GingerMan TNIA next Friday

Last night my wife said "hey the kids and I are going to have a sleepover at their cousin's house on the 16th" I thought she was teasing me. PERFECT opportunity for TRACK NIGHT!!!!!

Anyone else heading there this time around?

The weather looks iffy, esp since I have a convertible. At Heartland Park it was mandatory to run with the top down, which is my preference, but does anyone know if there's consideration for those of us with soft tops when it rains? Like a rain check or anything? I emailed Jack but no word yet. 
 

On the hunt for new tires. I carefully read and compared the latest ultimate tire guide, but since this is probably the only track time this set of rubber will see in its lifetime, I'll probably end up with some $115 General G-Max A-S 05 again, or RS since I have a winter car now. 
 

Oh and I'm also going to finally bite the bullet and get a Foxwell 530 for BMW and Chrysler and see what my CEL has been about. Haha I'll finally have a reason to add my name to the "on the road assist list" :)

P3PPY said:

Last night my wife said "hey the kids are going to have a sleepover at their cousin's house on the 16th" I thought she was teasing me. PERFECT opportunity for TRACK NIGHT!!!!!

I'm not sure that's the first thing on my list but if you can wait for me I'll join you in 30 minutes.

I may or may not follow...
 

Been doing some reading. Not going to get summer tires since I like to drive the car until we get some salt on the roads. It's strange to me that ambient temperature matters since tires themselves heat up from friction and deformation, but I'll trust the experts. 

In reply to P3PPY :

Some tech talk from our friends at Tire Rack regarding cold temps and summer tires.

At one point I entertained notions of going to this. Then my transmission and foot exploded.

If you have a garage and can drive responsibly there's nothing wrong with running summer tires in cold temps. What hurts them is big temperature swings and driving them hard without letting them warm up. I regularly winter drive my cayman on summer tires in the 35-45* range when the roads are clear. Even at that temperature they probably still have more grip than all seasons would.

In reply to P3PPY :

You have a really cool wife!!!!!

Or you have a home remodel project in your future.  :-)

Ha! I sure do hate home remodeling but I guess it would be worth it.

Tom, I've been following the saga of your traveling transmission- what happened to it and your ankle? And are there not rental slush box Hemi Challengers in Brighton...?? 

I heard back from TNIA. In case of rain I can run with the top up and the driver's window open or get a rain check if decided by noon the day before. 
 

TireRack is sending me a pair of new tires in the mail. They're the same as the ones I'm keeping, General G-Max AS-05.

The brakes feel fine but I guess I'll borrow a low-profile jack and check anyway. Back in '18 the BMW dealer in KC wanted to put new rear brakes on when I got it checked out before my first track night. I balked at the price then declined to do it myself when I saw how much life they still had. That was 20k miles ago and they're still going strong. I guess that shows how hard I brake, huh?

P3PPY said:

Ha! I sure do hate home remodeling but I guess it would be worth it.

Tom, I've been following the saga of your traveling transmission- what happened to it and your ankle? And are there not rental slush box Hemi Challengers in Brighton...?? 

Trans is on it's way thanks to AAZCD and Quasimofo. I should be able to pick it up the week after next.

Foot/ankle is slowly mending. I have a walking boot, so I can get around, but it's not pretty. I certainly wouldn't want to attempt any kind of performance driving with this giant thing. I have a feeling I'd be doing some inadvertent left-foot braking.

Met a Viper owner at a show today, asked him if he ever raced it. He said he wants to get it out on the track so I told him about TNIA. The other night I almost approached a bunch of 39X Charger owners about the same thing. I'm going to need to print off little brochures or something!

TNiA's are a great way to introduce people to track time. Eager how to hear how it all goes. 

Racing in the rain, eh? They say it's different so I'm going to get a healthy dose of it tomorrow. Rain all day, storm starts around the first heat. 
 

Special thanks to BlueInGreen Jon for the helmet offer. Turned out my in-laws had one for snowmobiling that is M2015. It's raining for SURE tomorrow night so I guess we shall see how it fits under the low roof :/

Went to a VERY meticulous tire shop in town who told me pretty much all four wheels are banged up, one so much that they would replace it if it were theirs. Who knew? Drives fine to me. They aren't wheel sellers, just crazy about their work. Holt Auto Alignment. They also don't deal with body parts and so didn't want to swap in my rear shocks once they got to the process. Shoot! I don't want to either! They asked how I wanted the car setup for the track and I just gave them a dumb look "I'm brand new at this. I have no idea"

BIL provided a GoPro too and I found on GRM a recommendation for the Track Addict app. Hopefully I'll get some decent footage out of it 

POOP. I just remembered that I never got the strut tower braces replaced after cracking. Amazon says Saturday at the soonest for some generic pieces. Oh well, I've been driving it like this for over a year anyway :/

WELL! That was something else! It was a lot of fun and learning. Less fun that the first time, TBH, but there were a lot of things different this time.

A few first impressions:

1. I'm scared of sliding off the track. I've seen this on the street before, too, I always hug the inside edge of cloverleafs because I like knowing there's a little safety net left there for me. 
2. I'm just stumbling around all over the track unless I'm right behind someone who actually trusts that they won't go flying off the track

3. I try to take tight corners too fast, making me sloppy as I'm struggling to hold on to the aforementioned inside edge

4. Switching from one direction to the next the car felt unstable.

5. I needed to prepare better:

-The steering felt a little twitchy after the tire rotation the day before going. Had I driven it more than a mile the day before I drove out there I would have had that checked.

-I had to swap brakes between heats 2 and 3. While it was cool to have had people help us with heroic efforts, it would have been unnecessary had I paid more attention to my pads beforehand, which also made for less fun as I began to notice them lose effectiveness. This is totally on me, I even signed off on it, so I own that I screwed up there.

-I only had one shock tower brace up front. I'd forgotten to address that. 
 

6. Running on a wet track is not for me. I found it nerve-wracking rather than an enjoyable challenge. I am SO glad it dried off by heats 2 and 3

7. The last time I went was on Nexen tires that were more prone to sliding than these Generals which didn't really do it at all  

8. Sliding and getting oversteer is worlds more fun than understeer

I have videos and I'll share them, but it's kind of painful to watch me stumble around the track. My time was pretty consistently 2:05 when things were going okay. From what I've seen that's like stock Miata territory. I didn't realize Track Addict would keep track of that (what an awesome app it is!!) so I wasn't paying attention to my time. Which is probably better, so I often let off on the last straight and of course I did a lot of pointing by

Nothing of this list reflects the fun that I had, but it was still fun to try hard and drive hard, so don't let that be lost!

Lesson one of track driving is always "use all the track". Note that doesn't mean "immediately drive so fast that you NEED all the track"; drive whatever speed you're comfortable with, but enter wide, hit the curb/inside of the track at the apex, exit wide or wherever appropriate to set up for the next corner.

I'm not super familiar with gingerman but that lap time doesn't seem awful for a novice in a stock car on cheap all seasons. But having fun is more important anyway.

Sounds fun! I like Gingerman. Even if you do go off, there's not much to hit, lol.

What were you driving?

My Lemons car runs 2:04 all day so I know exactly what that feels like at Gingerman.

In my other car I run 1:54.  

Gingerman only has one corner that you can hit something after an off  but  you have to try real hard to hit it.  I think also has great sight lines, great place to start.

TNIA are one of Munich favorite events, hope to see you at one.

In reply to BlueInGreen - Jon :

So true! I was explaining to my wife "they say it's 'engineered' to be good for not hitting things, apparently what they meant was they made a racetrack in the middle of an open field"

In reply to akylekoz :

2003 BMW Z4 3.0i 5 speed auto. Lots of options like dual power seats so it's probably about 3,400 lbs by my guess. 225 hp. What's your Lemons car and the other car? I hope to be out there again, too! There are two more scheduled for this year. 

dsp214, you brought up a good point about the tires. They're a benchmark "ultra high performance all-season" tire, though I've never heard anyone brag about running a General, so I looked up TireRack's review. Notably, "prone to over speed into corners, resulting in oversteer". I can vouch for that-- also oversteer because I am not a good driver, tires or not :P

TireRack review

My BIL was there coaching me and said I tended to take corners hard like I was expecting (read: "hoping for") the tail to kick out -- maybe a bad habit from recreational driving like in the snow, for instance. 
 

Here are screen shots from my fastest lap overall, which may not be representative of my best work turn-for-turn, but I guess how dead can a doornail be?

I think I pointed someone by on that straight at the top left there, so lifted throttle, also didn't want to stay on the gas and pick up speed the whole time on the straight at the bottom

The thing I MOST want to know about is the scary unsettled feeling I got in the seat of my pants when going right thru the circled area, changing direction. I'd take all the guesses. This is the only car I've driven like this on a track AND I do not recall getting that sensation at Heartland Park back in 2018, but different tires, both strut braces were attached, rear shocks were 3 years newer, new shocks up front now, so on and so forth

Best lap video 

I let off at the end intentionally, since we'd just put the pads on not 5 minutes prior, and 100mph is no time to test to failure :P

Fastest run

https://youtu.be/hg0o-05MwnE

In reply to P3PPY :

Lemons car is a Fox chassis mustang, 2.3 NA maybe 130 HP Hawk pads, cooling ducts best 200 TW tires we can afford.  Other car is a 2008 Mustang 325 HP at the wheel, Steeda suspension, iffy tires, Hawk pads.  If I don't break the 1:50 mark in this car on fresh tires I suck.

In reply to akylekoz :

Man so that's a few hundred pounds lighter but 100hp less, too. 

In reply to P3PPY :

More like several hundred lbs lighter, if that shell of a car weighs 2300 lbs I would be surprised.  Driven with no berkeleys given helps our lap times a bit.   More importantly I have driven a few hundred laps around Gingerman in this car.  Your lap times will drop each time you go out for a while, one of our other drivers runs 2:20 lap times in the same car.

Your circled area, turns 5-6, looks like you are taking turn 5 too fast.  5 is the setup for 6, looks like you are braking in 6 where you should be accelerating.  This is by far the hardest part of the track to get right but also a great place to make time/pass.  I like to stay to the outside of the track thru 5, gently open up the steering input while holding my speed steady, then turn in to 6 increasing throttle as I tag the curbing, this should put you on the outside overrun cement pad and setup with speed in to 7. 

7-8-9 are a fun dance of steady state grip, my old 92 would run 90 mph through here but couldn't break 100 on the back straight, where my 08 will hit 116, this is where HP comes in to play.  Based on your top speed you are probably not coming out of 10 very well, again look at your acceleration after the corner instead of while coming thru the corner.  In general probably coming in a little hot and out a little cold.  What do your tires look like?

Pretty good G representation of 5-6.