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disclaimer: this is long because it is my first road track event ever and i wanted to capture the entire experience so skip to the pics if you want. vids hopefully up in a few days once i get my other pc fixed so i can edit them.
the event
spent this past weekend at roebling road raceway in savannah, ga doing my first high performance driving event. wow was it intense! this weekend was put on by the florida citrus pca so the majority of owners were porsche people. for a total newcomer, i cant think of any real complaints. started off with some classroom time and then 5 sessions on the track over saturday and sunday. everyone was helpful and i made plenty of new friends at all levels.
on the track
its like nothing else out there when you are on the track at full speed in a corner. only a couple times did i run into any major "traffic" since we were only allowed to pass on the straight in the green class but even then it taught me stuff. i think i did well picking up the line and controlling the car smoothly. its a ton of information to keep track of though. some things i still need to work on are using the track for reference points instead of just the cones they set up, paying more attention to the corner workers and not being as tense. things got easier towards the end so im sure with more practice, i will get better. caught everyone that was in front of me except for a roush stang that just left me in the straights doh. i was averaging about 1:35 laps according to my camera and i pulled a 1:32 lap chasing the stang. not sure how accurate that was but gives me a good idea to improve on.
car performance
no major complaints with the way the car handled. i kept vdc ON as i was trying to keep it on the track and in 1 piece. stillen sways and eibach springs kept it pretty much neutral so it did what i wanted. project mu ns pads and motul fluid held up well. the biggest limiting factor seemed to be the tires which are nitto invos front and yokohoma s.drives in the rear. thats not to say they didnt do a great job but short of going to stickier race tires then i was pushing them to their limit. upgrading to a bigger brake kit than the akebonos would probably be the next upgrade. possibly coils to stiffen up the suspension but i really didnt notice much excess body roll. i have a 7at so i kept it in 4th most of the track with a little bit of 3rd in some corners and 5th on the straight. a transmission cooler would be a great help for letting me use more of 3rd at high revs for the extra power. otherwise, performance would be pretty low on the list. oh and i managed to average 10 mpg on sunday oops?
instructors/ride-alongs
my instructor, sam k, has been racing for about 15 years now. he was extremely helpful - giving me pointers on what i was doing wrong, encouraging me when i did something right and just letting me drive when things were smooth. he brought his sick gt3 cup car which he took me out in twice. what was cool is he drove the same line he was teaching me, except a LOT faster lol. also, mike from darkside took me out in his old winston cup stock car. you may not expect it, but the thing just flies around the track. its a bit different from the porsche since it depends more on power through the turns which you could see in the somewhat different line he took. all the other instructors i talked to were all really friendly and ready to offer advice on anything.
incidents
thankfully i had none myself and i think there were only a handful of off-road excursions. the worst was a z06 that was going down the straight at 100+mph when a fuel line came loose. it caused a fire to flare up around the whole front of the car but it went out just as quick. he was in the braking zone for turn 1 and spun off backward. luckily the car came to rest in a small dip in the grass without any major body damage - time for a new motor though. i did catch an older porsche spinning off in front of me as i drove through a cloud of dirt on video.
good news i found out i have plenty of life left on my project mu ns pads so im good for my next event.
also figured out that i needed a card reader to transfer my vids since they are almost 2 gigs each. im hesitant to try editing them on my laptop since its old so im going to hold off. i did narrow down my pc problems to my motherboard so that should be replaced shortly and hopefully i can do the vids later this week.
as a hold over, heres rachels vid of her g35 chasing down her dads c6 vette:
Congrats on the first track day. I remember mine.....and I also remember not being able to wait for the next one.
You picked a good track for your first event. I like Roebling Road a lot. Some friends of mine and I ran there about mid-summer and I'd love to go back. I know one particular G35 driver that will be happy to see another G getting out on track!
my first track event @ roebling road
