How many of us are tracking sub 200 horsepower cars?

Most of my track experience has been in sub 200hp cars. I am a great lover of Momentum, driving a slow car fast and having fun rather than turning lap times. Maybe why I still haven't done any time trails.

116 whp 1989 Civic Si: tracked extensively, Usually the slowest car in my run group with me driving. about 2200 lbs. Still more fun than I can articulate. Yes, I spend a lot of time with my hand out the window pointing by and I am laughing the whole time.

100?hp Geo Prizm Lsi : once, brakes went after three laps leading to a dramatic 4 off at CMP. Turns out my daily sucked as a track car.

120? hp 1977 Volkswagen Rabbit wide body hill climb special: Tracked once, amazing traction 10 inch wide slicks with a car less than 1700lbs. Barely touched the brakes which meant I wasn't pushing it hard enough. This car tought me the difference between a track car and a well sorted Race car.

Spec E30- sub 200hp: ran  once, it was fun but, I'm not running out to replace my Civic.

In fact the only over 200hp cars I have ever tracked are a 1990's Accord Wagon with an 220hp H22 swap, a stock S2000 and a Turbo Miata with about 200 hp. Really fun and still considered momentum cars.  I don't think I would be comfortable in a High HP car at this point. 

NA Miata here, currently with ~135whp.  In the process of turbocharging the car, with the goal of ~220whp for NASA TT4.  My wife and I both drive the car in HPDE, and I also run TT sessions depending on the even we're running.  We had a Camaro ZL1 for a couple of years with 650hp, but both of us enjoy driving the Miata on track more than the ZL1.   When pushed hard, the ZL1 was very hard on very expensive consumeables, and never had the 'direct' and 'analog' feel of the Miata.

HPDE has changed a lot in the last 5-6 years.  More and more new drivers are showing up in faster and faster street cars, and over the last year or so instruction has suffered significantly because of Covid.  It also seems events are running with fewer corner workers.  As a result, bad behavior on track has increased exponentially in the last couple of years in the HPDE groups.

Not sure what the fix would be, but I'm hoping adding some hp to our NA will at least make things a little easier.  When someone has 30+mph closure on you at the end of the straight, but no idea how to use their brakes, or find an apex, it's a little unnerving.

ddavidv said:

 

As an instructor that has only run sub-200 HP cars I'm not a fan of getting into a new Corvette or Shelby Mustang with someone who may or may not keep the forward thrust reigned in. Things start happening a whole lot faster at 160 than 120 at the end of a straight. Gets to be more outside my comfort level the older I get.

But anyone can drive fast in a straight line! ;)

I haven't done very much instruction - just enough to realize that I wasn't qualified to be doing it - but I certainly would not want to strap myself in beside a newbie in a modern muscle car.

Keith Tanner said:

 

I haven't done very much instruction - just enough to realize that I wasn't qualified to be doing it - but I certainly would not want to strap myself in beside a newbie in a modern muscle car.

That is exactly my sentiment.  The SVO Mustang I race in vintage and track was 205HP from the factory so it was probably about 180 RWHP, but it also weighs 3000 lbs.  I have made a couple of improvements like a Megasquirt and a couple of psi of boost, but I seriously doubt is is over 200 rwhp.  I have a lot of track time and "experience", but I am definitely not comfortable with instructing anyone in any car, but most certainly not in one of these high HP street cars.  I don't really even want to drive one of them myself on track.  I fear that since all my on track experience is in the Mustang with lots of turbo lag, and a Spec Miata with Skip Barber, I'd probably not do well in a car with instant power on tap.  Almost all my experience is with a more or less digital gas pedal and that would be a hard habit to break.

I always tell students "this is a really pretty car and it would be a shame to damage it.

stukndapast said:

Keith Tanner said:

 

I haven't done very much instruction - just enough to realize that I wasn't qualified to be doing it - but I certainly would not want to strap myself in beside a newbie in a modern muscle car.

That is exactly my sentiment.  The SVO Mustang I race in vintage and track was 205HP from the factory so it was probably about 180 RWHP, but it also weighs 3000 lbs.  I have made a couple of improvements like a Megasquirt and a couple of psi of boost, but I seriously doubt is is over 200 rwhp.  I have a lot of track time and "experience", but I am definitely not comfortable with instructing anyone in any car, but most certainly not in one of these high HP street cars.  I don't really even want to drive one of them myself on track.  I fear that since all my on track experience is in the Mustang with lots of turbo lag, and a Spec Miata with Skip Barber, I'd probably not do well in a car with instant power on tap.  Almost all my experience is with a more or less digital gas pedal and that would be a hard habit to break.

You be surprised how much translates; the fundamentals are the same for all cars and you are teaching fundamentals.

Also these high end cars have track mode settings that negate a lot of the issues a newbie is likely to encounter.

Keith Tanner said:

ddavidv said:

 

As an instructor that has only run sub-200 HP cars I'm not a fan of getting into a new Corvette or Shelby Mustang with someone who may or may not keep the forward thrust reigned in. Things start happening a whole lot faster at 160 than 120 at the end of a straight. Gets to be more outside my comfort level the older I get.

But anyone can drive fast in a straight line! ;)

I haven't done very much instruction - just enough to realize that I wasn't qualified to be doing it - but I certainly would not want to strap myself in beside a newbie in a modern muscle car.

I'm probably a minority. Most instructors seem to have really fast cars, and that's fine. There is a train of thought that instructors should be capable of teaching students in any car if they are truly qualified. Well, I guess I'm not truly qualified then for my non-compensated, volunteer teaching position. I enjoy instructing, particularly with total noobs who have never set tire on a race track before. It is much easier for me to coach someone around a track at 120 hp speeds than it is at 300 hp speeds.

I'm a firm believer in learning to walk before you run. Working up to driving a Miata or E30 at the ragged edge is arguably more fun than relying on electronic aids. It also makes a better, safer driver IMO. These wildly fast modern cars are so good...until something goes wrong. The driver likely won't have developed the skills necessary to 1) feel when things are starting to go awry quick enough to correct it and 2) know how to properly react. Much better to push a slow-ish, moderately handling car to the point where you occasionally screw the pooch and can learn how to save your bacon. Two wheels off in a Miata at 80 is much better than 2 off in a Z06 at 140.

Stockish (wheels/tires/brake pads/roll bar) 1.6 L Miata with 300+k on it sees a few track days per year. It might not even have 100hp at the wheels.

My miata has roughly 170hp. 

Its a hoot, and reasonably quick. However, ive got nothing for tbe corvettes and cobras and hellcats. And thats ok. My 170hp miata is plenty fast to get me in trouble, and has way more in it than i can get out of it at my current driving skill. 

This is something I have been thinking about lately. I'd love to do some track nights and such, am a looking for something in the B-Spec mold. Since I have a lot of wheels for the FiST and know the basic platform, a Spec Fiesta would be a cool track toy. A recent GRM article however gave me pause. It was mentioned that these cars require absolute precision to maintain as much momentum as possible and your line is critical, lap after lap. That is not my skill set. And while I could improve, that isn't my idea of fun. A turbo Civic or Miata that has enough power to put a grin on your face is more my speed. My line may be sloppy and I may get lapped by the B-spec Fiesta, but I'd be having fun, and that's my ROI. 

that's ALL I've tracked. The Forte was 166 at the wheels, the Tib around 170 at the wheels and the Rio at.... not much at the wheels. 138 at the crank supposedly. 

Yes. 

Vintage race a '79 320i that had 110hp when it was new. Stock engine, been a race car for about 25 years... definitely less than 100 now. 1990ish lbs.

Endurance race an ex-Spec NASA Miata with a junkyard engine. Even with the recent turbo addition, I'd be surprised if its got over 200hp.

Not sure I'd have it any other way. 

I have mostly only tracked cars under 200hp.

My 1st track car was an ITA Mr2.  It probably made 115hp if it was lucky.

Then I got a celica gts with a 2zz.  Probably made about 160 at the wheels.

I blew the celica up and replaced it with a 240k mile SE-R sentra.  It made 125 whp.

Changed out the motor for a SR20VE that made 176whp.

Sold that to buy a corvette.  It made way more power but broke every time i took it on track..

Vette was totalled after a tree fell on it.  Replaced it with an e36 m3.  Wonderful car I probably should have kept it.  225 whp.

Current track car is a 3rd gen mr2 with a 2zz swap, probably makes 180whp, weighs 2150lbs.  Awesome for autocross. Still need to get it sorted for track duty, ie; oil cooling / better pan, plus safety equipment.

I track a 177whp (m50b25) e30, and it's a hoot. Pretty lightweight, at 2430lbs. I'm building it to be a bit more powerful/torquey (m50b30), but not because it really needs it.  

I was thinking more about some of the comments in this thread re: track days and heavy artillery.  I agree that 700hp cars in novice groups are scary and I don't instruct specifically because the consequences of an accident are so much higher in a faster car, and I know people that have gotten hurt that way.  That said, I rarely see incidents in the novice groups and the ones that happen are usually minor.  It seems like the intermediate groups are where the problem happen, basically people getting more comfortable with writing checks that their skills can't cash.  My experience in the advanced groups is that a lot of other things count for more than power.  Driver skill, tire selection, track layout, car weight, etc. all matter more than power IMO.

Here's my 135hp car against a pretty well driven 650hp ZL1 1LE at Barber a few weeks ago.  I was on Hoosiers but they had 15+ heat cycles and probably weren't any stickier than a 200tw track tire.  The size difference is pretty stark.

Before:

One lap later:

In reply to ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) :

Wow, he lapped you really quick! lol

Maximum velocity vs max-min-apex-speed. Both of those cars turn faster absolute lap times than me. What a boring way to drive. I have a pro drive my car and set a benchmark. Until I can turn laps at the benchmark consistently I don't upgrade, what's the point? I've matched the time Tomo set in my car at TTNats, but I think I can beat it, so I'll probably start collecting the parts for the next upgrade after I do that (this winter)

 

A few laps later the blue corvette caught me only to do this:

 

Both corvettes have better tires and could match the min-apex of my tiny miata on street tires, you can see him try to push and just blow his apex twice. They both also have ABS and traction control so they should have a mutch more dense braking zone, but as you can see, they don't.

Also that time the literal race-spec lambo that could only beat my exocet's best laptime of the day by 2ish seconds. Of course I know with good drivers all these cars would be much faster, but I think more people need to drive <200hp cars so they can learn how to drive.

 

As always, this has turned into a self-congratulatory thread about how fast we all are with no power :)

Powerful cars bring a new set of challenges. It's always interesting to jump back and forth between two cars with the same chassis but wildly different power levels - I do this fairly often. The high power variant has the same potential mid-corner speed but as we've discussed in the recent past, it's often worth sacrificing that if it means being able to deploy the power sooner.

Braking also becomes more of a thing with the big power, as does actual thermal management of things like tires and brakes. And there's also just a whole lot more going on, it's a more violent ride and you have to watch for the traffic you're catching instead of the traffic catching you. It's different. Not better, but different.

I do enjoy the V8 Miata on track because I love the punch in the back of the head when I slam into 4th gear. It's very visceral, more metal than jazz.

In reply to ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) :

So at our last track day this was my comment in intermediate group debrief  " instructor guy here, we had a lot of missed apexes and that's how we end up going off".  So yes the intermediate group does seem to be the one where people learn how to just go fast enough to cause themselves problems.

I don't view big power cars or fast single seaters as fun, they are a huge adrenaline rush but you'd better be paying attention if you're trying to drive them quickly as things will go wrong very quickly.

 A big part of why I run momentum cars is I'm cheap but truth be told while I find myself smiling more in momentum cars.

Keith Tanner said:

As always, this has turned into a self-congratulatory thread about how fast we all are with no power :)

So part of my intent with this thread was to say "hey you don't need a 90,000 HP car to go to a track day". I was also aware that we'd likely get into a bit of I spanked a Ferrari with my Yugo.

As I've said in various threads I enjoy driving a slow car fast but like you I don't think it makes it more glorious than hammering along in a V8 Miata. It's all about what you enjoy.

On on the subject of enjoyment; as I've also said in various threads I enjoy driving powerful cars (as you've pointed out they're more engaging/involving) but I really gravitate towards the donuts in a muddy field fun I find sub 200hp cars to be. Again "I" find that more fun.

A 175-200hp Exocet would likely be the sweet spot for me.................of course that's still sub 200.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

And?

My point was 2 fold, 1 part self-congratulatory. 1 part I think it's silly to start in a big fast car or even moving to a "faster" car because your car "feels slow." As several people on this thread said they did. Good luck learning about limits in a car that has the performance potential that high. I KNOW I'm closing in on the actual limits on my car, I have data points from like cars with like power with world class drivers (and data from my actual car, etc). Most of the "fast cars" drivers I know won't even let Tomo in their car, because they know the delta is going to be 8+ seconds a lap and the ego can't take it (had this conversation twice at 2021 TTNats). They just want to feel fast. I understand that to some effect, it can be maddening sometimes being lapped by people who walk through corners in cars like gt3, etc. 

Could I do the same thing in a ZR-1? Could you? I doubt it. Could I have learned as much as I have about limits and car control in a car with those stratospheric limits? 1000% no.

Here's Andy Pilgrim turning a 2:07 in the same model as the white corvette I passed:

https://youtu.be/Sw3bSTced6Y

If I want to be more joyful/less serious in the powerful cars I just start leaving more margin and provoking the car. Run a little more slip angle and just horse around instead of trying to maximize grip. On my last track day, I had some pretty badly overheated street tires on the Miata so I was flirting with opposite lock all the way up an uphill sweeper and laughing like an idiot. Or braking with the car purposefully unsettled to make it do fun stuff on corner entry. I do spend a lot of my time in "what if we do THIS" situations while testing. If I was chasing someone around, I'd be driving differently and probably have a little more fear-induced adrenaline in my veins.

Driving the 100 whp Miata on all-seasons was the closest I've come to being frustrated at a track day. The car just didn't have any sort of performance envelope that allowed me to play with the other cars out there, and I wasn't familiar enough with the track to make up for it. There were a couple of moments where I was able to get through a corner faster than a fast car due to sheer commitment, but as soon as we exited that one corner it was over. So I'm going to postulate that slow cars do need at least some fast car attributes to be truly fun, or you have to be surrounded by other slow cars. Had I been in the middle of a pack of stock Miatas with all-season tires, we would have been having a complete riot.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I mean, it's all "just my opinion" anywho - and worth what was payed for it. If someone just want to "feel fast" and that makes them happy, than hell yes! Do it. If someone requires >200whp to enjoy their day playing at the track, than they should! We're all just playing with cars. 

I was just putting forward my argument for that arbitrary <200whp number at track days.

So as I started this I will jump in with several things:

Track days mean multiple things to multiple people.

For some it's a place to hammer around like a hooligan and have a good time (me in the Datsun when tires are worn out). 

For others it's a place to learn and perfect your driving.

For racers it's a place to shake down a car or do some testing (me in the Datsun when the tires are fresh)

Then there are the guys who have a really fast car and are just looking for a place to drive it quickly without getting arrested. We have a guy in a GT3-RS who runs the intermediate group because he just wants to drive fast but doesn't really want to hang the car out on the limit. 

Again this post was mostly to see what the hive is driving at track days and maybe why.

In reply to accordionfolder :

I assume Tomo is some hotshoe, I apologize for not knowing who that is. I do know that if I hand the keys to one of our development cars to Randy Pobst, I can keep up as long as I have an extra 200 hp or so :) I'm okay with that, it's my job to develop the parts and not set faster times than a pro. I'm more interested in learning what the shape of the envelope is.

I agree that you can learn a lot from a momentum car (low power/grip, not low power/weight) and the slower speeds give you more margin to screw up. I cut my teeth in Miatas and in family cars in the snow, remember. But they can't teach you everything, they're just a subset of vehicle dynamics. It's like autocross vs road racing, autocrossers transition well to track driving but they still have things to learn because the performance envelope is different.