My 1st two sessions out on Thursday morning were a bit intimidating compared to the other tracks that I have been to(Summit, Jefferson, Pocono Long). This track is fast with walls everywhere!! I went with the BMW club and as usual, people expect the Camaro to be slow in the turns. Once I had the track figured out and in my head, I was on the other cars bumpers in the turns.

The 2nd day went awesome, my comfort level was up, and I did not get passed by ANY cars in my run group all day! I never went full throttle through the esses yet, but I was still hitting 130-135 at the bus-stop. Once I went in there slightly on the brakes and the car got a little loose and crazy through the bus-stop. Another time I took it off line making a late pass and hopped the right side tires over the curbing(guy behind says right rear was 8-12" off the ground)! Generally I kept picking up speed, session by session. It felt awesome to pass M3's and a 2001 911 with track tires, where I was on there asses in the turns!!- on street tires. There was a Ferrari 360 Challenge car in a different run group, but I think as many people checked out his car as they did my car. People would come upto me after my session and say "Wow that thing can handle"---"well, yeah!!!". Some also said that I embarrassed them on the straights.

My laptimes went from 2:50's to my best I saw on my tape was a 2:27 and that was passing a 911 at the start and an M3 on the end of the lap, so it could've been a second or two quicker with no traffic. I wonder what kind or time I could get with track tires?

Everything worked awesome and I can't wait to go there again!

The only thing I am thinking about doing to the car is swapping in 3.23 gears. It seems that in a few spots that I was maxing out 3rd, but it wasn't worth a quick shift to 4th. Also, on the back straight, I was maxing out 4th, but 5th is a dog, and it stinks to shift into it for a split second. I figure the 3.23's would give me that extra 5-10 mph in 3rd and 4th and not really affect the acceleration all that much? Opinions?

Car was squirrelly under braking towards the end of the 1st day. Tires were greasy, fuel load was light, and pressures were up. The 2nd day I kept the tank full, dropped the rear tires 2 psi, and the car was much better.

Oh, and all the weight I took out was a waste due to the fact that my instructor was 300 lbs.

-Dennis

Anybody have space to host a video or two?

 

Don't have any video hosting hookups but sounds like you had a great time!

I ran Road Atlanta a few times in LT1 cars with 4.10's and loved the fact that on the slower corned you didn't have to downshift to get out of them quickly. Seems like you were having the opposite problem?

If you want to go down to 3.23's, a cheap way would be to pick up a used performance axle from an automatic fbody.

But before you do that I would think long and hard about the 'hit' that you will lose on the street. You probably won't notice it if you have 3.42's now but I'm just a big believer in 'too much gear is never enough' unless of course you have specific goals (maxing out times on this track, specific redline point in the 1/4 mile, etc.).

Either way though, check out a gear chart like this to compare before doing the swap:
http://www.gafba.com/calculators/ringgear.asp?mode=ntr

Best of luck!

 

I did Watkins in may ...similar story...Except it was 35 percent Ferrari and Porsche, 20 percent BMW, 9 percent Vette, and my Trans am Convertible. Any yes, as the loudest and one of the fastest inn the straits, I received several good nods...but some of the tea and crumpet folks were a tad discusted. I'm headin back in OCT...need some Khumos or something as street tires are just sorta fowl. Also stock shocks were only fair. It'll be interesting with my new 3:73 and 3500 stall...YIKES. At least I have a roll bar now... funny they let me run without last time. Watch out for the Blue Monster (Walls)! 130 at the bus stop is movin' I was close to that if not there... just be sure you have a fresh set of Hawk pads!
Jason

 

LOL ... I understand Jason.

I started hitting OT days 3 years ago. First time was at a BMW CCA event. Myself and a 1LE Z28 came and proceeded to run through the field like those M3s, M5s and Z coupes were pulling their tire trailers.

Had more than one driver come up to me and ask what the hell we'd done to those cars. By and large, very nice folks. There were some notable exceptions ...

One M5 owner walked up to my car in grid, leaned over and looked inside my car and said ...

"Must be nice to have twice the horsepower." And stood back up to walk away.

I retorted, "Sure is and at 1/2 the price."

These cars can be made to handle their horsepower very well.

 

I had almost the same thing happen a few years ago at Road Atlanta. After handing several notable high dollar cars their respective asses, a 911TT owner was walking by as I was putting my street tires back on the car.

He knew I had passed him handily several times that day so I guess needed something to help him feel better before he left. He looked at my brakes (which were the stock wimpy, small LT1 brakes) and said {chuckle} "about time for a brake upgrade huh?", I replied "Imagine how many more times I'd pass ya'll with some decent brakes!"

 

You think it's intimidating? I did two sessions in the rain there this spring. It's nuts not being able to see the exit of the turns because of those tall guard rails/barriers. Hardly any runoff anywhere. It's so easy to get going too fast. I think NHIS is more fun even though you don't get going near as fast since there are more safe areas to push the car than WG.

 

The 2nd day didn't seem to be as intimidating as the 1st. The 3rd day it rained, and I only got in 3 very slow laps before they called it due to heavy downpours and lightning.--but 3 laps was enough for me with the slippery concrete patches.