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NCC BMW CCA HPDE Shenandoah, May 10
This past weekend was the Spring Driver’s School for the local BMW club. Friday and Saturday were warm and sunny. Sunday was mostly cloudy with light rain. It was a good lesson in car control, but not as much fun as pushing it in the dry. The best thing about the rain is that it equalizes the horsepower advantage of the M-cars. The video shows a lap of the skid pad at large-angle oversteer. This club really emphasizes car control on the skidpad. Being able to maintain a full lap in oversteer is one of my last obstacles to finally making it out of the instructor program.
SCCA Event 1 and CCC for 2010
It was a busy week here at GeorgeCo, with three events in five days. Saturday started it off with half a day with some of the BMW club instructors on the skidpad at Summit Point. About a dozen drivers, three at a time on the skidpad for four hours. Very helpful in finally mastering a full-lap with the tail out in oversteer. I also mastered the 360 degree spin. I spun so much that my radiator cap came undone.
Sunday was the first championship event for the SCCA. It was a fairly simple course on a very slicked repaved surface at FEDEX field. I drove the MINI which was probably the right choice for the surface. I had a bad tire bead on one of my racing tires so I tried slicks up front, street tires in the rear. Sort of a tire mullet. It really helped to get the car to rotate, but you couldn’t get the power down because the temperature was so cold.
Finally Wednesday was the Colonial Challenge Cup at Summit Point. This is a fun charity event with loads of track time. For the second year I instructed basic and intermediate students. I usually try to pick front-wheel drive or low horse-power cars, but this year I got a Corvette and an Audi S4 with a V8. Fun, but more power in the wrong hands is not always a good thing. The video has a couple of good recoveries in the wet, especially towards the end. Below is a screen capture of my finest moment: passing a Ford GT coming out of turn 10 onto the main straight, in the rain….
Colonial Challenge Cup, Summit Point, 9.9.09
9/9/09 was a lucky day. I got to take the day off of work and spend it as an instructor at the Colonial Challenge Cup (CCC). The CCC is an annual charity event at Summit Point that benefits the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Boys & Girls Clubs. It includes track lapping, driver education, go-carting and charity rides. It’s a very low-key event with lots of track time if you want it. Instructors had two sessions to ourselves and could go out in any student session we wanted as well. I managed to instruct 5 sessions in an E36 M3 and run 5 sessions myself.
This wasn’t your usual BMW club HPDE. From the organizational structure (not) to the rules on the track (lax) to the overall schedule (relaxed), it was a good chance to get back to the main circuit and test out the changes to the car. There were some very good drivers in some very expensive cars and some rather scary drivers in some scary fast cars. Click here for some laps of the main circuit.
It was a good exercise in space management and situational awareness. That came in the form of both a Daytona Coupe spinning in front of me in Turn 1, as well as a Ford GT passing me on the front straight at 140+ MPH after the checkered flag. It’s not every event where I get to park near an Aston Martin Vantage.
The GeorgeCo BMW, powered by Beano, is really handling well. On Tuesday I added thicker front swaybar. The bar is only 10% thicker than the stock bar, but that difference virtually eliminated body-roll and still maintained neutral handling.
The non-adjustable bar from IE meets Spec E30 requirements, and included new reinforced mounting brackets and adjustable end links.
NCC BMW CCA HPDE Shenandoah Circuit 5.29.09
It was a beautiful weekend to be at the track. (Actually, there are no bad weekends to be at the track. Except maybe when it snows — been there, done that.) Except for a brief deluge, it was sunny and warm all three days. I really appreciate the Friday IA days. I get more track time in that one day than I do in the rest of the weekend. So much in fact, that I almost ran out of gas.
The two videos below show the last run session on Sunday for the A Group. The groups all had about 12 students each which was an ideal size for this track. We were also fairly close in speed, with a few faster than the MINI (OK, most) and a few slower. This was also the first time I’ve run with another MINI on the track that wasn’t driven by an instructor. It was cool to see the difference in performance between the R53 (mine) and the R56. With about 20% more torque, the new turbo really pulls away on the straight.
The skidpad was interesting. I don’t know what BSR has done to it, but you’d think a skidpad was supposed to be slick. This one had an amazing amount of grip, even when soaked. We were hitting speeds above 42MPH before getting any understeer. It wouldn’t be a problem except there isn’t much run-off area when you start to spin or push outside of the wet zone. I managed to get the MINI to oversteer by increasing the pressure differential between the front and rear tires. When the tires were cold, it really came around with just a throttle lift. When the tires were hot, we had to induce it with the E-brake.
NCC BMW CCA HPDE Summit Point 3.17.09
No, that’s not a vintage photo from 20 years ago. That’s from this past weekend at Summit Point. It was time for the annual Spring HPDE on the main circuit. It was a weekend of a number of firsts for me. First time out on R-comps; first time for this car; and first time on the track driving a rear-wheel drive car.
[The sound quality is poor. If you have a fast connection, click the HD button to get better picture quality once it starts playing.] The video doesn’t convey the sense of speed down the front straight. I was just touching on 120 before the braking zone. There may have been a bit more in the car, but since it’s more than 20 years old and has over 215,000 miles on it, I didn’t want to have to buy a new engine, so I didn’t push it. Since it’s so much quieter than the MINI, I often ran it out to 7,000 RPMs on the straight from turn 9 to 10 before I got my rhythm down.
The car was much more like the MINI than I thought it would be. They are similar in weight and braking characteristics, thought the MINI brakes have more bite. It is very neutral in handling like the MINI, but no where near the amount of torque. You have to get on the power much sooner in corners and are rewarded with trailing throttle oversteer. Toward the end of Sunday, I felt as comfortable diving it into an apex as I did the MINI.
Here are a couple of things to remember for next time on the main circuit in this car.
- Between 2 and 3 don’t follow the edge of the track. Line up in the middle toward the gap in the tire wall, wait for the dip after the access road to turn in and use the camber on the inside.
- Tap the brakes right after the crest before 4 to settle the car, turn in, and full gas through the apex. Brake straight into 5.
- As soon as possible, get back on the gas in 5 to counteract the understeer. Go wide to keep up speed into 6. Position in 6 isn’t as important as a good set up to apex 7.
- Between 7 and 8 starts steady throttle to max gas at apex of 9. Try to get the shift into 4th gear before 9. Don’t early apex 9. (See M3 photo below.)
- Move the brake point for 10 back a bit. Key off of power lines. Brake less, carry more speed into corner, full gas through the apex. There is plenty of room to track out. An extra 3 MPH at exit is worth 10 MPH at the end of the straight. Remember to adjust brake zone into 1 with that in mind.
- Try to separate end of braking from turn-in in your mind as you adjust. Work on one thing at a time. If you can get on the gas before the apex, then your speed at turn-in isn’t high enough.
