I don't have a plate like that. The only vanity plate we have is on the Blue Cooper, "IPOD MNI". The other MINIs have anonymous plates.

 

Thursday we were back at Laguna, it was a perfect day, sunny but not too warm. The big problem was it was seven months since our last track day, so we were a bit rusty. In the meantime we's been doing auto crosses instead. As usual we were going to take Algy, the JCW. Cathy was in the B intermediate group as usual and for a change I signed up for the D "Advanced/Open Passing" group.

Passing rules is one thing that separates an event like this from a race. Passing is risky, so its strictly regulated. In all our previous events passing has been by "point by" only. Someone is only allowed to pass when the passed driver points them by, that is they physically stick their arm out of the window to signal to passing driver that it is safe and reasonable to pass. The passed driver initiates the pass by deciding where and when the pass can happen, then the passing driver is responsible for making sure the pass happens safely. With open passing the responsibilities are reversed, as no point by is required. The passing driver decides where and when the pass will happen, the passed driver is responsible for making sure it happens safely by keeping out of the way of passing driver. Its something only experienced drivers should attempt, after 26 events I thought I was ready for this, if somewhat nervous. The thought of open passing freaks Cathy out a bit.

I was also interested if it would be a solution for taking the Cooper back to the track sometime. In the JCW I'm already about the slowest car in the advanced group. If we took the Cooper I'd be even slower and I'm worried that I'd just get in the way. The theory was that with open passing, the other cars can just whizz by and I don't hold them up.

The other ongoing story is of course brakes. As mentioned, after the last event where the Yellowstuff pads started disintegrating, I'd been corresponding with EBC brakes about them. They'd offered to send me some of their Bluestuff pads. Bluestuff is an even harder wearing pad than the Yellowstuff pads (which are already hard wearing pads), but they're not normally made in the right size pads for the JCW. They had sent me some, but just too late for us to use at the last track day in April. When I went to fit the pads I saw they'd sent me the wrong pads, the ones they sent would fit a Cooper-S, not the JCW. After an email exchange they sent me some more pads, but they were only Yellowstuff pads, so that's what I installed. I also intended to inspect the pads halfway through the day and probably reverse them to even out the wear.

When I got the schedule for the day I thought for once we wouldn't have to hot swap. Cathy went out first thing, and then I was out third. So I was expecting this pattern to be repeated during the day. I hadn't noticed that for the rest of the sessions the B and C group swapped order for some reason, so we ran back to back for two sessions. The lunch break was between two of our sessions and D group only gets four sessions on track, but the sessions are longer so the track time works out the same.

Also to complicate matters I got new tires in a new size. The tires we normally run (Bridgestone RE-11) are being superseded by a new tire (the RE-11A). This has the same tread pattern but a different compound. By all accounts the compound is grippier, but strangely has a higher tread wear rating (200 vs 180). That (I don't think) coincidentally makes it legal for the new Autocross tire regulations. The new tire is only available in a limited number of sizes currently (probably while they sell of stocks of the old one), and not in the size we usually run (205/45-17). They are available in a slightly larger size (215/45-17), so I decided to try some of those. The extra width of the tire (a whole 10mm) should provide more grip, but the tire also has a larger diameter by 3%. This could be useful as in several places I'd been running up against the limiter. I was hoping this would let me avoid changing up in those places. Specifically I was running out of 4th gear over turn 1, I was changing up into 4th going up the hill into turn 6, and I was short shifting going into turn 9 and carrying 4th through 9 and 10 into 11.

Here's the handy track map:



The immediate question was what tire pressures we should run. My experience with autocross seemed to suggest I'd been running too low a pressure in the previous tire, and there was significant grip to be gained by increasing the tire pressures. I had run with 35 psi previously, but the autocross experience suggested that nearer 50 psi was the right pressure (which is coincidentally near the spec maximum pressure of 51psi for the tire). To complicate matters I expected the tires would heat up strongly on the track so the working pressures would be greater than those I would set on the street. I decided to try 40psi and expected the tires to heat up and gain 10psi while running on track. Tire temperatures suggested that was way too low for the street. I was going to monitor the tire temps (which reveal how close to optimal pressure you are). For this the probe pyrometer I'd gotten earlier was the right tool. (As opposed to autocross where an IR pyrometer is more appropriate.

A final complication was I'd got an alignment done, I'd specified maximum (negative) camber and minimal toe. The shop managed to find a whole 1 degree of camber, which is better than either of the Coopers I'd had aligned which could only find 0.7 degrees. With that much (negative) camber the car is running on the inside edge of the tire, and the tire temperatures showed this.

We got to the track for the usual early start, the driver's meeting was at 8:15 and Cathy was due on track at 9am. For our group meeting we introduced ourselves and our cars. There were some very fast cars in the group, up to severel Porsche GT3 cup cars. Those are Porsche's race cars which also happen to be street legal. The passing protocols were gone over. Passing was anywhere on the track. Passing at the apex of a corner was discouraged, but not forbidden. Point bys could be given, and if given should be followed, but they were not mandatory. The main thing is you have to very aware of what's going on around you, behind you as well as in front. I said I was probably the slowest car there and people should feel free to pass me.

Cathy was first on track and the lap timer said she turned some reasonable laps in the 2:05-2:06 range. I measured the tire temps and they suggested that the fronts were about right, and the rears were under inflated. I didn't adjust the pressure then, I wanted to go out first, I expected I'd warn the tires up a bit more which might change things. I also scanned the brakes to see how how they were, a reasonable toasty 400F up front.

Then it was my turn. I felt horribly out of practice and lacking confidence and it didn't take long for the first cars to start whizzing by. The new tires were helping. It was staying under the limiter on the run over 1 and I was again having trouble working out a good line. Keeping my foot down Algy could get pretty bloody fast over one and finding the right line to transition to the braking zone for turn 2 was proving difficult. For one of my later laps I managed to put the two right wheels off the track in the braking zone, that was scary I'd seen the results of what can happen there if you're not careful (and it wasn't pretty).

The new tires didn't help on the run up the hill to 6, I still hit the limiter. I did wonder if I could just hold it at the limiter for an instant before needing to brake, but it was much too long, so I put in the usual upshift on all the subsequent laps. The data shows that it was about 2 seconds from hitting the limiter to braking, it seems much longer at the time. There was a win for the new tires around 9 and 10. I didn't change up and I was just shy of the red line when I had to brake for 10, and again I was just shy of red line before braking for 11. So for the rest of the day I didn't upshift. Looking at the data I managed to exceed redline briefly several times at 10 and 11, so now I'm wondering how wise this is. I'll have to compare to previous runs and see what the advantage of not changing up was, it felt like I had a lot more oomph.

Also during the early part of the session I was smelling hot brakes. After the last day I wasn't surprised at this, but decided to be a bit easier on the brakes for the rest of the session. The open passing was working, I was trying to keep out of peoples way. One thing was before I made any move, I always checked if there was a car there. If I was going to turn in, I made a quick check in the mirror to make sure nothing was in the way. There was one car which caught up to me very rapidly at turn 3, then didn't make a move going into 4. The straight there is short so passing can be a little awkward, but exiting 4 I kept over to the left offering him the right of the track to pass and he didn't pass. After that I decided mostly just keep to the regular line and let the passing car go offline if necessary. It didn't always work like that, some cars were a little more opportunistic and grabbed the line and I kept out of their way. In the various sessions I got passed on the inside of 9, on the run to 11 around 2, all places that would not be kosher in the other groups. I had the new GoPro camera setup we used for Autocross, but for my sessions I had one of the camera mounted on the back of the car looking backwards, so I could see what was happening behind me in the video. Cathy didn't think this would be useful for her, so I had one camera mounted as an "Apex cam" for her.

After the session I took the tire temperatures again, as expected they were hotter, about 15F hotter. The fronts still looked reasonable, but the rears looked underinflated, so I pumped 3psi more into the rears. In the subsequent sessions the temperatures looked good. The temperatures did show the camber in the wheels, the inside edge was hotter than the outside, I hoped that it wasn't wearing the inside too much. When I measured the tread the next day, the wear looks quite reasonable, its not wearing the outside shoulder off, which has been the problem before. I took the hot tire pressures a few times, they were up around 50psi as I expected. I also looked at the brake temperatures after the first session, up around 700F for the fronts, after they'd had a chance to cool off.

I wanted to take the time to examine the front brake pads, but with the schedule there wasn't much time to do it. I'd want to let the brakes cool for at least 10 mins. Preferably they'd be not much hotter than 200F and I'd be wearing the gloves I purchased for just such an occasion. I considered after my second session, when there was 40 min before Cathy's third session, but the brakes would be hotter. So I decided to do it after Cathy' 3rd session over the lunch break, before my 3rd session. Again there was 40 mins scheduled between the sessions. I reckoned it'd take about 20 mins. I'd already let the brakes cool for 10 mins, so by the time I got the wheels back I was a little late. The brakes looked fine luckily, they were less than half worn, just the expected wedge shape, so I put them back the other way around and went out for my session. The lead cars were already finishing their first laps and I was only out for my warm up lap, and I was being especially careful over the brakes I was making sure they were still working so I worked extra hard at staying out of the way.

My sessions were largely without incident. At the beginning of the second session I was just cruising around slowly warming up the tires when I tried to take turn 4 without braking. I'd been noting my speed around 4 and it seemed a little slow, under 65, when I think I've done it at 70 before now. I entered the turn at about 70, then passing the apex I had a horrible feeling I wasn't going to make the exit. In the driver's meeting earlier turn 4 had been discussed. Its one of the common places to get a crunched car. The usual scenario is someone drops wheels off at 4 and panics a bit over corrects and zooms across the track to hit the inside wall. They'd mentioned there was plenty of run off there and "soft hands" were needed to bring the car under control and gently back on the track. I was going off, I was going to let the MINI do its thing and gently bring him back on track. Only at that point, the MINI with a mind of its own took a sharp right turn and started heading for the inside wall, exactly what I was trying to avoid. I was going slow enough, and I managed to brake and turn to keep it on the track and not in the wall. I was expecting to be black flagged for my off track adventure, but there wasn't one, so I went into the pits any way and "turned myself in". I was either too fast or too early at turn in, but the MINI had a mind of its own was my story and then went back out and had a reasonable session.

My times for the middle two sessions were unspectacular, around 2:00 with a smattering of 1:58s or 1:59s. I did grow in confidence. I had started out forgetting to turn off the stability control, but quickly turned it to the intermediate "DTC" mode and got on well with that and turned my fast lap in the first session with the DTC helping. As I grew in confidence and started attacking some of the corners more, I started feeling the DTC interfering, so for the third and fourth sessions I turned it off entirely. I was experimenting with different lines in some corners. The most obvious was turn 2, I tried out the double apex again. This was also mentioned in the driver's meeting, the single apex is a bad racing line as it leaves you totally exposed to being passed. Maybe not an appropriate comment as we're not racing, but the guy making the comments was a real racing driver and he had been asked, we were the really advanced group. I was also experimenting with turn 9, which is one I've never felt comfortable with, now I was taking it in 3rd, not 4th I had a lot more power out of the corner, I experimented with a later apex to power throughout the corner. I've yet to analyze the video to see what the effect of this was. I was also trying to get to grips with turn 6. After my realization that my problem with it was that was blind, I started braking using the visible brake markers but looking up and across the corner. I was trying to look ahead as far as possible and not the turn directly in front of me. I'm not sure if it helped, but it confirmed to me that 6 is a scary corner if you think about it too hard.

As I expected I was the slowest car in the group, I got passed by lots of cars. Early in the first session I started catching a Miata, probably a spec miata, it looked like a race car. But he pulled off the track before I could catch and pass him. In the last session I was surprised to see a 92 Civic (or older) in front of me, not going too fast and I passed him. I later worked out he wasn't one of our group, he was a coach. So I didn't pass anyone in the group, which is not surprising. I asked David the group leader if I actually belonged in the group, he said I was doing fine. He view was its all about awareness and traffic management and I was doing great at that. I'm not entirely sure I belonged. I also asked David about running the Cooper, he suggested C might work for that. Later discussing it with Cathy if I do want to take the Cooper to the track we might take both cars, then I'd put myself in B along with Cathy where I'd be mid pack. (And I'd probably run faster than Cathy.)

For the last session I was getting more confident and decided not to be so easy on the brakes and to come off at the end of the session "hot" so I could measure the brake and tire surface temperatures (just as a matter of interest), I took the IR pyrometer along for this. That is I wouldn't have a cool down lap and come off the track with the tires and brakes at working temperature. Throughout the session I gained confidence everything was working fine, the brakes didn't seem to be complaining and I turned in a bunch of sub -2 min laps, culminating in the last lap which was 1:56 and finally faster that the lap in the first session. Still a ways off my best though. As I was pulling off the track the service indicator pinged, and it flashed up the MINI on a lift symbol in red meaning some service is due, right now. That was worrying, but first I measured the temperatures. The front brakes were above 1100F and the rears were 700F or so. The front tire surface temperature was about 160F which is what I was expecting and more than the 140F or so I'd measured with the probe (which is also expected).

The service code turned out to be front brakes. That was worrying, I wouldn't want to send Cathy out for her session without inspecting them, and there was not much time left before her session. Also I was pretty beat and really didn't feel like going to that effort. After I drove around a bit to cool the brakes, I went to find Cathy, she was just finishing her download session for her previous run. We discussed the issue and by the time we got back to our paddock spot, the C group was already on track, which meant that she was due on track in 20 mins. As I said, I reckon at least 20 mins to check the brakes, probably nearer 30, so if we did make the effort she was probably going to miss most of the session anyway and decided to give up at that point. So Cathy never got her 5th session, pity.

After I got home I checked the brakes and the sensor had worn down which brings up the brake service indicator. The pads were pretty evenly worn, but totally used up. It would not have been safe to send her out on those pads. I did have some back up pads if it came to that (but didn't make the effort). So we went completely through a set of Yellowstuff pads in 90% of one track day, I definitely need to find some harder wearing pads. I'm now looking at Porterfield brakes, who say they'll custom make a pad in any of their line of pad material. They've recommended the Raybestos ST-43 which is a full race compound, they reckon their hardest wearing pad. I think I'll give them a go.

Apart from missing her last session, Cathy was mostly having fun. In the first session she was disconcerted to see a Lotus Exige spin in front of her at turn 2. We have some great video of that we'll be forwarding to the girl driving it. After her second session, while I was trying to get to grid, Cathy was complaining of being scared out on the track. She pointed two of the other cars by coming out of Turn 4, and she says one of them overtook the other while passing her. As Cathy didn't have the rear facing camera, I don't see any video evidence of this. Also at lunch the other lady in the group (who happened to be driving the Exige) asked Cathy if she though the other drivers were being a bit more aggressive than usual. Cathy thinks it might have been, there was one incident where a driver waiting to pass (group B has set passing zones) seemed to make a gesture which might have signaled impatience. Its difficult to know what he other driver was thinking, without asking them. Cathy's fastest lap was the 2:05 from the first session, the rest of her laps were mainly in the high 2:0x range when she wasn't pointing other cars by. In the final session she got stuck behind the Exige which wasn't going very fast and was too timid to overtake, especially when there always seemed to be another car behind her she'd point by first.

Next up, we'll be doing Sonoma the day after thanksgiving.

I have video of course, my best lap: http://btwyx.com/Movies/LagunaOct13Best.mov
Cathy's best lap: http://btwyx.com/Movies/LagunaOct13Cbest.mov

 

Btwyx,

That is so cool. Great write up and video.

I have a question for you, what tire size do you like better the 205 or the 215? I'm mostly asking from an appearance point of view. Do you see any tire poke from the 215? (I don't want any of that.)

 

Glad you liked the write up, I was worried I was going on a bit.

I hadn't really considered the matter of appearance. I had noticed the tires were rather flat to the side of the car, that shows up on the photos. That is they don't poke and aren't recessed either. The wheels have +5mm offset and the tires have +5mm on either side, so the tire is 10mm out from standard.

I'm not really concerned about the appearance, I'm looking for function. But I think I prefer the stock wheels if I were to worry about it. It looks a bit weird being flat like that.

 

this is a GREAT topic - and very timely. I was starting to research autocross events. Those are in parking lots and whatnot, so since they are not inclosed in a racetrack environment, but ARE timed, does that still count as a race in the eyes of insurance?

 

My insurance (USAA) says this:

We do not provide Liability
Coverage, Medical Payments Coverage, or
Damage to the vehicle Coverage for:

3. Any vehicle while participating in any
prearranged, organized, or
spontaneous:

a. racing contest, speed
contest, demolition, stunt
activity, or competitive
driving event, or in practice
or preparation for any such
contest or use of this type;
or

b. use of a vehicle at a facility
designed for racing or high
performance driving unless
such use is for an activity
other than high performance
driving, high speed driving,
and other than those
activities listed in 3.a. above.

This is pretty freakin broad, so for me at least the answer would be NO coverage.

 

Love the write-up and it's great to hear of someone elses experience with the Yellowstuff pads. I used them all last year on my JCW coupe and like the feel, but was going thru pads in two or three days and having the angled pad wear you mention. I've used two different Carbotech compounds this year which last about one day longer and now have Porterfield R4's up front that I put about 75 track miles on a week ago and seem to be wearing well. I used Porterfields for years in a M coupe.

 

Sometimes honesty is not always the best policy.

 

That car looks familar--was one of those tracks Blackhawk, with the BMWCCA? If so, I was the DS/W (Now DS/Orange) MINI parked next to you--hope to see you there next year!

 

Yes, that's me! Thanks for pushing me towards the Carbotech's. Did a set of 10's then 12's. Very even wear and longer lasting than the Yellows. And the 8's on rear are really lasting.

 

Btwyx - Just got around to reading your latest tract story. As with the other readers I very much enjoy your writeups. Sorry to hear of your 2 off and the sudden transition to the other side of the track. I am glad that you were able to save it.

Another thing to consider with the brakes is the electronic limit slip that these cars use now with the DTC. I have gone through a right side set of pads in a day and a half whereas, in my previous MINI, the same pads would last 4 or 5 days. I also destroyed that rotor in 4 days. I attribute the added wear on the right side to a nasty 180 deg right hand uphill corkscrew at Watkins Glen. In trying to power up this turn the front gets light and the right front wheel gets even lighter and the right brake is abused trying to keep the wheel spin under control. BMWs are also experiencing this problem on the rear wheels.

Hope you find a good pad for your brakes. I fully believe that full race pad will serve you well. Looking forward to hearing how you make out in your next event.

 

Hey Btwyx,
Great write up, and it was good to meet you briefly in the paddock.
Cathy was right, the B group on the 3rd had a couple of really too aggressive drivers, especially the McLaren who should have been in C group. I have never had to complain to my group leader before, but after seeing a really risky pass made right after the apex of 11 i had to say something

I got the usual photo set from Dito, and one of them has your car in the background

 

On Friday we were out at Sonoma Raceway (the track previously known as Infinion) with Hooked on Driving. We took Algy and I was in the D Advanced/Open passing group again and Cathy was in the B intermediate group as usual.

Given our previous problems with brakes I'd been planning to cope with heavy wear. I'd discovered Porterfield brakes, who will do any brake compound they have in any pad shape they know about. They do Raybestos, Porterfield, Hawk and Performance Friction pad compounds. I asked them which compound would work for us, and they recommended Raybestos ST-43, so I ordered some pads and bedded them in. I also got some EBC Yellowstuff pads as a backup, I know they'll last at least a day if the Raybestos pads didn't work out. At the last track day (Laguna in October), we'd also had quite a bit of wear (2mm) on the rear pads. So I'd ordered and fitted some EBC Yellowstuff on the back.

Then unexpectedly, EBC sent me some of their BlueStuff pads. EBC had previously threatened to send me some to try out, but due to mix ups, they never had. I'd got some Bluestuff which would fit a regular Cooper-S and Some Yellowstuff to fit the JCW (which is what I wore out completely at Laguna). Bluestuff pads are supposed to be harder wearing then the Yellowstuff pads. The BLuestuff arrived just in time, so I decided to fit those and see how they did. I wasn't sure how much wear to expect, Sonoma doesn't seem to be as hard on brakes as Laguna is.

The good news is the Bluestuff pads worked just fine. There were absolutely no hassles with the brakes. I did check on the pads at lunch and juggled them to even out the wear. The front pads are about half worn out after the day, so I'm not sure how much tougher they are compared to the Yellowstuff pads. I'd like to try them again at a Laguna day, but I'm not sure they'd be a good option long term. The rear pads had hardly any measurable wear, so look to be a good option long term.

Here's the handy track map:


The day was largely uneventful, but I didn't get going very fast. The day started unusually early, 8am on track, so the C and D groups had an extra 15 "warm up" session first up. It was still pretty cold then, about 40 degrees, so I was quite careful, but there was still an incident where I got quite sideways going into turn 11 (the hairpin). Someone else said there was a brake fluid spill making it especially sloppy there. In later sessions there was a trail of what may have been "speedy dry" which is used for soaking up fluid spills. I did forget to turn on the camera for that session, so I can't see what happened exactly.

I hot swapped with Cathy for her first session at 8:30, she said she went slowly as well given it was still cold. But the lap timer showed her best lap of the session was a 2:18, which is as fast as she's previously run at Sonoma. Her previous best laps was a 2:18.0, the lap timer showed a 2:18.8.

It was considerably warmer for my first full session, though still chilly. It warmed up nicely for the rest of the day. The lap timer showed my best lap of the session was a 2:12. That didn't seem to bad for a first session. My previous best in Algy was 2:06.5, so I was a little puzzled when I didn't get going much faster. I got a 2:11 in the second session, and a 2:10s in the following sessions.

The best lap was a 2:09.7, so I was wondering where the time went, it felt like I was going seriously fast. I was still having trouble with the run up the hill to turn 1. I came up with a line which seemed reasonable, a quick lift as I crossed start/finish to settle the car, then sweep around to the outside of turn 1, a quick brake then turn in up the hill to two. I spent some time trying to get the right line around 2 and 3. I was trying to hit the power early and keep on the power through the turns. I'd know I'd got it right when I could stay on the power all the way through the turn and still stay on the track at the exit. If I needed to lift to stay on track, I turned in too early. That lead to quite late turn in for two and three.

At turn 5 things also seemed to get fast. I was hitting the limiter half way around the turn, so I started changing up there briefly, then changing down as I entered turn 6. I'd forgotten to review the video from my previous best laps. So I didn't realize I'd previously been changing up before 5 and then carrying 4th all the way to 7. I tried that once or twice and it seemed very slow, so I carried on changing down. The entry into 6 was slow enough that changing down didn't seem like a problem. Again I was adjusting my entry to 5 to enable me to keep my foot down, it made 5 quite exciting, and again the turn in seemed quite late.

I was having my usual problem keeping the speed up around 6. I know there a lot of time to be gained or lost around 6, but it just seemed like I couldn't go that fast around there. At the exit of 6 I did the same finding the right line. The line I ended up with seemed a lot later turn in than I'd previously used. There are lots of possible line through 6, either closer to the inside and shorter and slower, or around the outside, faster but longer. I use a mid track line, about a cars width from the inside of the track. I did notice that this seemed to be a very defensive line. As the D group was open passing, fast cars could and did whiz by just about anywhere on track. There was also a C Sports Racer ("CSR") car in the group. CSR cars are purpose build race cars and one of the fastest cars that run in amateur competition, the lap record for a CSR is 1:30, so he passed me quite a bit and very fast. One time he caught up to me in the middle of 6, he took a look at passing on the inside, but couldn't fit. He had to wait until I'd apexed before he could whiz by me.

Turn 9 was also being quite exciting. I thought I'd previously been seeing speeds of 105mph or so around 9, making it the fastest point on the track. I didn't seem to be reaching those speeds. I was trying to keep my foot down and push the speed up, but in one of the early sessions I had a bit of a wobble in the middle of 9. I realized I was doing nearly 100mph almost losing control and at that point I was headed directly for a concrete wall. The plan is of course to turn at turn 10 and not hit the wall, but its still a disconcerting realization. I knew the exit of turn 10 could be treacherous if not done right, and its one of the standard places to meet the wall. I didn't want to become acquainted with the wall, so I backed off a bit on subsequent laps. I didn't do much more than 95 around 9 all day. That feels like a very fast 95.

Down at turn 11, I was using a different line than I had before. I turned in a bit earlier and still seemed to manage to get a lot of speed on exit, so I carried on using that line. Reviewing the video I see that was where I was losing a lot of time. The later turn in meant I lost about a whole second by the time I reached turn 2. I was crossing start/finish doing about 95, where as previously I'd been doing 101. It still felt faster and was more of a problem going up the hill to 2, so I'm not sure what going on. I lost another chunk of time at turn 6, it just wasn't as fast. There were small amounts of time being lost most everywhere else. Either I'm just not doing as well as I did previously, or the new tires are just not as good as the previous set.

As I said, the day was largely without incident. The open passing worked quite well. I like the open passing format, but I really need a faster car to be feel like I belong in the D group. There were a few incidents during the day where I overestimated the speed of a passing car. A few times I expected the car to blow by, but couldn't until I lifted. There were a couple of spec Miatas like that, and a Mazda 3. I thought it was an Evo so would be much faster, it disappear into my blindspot and didn't emerge.

I also realized that I had very little experience actually doing the passing, when I caught one of the other cars. It was an Alfa Romeo 75 (which seems to be called a "Milano" in this country). I thought it was a lot more powerful than the MINI, but looking at the specs, I see that the most powerful version doesn't have the power of the JCW, and it weights about as much. I caught up to him coming up to turn 11 (the hairpin), he seemed to be wanting me to pass there and then, he seemed to slow up unexpectedly. I didn't want to steal his apex, so I hung back, took a late line to get a good launch off the corner and started to overtake on the way to 12. I was just about level with him at 12 around the outside, then he seemed to speed up and try cutting me off, he moved over to the right, squeezing me into the wall. I backed out of the pass quickly and was not pleased. I eventually managed to pass him on the next lap going into turn 11.

Cathy was having fun, I had to hot swap with her on a few of the sessions. Her lap times showed her second session was her fastest, with several almost as fast as her previous best and a couple even better. She ended up with a 2:17.5 and a 2:16.9 back to back. Her later sessions were not that fast, her third session was particularly slow. I'll review the video to see what was holding her up. Still she's very pleased with her showing. The video of her lap looks very leisurely, and she again is not shifting gears. She's probably got quite a bit of time to pick up if she did manage to shift gears.

I have video, my best lap: http://btwyx.com/Movies/SonomaNov13Best.mov
Cathy's best lap: http://btwyx.com/Movies/SonomaNov13CBest.mov

Her's Cathy in the early morning sunlight:



And me with the Spec Miata following at turn 10, I'm just about to let him by. You can really see the shape of the Esses in this photo.

 

The question of insurance has been asked a couple of times in this thread. I've mentioned that we're prepared to "self insure", as in we could pay for the damage if necessary. However our insurance may, or may not cover damage at an event like this. At Friday's event they mentioned a wreck they had at an event recently (a very rare occurrence with Hooked on Driving). On of the organisers mentioned that he spent a lot of time on the phone with the insurance company of the guy involved and convinced them the event was educational, not competitive and the insurance company is going to cover the damage. Its possible that your insurance company may cover damage if you do wreck the car, we hope never to find out for sure.

I also heard from someone else about the wreck, he was first on the scene after it happened. At Thunderhill an M3 managed to go off of turn 9 sideways and roll, ending up half on the track by turn 10 pointing the wrong way. The cloud of dust obscured the corner worker's view for a while so no yellow flags were thrown immediately. The session got black flagged of course.

I don't know how someone could manage to come off at turn 9 like that, but it underscores the importance that if you are going to leave the track, you need to do it in a straight line. One of the few ways to really do damage is to leave the track sideways, where the wheels may possibly dig in and cause the car to roll. I've been off track a few times, but when the car is threatening to do that I'll stop fighting it so I go off the track forwards and I can gain control later.

 

Btwyx - As usual, nice writeup. My season ended in early October and the snow tires have gone on. So, it is fun reading what you are doing this time of year.

You said that you were a little slower than what you thought you should be at. What tire pressure are you running hot? Your last time out, you said that you were pushing for 50 psi and that was higher than you had run in the past. Early on I was told that it is best to stay below 40 psi in a street tire. As they heat up, they will loose grip if they are too high a pressure. I found this to be true with both the AD08s and Z1s I have run. They both got squishy when they would get above 40 psi and I target for 38 to 39 psi hot when I am running on the track. This is also where you were running with your previous set of tire, which you had the faster time. It is different for autoX where I will run higher pressures and have read that some people will push it above 50 psi.

 

The weather around here is great throughout the autumn and winter, as long as the rain holds off. Just a bit chilly early in the morning, but perfect later on. This is the rainy season, but this year has been unusually dry, the wet tends to be Jan/Feb.

I was running the same pressures as last time. I didn't measure it hot. That's the pressure I found which made the temperatures even, the temperatures looked even again, but could be slightly high at the front and low at the back.

The tire wear looks slightly under inflated on the right and overinflated on the left. In other words, the data is inconclusive.

It'd be an interesting experiment to let out some air and see what difference it makes. The previous tires I ran at 35psi cold, and that turned out to be too low when I started autocrossing. The new tires seemed happiest at 39/42. The new tires are slightly wider (215 vs 205), and the new compound (RE-11A vs RE-11).

The RE-11s always seemed to be relatively unaffected by heat, but may prefer it slightly cooler. My fastest runs on the old tires tended to be the 2nd session of the day. They still seemed to work when heated up to 160F or so.

I won't be able to experiment any time soon, my plan for next year is to try out Bertie. Cathy will run Algy and I'll run Bertie and we'll both be in the intermediate group.

 

Your weather sound fantastic. I think Charlie T. would suggest his "pixie dusted" tires for the rain (Toyo R1Rs). You could go all the time with a set of those on your tire rack

As for watching the tire temperatures, I have read that on the track the tires will likely be hotter on the outside. They worked to even out the temperature by increasing the camber. Here is one I remember reading: http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/tilt/

This article is missing is the tire pressures they were using, which would be helpful here and they are running Pilot Sports which is a difference...they also note they sometimes run high pressures in the back to get the car to rotate. I would expect they are getting the rotation from a drop in traction.

 

Interesting article.

Their temps were screaming at me that they were over inflated. I'd have fixed that first.

Interesting Algy only has 1 degree of negative camber, but his temps look much better than they ever got. After the last session I came off without cooling down and measured:

165 158 158 165 154 151
136 128 139 132 117 119

 

May I ask how you came to the conclusion that they were over inflated? I don't know how to judge that from the data.

I know my R comps (the Toyo R888s) say to be, hot, 32 - 38 psi and I have IE fixed plates that give me about -1.5 deg camber. I have only had my tire temp measured once and the person only said it was good, which I took as "even". I wish I had gotten numbers. Your temps look good.

 

The theory is that an under inflated tire is riding on its sidewalls, there isn't enough pressure to bring the centre of the tire into play. Conversely, an over inflated tire is riding on its centre and the tire edges aren't doing much. So under inflated tires are hotter on the edges than in the middle, overinflated tires are hotter in the middle than the edges.

A properly inflated tire will show either even temperatures across the tire, or a steady temperature gradient across the tire. In either case if you plot the temperatures on a graph, they'll show a straight line. Here's an example:



The outside edges don't mean much in those, but to me its obvious that the 35 psi line is underinflated and the 48 psi line is about right. A straight line shows correct inflation, and I think camber will alter the gradient of the line. (Ie with correct camber, the line is horizontal, with too little camber it slopes up to the outside.)

I was looking at the data and seeing the centre temperature was obviously higher than the edges, or would be if you plotted them on a line.

 

Nice, very helpful.

Grassroots is supposed to be a good place for info like this. I am surprised they missed that one.

 

Say, I went back and looked at that article and noted at the end they lowered the tire pressure by 2 psi and the center temp went up even further as compared to the edge. Could they have a tire size that is too large for the rim width????

Also interesting is that the tire temp went up across the whole tire while at the same time they dropped almost a half a second off their 4 lap average for -3 deg of camber. So they were driving harder, hence the higher temps but I doubt that explains the center temperature.

 

Hey Btwyx,

thanks for starting this thread and all the great writeups. I'm finally taking the time to post about my experience with HOD at Laguna Seca last month.

This was my 2nd time at Laguna Seca with HOD, 3rd time if you count laps at a BMW sales event 20 years ago. I was in A group. The only changes I made to the car for the track were installing EBC yellow pads in front, adding SS brake lines, and doing a flush with Motul RB600. Still using the stock Continental run flats.

The day started off cold, foggy, and drizzling, visibility was reduced to the point that HOD delayed the start of the early sessions. But by the time A group hit the track things were clearing up nicely. Since I had been at MRLS before with HOD I knew the line and was one of the faster cars in A. Going up the hill into turn 7 I could really feel the difference the cold air made in making power, that's where the datalogging I did last time showed the maximum intake air temps. That morning in the cold air the car just kept pulling.

In one of the early sessions, coming down the hill from the corkscrew I caught up to a Corvette C5 in turns 9 and 10, then was close behind around 11 on to the straight. I expected a blast of V8 exhaust and watching him disappear down the straight, instead he pointed me by! I laughed and said to my coach "I never thought I'd see that happen" and passed. Either the C5 doesn't handle well, or he had lousy tires, or was just being very cautious, no matter because we weren't racing. But still it was unexpected, I never thought of the Mini being competitive with a Corvette on anything but the twistiest of tracks.

My coach was great, he showed me a better line through 9, and I finally figured out 6 to the point where I was either on the rev limiter in 3rd coming up the hill to 7 or shifting to 4th. I was also hitting the rev limiter between turns 4-5, and 5-6 and shifting briefly to 4th.

In the afternoon sessions I ditched the coach and went solo. I ended up being 2nd on the track behind a guy in a rented Spec Miata with the full suspension treatment and track tires. He was very quick and smooth, I had a blast for 4 laps just hanging back about 20 - 30 yards. At one point I thought about being a bit more aggressive and trying to catch him, but we were already lapping very quickly so I decided not to. I was pleased to be keeping up on the stock runflats with 15K miles of wear. By lap 4 we were starting to hit traffic, we got past a couple of cars quickly but then I got held up and he got away. The last session I again ended up 2nd on the track and had some clear laps, toward the end a guy in a Porsche Panamera caught up to me at 11 so I pointed him by on the straight. Whoosh! and he just disappeared, that car has incredible acceleration.

I had no issues with the car, the brakes were great all day. I'm still trying to figure out optimum tire pressures. The first time with HOD the Big O tire experts were there, they recommended 33 front and 30 rear so I went with that, didn't notice anything strange. This time I went with 35 all around, the first half lap of each session the back end felt really loose and sloppy until the tires warmed up, then all was fine. One time I tried to push too hard through turn 2 and was scrubbing a bit, but that was my mistake. I checked tire pressures at the end of some of the sessions, the front tires would be up to about 45psi and the rears at 43. I don't know what to try next, lower pressure in back or higher. I certainly didn't have any problems getting the car to rotate, 22mm rear sway bar helps with that. I'm looking forward to wearing out the runflats and getting a set of Michelin Pilot Super Sports next spring.

Studying the calendar to figure out a track date for the spring....

 

Glad you had fun. Pics? Video? Video is one of the best things you can do for your driving, so you can see what you did right and wrong. Particularly in the lower groups, the speed of a car is mainly determined buy the driver, so even Corvette's may not be going fast. In the higher groups, the car will be used more to its potential. Are you going to move up to the B group next?

I'm not sure when we're back on track, except for MINI Thunder in February.

 

Yes, I've got lots of 1080p GoPro video. I agree, it is a great learning tool but one thing I have realized is that most people other than me lose interest after watching the first lap or two. Although a friend was there for her first track day ever in her brand new JCW, I sent her a couple of clips where I caught up and chased her through the Corkscrew and down the hill to the straight, and another through 2-3-4. She loved seeing those and I think the videos have made her a rock star among all the moms.

You are right, in the A group the driver is the main thing determining speed. My first time out, there was an older woman driving a Cayman R, she was painfully slow at first but made an incredible improvement over the course of the day. I was delighted to see her out there learning what the car could do. This last time, there was a young lady in a Carrera S who was let's say not driving the car to it's potential - but again, she was out there learning. I don't mean to pick on female drivers, after all there was the guy struggling with the C5. The demographic at track days seems to be primarily older men, I think it is cool to see women at the track driving. ( My wife sees cars as an appliance to get you from here to there, and doesn't care about the difference between a Honda Accord and a Ferrari, in fact given a choice between the two she'd take the Honda. Sigh.)

I think I'll be moving up to B group for next time. I'm trying to make at least one track day each quarter. Thinking about making it to Thunderhill, though I'm going to need a weekend pass for that rather than just blowing off a day of work here and there.