pdisme
05-29-2007, 01:21 PM
For those of you who hate reading, video link is at the bottom. LOL
What a blast Barber is, and now that I'm getting more comfortable with the Radical, I'm starting to put in some decent lap times. I spun it at Sebring with Chin last time and I think that was actually a good thing; prior to that I spent a decent amount of time worrying what it would feel like for the rear end to start coming around since it hadn't happened. After that the worry was gone and this time at Barber I started testing things out on several corners and ended up with some oversteer multiple times that was easily corrected now that I know what it feels like as it begins.
I went to Barber with the BMW Club of Alabama and since I'd only had 1/2 day there before, they put me in the novice "D" group Saturday morning. Well that was a disaster, I think I put two laps on the entire grid during the 20 minute session. Rest of the day and first session of Sunday morning I was in the "C" group and started making some real progress but was still getting hung up behind people not giving point by's early enough or at all. My instructor (Mark Schwammle, I think he's done Chin events before, he's very fast) and I also gave up on trying to communicate with the Chatterbox Saturday and both just wore ear plugs all day on Sunday and used hand signals for early, late, turn now, more gas, etc. It was at that point I realized just how distracting the noise of the Radical's engine and race exhaust is; with my 30 db ear plugs in it was like driving a whole new car, I was much less distracted and it almost immediately took five seconds off my lap times.
After the second session Sunday they bumped me up to the "B" group and things started to click; the drivers in there were much more aware of me coming up behind and would normally give point by's well in advance. During the last session on Sunday I got my best lap time of the weekend, 1:45 which is a second faster than the video on the Chin website ; actually when you watch the video you'll see I get held up for about three or four seconds waiting to pass into the hairpin so that knocked the time down a bit. The lap times are recorded based on start/stop at turn 5 because that's where my instructor remembered to hit the start button on the Traqmate. I threw in a little oversteer shot at the end too.
Other than that, the track and facility were awesome as usual, last session of the day on Sunday a heavily modded M3 and I were pacing each other, trading out the lead or chasing. Only real problem all weekend was a semi-novice in about a year old M3 who went into the kink on the back straight with too much speed, car started to unsettle and instead of running off into the mile of grass he got nervous and lifted which brought the car around, hit the grass perpendicular to the track and unfortunately the front left wheel was ripped off and the exposed suspension dug in and caused the car to roll:
http://www.talklambo.com/pics/data/530/medium/m31.jpg
http://www.talklambo.com/pics/data/530/medium/m32.jpg
Fortunately both driver and instructor were ok and climbed out.
The funny highlights of the weekend included someone who RENTED a Mercury Grand Marquis and threw track tires on it because their car was out of commission and they didn't want to miss out on their track time. It looked like a police car going around the track. There was also the Red Bull Mini doing laps during lunch; it of course had the big Red Bull can on the back!
http://www.talklambo.com/pics/data/530/medium/redbull.jpg
Last but not least, the video; please right click and download. Comments and critiques are much welcomed, always good to have more perspective. Keep in mind that the brake indicator is still virtual (i.e. the software guessing) since I haven't hard wired it yet.
http://whoi.be/vroom/d/4228-2/Barber-200705.wmv
What a blast Barber is, and now that I'm getting more comfortable with the Radical, I'm starting to put in some decent lap times. I spun it at Sebring with Chin last time and I think that was actually a good thing; prior to that I spent a decent amount of time worrying what it would feel like for the rear end to start coming around since it hadn't happened. After that the worry was gone and this time at Barber I started testing things out on several corners and ended up with some oversteer multiple times that was easily corrected now that I know what it feels like as it begins.
I went to Barber with the BMW Club of Alabama and since I'd only had 1/2 day there before, they put me in the novice "D" group Saturday morning. Well that was a disaster, I think I put two laps on the entire grid during the 20 minute session. Rest of the day and first session of Sunday morning I was in the "C" group and started making some real progress but was still getting hung up behind people not giving point by's early enough or at all. My instructor (Mark Schwammle, I think he's done Chin events before, he's very fast) and I also gave up on trying to communicate with the Chatterbox Saturday and both just wore ear plugs all day on Sunday and used hand signals for early, late, turn now, more gas, etc. It was at that point I realized just how distracting the noise of the Radical's engine and race exhaust is; with my 30 db ear plugs in it was like driving a whole new car, I was much less distracted and it almost immediately took five seconds off my lap times.
After the second session Sunday they bumped me up to the "B" group and things started to click; the drivers in there were much more aware of me coming up behind and would normally give point by's well in advance. During the last session on Sunday I got my best lap time of the weekend, 1:45 which is a second faster than the video on the Chin website ; actually when you watch the video you'll see I get held up for about three or four seconds waiting to pass into the hairpin so that knocked the time down a bit. The lap times are recorded based on start/stop at turn 5 because that's where my instructor remembered to hit the start button on the Traqmate. I threw in a little oversteer shot at the end too.
Other than that, the track and facility were awesome as usual, last session of the day on Sunday a heavily modded M3 and I were pacing each other, trading out the lead or chasing. Only real problem all weekend was a semi-novice in about a year old M3 who went into the kink on the back straight with too much speed, car started to unsettle and instead of running off into the mile of grass he got nervous and lifted which brought the car around, hit the grass perpendicular to the track and unfortunately the front left wheel was ripped off and the exposed suspension dug in and caused the car to roll:
http://www.talklambo.com/pics/data/530/medium/m31.jpg
http://www.talklambo.com/pics/data/530/medium/m32.jpg
Fortunately both driver and instructor were ok and climbed out.
The funny highlights of the weekend included someone who RENTED a Mercury Grand Marquis and threw track tires on it because their car was out of commission and they didn't want to miss out on their track time. It looked like a police car going around the track. There was also the Red Bull Mini doing laps during lunch; it of course had the big Red Bull can on the back!
http://www.talklambo.com/pics/data/530/medium/redbull.jpg
Last but not least, the video; please right click and download. Comments and critiques are much welcomed, always good to have more perspective. Keep in mind that the brake indicator is still virtual (i.e. the software guessing) since I haven't hard wired it yet.
http://whoi.be/vroom/d/4228-2/Barber-200705.wmv