pdisme
02-21-2007, 07:50 AM
I'll mix some pics in with this post to keep your attention. :) The first pic was taken by a professional Karl Franz at http://karlfranz.com/ which is why it looks incredible versus what you'd normally see from me:
http://whoi.be/vroom/d/2177-2/_KFM3657.jpg
New Years eve weekend I took my '06 G Spyder to Sebring for two track days with http://www.chinmotorsports.com instructing. They have events at tracks all over the southeast, possibly one of the tracks is near you. It's inexpensive, typically about $340 for a day including the one on one instructor which is required until you're solo qualified; they don't put the fast solo drivers on the track with the novices so the only people who will be with you are those that want to avoid getting near your car as much as you want to avoid them, and you get some class time mixed in. Just to get you an idea of how intense it is, it took about half a day just to get me to the point where I was finally starting to really use the brakes in the Gallardo, you just never drive anywhere near that hard on the street so until you've been on the track and tried it, you're probably missing out on what your car can really do. The instructor had to make me stomp on them until the ABS activated a few times when no one was behind us before I realized just how powerful the brakes were. Once I was more confident in what the car could do, I started carrying much more speed into the corners and stopping much harder with no issues at all with fade or overheating, the Gallardo is built to be punished, has ATE Typ 200 race fluid stock and took it in stride. You just have to make sure you do not stop your car in the pits after a track session with your foot on the brake, just slow it enough that it will come to a rest on its own and let off and let it do the rest, otherwise your pads will melt to the rotors or you'll crack a rotor and feel stupid. :lol2:
http://whoi.be/vroom/d/2195-2/DSC_5801.JPG
So, anyone who has a Lambo and has not done a track day, do it! It was a blast, an incomparable experience driving a high performance car in ways you never thought you'd be driving it thanks to the help of the instructors who who rode with me.
Make sure to have your car checked out before you go and that you have tons of pad left on your brake pads. If it's been more than a year since you had your brake fluid flushed, you may want to do it just to be on the safe side.
http://whoi.be/vroom/d/2223-2/DSC_5842.JPG
The Chin Motorsports instructors are very good and will not push you, so you can get used to things at your own pace. Chin operates with a point-by passing system so no one will be passing you until you wave them by, and you tell them which side to pass on. Corner workers will flag you if there is someone behind you that is waiting to pass in case you weren't looking. I was doing much better on my second day on the track than the first since that day was mostly getting up to speed on how to do things and working on my braking. It's also not a race, so you'll never feel pressured to meet a certain lap time or to 'beat' someone else. The most common cause of wrecks is what they call the 'red haze' which is where you start to push yourself beyond your abilities because someone is riding your ass, your friends are faster than you, some car that you feel is inferior passed you, etc. The class time will spend a lot of time on this, they say the two most common wrecks are a guy that comes with friends or a guy who has a very high horsepower car; if his friends are driving faster, he'll want to keep up and will eventually do something stupid like take a corner early, which will cause you to run off or spin. Same thing for getting passed by a 'lesser' car; the instructors mentioned a guy wrecking his Ferrari because he got passed hard by a track-prepped NSX, the guy didn't think about the fact that the NSX could take corners at nearly twice the speed with the modifications that had been done to it, so he tried to keep up and wrecked.
http://whoi.be/vroom/d/2279-2/DSC_5920.JPG
If you don't have a clear bra on your car, spend about $800 and get it. Then take it to the track and take it easy, you'll have a blast and if you're safe you'll come out no worse for wear; although you will definitely put some miles on the tires. I'm extra screwed because not only do I have different size wheels front to back (19 vs 20), but I have asymmetrical tires, so with Sebring being mostly right turns, my front left tire takes the most wear and once it's gone, all four will need to be changed. :banghead:
http://whoi.be/vroom/d/2447-2/DSC_6439.JPG
Now, I kind of splurged and got a bunch of cool stuff to take to my first track day. I had a 520-line bullet cam suction cup mounted to the windshield courtesy of http://www.chasecam.com That was feeding into a solid state recorder using memory cards also from them. I had a Traqmate device from http://www.traqmate.com collecting telemetry data including 20 samples/sec GPS position, g-forces, etc. and then I overlaid that data onto the video using a piece of software called TrackVision from http://www.trackvision.net. I'm driving relatively slowly in the video at the end of this post because my instructor and I were talking about my line after many of the turns; there's some dude that blows by me but he's a pro racer prepping for the 12 hours of Sebring and you'll hear that I was also not on the throttle at all at that point, so don't give me shit.
http://whoi.be/vroom/d/2790-2/DSC_7822.JPG
Now for some advice, at the track you need to check your ego at the door and don't try to show off your manhood via your car. You WILL be passed by Miatas or you will be stupid and push yourself beyond your abilities which will result in your car becoming friendly with a concrete wall. There were some track prepped Miatas that can pull 1.5 g turns, i.e. me and my Lambo will be going far slower through the corners getting passed like I'm riding in a grocery cart. I'd smoke them on the straights but Sebring is a 17-turn course and there isn't enough straight to make up for their superior cornering.
http://whoi.be/vroom/d/2832-2/DSC_7923.JPG
Please click to save the following video so you can play from your computer:
Video Download (http://whoi.be/vroom/d/3070-4/20061231-3_06.wmv)
http://whoi.be/vroom/d/2177-2/_KFM3657.jpg
New Years eve weekend I took my '06 G Spyder to Sebring for two track days with http://www.chinmotorsports.com instructing. They have events at tracks all over the southeast, possibly one of the tracks is near you. It's inexpensive, typically about $340 for a day including the one on one instructor which is required until you're solo qualified; they don't put the fast solo drivers on the track with the novices so the only people who will be with you are those that want to avoid getting near your car as much as you want to avoid them, and you get some class time mixed in. Just to get you an idea of how intense it is, it took about half a day just to get me to the point where I was finally starting to really use the brakes in the Gallardo, you just never drive anywhere near that hard on the street so until you've been on the track and tried it, you're probably missing out on what your car can really do. The instructor had to make me stomp on them until the ABS activated a few times when no one was behind us before I realized just how powerful the brakes were. Once I was more confident in what the car could do, I started carrying much more speed into the corners and stopping much harder with no issues at all with fade or overheating, the Gallardo is built to be punished, has ATE Typ 200 race fluid stock and took it in stride. You just have to make sure you do not stop your car in the pits after a track session with your foot on the brake, just slow it enough that it will come to a rest on its own and let off and let it do the rest, otherwise your pads will melt to the rotors or you'll crack a rotor and feel stupid. :lol2:
http://whoi.be/vroom/d/2195-2/DSC_5801.JPG
So, anyone who has a Lambo and has not done a track day, do it! It was a blast, an incomparable experience driving a high performance car in ways you never thought you'd be driving it thanks to the help of the instructors who who rode with me.
Make sure to have your car checked out before you go and that you have tons of pad left on your brake pads. If it's been more than a year since you had your brake fluid flushed, you may want to do it just to be on the safe side.
http://whoi.be/vroom/d/2223-2/DSC_5842.JPG
The Chin Motorsports instructors are very good and will not push you, so you can get used to things at your own pace. Chin operates with a point-by passing system so no one will be passing you until you wave them by, and you tell them which side to pass on. Corner workers will flag you if there is someone behind you that is waiting to pass in case you weren't looking. I was doing much better on my second day on the track than the first since that day was mostly getting up to speed on how to do things and working on my braking. It's also not a race, so you'll never feel pressured to meet a certain lap time or to 'beat' someone else. The most common cause of wrecks is what they call the 'red haze' which is where you start to push yourself beyond your abilities because someone is riding your ass, your friends are faster than you, some car that you feel is inferior passed you, etc. The class time will spend a lot of time on this, they say the two most common wrecks are a guy that comes with friends or a guy who has a very high horsepower car; if his friends are driving faster, he'll want to keep up and will eventually do something stupid like take a corner early, which will cause you to run off or spin. Same thing for getting passed by a 'lesser' car; the instructors mentioned a guy wrecking his Ferrari because he got passed hard by a track-prepped NSX, the guy didn't think about the fact that the NSX could take corners at nearly twice the speed with the modifications that had been done to it, so he tried to keep up and wrecked.
http://whoi.be/vroom/d/2279-2/DSC_5920.JPG
If you don't have a clear bra on your car, spend about $800 and get it. Then take it to the track and take it easy, you'll have a blast and if you're safe you'll come out no worse for wear; although you will definitely put some miles on the tires. I'm extra screwed because not only do I have different size wheels front to back (19 vs 20), but I have asymmetrical tires, so with Sebring being mostly right turns, my front left tire takes the most wear and once it's gone, all four will need to be changed. :banghead:
http://whoi.be/vroom/d/2447-2/DSC_6439.JPG
Now, I kind of splurged and got a bunch of cool stuff to take to my first track day. I had a 520-line bullet cam suction cup mounted to the windshield courtesy of http://www.chasecam.com That was feeding into a solid state recorder using memory cards also from them. I had a Traqmate device from http://www.traqmate.com collecting telemetry data including 20 samples/sec GPS position, g-forces, etc. and then I overlaid that data onto the video using a piece of software called TrackVision from http://www.trackvision.net. I'm driving relatively slowly in the video at the end of this post because my instructor and I were talking about my line after many of the turns; there's some dude that blows by me but he's a pro racer prepping for the 12 hours of Sebring and you'll hear that I was also not on the throttle at all at that point, so don't give me shit.
http://whoi.be/vroom/d/2790-2/DSC_7822.JPG
Now for some advice, at the track you need to check your ego at the door and don't try to show off your manhood via your car. You WILL be passed by Miatas or you will be stupid and push yourself beyond your abilities which will result in your car becoming friendly with a concrete wall. There were some track prepped Miatas that can pull 1.5 g turns, i.e. me and my Lambo will be going far slower through the corners getting passed like I'm riding in a grocery cart. I'd smoke them on the straights but Sebring is a 17-turn course and there isn't enough straight to make up for their superior cornering.
http://whoi.be/vroom/d/2832-2/DSC_7923.JPG
Please click to save the following video so you can play from your computer:
Video Download (http://whoi.be/vroom/d/3070-4/20061231-3_06.wmv)