John

iTrader: (17)

The guys down at OG definitely know their 'ish.

commasense

OG is very good: knowledgeable people, good stock, prices as good as anything I've seen on the Web. I've bought almost all my gear there: helmet, gloves, boots, etc. And FYI: the store at Summit Point is now a branch of OG!

I forgot to mention a couple of other things:

I measured the material on my (stock) pads before and after my weekend at Mid-Ohio. I ran three or four sessions each day, a total of about 75 miles each day, and that (plus driving about 400 miles each way to and from Ohio) wore exactly 2mm off each pad. They had between 5 and 7mm left when I put in the Ferodos today, at 5,700 miles and two previous track days (i.e. five total). The new pads have 13mm of material. I also wore about a millimeter off the tires.

We have discussed in e-mail among ourselves, but haven't posted here, the downshifting problem. A couple of times at the end of the back straight (once with Hedonist in the car) I blew the downshift to third. At the time, I wasn't sure exactly why it had happened, but since then it's happened a couple of times on the street, in slightly less intense circumstances.

Coming down from fairly high speed, maybe from fifth or sixth gear, the shifter just won't slide into third. I tried double clutching, and then it went in. Hedonist said it has happened to him? Anybody else? Any ideas?

Speaking of downshifting, I forgot to mention one (or rather, two) of the more exciting moments of the weekend. On Saturday I was third in line leaving the paddock behind two S2000s, one belonging to Brian, a nice guy who happened to park near us that day, and another Stook, driven by a guy whose name I don't recall, if I got it at all.

After a warmup lap, I pass Brian on the back straight and now I'm right behind the other S2000 as we go through the esses. On the approach to turn 10 (the sharp right hander with the big blind drop, leading into thunder valley, I'm practically on his tail when all of a sudden he just loses it, does a 180, and spins off onto the grass on the right. It was quite a show, let me tell you. (SunsetZ--were you riding with me in that session?) Brian, who was right behind me, had a pretty good view too. Meanwhile the corner workers at 10 had their back to the whole thing and hadn't noticed anything. I blew my horn to alert them as I went by.

Toward the end of the same session, [brag] I've been passing everyone in sight [/brag], and now I'm about three cars behind the same Stook. We come to the same spot and he does almost exactly the same thing: off onto the grass!

I spoke to him later, and he told me that both times he blew the downshift, got the rear end light, and lost it. This is the problem with the Stook: all the power is in the top end, between 7-9K, so you have to downshift at weird places to keep the revs up. Fortunately, spectacular as the spins were, they didn't do any damage.

EnthuZ

iTrader: (2)

I thought it might be fun to bring back the post that got me excited about going to Mid-Ohio. I'll have to go the Mid-Ohio web site and re-watch the lapping video to check out Madness!

I'm ready. Just gotta shoehorn all my crap in.

Looks like the weather will be warmer, but wetter!

ellisnc

Accuweather is calling for 50 and partly cloudy both Saturday and Sunday which from my experience is the far more accurate forecast.

Weather.com usually follows Accuweather about 12 hours behind and it's useless.

jmark

iTrader: (1)

Be safe and have fun guys! If BJ has his street 350Z there (with the Konis) someone take a ride with him and let us what you think of the shocks.

ADMAN

iTrader: (9)

Nice photos...beautiful track. We don't get much "grass runoff"
here. Although, that can be a good thing when conditions are
wet, I guess. So...