I am planning on doing a track day at Putnam park here in Indiana. What pads should I use for the event? If possible I would like to still be able to take advantage of the free brake/rotor change during my warranty so I would plan on swapping back to the stock pads after each event.

Should I use the oem rear pads and just swap out the fronts for the event?

 

Depends how hard you run your MINI. Stock tires and stock set up you will be fine with your JCW for your first few sessions. If you stand on them you will heat them up. Even with Racing pads you can do the same thing with sticky tires. If you use the stockers MINI will replace them when you wear them out. Once I went to sticky tires I needed more brake. I run Carbotech X-10 front and X-8 in the rears. I run them street and track. X-10 are aggressive on the front rotors and I am seeing some rear after 20K. Rotors are not that expensive and brakes are no place to skimp if you are tracking your car. I was going to swap back to stock but once you get use to all that brake it is hard to go back to stock. They are noisey on the street and everyone thinks you need brakes. Until they go for a ride anyway. They do not require being warmed up for street use. Just warn people to buckle up if they drive your car. Buddy took mine for a test run. didn't buckle and when he tested the brakes he ate the windscreen. His quote "I have never driven a street car with that much brake". The Dunlop RF's are actually very good at the track and wear very well. I did a about 4 sessions on them and sold them when I went to Conti D/W. They still had 15K in them. D/W's are great on the street and wet track days. The do not turn in as well as the Dunlop RF's. RF's have the metal in the sidewall that makes them very stiff and the turn is hard to beat actually with a non-RF. I had Conti RF on my 2010 S and I was going to swap the RF right away on my JCW that came with Dunlops. There rode excellent and even going up an inch rim size the ride on the JCW was caddy like compared to the S on the Conti's. I ran Dunlop's for about the first year.

 

My brake fluid is 1 year old and I have about 8 autocross events and one Evolution autocross school for a total of about 60 autocross runs. Should I flush it with a better brake fluid before the track event and keep the stock brake pads? On my last mini (A 2003 Cooper S) I ran Motul 600 brake fluid. Or should I just wait till the 2 year free flush...?

For autocross I am using Dunlop ZII tires which are a lot sticker than stock but not as sticky as race slicks. I would plan on using those at the track as well. On the street I use Michelin Pilot Super sports. They are almost as sticky as the ZII's.

 

Stick with the stock pads for now. Putnam Park is not that hard on the brakes. Turn 7 is the hardest on the brakes. Make sure to brake early and get a good turn in so you can get back on the gas (I use the rumble strip on the outside of 7 frequently). Going in to turn 1 you are at your fastest (in a JCW probably around 100 mph, in my modified S on r-comps I hit about 108-110), but it is not as tight of a turn as most people think. Build your confidence and you will realize that you can take turn 1 faster than you think. On the r-comps, I enter turn 1 at 80ish. Just remember, the faster you are through turn 1, the more you need to slow down for turn 2 (it is not very forgiving for too high of an entry speed).

Switching back and forth with brake pads can be very bad. When you bed in a set of pads and rotors, some of the pad material transfers to the rotor, and it is actually the pad compound on the rotor gripping with the pads. Different compounds can be very incompatible and very slick causing you very bad performance. The best option is to have a set of rotors dedicated to each set of pads, but most people don't want to change the rotors at the track. Many manufactures will have complimentary compounds for the street and track, so as long as you pick a known pair and stick with it you will be fine, but you will have to ditch your stock pads.

I would definitely switch to Motul 600. I wouldn't run anything but on the track. You will heat up your fluid enough on the track to boil the stock stuff.

I have a 2006 S with a lot of mods that I run at the Track. I have run Putnam Park many times. It is probably my favorite track for a MINI. The track surface is on the abrasive side, so it eats through tires faster than other tracks. I run Toyo RA-1s (225/45/15) for the track and I get about 3 days tops out of a set of tires. For brakes I have a Wilwood 11.75" BBK with their track pads. The back I run stock rotors and pads. This past year I installed brake cooling ducts which greatly helped brake fade. With sticky tires I am hard on the brakes, and the 15" rims leave very little room for the brakes to get air so I had been roasting the rotors.

The JCW is very competent at the track. You don't need to much until you start upgrading things. Get a set of slicks, then you might realize you don't have as much brake as you have grip. Start building more power and speed, then you will see the suspension is not stiff enough and you will start eating the outside edge of your tires. Stick with the stock car as long as you can. Once you start down the road of upgrades, it is a very expensive path. I don't even want to think about what I have spent on my car.