track days - more items to take

based on more than a hundred students:

take a spare set of front brake pads. absolutely. rears too if rear engined.

always use a full face helmet; plastic surgery is expensive and long term

if you don't have comp belts, use a $2 belt clip from ebay to cinch your street belts. if you can get comp belts tho.

if you don't want to pay $8 a gallon of gas at the track, take 5 gallons with you safely. if you can try to get gas uncontaminated with ethanol.

use videos on youtube to familiarize yourself with the track beforehand.

make sure your oil is not overfilled.check level frequently.

taking a 'crew' in their car is really useful if you need a ride back.

after your session let your car relax, but not babied back to the paddock, to let coolant and oil come back to more normal conditions. also good to let your engine run a while before parking.
lift the hood at least briefly to let out the higher temps under the hood.

check your tire pressures frequently.take a 12v air pump or tank

video your laps if possible. you don't have to have $400 camera setups;I've had students with $25 cameras that worked well on 16 gb sd cards rom ebay.

Maybe it's just that I run lighter cars, but in 26 years of racing I've never had to change brake pads at the track. Note I routinely have the brake and gas on at the same time, trail the brakes everywhere and generally am not nice to brakes. I've taken students in the car and end up running three sessions in a row. I've run everything from D-Sports Racer to Showroom Stock Miata. I've had brakes fade but never destroyed or used up pads.......even the carpola parts store ones.

Basically I'm curious as to what causes someone to have to do a pad change at the track; big heavy car with loads of power, cheap cheap pads that come apart etc?

my CRX (at CMP) destroys front pads … good ones … (typically Hawk DTC 60'S) they are good for one weekend of TT

after that they're fine for a-x and street(still have 3/8 of the pad left) just feel like crap on track … pedal keeps getting longer and longer .. no amount of bleeding does any good (never any bubbles) … new pads.. yea .. pedal feels great again

other tracks with fewer hard braking zones and time between uses … much better (Road Atlanta for example)

I destroyed a set of pads at my last track day, but I think it was due to lack of cooling, since it also burned the paint off the rims, cooked the wheel bearings, and bent the backing plates on the pads....

To all future and current novices:

Just go out and buy a big diesel truck, enclosed 38' gooseneck trailer with AC, fully prepped car with a log book, 5 sets of wheels for it, scales and a lift after your first day. It will save you tens of thousands of dollars, and atleast a thousand "What should I do" threads over the next decade and keep your garage/property/relatives properties from getting cluttered with abandoned junk.

YMMV

mahout wrote: make sure your oil is not overfilled.check level frequently.

Actually overfilling can sometimes be a good idea, for certain engines. For example a 4AGE will do well with about 3-5mm of overfill on the dipstick (1/4-1/2qt). Underfilling is far worse than overfilling.

mahout wrote: use videos on youtube to familiarize yourself with the track beforehand.

Or better yet, a simulator.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: To all future and current novices: Just go out and buy a big diesel truck, enclosed 38' gooseneck trailer with AC, fully prepped car with a log book, 5 sets of wheels for it, scales and a lift after your first day. It will save you tens of thousands of dollars, and atleast a thousand "What should I do" threads over the next decade and keep your garage/property/relatives properties from getting cluttered with abandoned junk. YMMV

?

Not sure what you were going for there.

wbjones wrote: my CRX (at CMP) destroys front pads … good ones … (typically Hawk DTC 60'S) they are good for one weekend of TT after that they're fine for a-x and street(still have 3/8 of the pad left) just feel like crap on track … pedal keeps getting longer and longer .. no amount of bleeding does any good (never any bubbles) … new pads.. yea .. pedal feels great again other tracks with fewer hard braking zones and time between uses … much better (Road Atlanta for example)

Sebring used to do that to me as well. That tight hairpin (late 80's version) caused brake issues every time. They've opened it up since then.

I used to break the glaze off of the pads by rubbing them on concrete. That brought the feel back.

jstein77 wrote:

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: To all future and current novices: Just go out and buy a big diesel truck, enclosed 38' gooseneck trailer with AC, fully prepped car with a log book, 5 sets of wheels for it, scales and a lift after your first day. It will save you tens of thousands of dollars, and atleast a thousand "What should I do" threads over the next decade and keep your garage/property/relatives properties from getting cluttered with abandoned junk. YMMV

? Not sure what you were going for there.

You're gonna end up buying them anyway, so why not cut to the chase and skip buying and selling all the stuff in-between?

jstein77 wrote:

wbjones wrote: my CRX (at CMP) destroys front pads … good ones … (typically Hawk DTC 60'S) they are good for one weekend of TT after that they're fine for a-x and street(still have 3/8 of the pad left) just feel like crap on track … pedal keeps getting longer and longer .. no amount of bleeding does any good (never any bubbles) … new pads.. yea .. pedal feels great again other tracks with fewer hard braking zones and time between uses … much better (Road Atlanta for example)

Sebring used to do that to me as well. That tight hairpin (late 80's version) caused brake issues every time. They've opened it up since then. I used to break the glaze off of the pads by rubbing them on concrete. That brought the feel back.

no glaze … once they wear past half pad, the pedal gets soft, and long … still stop the car, just not extremely confidence inspiring … like I pointed out they're still great for going to and from a-x and for use at a-x

might help when I add brake ducting …. LOL… ya think LOL

GameboyRMH wrote:

mahout wrote: make sure your oil is not overfilled.check level frequently.

Actually overfilling can sometimes be a good idea, for certain engines. For example a 4AGE will do well with about 3-5mm of overfill on the dipstick (1/4-1/2qt). Underfilling is far worse than overfilling.

mahout wrote: use videos on youtube to familiarize yourself with the track beforehand.

Or better yet, a simulator.

S50 and S52 engines from the e36 M3 like overfill also

Thanks for explainations, I generally keep the brakes well ducted so this may explain some of why I hadn't encounter this.

 Tom

plus you aren't at CMP everyone experiences tire and brake problems there … though I still love the track

Shade, and chairs. Easy-Up and an umbrella. You will need the umbrella to keep the driver cool in the staging area.

Hat, sunscreen and lots of water, ice.

Post race beer to unlock speed secrets from competitors?

Water.

Long pants and long sleeved shirt, plus whatever you wear out of the car.

Water.

Food. Driving wears you out and makes you hungry.

A tarp or something to wrap around all the stuff you need to leave in the paddock, in case it rains hard.

Water.

you should probably plan on taking some water

Probably a few gallons, yeah.

I'm soooo looking forward to the temperatures at Thunderhill on Saturday.

If you do enough events, you get to know people, and can actually pool supplies. I was the guy with the big trailer, so I had the parts and the tires for two friends with similar cars. We would help each other out with problems and driving. Worked out great for all involved. It's one of my regrets about moving 800 miles away.

+1 on the post race beer. I drained a cold one in one shot on a really hot day at Pocono, not realizing a friend's wife was watching me, shocked. I looked at her and said "you've never seen my water cooler impersonation before?"