Also, glad to hear you had such a wicked weekend at VIR. Want to see photos of the design for the wing. Or the naked chick you perch on the back.
GREAT weekend at VIR. Ran Full Course on Saturday, and Grand West Course on Sunday. Objective of the weekend was to get comfortable / confident with the new car. Not go super fast, not make great lap times, not engage beast mode... just learn the capabilities and limits of the car. So I had my crew load up the hauler, and I took a nap on the way to the track. Yeah, right. Claimed our private three-car garage. Actually, that's true. Because, #ROYALTY First off, it was COLD. 24F Saturday AM. In a car with no roof, and with the windows down. Seat heaters worked. As did LAYERZ. Luck of the draw, I got a very good and very laid back instructor. His first time ever on track in a topless car, with arm restraints, etc. He took it well, considering. He also knew pretty much nothing about front wheel drive cars. M3 guy. So I did some schoolin' over the course of the weekend. Started out with the Star Specs and took it easy the first session, until things warmed up a bit. Second session, put on the NT01's and started to build a little speed... Yeah. The car is a BEAST on track. Lives up to my wildest dreams. It's very, very quick, and handles very, very well. Thanks to all the (paid for) RMW and Greene Performance and Howerton bits, it just goes without drama. The pic above is at the crest of a hill on the back straight, where my old car (and most MINIs) feel like they're going airborne at triple digit speed. The new car just sticks to the pavement, thanks mostly to the RMW splitter, plus the other GP aero bits (underbody panels and skirts). Got many point-bys from all kinds of cars and drivers. I did give my share of point-bys... like to this very quick Stingray, that disappeared down the back straight at a buck fifty. Driver still has much work to do, the car has much more speed in it. I personally petered out at about 90 on the Climbing Esses, but I know the car can do over 100 up them, no problem. I just need to build the nerve and smoothness to do it. The Grand West course on Sunday was a RIOT. This course is practically made for MINIs. Hard to tell from the map, but the inner loop is VERY technical and twisty, with several rapid elevation changes. Like a roller coaster. I was harassing cars through there all day. I gotta do that course again, soon. Late in the day Sunday, the car started getting squirrelly under hard acceleration and braking. On the drive home, I noticed that it got even more pronounced. Like I had something in the suspension moving, altering the alignment dynamically. Sure enough, this morning I found that the left side inner ball joint bolts had backed out enough to let that joint slip fore and aft a bit under load, altering left toe each time it did it. Fixed, and now part of my pre-track checklist to specifically check those bolts. You really don't want the car steering itself like that when threshold braking at 120mph. Trust me. Anyway, mission accomplished, and then some. My instructor was giddy when he got out of the car, second session on Sunday. "I learned a lot about what's possible in a front wheel drive car. I wish I could do some of those sections like that." And got some great pics. I have lots of video to review and edit. I'll post it, eventually.
Great weekend, nice to see no drama and you found something to fix after the track days. Great pictures, I noted you pulled 125, how hard were you pushing or was there a lot left? Thanks for keeping us entertained. Don
I could have made 130 on the full course back straight if I had stayed in it. That's all she's got, Captain, with my current setup, on that stretch. Could probably make about the same on the front straight if I stayed in full throttle through the kink, but I don't (yet). The car has a bit more top end that that in perfect, flat conditions with a long run.
So my LapTimer app lost its mind a bit during the best session of the weekend, and treated the entire session as one long lap. No big deal, I just had to review the video and manually record lap times. I strung together a long sequence of 3:29 to 3:34 laps, getting more consistent. Still lots of room to carry more speed around some of the corners (including the Climbing Esses), run longer in the straights and brake deeper. Many seconds in all that, over time. Anyway, here's the extended cut of my entire second session on Sunday, in two parts to keep it Youtube friendly. Please pardon the noise. It is, after all, an iPhone mounted to a steel roll cage on a topless car going 100+ mph. Enjoy. I like it. VIR Grand Session 2 Part 1- 20160228 THSCC - YouTube [ame="http://youtu.be/Bns54QMXsCY"]VIR Grand Session 2 Part 2 - 20160228 THSCC - YouTube[/ame]
That looks ridiculously fun! The wind noise if brutal on the audio. Maybe mount an audio only feed some where or dual mic.
Yeah, a separate external mic is the only way to fix that. I need that even in my covered car if I want decent sound on a windy day.
Great job! I maxed out at around 120mph without the added drag of the front splitter and topless cabrio. And you hit that at the crest of the hill. You will hit 130mph easy heading deeper into the brake zone. I also noticed you carrying more speed than I could through South Bend. 79mph is pretty impressive through there.
I do not care. I have way too many other things to focus on, to maximize my track time, than to play high school AV nerd (which I was). Mute button works fine. Or people can feel free to remix my videos with Fast and Furious soundtracks.
Very nice line, your engine sounds is sweet, strong. Another vid when you get the next set of engine mods, it will be brutal. When is your next track session planned? I would love to run that track. Don
Was you 120 per the speedo, or per GPS? Because at 125, my speedo reads almost 140 with the 15" wheels on
Shhh....Don't tell anyone. When it comes to what the speedo is reading versus actual speed, they're on a need to know basis.
My instructor this weekend was certainly more impressed by what the big center speedo was telling him...
I had an instructor in my passenger seat a few years back, right after I went to 15's....Came off after a session, and he immediately runs over to another instructor before even talking to me all excited, and practically yells out, "you're not going to believe the speed he's carrying through the carousel and kink!" and promptly rattled off some numbers. I didn't have the heart to tell him.