dbright007

You guys wanna rent the skidpad for an hour?
Would be really fun!

dbright007

Silver - Sorry you can't make it! Myself be ready!

Spent last night at Hooters with Whenson and Gimlet. Came home and packed the car. All I needz to do is grab the Ezup and I am out

OnRails

So I'm assuming you were able to locate the EZup?

I haven't packed up yet but I spent last night watching track video.

Looks like my best laps came from getting turn 4 - 7 just right. Also, a few tenths can be found in turn 8 and a few through the kink if you are brave.

dbright007

Thanks TA -
I have the other EZup so we should be good. Will try to holler at you tonight anyway when I get settled.

SilverEIGHT

Guys, I just want you to know that I'm truly thinking about ya'll right now. I had to go back and look at my vids from CMP. Have a blast and I look forward to your reports.

KAtC10

Nice to meet everyone yesterday! Hope the rest of the weekend went well.

dbright007

Katc - pleasure to meet and your boyfriend! Glad you stopped by.

Weekend story to come soon. I left at 3, and am just settling down.
It was hot, it was fun. Zero Rain (except on the way there, and the way back - what is it about Augusta?).

dbright007

Another fun weekend. Sorry many of my great friends couldn't make it.

Set up paddock in our usual CMP spot, and not long after TA2 arrived. A former TA2 student was right across from us, and next to us was a Thunder racer (Norman) and his crew. It was hot, so everyone took their time getting set up. Looked at the clock and it was time to boogie back to Camden. Small fiasco at the gate, so we didn't leave for another 15 mins.

TA2(aka Torqueaholic) had me follow him out and showed me a great shortcut that cuts out all of lovely downtown Camden, its large police force, and all the stoplights and 35mph zones. Kudos!
Anywho - it was late, we just grabbed fast food and hit the hotel.
OnRails met us at the track when we got there Sat.

First session - sucked. 1 and 2 combined, lots of trains, and I just couldn't get out of my own way. Almost went off during a double yellow.
Next 3 sessions were great. Worked on a lot of stuff.
It was HOT, but bearable, low humidity.
OnRails wife came over for the afternoon with their son and the dogs.
Katc10 came by with her boyfriend and hung out.
It was fun watching OnRails and TA2 checking timesheets for TT.
In the end, it was a 1-2 finish in TTC for our friends.

Standard awards ceremony (bbq and beers), but we didn't stay for the BRE party. Went back and cooled off, hit Chilis. 12 hrs in the heat had been enough.

In some scheduling oddness, NASA sent out a DE1/2 group first on Sunday. (my group). I was playing it cool- and had just worked up to speed when we get red flag at like 9 mins in.
Very new 350z in DE2 f'ed up the kink. Ended up sliding track right on the wet grass, and didn't stop till he had made an 8 ft hole in the tire wall. Luckily it slowed him down so hitting the tree didn't hurt too bad.

Will post more later,,,,

d

OnRails

I survived my first Time Trial! After running with the TT group this weekend I'm hooked. There were 5 of us in TTC which made it a little more exciting. Three Mustangs, a BMW, and me in the RX-8. Going into this weekend I was looking at the past lap times in TTC at CMP. From that data I was sure that the guy to beat would be Everette in his BMW. Turns out though that TA2 was the guy to beat on Saturday. The modifications he has made to the Mustang have made that thing very fast. Fast enough to take 1st place in TTC on Saturday. Congrats to TA2! I reached my goal going in which was to beat the BMW on Saturday (which I barely did) for a 2nd place finish. Yahoo! The bad news is that I managed to cord one of my track tires Saturday. Not wanting to end up in the tire wall due to a blown tire, I switched to my 380 treadwear street tires for Sunday. I was actually pretty impressed with them. They did a lot better than I was expecting. My lap times were much slower with the street tires but I still had a lot of fun and I managed to avoid coming in dead last.

Here is what I liked about TT:

1. You are gridded by lap times. This is great because the guys in front of you are a little faster and the guys behind you are a little slower. This makes for lots of pretty clean laps. I also got to do battle with cars that were pretty even and run nose to tail with them. In HPDE you might find that other car that is running a similar pace to you and you might not. If you are on different parts of the track then you'll never find them. It really adds to the fun to have someone to chase or run away from that is just as fast or a little faster than you are. It would be a good thing if they had lap times in DE3 if nothing else for gridding purposes.

2. You get laps times after your session. It's fun to see if what felt like the fastest session of the day really was. Also I don't have to wait till after the event to go home and time every lap on my video.

3. It's not really that much different than DE3 as far as keeping up with the other drivers. In fact, since 3 and 4 run together so often it's a lot of the same people since there are so many instructors in TT. The only real difference is that a point by is not required. In reality though you get one almost every time. The only time you really don't is when it's obvious anyway like on a long straight when you have a much faster car behind you. Everyone plays very nice. You do have to keep an eye in your mirrors though.

4. There is a chance you will get to hug the trophy girls.

Both days were hot. Glad we didn't see any rain but it would have cooled things off a little. Got to meet Katc10 and her boyfriend. Nice folks. They came down to check out NASA. Hope they can come out and do some events with us. Met waldo briefly. He was busy most of the weekend working on a friends race car so we didn't get to chat long.

I could tell talking to Dano that he was doing really well. He is thinking several corners ahead and even got the point by from an STI. Way to go!

TA2 did very well with the gold monster. Congrats on your first place! It was really cool to be number one and number two in TTC on Saturday night. Glad I could help out with Everette and the season points.

I've got some great video to share of me battling with Everette and trying to keep up with TA2. I'll try to get some of it processed tonight.

SilverEIGHT

Can't wait! Was this an old or new track layout weekend?

dbright007

More from the weekend.

Thanks to OnRails and TA2 listening to me blabber on. I hadn't done a full solo weekend before, and I was yammering on about every little thing. Hanging out is always the best part. Good stories, good times.

Lots of great folks paddocked around us also.
Ronnie in the SVT Focus hung out, Norman Phelps was right next to us with his Thunder Mustang. What a fun guy. He signed our tech sheets in the paddock fri night, and got his crew to do TA2's brakes and rotors Sat night.
(Surprise! TA2 needed brakes!)
Tripper and the CCR guys helped me out with a CEL (i am gonna buy a code reader dammit) and we talked for a while. Very cool folks.

Bonus points to the folks at EverCool Bandana. Yup, I need to get some for you guys. They help alot in the heat.

L8- FYI - The chicks in the paddock were freaking hot! Best collection of talent I have seen at any event bar none. It was mind boggling.

I won't be going back out on the tires I have. They are street tires with tread, but no life left in em. In the process of getting new one's now (with new wheels).

Most interesting sight of the weekend - White guy, 6'4" , shaved head, large initials tattoo'ed into back of head,
on his forehead - softball sized tattoo of what looked like a Hello Kitty.
After he picked up his trophy for winning a race...........
He was walking thru the covered garage area barefoot, carrying a large live rooster, and drinking a 40oz Old English 800 Ale.

dbright007

New layout

OnRails

Talent...lol.

You're right though. I've been noticing more women in general at these events lately. Hope they keep coming despite the chicken guy....

dbright007

Maybe they are attracted to the chicken guy?
Who wouldn't want a tall tan guy carrying his own Rooster.....and a Hello Kitty tatted on his forehead.

There are pics btw - Rooster wasn't for a sacrifice - they have a pen set up by the trailer,

OnRails

Here is a video from CMP. This is one of my battles with Everette in the BMW. This was a really fun session. It takes me a few laps to catch him but he starts getting loose and finally lets me go by. You can also see TA2 in front of both of us but we never get close to him. Enjoy!

This is a large file. 158 MB. Runtime about 7 minutes.
Right-Click and Download to view:

TTC RX8 Chasing BMW

TrackAddict

Onrails - just watched the video. First of all nice job indeed. You demonstrated excellent car control skills. You get back on the throttle early and stay in it until you go to the brakes (deep). Very nice indeed. I have 2 bits of advice.
1. Coming out of turn 7 - don't hug the track edge driver's left. Instead drive a straight line from track out to turn in for turn 8. This shortens the track distance and will drop lap time but maybe a 10th of a second. In TT, 10ths can be the difference between 2 cars. I lost at Roebling by a few hundredths!
2. Wait a fraction of a second longer before executing your downshift. It sounds like you are pretty close to overrevving the car on the blip/clutch release.
At any rate, a masterful job.

OnRails

Thanks for the tips. I'm always open to advice. I've noticed that it's gotten a lot harder to get better lap times at CMP. It has now come down to mostly trying to make as few mistakes as possible.

I think you hear me overreving the car coming into 11. I was trying to get the car down into 2nd gear instead of my normal 3rd to see if I could keep him from pulling away. You can tell that his car has more horsepower and would probably eat my lunch at a track like Road Atlanta. Same thing with the TTC mustangs that I was able to beat at CMP.

I'm still debating what to do about the tire situation but the smart move would be to move down a tire size and into TTD. Cheaper for me and more competitive for the car. It's just that the 275's and I have had such good times together. Wonder if there are any more of those used Ultraleggeras out there?

I'll have some more video processed tonight.

TopGear8

iTrader: (3)

^Great video OnRails! I would really like get down to CMP sometime soon and have my first track experience. Just need to save up some money for it.

OnRails

Check out this link: http://www.nasa-southeast.com/workers.jsp

You can earn track days by working the events. May be an option for you.

SilverEIGHT

John, watched your video with envy. That BMW was all over the place. You were pushing him down the track and he was feeling the pressure. When he would exit 3 I would cringe. I thought he was going to loose it once there and that would not have been pretty. On the other hand, you looked very much in control and only got squirrelly a couple times and only once did you really loose any time (turn 11). Good stuff! Thanks for sharing.

dbright007

Very Nice. I heard your descriptions of it this weekend, but love seeing the vid.

Man, do what makes you happy with tires (or gives you the flexibility to hit as many events as possible - whichever that is). TTC and TTD are both competitive groups, and you have pretty much shown you'll be someone either group will be taking notice of.

OnRails

Ok here is some more video.

The first is just one or two laps but it shows a "moment" I had in the kink. I don't even remember this happening so apparently it didn't make a big impression on me at the time but I saw it when I was watching my videos later and thought "Holy Crap. I almost lost it."

The second is how things changed when I went to the street tires. (Kumo Ecsta SPT) They still did pretty good considering but I end up running with some different cars. Running the street tires was actually a lot of fun. It made me concentrate more on threshold braking and avoiding getting into the ABS.

Right-Click and Download to watch. First video is 47 MB. Second video is 125 MB.

Loose In The Kink

On Street Tires

olddragger

iTrader: (3)

on rails --if you want to downside tires i could have a deal for you.
i have 17x8 enkei rp2 wheels with r5 hoosiers 225/45 size(we all know hoosiers run wide, the tires do not have a lot of heat cycles and plenty of wear left. Since i have upgraded my power --i need bigger tires/wheels.
by the way the tires/wheels weight is 40lbs a corner!!! Thats with lugnuts!! That is over a 10 lb weight advantage over stock.
PM me if you are interested in talking.
olddragger

OnRails

PM sent. I think what I have would be perfect for a supercharged RX-8.

TorqueAholic

We had another awesome weekend.

We laughed, we cried, we crushed brake pads, we burned tires, we won some, we sweated a lot, we had a ball!

Danno did really well as a solo driver with no off-track excursions or other issues. Good job, you looked smooth on the track.

OnRails was cookin' on his first outing in TTC. I really had to turn up the wick to stay ahead of him. Good job man and it was great to meet your charming better half and your son.

Ronnie was having a blast in his Focus again until he ran into the mis-fire issue, I think he finally has it figured out.

Norman was paddocked next to us and we had a great time shooting the breeze with him and his mechanic helper friends helped me a great deal on the Saturday evening brake job.

I had one student in a brand new Bullitt Mustang, he was a good driver to begin with and got better as the weekend went along. His friend was there also in a new Bullitt and we did some lead / follow but my guy was clearly faster.. Good instruction

My other student was a kid whom just graduated from high school and got an '03 or so STI. We were pretty much the slowest car in HPDE 1A at the beginning of the weekend and finally got a few point-by's on Sunday after some serious encouragement to use the gas pedal and show me at least 6500 rpms on the tach for all shifts.

I was happy with my TTC weekend. It was worth a set of brake pads to beat Everette on Saturday. My best time was a full 3 secs faster than my fastest lap in April even if the track conditions were not near as good as they were back then. CMP is still the toughest track for me and I was pleased with the improvements.

I did a tire rotation on Sunday am and for some reason that combined with the corners being buttered up pretty bad from saturday made my car pretty loose for the first session and Everette got me by about .4 sec. On John's advice I added 2 PSI in the back for the second session and that was good enough to again get the upper hand on Everette, we had a great battle for about 3 laps but he lost it comming out of turn 4 and DQ'd.

Alas, that wasn't good enough I could not match the prior session's times so Everette won on Sunday. The good thing is thanks to OnRail's heroic efforts on Saturday I got a points advantage over the weekend. I turns out Everette is a great guy we had a nice chat Sunday afternoon and we talked about a possible Kart challenge at the track up in Charlotte one of these days.

There were some pretty nice cars on track including a brand new looking Audi S5 in HPDE3, the new Bullits, and a few Lotus Sevens and other interesting rides.

I am geting psyched about RA already..