SCDA track day - NHIS - 6/6/05
 

Driving event
The Sports Car Driving Association would like to welcome us back to New Hampshire International Speedway in Loudon, NH on Monday June 6th for another track day / high performance driving school. This event is accessible to people of all skill levels and it is a great way to improve your driving skills. Spectators are welcome to come out and see what it is all about. If you are feeling brave you may ask to ride along with one of the instructors to see what it is like to turn some hot laps. This is a great way to get a taste of the action.

Track
https://www.rx8club.com/attachment.p...chmentid=43254
The track is a 1.6 mile road course that weaves its way in and around the NASCAR oval. This layout offers plenty of variety in turns and elevation change and if the weather is decent we should also run through one of the NASCAR high speed banked turns instead of using the south chicane.

Requirements

• Students must be at least 18 years of age, and posses a valid drivers license in order to attend.
• Snell 95 Rated Helmets are required for all participants. The SCDA, LLC has several Snell 95 Helmets that we can loan to participants.
• Long sleeved shirts and pants must also be worn.

What to expect
Once at the track you will be greeted by fellow enthusiasts and track officials. The morning starts with a brief drivers meeting and then you will have a 20 min. class about the driving line, passing areas, flags, and track rules. After that you have 20 min. to get ready and get your car to the starting grid. Then the real fun begins as you'll spend the next 20 minutes out on track. If you are running in the Novice or Intermediate 1 class you will have an experienced race driver sitting in the passenger seat coaching you around the track. In the Intermediate 2 and Advanced classes you will be driving solo. After you have had your fun on the track you will pull back into pit row and review the last session. Then the whole cycle starts again. In the end you will get 4 track sessions over the course of the day. This will provide you with a ton of driving experience that would be next to impossible to learn on the street.

Directions
The track is a relatively short drive for most of us in New England: Boston, MA 1:24, Portsmouth, NH 1:13, Lebanon, NH 1:19... The close proximity makes it easy to do this in one day. As you can drive down first thing in the morning, have fun turning some fast laps, and still be able to get home at a reasonable time in the evening. Which really helps when you have to head into work the following morning.

MapQuest directions to NHIS.

New Hampshire International Speedway
1122 Route 106 N
Loudon, NH 03307

Registration
If you are interested in going please sign up soon as space is limited, especially in the novice groups. To register, fill in the student application and mail it along with your $235 payment to SCDA. You will get a confirmation notice by phone or e-mail when they receive the application.

Sports Car Driving Association, LLC
2 Prospect Street
Essex, CT 06426

More information
For more info check out the SCDA website or read the comments from a couple of past events:

• NHIS 2005
• LimeRock 2004
• Watkins Glen 2004
• Pocono 2003

P.S. The SCDA has offered us a discount rate of $200 if we can get at least 10 people to sign up for the event. So please spread the word so that we can share the experience and the discount with more people. Thanks!

Garage bays are also available for $25 on a first come first serve basis.



Driver

1. Speed Racer
2. Spin9k
3. vwnh

Spectator

1. None

Wild horses couldn't stop me, rain like the great flood didn't stop me last time... I'm in, ready and chomping at the bit to hear my 8 sing once again... :cool:

Sure do hope we can have a run group to ourselves, all those 8s on the track, that would be sweeeet! :D

ps. Speed Racer, maybe edit a list on your initial post.

OK, I'll keep a running list of the people who are definitely going. Remember if we can get at least 10 people to sign up we will all get a $35 discount. Plus an area set aside specifically for us.

If we can get enough cars to fill a run group (15-22 cars). We can run this as a dedicated RX-8 track day. Where all of us will be in the same group and we will have the track to ourselves. Ian Prout also said that he would try to get a rotary expert to help out with the classroom instruction.

I will be there for sure. Hopefully we can get together this time so i can get some car info from you guys, so i know what to do to my car before i go to the track. This is all new to me. I have read that you change your brake fluid and diff oil before you go out. I am going to have my brake fluid and motor oil changed this week. I also need to have my tires rotated. When i left the track april 27 i had to go to work that afternoon. Got there and some lady backed into my car. Good thing i was looking out the window when it happend. So it will also be in the body shop to repair the bumper this week.

oh man, i'm going to try to make it to the event. i have a few questions. how much does a helmet usually cost? do i need to get a safety check before the event? change/bleed brakes? other then the things you said above (long sleeve shirt/pant) is there any newbie things i should know. thanks.

G-Force GF750 open face Helmet www.gforce.com is the one I bought $150. Why - I like open face, not so constricting, it was inexpensive - helmets can be much more expensive than that no problem - it was rated as a high quality, lightweight, good fitting helmet by one of the racing mags in a test of helments - that's all I know - I stopped paying much attention after getting it. Just Google it for places to buy, hopefully still available.

However, there are many, many more from many different companies. Just be sure to get an SA2000 labeled helmet, also I guess closed face helmets are not so good in stock cars w/air bags, it has been determined they are somewhat of a safety hazard if the bag goes off and jerks your head back.

As far as what to do to prepare for track day with any organization, what to wear, how to prepare your car, I know one good place to read-all-about-it is http://www.nasanortheast.org/faq.htm - they pretty much have the letter and the spirit of what to do written down in these FAQs. And ESPECIALLY - raed the "USEFUL ARTICLES" at the bottom - they are worth their weight in track rubber. If new to all this start with "Your First Day At The Track".

It's not really that hard - more just a bit scary at 1st - but once into it - ah the joy of driving :D your jewel on the track is better than - just about anything!

Good luck, and see you on the grid! :)

vwnh,
If you are planning on doing more track days I'd suggest using a DOT4 brake fluid (ATE, Motul, Willwood...). The boiling point is higher and this is the cheapest and easiest way to help prevent brake fade. I still have some left over from our last tech day.


formatsee,
I'll try to arrange another tech day before we head down to NHIS. This will give ever body a chance to prep their cars. I'd suggest having fresh engine oil, bleed the brakes before each event, and change the diff/tranny fluid at the beginning of the season. Other than that it is just a few simple checks. Such as a visual inspection of the car. Check that there is no slop in the wheel bearings or steering. Make sure that the battery is secure. Remove all loose items from the car...

Ouch! I hope that the damage is minor and that you'll get your car back in like new condition.

<ditto> What a sad thing, it shouldn't keep happening to cars like ours :eek:. If it isn't too hard to re-live the moment, how is it possible to back into another car (w/1/2 a brain)?

Just scratches on the paint rear bumper. getting it fixed this week. Have to paint the hole bumper. :confused: Its like when ever it rains it seems like everybody can't see thru the water on the windows of their cars or something.

I just found out that a friend just picked up is NEW RX8 i am trying to get him to come along with us on june 6th. I think another friend is going to bring his Maxima.

Roll call
 

Definitely invite your friends to join us.

Spin9k and I were wondering if we should get together before June 6th. It would be a different kind of tech day with little to no wrenching on cars and a bigger focus on answering questions for anybody that is new to doing track events. This would be a good time to get everbody's head in the game and make sure that they are ready for the event.

I also wanted to remind everyone that spectators are welcome. So if you are interested in just coming out to watch that is cool too. Admission is free and if you ask nicely I'm sure that one of the instructors would take you out for a ride around the track. When you make it back to pit row you will have a new appreciation of the word "fast". ;)

Please let me know if you would be interested in any of the following:

• Participating in the track event
• Coming out to spectate
• Tech day to answer questions about track events

The scheduling for the 6/6 track day doesn't work for me, but I'm game for a tech day. :)

+1


plus i need to know how to bleed my brakes and change trans diff. fluid

Maybe "tech day" was a poor choice of words on my part. Spin9k and I feel that there are probably several people watching this thread with interest who have questions and/or concerns about participating at a track event / high performance driving school. We would like to invite these people to meet with us so that we can answer their questions in person. There are so many questions to answer that it would be hard to do it all on this thread without posting a book or two. ;)

At the last tech day we had planned on showing people how to do a tech inspection and give people a hand with getting their cars ready for NHIS. We also had put together a lot of great information to get people up to speed with doing a track event for the first time. Things didn't go quite as planned which is fine but it also meant that we never had a chance to share our info with the group.

This time we want to focus on the "classroom" aspect and make sure that everyone knows what an HPDE is all about. Then, time permitting, we would physically step through a tech inspection and basic maintenance.

I think it would be no problem to do a 'Step-by-step' for common maintenance procedures, with pictures and service manual excerpts as handouts. That way those wanting to do, for example, an oil change, lube changes, other common routine maintenance and the like could ask and get answers / documentation for procedures/ technical questions they have.

Something like a brake bleed / pad change would be a good show and talk session as that is clearly a track and/or prep-for-track procedure. We could do that to someone's car perhaps - just not an assembly line of one type of thing, but several different things so as to cover more in the limited time a day offers.

Speed Racer's and my intent for this session-to-be is to assist those dreaming, imagining, or preparing for spectating, vicariously helping or actually helping others, or those actually going and needing help doing/understanding the ins-and-out of track day behavior/ what to bring/ what to prepare/ when to do what and how /how to drive / etc - on their car, their friend's cars, and generally wanting to prepare to somehow participate in track events /auto-X events at NHIS or anywhere.

There are going to be some wonderful opportunities for great days of fun throughout this season so the sooner those standing on the sidelines get over "Fear-of-Flying" - and if you try /watch one of these events and actually catch the bug as some of us have - all of us can be there for you whenever we're needed.

It's that much fun :) is all I can say, and what makes us all want to help others. :D

OK, I've finally got off my duff and committed myself to this event by mailing in my application and payment. Has anyone else sent in their application or am I the only one who should be committed? :p

I was getting mine set for tomorrow's mail, but I'm also having track withdrawl symptoms :p. Sitting here now going 'Vrroom, vrroooom, whaaaaaaaaaa .... bap, bap, bappp" :D Is no one else afflicted with this problem?

I know what you mean I spent a few hours on GT4 this weekend just trying to get my "fix" but it isn't quite them same as the real thing.

Already got confirmation Ready to go. :)

Sorry guys, the intro to track driving - tech day is going to be scrapped. It just didn't feel like there was enough interest to warrant the amount of effort Spin9k and I have been putting into it. If you have any specific questions about participating in a track day feel free to post them in this thread or contact me directly. Thanks.

Just got my confirmation - can't wait :D

if this weather keeps up it looks like we will be driving in the rain again. who is signed up?

If it is raining like last time I will definitely need to replace two of my tires before this event. The tread is worn down to the wear bars and that maybe a little scary on a wet track. Other than that I'm good to go.

Maybe we can do a little horse trade SR :) . I've got my 235/40-18 RT-615s on the way...and I have the same situation as you. Two reasonable front tires, and two pretty worn rear. Maybe you would want my fronts...?

Tigger also offered up his old tires. I'll give you a call later and we can try to figure out who has more life left in their old sneakers. ;)

last week I just had a four wheel alignment rotated tires and changed the brake fluid. I only have 7K on the car what do you guys think i should do before i go out again?

Without spending alot here are a couple suggestions I found helpful:

Buy a CG-Lock to hold you in your seat www.cg-lock.com

Buy & memorize verbatum 'Going Faster - Mastering the Art of Race Driving' at Amazon.com - there will be a test (June 6 :D )

Remove everything that weighs something that doesn't need to be in the car or can rattle around.

See you in 12 days! :)

You already have the basics hardware covered. Everything else is just gravy on top.

I'd suggest thinking about your last time out on the track and pick a couple of items to focus on. In my case I found that I wasn't pushing the car hard enough through turn 10 and wasn't using every inch of pavement. I also need to practice my heel and toe shifting to smooth out the weight transfer while I go into the corners.

Well I will be bringing a 2005 RX8, Miata and Hopefully a new Mustang to check out and for test drives. Borders has the book you suggested I will pick it up this weekend, Hopefully I will be ready for that test you were talking about. :D Thanks for the suggestions Speed Racer and Spin9K they have been real helpful.

Sign me up for a test drive vwnh!

Oh, you probably meant you were going to test drive, darn :p Hey getting one car there is something....how will you manage entering w/3 ?!

No, Not for me to test drive for people to check out and test drive on the street to see if they would like to buy one. No test dives on the track. :) I will only be driving my rx8 on the track.

That is cool. I'd like to take one of the new Mustangs for a test drive.

If we have one in stock it will be there. :)

I'd give a Mustang a try as well :)

Well only three days left, who is attending any body know?

I am going to attend, but have a question. Was just reading through the prep info and they said bleeding the brakes is a must. I didn't have a chance to do this, will i get flagged and lose my money? If so I will just not go.

I dont recall having to bleed brakes. I dont think you will have a problem.

No, you won't get black flagged for this but as always you will want to be mindful of any change in your braking performance. Just let your instructor know if you notice the brake pedal getting spongy and he will adjust your braking points so that they don't get as much abuse.

See you tomorrow. Spin9k and I will be there at 7am.

here is the link i was taking about http://www.autoenginuity.com/

What a day! Great to see four RX-8s represented at SCDA's NHIS track day!

First RIP (I think) to Speed Racer's 8. Have yet to hear the eventual emergency room outcome, but the initial prognosis didn't sound promising. Hope he got home OK! More detail to follow from SR I'm sure > :

And we now have an VERY happy 1st timer track enthusiast - RPIRX-8. His well-modded blue 8 was a big hit in the Novice class, made some great sounds and looked and went like a BOOH! Congratulations RPIRX-8 :D I heard a rumor that he was graduated to Intermediate 1 at days's end!

VWNH graduated from Novice to join me in Intermediate 1 yesterday, where he definitely is getting his mojo working! :) vwnh and his pit crew were there with a couple show and drive test cars and I understand he's got lots of trackside photos and video - can't wait to see them! Plus they were kind enough to time me with a fastest lap of 1 min 30 sec. I have no idea if that is good or not, but at least it's a time. Thanks vwnh!

And I got to (finally:) ) test out my mods (sways, strut bars, Falken Azenis 615s). The result - everything I hoped for and much MUCH MORE - in a word AWESOME :D - in two of the last three heats (damn Porsche) I lapped the entire field of cars and even managed to eat into the rear of the field again. What a rush.... my closest competitors were a Supra that couldn't quite catch me (power) and couldn't out-handle me but somehow managed to hold on pretty close until I think he had some mechanical problem and...

... then there was that black Supercharged Porsche 968 that came out of nowhere, and although we had a good back and forth for a time around the twisties, his superior power, 340 RWHP as he told me afterwards, eventually won out. Still he had to work at passing me and that made me feel good regardless.

The Falkens worked just as advertized - they were very, very sticky on track, and just wouldn't let go, very controllable and predictable, feeling like sort of like having well chewed bubblegum connecting me to the ground. On my hardest run, tire temp got up to 154 degrees (measured back in pit), with a brake temp of 411 degrees :eek: , so you can imagine I was pushing things a bit, but the car never skipped a beat and was still stopping great all the way to the end!

All in all the things sweet dreams are made of :cool: Pics to follow...

What an awesome day. This is literally the most legal fun one can have.

Let me say this first. The RX-8 is an awesome piece of engineering. Did my car have the most HP on the track, definitely not. However, besides a Subie STI and a Porches 911 Carerra 4S, I was the fastest car in the Novice class (which included 2 VW R32s, a host of BMWs, 2 Nissan 350Zs). I have to give credit to VW and Subie for their AWD systems. It is amazing to see AWD in action. The STI driver was absolutely abusing his car around the turns. If it were't for the AWD, he would have been off the track after the first turn. Our cars were built for the track.

All of the mod work on the car came to fruition yesterday. The 2 biggest helps were the properly tuned CZ unit and my lightweight Enkei RPM2 wheels. Definitely worth the money. The Falken GR Beta FK-451 tires held up beautifully and stuck to the track like glue. The springs kept the body roll to a minimum so I could carry a ton of speed through the turns. AAND the most fun part. After the second run time the R32 behind me said I shot 2 foot flames out the back of my exhaust. Apparently everyone else who was watching that lap saw it too and I was getting people coming up to me all day and saying how sick it looked. Not sure if anyone got pictures though :(. I imagine the exhaust temperatures were close to or exceeding 3000 degrees. My exhaust tips were completely white on the inside after the day.

Everyone should get out at least once and try doing this. It is an unbelievable feeling and you learn a ton about driving lines, apex, and even some defensive driving. My instructor was in the passenger seat and was coaching me in and out of every turn. Now I just need to work on my heel/toe shifting and I will prob be 3-4 sec faster per lap. I am now officially addicted. I'll be starting a thread soon about the July 11th SCDA track day at NHIS. Get out there guys!

Spin9k was absolutely smoking everyone in his intermediate class. I watched his entire last run and that Supra was working hard to catch him. This was a perfect example of pure HP not being everything. The supra was probably putting down 1.5 times more HP to the wheels than Spin9k, but it didn't matter because Spin9k carried so much speed through the turns. The Supra spent so much time braking and reaccelerating. And you learn in class it takes twice as long to reaccelerate to the same speed than it took for you to slow down.

VWNH looked good out there, and thanks to his pit crew for being on photo/video duty. I can't wait to see the pictures.

Next mods for me, ss brake lines, DOT4 fluid, and sway bars.

I've just had this annoying, stupid grin on my face since I left the track yesterday. Stay tuned for July 11th info and pics!

Track time photos are up.
http://www.photoreflect.com/scripts/...refront?c=04FT

Spin9K i need some info on the sway bars that you have.

I am going to buy an event CD definitely. These are awesome pictures. Thanks Moe!

They are Whiteline sways....I imported mine directly from Australia, but the US distributor is http://www.globalperformanceparts.com/

I have the adjustable ones, part #BMF49Z FRONT; BMF77Z REAR. Probably cheaper and simpiler to order them within the US, just call and get pricing, they're not expensive. Note on the order to be sure they only ship you product including the lateral movement stop clamps, as that was something I didn't initially get, but supposedly they are now standard w/them and already mounted on the bars.

Aside from their initial stop clamp problem, I'd give the bars a 100% thumbs up. The adjustable part is really easy to do, takes about 20 min per axle. For instance, when I mounted my new tires last week, I had both bars set full hard.... but as Monday approached, I was worried about the possibility of oversteer, and I didn't want to discover it on the track.

So I changed to full soft on the rear about 10PM Sunday night, just to ease my mind. Turned out fine and I may still go 1/2 hard (this setting required adustable HD end links ~$175/set of 4) or full hard as my confidence grows and I become more comfortable with the handling improvements I'm experiencing.

It's certainly a majorly tighter and taughter feeling vehicle w/them :)

Click here https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...d=1#post909417 to see a video of one of the NHIS heats. Enjoy :)

spin9k

Nice vid, Spin9k; and good laps too. Do you know what has been done to the Miata in that video? That thing was flying and screaming! His driving line is good from Turn 3 onwards as he always manage to get on the throttle quite early but got sloppy on Turns 1 and 2, where you caught up on him.

Speaking of Turn 3, do you just feather the clutch out after shifting and let the tranny do the rest? It might be just my car but I find that I can't just put the shifter from 3rd to 2nd gear without having to get the revs to close to a match first. And this is the toughest thing for me because I can't heel and toe smoothly on a 3-2 downshift. So I almost always never get the line correct on this turn due to concentration loss or braking too late.

Actually no, I never caught up w/him after the session, but he had roll bars was all I could see and an aftermarket exhaust was all I could hear. Good vid of us zipping along until I got stuck behind the BMW, then the Subie.

On turn 3 after trying outside, then inside, I settled on crossing the rumble strip with the front tires and cutting into the middle, skipping that dip on the ouside of the beginning of the uphill.

As far as the 3-2 downshift, that's a tough one, time before I was there - I just was doing it to late, and screwing up, so this time, I braked earlier, and I also noticed that where the Bridgestone broke loose really easily under the downshift, these Falkens just don't so I could slip and engage the clutch pretty quickly and it just hooked up. It's the tires - they are pretty sticky, I'm just not used to so much grip.

3-2 downshifting is the main thing that slowed me down during this track day. I can't heel/toe worth a crap so i was experimenting with ways of quickly shifting and rev matching. I even tried running an entire lap just in 2nd gear (except for the straight). The good thing is the 8 can afford to have a slightly sloppy shift. A lot of the BMW and VW guys were saying how I was running in 2nd when they were running to the end of 3rd or even in 4th. I was thinking maybe

1. both feet in
2. let off brake for quick rev
3. back on brake
4. downshift
5. let cluch out

I'm going to experiment with this on the 11th.