got back last night from my first road course experience, had a blast!! the car held up great, and handled like a champ. cant wait for the next event!

 

At my last track day (Phil Wicks School), one guy said "before I got here, I liked my car.. now, I really love my car". I felt the same.

I'd love to hear more about your experience, what you learned, what you'd do different next time....

I've had three track days so far, here's the write-up I did:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...8&postcount=18

Good luck.

 

Glad you enjoyed your time at LRP - it is a great place for MINIs. Here are some pics and vids of my last session there:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...d.php?t=118282

Have any pics to share?

mb

 

Moving over to the Road Racing Discussion forum. Thanks!

Mark

 

Well for one thing im hooked now, I had a great time and learned a lot. One of my biggest challenges was coming down to the end of the front straight and into Big Bend. At the end of the front straight i was hitting about 115 MPH and was very tenative in the beginning about getting on the brakes enough to hold the line. By my third session i was putting some weight into the brake and getting down to a speed that i could hold the line on. Other than that the only other thing i need to work on is my choppy gas pedal, have to learn to come in and out of it smoother.
on a side note i found out the 4 point Schroth harnesses i bought specificly for the track are not allowed at Limerock for safety concerns. something about spine compression due to the upside down V shape, going from rear over seat and down in front.

 

I saw you running. You're lucky you weren't on the track when the Bimmer laid down a nice layer of coolant for the entire length of the track...an older white MR2 was throwing a lot of oil on the track as well. When the bimmer's coolant let loose, 11 cars went off between turn 1 and 2 within a 15 second period. No yellow flags despite the rooster tail of fluid coming from the bimmer's back end. He actually spun in his own fluid while in the first apex of turn one...I have no idea what the flaggers were looking at, but steam in the air and fluid on the ground is usually a very bad sign...of things to come for the next folks.

Glad you had fun. There were a few minis with you.

 

Yeah i remember seeing you there, that BMW was parked near our group and one of our guys is a mechanic and worked with him to get it fixed, it was a coolant hose that came off for the heater. check out the below link it was from in car cam of Romans mini, he caught the white porsche 944 and black 911 when they spun out.
http://www.czmini.wz.cz/-VIDEO/2007-LR-04A.wmv

 

...that could have been much worse if all three were just a little closer. Some very good driving considering there wasn't much grip!

That is a nasty corner to have an off; a number of years ago I remember seeing an NSX go over the berm and came to a stop nearly in the driveway to the bridge - a pure race car so it was carrying some speed.

I sort of wish I was driving Saturday, but I fely like I had the flu...I definately wasn't very chatty.

 

I went threw that spill on that corner and my car keep on going striaght super understeer,I slowly got of the throttle and made it threw
There was a viper behind me and he told that he was right on my tail to set up for the pass on the striaght
If i would of lost it he would of plowed me.

 

That looked really nasty. I don't know that I would have been able to make it through that gap. That's some good driving (for HPDE level abilities).

 

Roman is one hell of a driver he should be in at least HPDE 3

 

You guys also had the Ford GT in your group. He was moving along okay in the turns, but when he hammered the straight, the sound was incredible...oh, so was the speed.

 

yeah nice car the GT had some good race tires on it too, there also was a Mustang Shelby GT500 there, loud and fast down the straights, not as good on the twisties, not sure if the problem was driver or car. my favorite were the Lotus Exige S's.

 

I like the Spec Racers; scrapy little cars with 89hp laping in the 104s with some clean space. A great time considering these top out at about 100mph at LRP.

 

It is pretty amazing how little, lightweight cars can get around a track. My buddy races Formula Ford as well as co-drives an old Nascar roadrace car (yeah, were you actually have to turn both ways ). He says the Nascar pulls like no other but his little 140hp Formula Ford was something like 10 seconds faster a lap.

 

...I think those formula fords - or whatever they are these days - were turning 56 second laps at LRP. Amazing! While watching the LeMans series, I was sort of un-amazed by 53 second lap times for the top dogs until I remembered they were going thru the chicane. Amazing again!