did the BMW club's "Car Control Clinic". Not to be confused with Siddartha Advanced Car Control Clinic, this was a lot more basic. The day consisted of three exercises, a slalom, skidpad and emergency braking.

Both me and the wife did this, we took Tristan and shared the ride. That meant we were in a group with most of the other "2 driver cars" (which seems to mean those with wives or girlfriends).

We did the slalom first, the main lesson there seemed to be looking ahead. When I looked ahead, things when well, when I looked too close, things went less well.

Next was the emergency braking. This is the exercise which has most practical application to the real world, but hopefully we'll never have to use the lessons. The first part was to brake as hard as possible and try to end up as close to the wall of cones as possible, without killing the cones. That's to show you just how good your brakes are. Some attendees needed this lesson more than others, when they come to a stop even before entering the course.

The next part was emergency lane change. You drive as fast as possible, then veer around the virtual bus (made of cones) into the next lane, then back into your lane and finally jam on the brakes and come to a stop. There are lights which are supposed to tell you which side of the "bus" to go around, sometimes they didn't change and you're supposed to make the descision yourself (left, right or stop), but its disconcerting when they don't change and you freeze, mowing down cones.

The final part is the emergency lane change, but once you're in the adjacent lane you tap the brakes to settle the car which makes it easier to get back in your lane and then you jam on the bakes and stop. This allows you to go even faster and end up still safe. They were encouraging us to go as fast as possible, even if it meant losing control. At least one car spun and took out several cones. Tristan just couldn't go fast enough to get really exciting. They had to call in an instructor for one of the more timid wives to encourage her to go a little faster.

The final exercise was a skid pad. The idea was to set youself up in a circle, then not change the steering angle and only steer with the throttle. More gas would induce understeer, lifting off would induce oversteer, and if you do it right you follow an oval path and don't take out any of the cones. They were encouraging you to push this to the limit, and beyond to see what a spin was like. Most of the cars there were rear drive, and most of them managed to spin. Tristan was most reluctant to spin, so the instructor tried to encourage him by pulling the hand brake, still no spin. I have made the rear end brake loose occasianally, but it takes too much steering input as well as either lifting off too much or even braking. We never did manage to spin. This exercise was also about vision, somewhat surprisingly. If I looked at the next cone to go around, I'd mess up, if I looked 2 cones ahead, across at the other side of the course, I could make it around sucessfully.

The day was a lot of fun, and I encourage anyone to go do something like this. As they said at the end, only 5% of people out there have ever had any sort of advanced driving instruction, so 95% of the poeple around you on the freeway are quite clueless.

I had the video camera and data system set up, so I have some video. I forgot to take the still camera, so no stills.

Slalom: http://homepage.mac.com/barryt/.Movies/CCC1.mov
Braking: http://homepage.mac.com/barryt/.Movies/CCC2.mov
Skid Pad: http://homepage.mac.com/barryt/.Movies/CCC3.mov

 

Hi Btwyx,

Do you know when the next Car Control Clinic will be in the Bay Area? I'm interested in checking it out. Thanks!

 

The next clinic is late July; see:
http://www.ggcbmwcca.org/?page=calendar&category=2

I’ve done this same clinic and it’s the best $100 I ever spent on a car. Even if you never want to do track days you need to do this. They should take money off your insurance premium IMHO if you do it. It should be part of Driver’s Ed. It rocks, and it’s a ton of fun. I did it twice.

I’d also encourage everyone to join the BMW CCA. The Golden Gate chapter is especially active, and you can get back the $45 dues in short order with discounts at the dealer, but more importantly they run some great events.

Aside from the Car Control Clinic they also co sponsor a similar training for teens called Street Survival. And they run autocrosses (7 runs usually, as opposed to a usual 3 at an SCCA even...and last month we even got to test race, er drive, the Tesla on the course!).

And there is a HPDE event at Thunderhill in early August. If you’ve ever thought of going on the track, that’s a good one to do. The BMW club is very low key, and you’ll have an instructor the whole time. You’ll never be over your head; of the track groups I’ve gone with BMW provides the best entry for a beginner. And Thunderhill is a great track to start on. And it’s a bargain compared to Laguna or Sears ($399 for two days, and you get to see the club races the same weekend!).You’ll need some prior experience or the Car Control Clinic to get in. The Clinics fill very fast, so if you’re interested, get on it.

The instructors at these BMW events are fabulous; extremely experienced and VERY patient, trust me. They love to ride in MINIs and several have them (I got a ride in an instructor’s hot MINI ‘round Sears that was amazing; he shot through the Carousel on a line I never saw anyone take). Another guy who has raced GT2 cars did the Car Control slalom in my Just-A-Cooper, left-foot braking hard at each cone, and thundering around like I couldn’t believe. I don’t think even the M cars were doing it better, and it made me realize I’ve got a LONG way to go.

Rob (going to that HPDE in August, BTW)

 

Btwyx,

Nice video. I have to ask, what mount are you using for the iphone? Great integration on the movies with the Rev. data.

Don

 

For those not in the Bay Area, you can find your local BMW club chapter here: http://www.bmwcca.org/index.php?pageid=chapter_finder

 

Its a Kensington mount, its really a bit too wobbly for this.

 

Your using the suction cup on the speedo glass or velcro? I have one on the way. The Kensington windshield mount is not usable in the MINI.

Thanks for the info.

Don

 

It suction cups onto the speedo quite nicely.

 

I survived Infineon.

Yesterday was Hooked On Driving's first event at Infineon, aka Sears Point. That's a fun track, somewhat intimidating and it "does you head in" as I said at one point. I took Tristan, the Wife didn't drive, she was too put off by the proximity of the concrete walls to sign up for this one. Because the track is a bit difficult, they ask people with no experience at Infineon (like me) to sign up for the beginners group. That suited me quite well, I had 4 coached sessions and got better, and then got one solo session, where I'm quite pleased with myself. Here's some video of the best lap.

http://homepage.mac.com/barryt/.Movi...ineonBesti.mov

The lap time is 2:18.1, though Hooked on Driving don't approve of lap times, I extracted that from the video later. There still room for improvement, particularly at turn 6, where I can't judge my entry speed because there's a hill in the way. Turn 7 was bad all day, but doesn't look too bad on the video. I was being very careful down into turn 11 (the hairpin with the tirewall), so I didn't run into the tires. Ideally I'd run faster and brake later (ideally, I'd like to turn in after where the tires are). There's a few places I started to put in gear shifts later. (2 could do with a downshift, as well as upshifts before 7 and 10.)

I think I'm getting used to running on the track in general now, even if I started off pretty badly, I could see where I was supposed to be going, even without the help of the marker cones they set out. (In fact the marker cones were a little annoying at times as there weren't where I wanted them to be.) One coach had the idea of "seeing though" obstacles, ie using your imagination as to where you want to end up, if you can't see it. That worked quite well around turn 3a. I need to apply that to the entry of 6 now.

I decided to take Tristan (the JustaCooper) rather than Shawn the MCS so I could learn the track without worrying about excessive horsepower. I was quite surprised to find I had quite enough horsepower in the interesting bits, I had lift in places, like going up the hill to turn 2, I thought I'd be struggling there. A bit more horsepower would help on the straight(er) bits, and with overtaking uncooperative Miatas, but a JustaCooper has quite enough horsepower to make it fun/exciting/scary.

They had the pro photographer covering the event again, here are a few photos, and a sample:



(This image © Ditto Milan, GotBlueMilk.com)

My wife took a few pictures from the stands, this is an interesting sequence of me coming around the hairpin: http://homepage.mac.com/barryt/.Movies/InfC.mov (I hope this works, I tried to turn the stills into a movie.)

 

Good job of driving Btwyx especially for day one. It wasn’t till my second day I felt comfortable there at all.

I thought you had the line down. I started going up the hill in 1 (or 1A?) just before the bridge by getting more to the left; there’s a depression there such that at MINI speeds you can use the compression to help turn you. I’d hit it in fourth, and then brake/shift just when my left wheels were on the rumble strip before you do 2.

I thought you pinched four a bit, although it’s hard to tell in the video, but I think you could track out farther down on the left. Again on the second day with pushing from my instructor I got more speed going into the carousel that way. I got a ride with a MINI driver who did the whole carousel at blazing speed a foot off the left edge, but he races there.

You’d notice with the S that you’d get more speed down the S’s. But I thought you had great rhythm through there; they’re harder than they look. For great fun watch the NASCAR race video through there; you can learn a lot from watching those guys.

I’m not sure if you did it on purpose but you seemed deep into 11, but it’s hard to see in the video. My instructor had me try to be much closer in, and use the MINI’s tight turning to try some earlier apexing. You’re going so slow an apex further out doesn’t necessary help. I couldn’t tell what worked better, and I didn’t have a timer. Seems everyone blows it and goes in too deep on that one. Again, harder than it seems.

And great video! Thanks. If you liked the track there’s a BMW 2-day event there in November I think.

BTW, there’s a PDX at Reno Fernley Raceway for $175 this Sunday: over 3 miles of track and an autox on Saturday as well. Check my posts elsewhere for details.

Rob

 

Hi Rob, I missed your post until now, I just got back from Infineon in the S, more on that later.

I'm not sure I got comfortable in Tristan, I was just working out where I should get 4th. After reviewing more video, I found I did an even faster lap (2:17.5) on my third coached session, the instructor was encouraging me to go faster through the Carousel, you can here me say "You sure???" approaching, and "Eek" entering the corner. The faster Carousel made up about 2s over my other lap where I was faster just about everywhere else. One thing I read was recommending taking an inside line, to take advantage of the camber. I tried both, I'll have to review the video to see how they compare.

Last week I was trying to make sure to do the carousel fast. I also found in the S I needed to take 4th before the S's, as well as at the beginning of the front straight. I thought I was going faster through the S's, but looking at the video I was faster in the JustaCooper. I'm still not sure I'm getting the hill up to 2 right. I'm off the power most of the way up and doesn't feel right.

The line the instructors used at 4 just felt weird. It felt like much too early turn in and apex, thus early track out. In the S it felt even worse, and a couple of times I got 2 wheels off at the exit. I eventually decided to push the turn in and apex half a cone past the last cone, which makes a more typical very late turn in like Jerry taught us, that felt much better, and the track out is a bit further down the rumble strip.

In the S, turn 5 became quite a challenge, I was starting to experiment with a later turn in. I was hitting the limiter up the hill to 6. I'd brake a bit before the crest, I never managed to get all my braking done over the hill. Trying to do that led to some interesting trailing brake oversteer.

I was deliberately going deep into 11, I thought I'd like to go deeper, but the wall was in the way. That seemed reasonable to me, and the instructors seemed to like that line. I could experiment with that, with video evidence, I can compare the effect of different lines. I like the late apex though, so I can get a fast launch onto the straight.

 

As I mentioned above, we just got back from a day at Infineon last Thursday. Both me and the wife drove and we took Shawn to see what the extra horsepower did for us. We were both quite pleased with our performance. This one was with Trackmasters, though due to the state of the economy there were really only 2 run groups, and 2 guest groups (they had the Lotus club there as well). So I ended up in the mixed intermediate/Advanced group. That was probably at least one group higher than I was ready for, I'm comfortable with low intermediate at the moment. There were lots of fast drivers in fast cars I'd have to point by.

Trackmasters are much less squeamish about discussing lap times, and my wife's instructor was interested in knowing the lap times after each session. I'd just got new software where I can upload the video to the computer and play it in its raw form, so I could get approximate lap times as we went along. After Tristan managed 2:17.5 and I reckon Shawn should be 4-5 seconds faster just because he's an S, and I reckon I could have got another 2-3 sec just by stringing my best bits together, so I was hoping to get to 2:10. After a very messy first session I managed 2:14s in my second session, but then didn't seem to get any faster.

I was encouraging my wife to try to speed up a bit, and so was the instructor. She started out with a 2:50, then got steadily better by the last session she was consistantly getting 2:30s. For the last session the instructor thought she'd nailed her best lap yet, and looking at the video it was actually a 2:27.5, quite a creditable performance. For my last session I decided not to push things, and just drive, so I also did my best lap at 2:12.6. Not up to the 2:10 I was hoping for, but it felt pretty good.

There's video of my best lap here: http://homepage.mac.com/barryt/.Movi...onOctBesti.mov

And video of my wifes lap: http://homepage.mac.com/barryt/.Movi...nOctCbesti.mov

And of course pictures: http://homepage.mac.com/barryt/InfineonOct/. Some of them were taken by the pro they had covering the event, some we took from the other side of the pits. Here's my favorite (Copyright © Steven Cabana Head On Photos)





One interesting incident happened earlier on in the second session. A Miata had overtaken me, then I got faster and caught up with the Miata. I thought I might be able to over take it, and I was trying when he came off at turn 4. He entered the corner too fast turned in too early and missed the apex. I thought I "pushed" him off the track, when I talked to him later he denied he was trying too hard to keep in front, but was most interested in my video of the incident so he could see what he did wrong. Here's the video: http://homepage.mac.com/barryt/.Movi...onOctMiata.mov. You hear some of the debris he kicked up hitting the side of Shawn.

 

Good work...that's some nice driving.

Re the Miata: interesting, and maybe not relevant, but it seems he breaks loose just as the rears cross a strip of light colored stuff (dirt?). When he corrects he drops a wheel and that's it.

 

Monday was Laguna Seca with Hooked on Driving. Both me and the wife did this one, and we took Tristan, the JustaCooper. This would be my fourth, and the wife's third outing at Laguna since last December, so we're quite familiar with this track. I'd done one day in Tristan and 2 in Shawn (the S) so I wanted another crack at trying with just the Cooper, the wife has only driven Shawn there.

The day was quite sucessful, the wife worked on getting faster, and was only 7 seconds behind me at the end of the day, her previous best was 25 sec behind my best in Tristan, and she was driving the Cooper-S for that one. Now I'm trying to encourage her to try a solo session, she was coached for all the sessions.

I felt a little off the pace, I had trouble keeping up to the speeds I'd managed at my first outing at Laguna. With a couple more days there, and the new tires, I was hoping for a good bump to my lap times, but ended up only 0.5s faster. Though I think I've decided to give up worrying about lap times and just drive. I seem to go faster when I don't worry about it.

Part of the problem is I think the line I'd learn for the Cooper-S didn't work so well for the Cooper-S. That line used very late turn ins, and strong acceleration past the apex. That fine if you have the power, the JustaCooper just couldn't manage it. I experimented with an earlier turn in and apex to carry more speed through the corners, that seemed to help.

For one session I gave the wife a ride, I wanted to show her more of what the car is capable of, she'd seemed reluctant to push it. The first hot lap elicited some squeals, its well known that the passenger seat is about 15 mph faster than the driver's seat. I backed off a bit for the next lap, but did manage a better lap time. That last lap was as fast as her best lap of the day.

Of course I got some video, my best lap: http://homepage.mac.com/barryt/.Movi...unaOct5fdi.mov
My wife's best lap: http://homepage.mac.com/barryt/.Movi...naOctC4fdi.mov

And pictures: http://homepage.mac.com/barryt/LagunaOct/ The pro photographer was there again. This was also the sunniest day we'd had at Laguna, so the photos came out quite well (and I got a little sunburnt).

Here's a sample (These copyright ©Dito Milan, Gotbluemilk.com.):

 

What kind of rims are those? They look like Gram Lights. Which if they are, thats sweet!

 

They're SSR Type-Cs. Once I Googled Gram Light, they do look like 57Accelerates or 57Maximums (I tried to look up the weight of those, but no one seems to think its important, the SSRs are 11.7lb.)

 

Btwyx love your vids man!

 

Coming up next is Jan 30th at Thunderhill with Hooked on Driving. I hope it doesn't rain, but should be fun even if it does. We're taking Tristan (the JustaCooper). Thunderhill was where we did our first track day in 06, it was a MINI only day. We took Quentin our then MCS to that one, and I wanted to try again in a JustaCooper. (only be 4 years later to get back there.)

We'll probably do another Thunderhill in Shawn for contrast, Hooked have a February 20th date there.

 

We're back from Thunderhill, it was fun of course. Things were looking very unpromising when there was a downpour the night before, which meant traffic was really bad and we were 2 hours late getting to the hotel for the night. It was very soggy up there. The next morning didn't look that much better, it was rather damp, but not raining. The first 2 sessions were definitely wet, but then it dried out and the afternoon was just about perfect

I have no idea how fast I went last time, which was our first ever track day, when we took Quentin the R53, but this time, I'm pretty sure I went faster, even if we were in a JustACooper. I was taking corners in a higher gear than last time and taking some corners with much less breaking. I'd set myself a target of 2:30 for a lap and I very nearly made it, the best lap was 2:30.1. Though I was on a faster lap when the checkers came out, counting turn 10 to turn 10 I actually did 2:29.5.

My wife was running as well and she finally did a solo session (after only 7 track days), her best lap was solo, a 2:56.3.

I have Pictures, and video of my lap, my wife's lap and the interrupted lap.

 

Sounds like fun as always. I'm sure it's cool to see that your driving skill and confidence is improving so significantly to be faster in the Cooper. Obviously you drive a little more aggressively than your wife, too :D.

 

Yesterday we did another track day at Thunderhill, this time we took Shawn (the MCS). A little surprisingly, only one of my laps was faster than my fastest lap in Tristan (the JustaCooper), but I have an excuse. It was the third session of the day and I lined up behind another MINI on the pregrid, an R53 with some sort of fancy tires. Then another MINI lined up behind me to join the party. The R53 took off and I started chasing him, that turned out to be my fastest lap of the day. The other MINI was left someway behind. I managed to catch the R53 and overtook.

Just after I'd overtaken, I started to feel a vibration which felt like a wheel falling off, so I aborted the session. After poking around a bit no one could find a problem, so I took him back on track for the next session (and my wife had missed her session), and gingerly took a lap. No vibration, it was probably just something the tire had picked up to unbalance things. Though after that I never did have the confidence to really try.

The pro photographer was there:



More pictures here: http://homepage.mac.com/barryt/THillJun/

Video of my best lap, chasing the R53: http://homepage.mac.com/barryt/.Movies/THillJunBest.mov

Video of my wife's best lap: http://homepage.mac.com/barryt/.Movi...llJunCBest.mov

 

Last Thursday we were back at Laguna Seca, in Tristan (the JustaCooper) again. The weather was very unpromising, the forecast was for showers, and it was very wet on the ground as we left the hotel in the morning. I was in the first group out, and it was definitely very greasy. There were some exciting moemnts with the back end threatening to break lose. After that the track dried out and stayed dry most of the day (with just a few spits of rain here and there). It was very cold and stayed cold all day, it hardly broke 50F, which gets very cold when the windows are wound down.

My wife was in the last group to get on track which meant we had to hot swap, as soon as she came in I went out. Hooked on Driving were being very efficient about getting the groups in and out, so I ended up missing about a lap of the remaining sessions.

I wasn't worrying about going particularly fast, just having fun, but I managed laptimes in line with those I'd done before, just not quite breaking my record.

The pro photographer was covering the event,



we have photos: http://web.me.com/barryt/Laguna11/

And video of my best lap: http://web.me.com/barryt/Movies/LagunaApr11BBesti.mov

And the wifes: http://web.me.com/barryt/Movies/LagunaApr11CBesti.mov

 

Last Monday we were back at Laguna Seca, this time in Shawn (the S).

Laguna is the track we've been to most, this was my 6th time and my wife (Cathy)'s 5th time. This was the third time in Shawn. The previous time I was in Shawn at Laguna was when Siddhartha was teaching me how to go faster in his "Advanced Car Control Clinic". That was when I decided I was putting too much strain on the car and decided to dial it back a bit. So my goals for the day were a bit unclear, I didn't want to try for my lap record (1:55.5), I decided I'd be happy with under 2 minutes.

When we got to the track it was disconcertingly foggy. I wondered if we'd even get to go on track with conditions like that. But by the time my first session came around it had largely cleared up. The first session was a good one, for once I had clear track for almost the whole session. The first session is usually when people are remembering how to let people pass and you usually end up frustrated behind a long train of cars. I felt I did a good job, and looking at the video I see I managed a 2:00.1 lap. I was a bit disappointed that I seemed to be suffering a bit of brake fade. I'd got a brake flush done specifically so the brakes would be up to it.

In my group (B low intermediate) there were at least 3 other MINIs, I talked to all the owners of course. One thing I was looking at was what tires they were running as our track tires are going to need replacing soon. There was another R56 S, an R53 with some mods and an R56 JustaCooper. They were running with Yokohama S-Drives, Yokohama Advan Neova AD08 and Bridgestone RE760 tires (though I've forgotten which MINI had which tire). I'm running Goodyear Direzza Z1 star specs, which are roughy equivalent to the AD08s, and a step up from the others.

In the second session I lined up on the grid directly behind the R56 and R53, and the JustaCooper was a few cars in front of them. This should be interesting. I caught up with the R56 at the end of my outlap (I take it easy on the outlap) and then it took 2.5 laps trailing him before he decided to let me by. During those 2.5 laps we did overtake the JustaCooper. When I finally got by the R56, I did my best lap of the day (1:59.6) and set off to catch the R53. He was harder to catch, I did manage to catch him when traffic was holding him up and was thinking I should be able to get past him when the session was black flagged. A pedestrian was wandering across the track near the "Corkscrew". I think I saw the pedestrian earlier in the session, you can see him on the video. That was annoying.

In the 3rd session I caught more traffic, a BMW M3 wouldn't let me by for a lap, then an old Datsun held me up for another lap. Then I caught and passed the R56 and the JustaCooper, I still hadn't caught the R53. The clear laps I got were in the low 2 minutes.

In the 4th session I had largely clear track, but was feeling a bit tired and things got a bit messy. I managed several laps around 2:05. I wasn't very happy with my performance.

Meanwhile Cathy had been improving her performance (in the A, beginners group), but had been suffering from traffic, some particularly slow M3s (from Washington State) weren't letting people by. Back in 09 we'd run several times at Laguna and Cathy had taken great strides in getting faster. Her best lap from 09 was a 2:10 (in Tristan, our JustaCooper), that was after I'd given here a lift and shown her was a 2:10 lap looked like. We were back at Laguna this April in Tristan and she was a bit slower, not breaking 2:20 until the last session (with a 2:16). This time her best was a 2:14 in the first 4 sessions. Then her instructor suggested giving each other a ride in the final sessions.

So I gave her a lift in my 5th session. With largely clear track I hit a 2:03 and consistently turned out 2:05s. Cathy says I'm a bit jerky in my driving and she felt I was a bit too near the limit at times, which is fair comment. I then got a lift with Cathy for her final session. She seemed to be inspired by my example as she turned several of her fastest laps of the day, just edging out her previous best with a 2:10.6 (but her previous best was in the JustaCooper). I was suitably impressed, I think she'd be perfectly capable of running in the intermediate group instead of beginners. The problem is I'm most comfortable running in intermediate as well, though the powers that be would not object to me being in a higher group, just the MINIs aren't that fast.

If anyone's at all interested I keep a blog of these advantures at Btwyx.com.

Video of my best lap is http://btwyx.com/Movies/LagunaAug11Besti.mov. Cathy's best lap http://btwyx.com/Movies/LagunaAug11CBesti.mov. There was a pro photographer covering the event and pictures http://btwyx.com/LagunaAug11/.

I have quite a bit of video trailing the other MINIs, but I never asked their permission to post any of it. If they're reading this I can send them the video.

 

I can't wait until we buy a house so I can get back to the track. I did three track events basically back to back last fall after I got my MINI, took full chunks out of my tires, ceased a caliper and destroyed my brakes, and showed a cocky A-hole in a 335 whose boss.

Best four days of my life, and I can't wait to take the MINI back to the track. Gotta add another few stickers to the back of my car.