Road Racing - First Time Out, First Practice Session

Just wanted to post and share my experience of my first session....

Lots of fun and not as hard on the car as I had thought.

Today was just practice and I managed to squeeze in 4 runs.

The car did well, didnt have a problem anywhere really....but that just means there is more left on the table.

I did understeer a little on the hair pins, but nothing too bad. Just gotta break in a little earlier and take my time.

The slaloms where not a problem either car responded well.

I noticed by my last run the rear was loosing grip, but probably cuz the pressure had gone up a little.

It felt great getting my feet wet and tomorrow is the actual time postings.

By the way they did put me in CP class so I said screw it the front passenger seat came out. With the seat out I know I'm under 3200lbs.

It was nice to turn heads when they saw how capable the car behaved out there...and the 3.73s helped alot especially out of the hair pins. Over all there was one spot where I get to shift into 3rd so thats nice.

We'll see how I do tomorrow...

I got back from the event earlier and again had a good time. The only down side was, alot of car showed up at the last minute and the event grew. Basically I only got in 4 runs, kinda sux but hey I cant complain too much.

I did well,.. didn't DNF and only hit 1 cone, tried to keep it clean do it slow and take my time. Each run I cut close to a half a second starting from 59.8 to 57.4. I kept the pressure at F38 and R32, handling wise the car was very predictable and stable. I asked my buddy how the car looked around corners and hard braking and he said hardly any noticeable body roll.

I was under steering a little on the hair pins but I was getting the hang of it toward the end, the same thing for the slaloms. Which seemed to give me the most trouble, it took me a while to accelerate thru them and I still think there is plenty of room for improvement.

My times were decent compared to similar classes. The fox body stangs with rubber ran around 53-55, a modded EVO and a C5 Z06 on rubber posted the fastest times, right around 50 flat.

I was proud of myself staying consistent and not doing anything stupid. A guy in a C5 almost took out a look out station when he attempted to over correct a turn. Instead of letting off the gas he tried to power out.. moron!

I need more seat time, thats bout the best thing at this time. If I continue to run, I'm not going change my setup, I really think the car has more in it and I just need to get better

I'm keeping the street tires for now.

Chalk your tires. 38 and 32 seems too high for optimum grip. Should be triangles on your tires. You want to chalk those and you want it to wear just above the triangles. Gotta play with air pressure. :nod:

Where were you running anyway?

i'll try it next time, but I've driven on those tires enough to know where the grips lies.


The I didnt want to give up too much on the rear, but I'm going to try 30 next time.

The front i'll have to see, it felt pretty good out there.