John

iTrader: (17)

Finally, after a long patient wait, I finally had the chance to play at Barber Motorsports Park over this past weekend. Since it is highly revered, I've been quite anxious to give the track a shot, and sure had a good time doing so.

To begin, when you pull up to the facility, you think you're about to drive into a premier golf course. Once you enter the actual premises, you're reminded of a European Grand Prix track, with the concrete, steel, and glass facilities. The layout itself is landscaped with sculptures, shrubbery, and is prestine.

Once I had the car warmed up and on track, the first thing you take awe in is the width - very much like Watkins Glen. At the end of the front straight, the braking zone is downhill, steep, and into T1 you go - a 4th gear lefthander with a downhill apex and an uphill track out. T2 is the beginning of a VERY long right hand sweeper that requires careful and smooth throttle modulation. Keep on holding as you continue through the downhill sweeper, hit the apex for T3, and track out to the left side of the track at the bottom of the hill where the camber drops off and you slide on to the curb. Then up the steep hill you go to the straight that parallels the front straight.

T5 is downhill again, and is an off-camber left-hand hairpin. Burn up the rear end with a little dorifto action - track out to the right curbing, and yet another straight to conquer. T6 is quite fun as you get on the brakes while turning in, get on the gas quickly as you clip the inside curb, and then straight-line it down the hill through T7 and T8. T8 is slow and downhill, so it helps to trailbrake a bit or toss it hard to the right to get the car to rotate. Have no fear as the camber is there, and there's plenty of grip and track to use. T9 -T10 is a left-right combo kink for teh back straight and if you don't get T10 right, it's not hard to find your left wheels off at the track out at 100+mph. T11 is downhill where you dab the brakes on entry to settle the nose, and slide the car through the left-hander. At the bottom of the little hill, brake hard as the suspension is loaded and slide the car through T12 up the hill. The track out of T12 is just over a blind crest, so you really need to know where you're going. T13 is a long sweeper where you get to use all of the famous Barber concrete curbing. The last set of turns is a set of esses - T14 being a tricky off-camber right-hander that you need to enter carefully since you're braking hard with the wheel still turned. You definitely need to master trail braking here. T15 is a 90 degree left hander that leads on to the straight and I frequently used the grass at the track out for a little extra traction.

That was the track, now for the organization. It's been ages since I remember an event being run so well. TracQuest has recently released its East Coast operations to Chin Motorsports, and it didn't seem like anything was lost. Every session ran on schedule, the organizers were receptive, and the event attracted a very cordial / professional crowd.

The format consisted of three run groups - each having 4 30 minute sessions each day. Between 4 and 5PM, there was an hour long open track session that proved to be quite interesting. Since Alabama is on Central Time, it gets pretty dark just after 4PM, and that's when the course gets fun. I spent the entire out flying around the track, and when it gets dark, your skill is quite tested. Under darkness, you really have to know the track as you lose your visual reference points. Instead you have to rely on your mental GPS system and really feel the track. Definitely one of the most rewarding sessions I've ever had.

During the off hours, TracQuest held a very nice banquet dinner at a local fine-dining establishment. The crowd present was intent on having a good time wining and dining, and it was nice to meet new people.

More importantly this weekend, it was nice to see some familiar faces. Ran into a student of mine from Road Atlanta earlier this year, Jose (aka 350zippy), and also an old buddy that I met at Mid-Ohio last year in a white Z named Steve. Had a great time catching up with them and playing with them on track. The weather was quite pleasant and dry on Saturday, and I logged 200 miles on track. Unfortunately, during my hour long session, my CV boot tore (much to my unknowing), and I lost all my CV fluid. By the sound of the CV grinding, I initially thought I had thrown a diff-plate, but once I saw what had happened, I had to gameplan a way to get home. On Sunday morning, I stuffed in some heavy-duty Swepco grease in the boot and ziptied a makeshift CV boot fabricated from plastic and duct tape. I made the 750 mile drive home despite the boot sliding off - somehow the grease maintained to adhere to the bearings.

Great time at the track, and I truly look forward to running with TracQuest / Chin Motorsports next year! I can't think of a better organization to run with.

zillinois

iTrader: (6)

Great write up John. Barber is on the to-do list one of these days. Your review seals it. Where does it rate in your track rankings? Did you take any pics?

John

iTrader: (17)

I'm lame - no pics.

It was definitely a fun track, but I still like VIR more. Barber is pretty technical, the facilities are great, but there's too much of the Alan Wilson hairpin followed by the short straight. It definitely had the motorcycle feel to it. IMO, Mid-Ohio is still more fun, but it's nice to have a variety of great tracks out there!

Rob Hines

iTrader: (3)

Great write-up John! I hope to be able to make it to Barber one of these days too. Did you get any lap times? What were you seeing in terms of top speed? Any 2nd gear turns or did you just use 3-4-5?

-Rob

UnderPressure

iTrader: (4)

Good to see you too.

Glad to hear you made it back to DC ok. Was wondering if you were kidnapped somewhere in the south re-inacting a scene from Deliverence. I'm still talking w/ Stacy about adding a dyno to TZC's events next year. Thanks for the point in the right direction.

Hopefully see you ontrack come springtime.

Stack

Sounds like a good time John... I've always wanted to run a TrackQuest event, but its WAY out of my budget... I hadn't heard about the Chin/Traquest thing... was Todd not getting good results doing it on his own out here? Looks like Chin really re-arranged their format to accomodate it. do you know what the student pricing was? Chin was usually expensive anyway, but not as expensive as TracQuest (like $600+ from what I remember... for a Mon/Tue event even)

John

iTrader: (17)

Rob, thanks again for hooking me up with some XP11s before my trip. I need to stop by soon and compensate you for the favor. The XP11s were a bit touchy with the downhill braking zones, but performed pretty well.

I unfortunately did not time my laps, but I think they were in the mid-1:40s judging from the times other people were recording. Top speed on this track is very low, much like the Shenandoah Circuit. The track can be run its entirety in 3rd and 4th gear in my car. I played with 2nd in a few places, but all it was used for was to line up a pass coming out of T5 and T8 - otherwise it was just used to create a little burnout drift. However, I was hitting about 7000rpm in 4th gear at the end of the straight, so with the 6600rpm redline you'll need 5th.

Hehe, good seeing you on Wednesday - see you at VIR in February!

I don't know all the politics as to why Todd transferred ownership, but I imagine it was because it was too difficult for him to plan since he resides in California. While the event is expensive, you can easily log 6 hours on track over the course of the weekend, especially as people filter out on Sunday and they run the open track format.