First track day

[tmontague]

So I headed out to TMP for the second time yesterday afternoon with my wife and a new driving technique that I wanted to try out.

I do have a couple poor quality videos and a bunch of pics my wife took, none are amazing but I'll post them up later tonight.

I used Harry's lap timer and finally started timing my laps. I don't have anything to compare my past lap times as I never timed any laps the first time at the track. My fastest lap was a 1:32:59 which is actually not too bad considering the set up of the car. To put it in perspective a 1:25 is considered a very fast lap for a fwd set up. Subjectively I felt that I was much much faster this time than last, probably about 8 seconds per lap faster.

The one new skill I learned and put to the test was utilising the throttle to control the car around corners instead of the brake. This lead me to be able to trail brake or quickly pull off the throttle to briefly unweight the rear. This cause over steer and kicked the rear around and better placed the car into the corner. I would then give it some throttle to control the over steer. I did this before but not using the throttle to stop the over steer so this lead me to having to do it at a much lower speed.

There is also a wide long turn (actually 2 90 degree corners close together which is treated as one) right before the long straight away. Previous to this I would trail brake in the corner and I would be severely limited in speed by the grip in the rear. Because my car is set up to be tail happy my speed was relatively slow as my rear end was so light and floaty. I forced myself to actually only touch the throttle around this corner and I found myself able to corner about 20km/h faster as the throttle was used the keep weight on the rear wheel so the car hooked up better around the whole corner. This one change made a world of a difference.

I also started braking later and harder into corners, it is hard to get comfortable with but I'm realizing how much more I can squeeze out of the brakes.

I started with a cold tire pressure of 32/29 fr/r and I think I finally found the sweet spot for these tires. Once warmed up they stopped sliding and pushing everywhere like last time and they appeared to wear much better with no melted rubber. They actually looked clean and smooth after each lap. I was pretty impressed with the amount of grip I was able to hook up. ambient temps were 18 degrees C so much cooler than last time.

I ended up doing about 63 laps (over 180km) and went through 3/4 of a tank of gas! I stayed on the track longer each session this time for approx 30 mins as it was too much fun once the rubber heated up.

By the end of the night on my last session I was playing tag with a twin turbo V6 Mercedes sedan (the driver normally tracks an RX-7. He would gap me slightly on the straights but in the corners I was faster. We ended up catching up with a Mustang and 2 boosted BMW coupes and I managed to stay with them for a bunch of laps. I actually was held up by them in the corners.

The driver of the Mercedes actually came over to speak with me and made a comment about me having a beast under the hood because of how fast the car was, he said he couldn't believe a Yaris was running with the group of cars and actually faster in the corners.

Listening to people who have years of racing experience has been a huge help. Its not always easy to do many of those things as your brain sends off warning signals but a car can be pushed much harder than your brain thinks. I finally got to experience how much control a driver has over the rotation of the car simply by using the pedals. This blew me away at how effective it was for allowing your car to go through corners fast and under control.

I got to experience how being smooth on the pedals makes for faster lapping. Many of the cars I was following weren't very smooth and I could see how uncontrolled the car was and how they were relying on the electronics of the car to help them from spinning out.

An LSD is a definite must for next season as I feel that my biggest loss was not being able give it much throttle during exiting a corner. I would try but I could only give light throttle or else the tire would spin. I also now realise how important coil overs will be for this car, my current set up isn't enough now that I am cornering faster. I'm thinking something with the same spring rates frotn and rear and adjustable dampers so they aren't too harsh for DDing

i found that this smoother driving lead to the tires not heating up/potentially over heating which lead to much smoother tire wear. I feel before I was very rough on the tires due to my poor driving skill.

i'll post pics up later tonight, I have a hilarious video of my wife's commentary during her very first hot lap after the tires warmed up. She found it easier to enjoy once she had been out for a few sessions but her first hot lap hat her cursing every second, it was hilarious.

FWIW Harry's lap timer is an excellent app and well worth the $10 IMO