This is my 5th track day and my 3rd year of doing these after about 4 years of autocross.

Here are just a few photos of the day. I suggest you check out the rest of the photos too.



























My cousin took these. He is only 14 years old and takes amazing shots, you really should check out his other photos in his albums.
/

Here are my photos, we really don't spend much time on photos because I am so busy with racing that there is little time for other mental thought.

/




I really encourage any one who is interested in these events to watch the videos! Yeah, they may be long, but they all give a real candid insight to the track and how a typical session goes. I warm up, I make mistakes at times, but in the end I get faster and faster.


WRITE UP OF THE DAY -----------------------------------------



To sum up the day is to say that I love how my car is set up, and I love how much I am progressing with it. The day was a good day.

The morning started out COLD. Getting up at 4:00AM and to the track by 6:00AM is certainly not easy. The brisk morning wind reminded you of the first laps you would take under a lot of tension with the Hoosiers cold and traction limited.

The day starts and I take it slow. If you have raced on Hoosiers you know that its do or die when it comes to cold Hoosiers. After warming them up I eased back in to the familiar groove of the track and my line.

So, in all my videos the first lap will be slow and mostly a warm up lap for the tires and my mental readiness.





This is my second run since I did not record the first, but in this run was pretty no drama. While I was still getting in my groove as far as speed, I kept ahead of the pack with no one in sight and then caught up to a Volskwagen R32 GTI that was fairly modified and eventually passed him and a Pontiac Solstice.



This is my third run and perhaps the most exciting from a viewer's standpoint. Behind an Austin Healey kit car, around 2:45 in the video he goes off the track. I check my mirrors and since there was no one behind me I slow to see if he comes back on the track or not. He does not and I move on.

I finally caught up to my friend James in the black Supra. Slowly gaining on him we were both pushing it pretty hard. I was loving the excuse to focus and execute on the track but unfortunately at about 10:00 and shortly after my friend James brakes too late on the end straight and has to bail out on turn 1. Turn 1 is a pretty scary turn as you are coming down it at typically over 120mph and your brakes are put to the test. Thankfully he had no damage and no problems and did what was right in that situation and took the safe route.




This was my 4th Session and it was a short one due to lunch crunch. However I did pass a chevy colbolt SS and a honda s2000 CR. I was moving pretty well through my lines and this session felt good, but short.





This was the 5th session and starting out I always allow the tires to heat up. But after the second lap it was apparent that the R32 Golf was moving a lot faster than I was comfy with at that time so I pointed him by. Eventually a new Subaru STI came up on me and I decided to point him by as well and I would chase him the rest of the time. He would certainly take me through some turns that the AWD and superior power he had allowed, but I would catch him decidedly in some turns and really well in the hard braking areas. It was a LOT of fun having him challenge me.




This was the 6th session of the day and I was rolling pretty quick through this since through the day I had been perfecting my line and driving. Unfortunately this run was cut way short because a Colbolt SS went off the track and into the wall and then resulted was a black flag to end the session. I am proud of this session as I feel that this session and perhaps the 5th session I was really getting into my fastest laps.


I hope this was enjoyable to those who watched the vids and looked at the pictures and read the thoughts. I am no expert and there are plenty of drivers much faster than I on this forum, but I hope that with the right practice and instruction I will get there too.

Looking at the videos after the fact is a great tool. I was clocking myself at around 1:18-19 per lap which is okay.

A few things I will change next time around:

I can brake later in turn 1 and carry more speed through 2
I can get on the throttle sooner through the 3-4 S curve
I can hold it wide open into 5 and carry more speed into 6
I can get on the throttle sooner into 7
I can give it more throttle around the oval and get into wide open sooner into the straight

Those things and I think I will shed a few seconds.

Neil

 

A whole lot of win in that post.......love the pics!

 

Nice vids and write up. Your car looks great and appears to perform really well on this course. What engine mods are you using? How do you have the camcorder set up inside (it gives a great vantage point and doesn't have the wind noise and shakiness most do)?

 

Thanks!

I have a JWT intake, 5/16th plenum spacer, labree resonated test pipes, nismo y-pipe, and motordyne shockwave single exhaust, nismo flywheel/pp/clutch.

Otherwise I have cusco coil overs, cusco sway bars, cusco upper a arms, spc rear arms, my car is a base but I added an OEM VLSD. Stainless steel brake lines and currently running ferrodo pads, but upgrading to some carbotech XP10's next track day.

CCW 17 inch wheels 9.5F 10.5R with 275/40/17 all around Hoosier R6

As far as my camera set up. I made it with some square steel bar and a little camera mount post.

 

Wow, I had been expecting some type of FI set-up after seeing how fast you were getting around ( all skills, I guess).

Very cool DIY camera mount.

 

Appreciate the compliment, but no F/I for me. I don't have the wallet to support one. Maybe when my motor goes I may do a decent N/A build with goals of near 300hp to the wheels.

Not the fastest driver, some guys here videos have boggled me, but I am getting quicker every track day and passing some pretty superior cars due to that so that is encouraging.

Yeah the mount was really easy, I think it cost me like $25 all done.