Race school day.
 

Yesterday I attended the "Jim Russell School of Racing" and took a high performance driving class. We all drove our own cars so their was a wide range of good cars. 2 BMW 335i an ix. 5 Porsches' two boxter S's, two 997's: Carerra, Carerra S , and a 2003 996 turbo. An S2000, a WRX a GTR and a Dyno'ed 364 HP Evo. My Z made 12 cars.

Over the day we did a slalom, turn entry, and an auto cross course, all with cones. This led to a final timed event which determined your track placement and how fast the lead instructor would lead. One instructor, Thomas drove a 370Z at last months Continental GT race at Leguna Seca for AM performance.
How cool is that.

I started with VDC on and was smooth enough to not engage it. The instructors said I was too smooth, get on it more. That required VDC off where it stayed. Holy toledo, our car is so capable, so controllable I had no idea how far below its limits I drive. I caught up to that fully modified EVO and stuck to him like glue until I was signaled to fall back. This was most satisfying as I felt he was the best competition that day. An ex top 5 racer praised me as well.

When we did our timed event, start in a box do two laps stopping back inside the box. Hitting a cone cost 5 seconds. I had a good run but gave up some tenths of seconds on the last turn and thought I could have done a tad better.

When they read off the times backwards with 1:08 and finished with me at 54 seconds. I beat out the next best, the EVO, by two seconds. The GTR was third but got placed with the 911 turbo. The pictures show which group ran with which. I'm with the EVO and the silver 911. We are the fast group!

Driving the track was a real treat. I turned off the VDC even though I was advised (instructed) against it. I tried to film it but it I mostly got the interior of the car and some over exposed car ahead of me. The 911 was slowing us down. He kept falling back and we had to slow to let him catch us, repeatedly. We were the only group allowed to pass the other groups too. They used radios to communicate with one and all. The instructor had maximized the stock EVO he was driving which was fine by me as I had had enough anyway. I'll go faster next time. I could use some more practice on turn 7, a 100 foot descending 150+ degree turn. The fastest speed I saw was 110 but was told we crossed 120.

QUESTION:
I had no interest in looking down too much but did have a throttle cut off similar to VDC or over revving. I had my read out set to temp so mid track I turned it to MPG bar light. This is when the throttle cut off momentarily. When I switched off and back to outside temp it stopped occurring. Any connection? I still had half a tank of gas.



At the end of the day I had burned $50 of 96 octane fuel. Drove 76 miles at approximately 8.4 MPG. My tires new have 300 miles on them according to odometer but they look a little leathery. Pics included, one of each tire.


I hope to include some more pictures that were promised to be e mailed from spectators.

I highly recommend a $700 day like the one I had. I actually learned very little new info, but learned the limits of the car on a wide variety of applications.

:driving:


EDIT

You must have an oil cooler. I was looking at temps of 240 with one.

Mt Tam --

This is an excellent write-up and the accomanying photos are great. It looks like the Michelins did well for you, no? I would not worry much about the feathering.

I need to do this.

very cool:tup:

Post up the videos!

That sounds like a lot of fun! Great job. Don't know about the MPG thing..

A day at a race school is a lot of fun, you can gain lots of knowledge, and improve your technique. I've been to two motorcycle roadracing schools and a day driving a Cobra with Racing Adventures. Sounds like you got a lot out of it. Well worth the cost of admission. :driving:

Great write up! Looks as if you had a blast!

From what I've seen, $700 is a really good price for something like this.

We all need to do this

I am already planning road course number two. PERFORMANCE DRIVING 2 $795.

The Michelins did very well. I still credit you with my decision. Thank you again.


You must have an oil cooler. I was looking at temps of 240 with one.

Glad you had fun!

The cut you were getting was most likely a fuel cut, on a race track it will happen pretty easily at 1/2 tank even if not pushing that hard. It will always be on the right hand turns. Once you start pushing harder it will start happening at 3/4 tank, and on race tires at 7/8ths of a tank.

Once you've completed another instructional school you'll probably want to step up to an instructed HPDE event. Those are usually about $200 a day, and out your way are often even cheaper. Just look for clubs that have good instructors. You'll probably need to step up to a track compound brake pad as well, the stock pads aren't really cut out for track duty.

Awesome! I'm glad you enjoyed the day.

Thanks for taking the time for the write-up and posting pictures.

Nice write up. Sounds as if your hooked now. I'll finally be pushing my Z next month and should beyond a doubt in Nov. at Road Atlanta.

Great review, that must have been so much fun. I need to do one of these, I signed up for an instructed SOLO auto-x event earlier in the summer but it got cancelled due to high wind and was very bummed.

How did the Super Sports compare to the RE050s?

Thank you.
RE: How did the Super Sports compare to the RE050s? Favorably. I already plan on my next set being Super Sports. Much quieter and slightly less steering input. I finally made my tires squeal. I never could do it with the RE050s, although I was never at the track either. On a couple of the turns I could hear mine over the Screaming EVO tires.

I will post my retched video on you tube and link it so you can hear just how quiet it is.

This is a terrible video and presented only for tire sound. That is the lens cap rattling.

http://www.youtube.com/user/SledgeHa...e?feature=mhee

:tup:

Congrats, there is no turning back now

Edit: Opps my mistake. Didnt realise you were modded as well. What did the Evo have done?

Wow amazing how you spanked the faster cars such as the gtr and the modded evo. Good job. Been wanting to track my car. Hopefully soon.

He said everything except two things and I forgot what they were. Sorry. He said it only had 326 foot pounds of torque as he had the paddles not a manual. i am only going by what he said

Sounds like bolt ons Evo X MR with stock turbo , engine. Good times! That GTR should have driven itself enough to be in the top group. That is surprising!

yea the thing about 411B engines is they can take alot of hp for the stock block, but the magical number of when it bends a rod or other parts is 400lbs of torque. Theres quite a few guys with 500awhp+ but only pushing 370-380lbs of torque.

Do you have video of you actually racing him? Dont see much except your dash in the video you posted.

That was it, and it stinks. Sorry. I set my camera up wrong.

We did a time attack vs each other, not actual racing, to determine which group we were in.

I still think its the driver you beat, not the car. Evo will beat the 370z since it is AWD and has the AYC and ACS system in it. With your bolt ons i say you could hang or beat an Evo. However with a modded Evo (power and suspension) it would be to much for the Z. Only advantage the Z has over the Evo is the tiny bit more hp...which would only help during the stretches. But either way, congrats...glad you had fun and did it the safe way (on the track)

welcome to the club!!!!

As for those Michelins, at my track event, one of the shops was using them on a BMW M3 and said they had two drivers flogging the car, plus did a lot of burnouts and they behaved 90% of an R-compund and still looked new after the two days.

Was this expensive?

Thanks

RE: I still think its the driver you beat, not the car.

Of course. I had perhaps the third cheapest car there. The EVO should have lost to the GTR and the 911 turbo too but the EVO driver was better still. As a few of my friends have told me about the course "It is just like your ride to and from work every day. Lots of twists and turns." Exactly, except no bikes or Prius to worry about.

I wanted a shot in the 911 turbo but did not have the guts to ask the owner(s). The turbos on the short straights of the auto cross may have been at a disadvantage. Not being able to get spooled-up in time. Also the BMW guys felt their throttles were less responsive and had to anticipate power input. Before I was told to back off them, I noticed other problems these folks had like missing the apex and over/under braking into a turn. Quick jerky moves etc.

One instructor confided in me how awesome it was to see David beating a bunch of Goliath's.

$700 plus $50 gas plus reduced tire life. Not so expensive I have any regrets. Far from it. What a great experience, and well worth doing it again.

Kewlest thread in a while. Thanks! :)

I remember when I took a racing school course for $1500 and they supply the cars for that weekend. OMG, grid driving @ 50 MPH was the scariest thing when you're 18. Made me stop racing on the street afterwards.

Did you buy the gas there?

Yes. 96 octane @$6.80/gal. Just because I could. I was one dot below half at the end. They also sell leaded gas and I am taking my Jag there to get some.

Nice. I should go gas up the 240 and bring a couple of Jerry Cans along.

My thought exactly. I contemplated the jerry cans on Saturday but I didn't want them with me that day.

It seems hard to wrap my head around nearly $7 for a gal. of gas. If I had to it would be no sweat but if I didn't have to I wouldn't. Course a lot of tracks don't sell anything less. But you could always leave and fill up, especially at lunch.

It is expensive. However, I would pay it in a heartbeat. When I go (and I am going to do this next summer because Mt Tam inspired me) I am going to show up empty and fill up with the 96. You see, in California, we can only get 91 octane max at the pump.

I defiantly see that point. Here it is 93 on pump.

I usually bring 3 cans with me, which is typically enough to get me through the day. Most East cost tracks I've visited sell regular (93/94) for a slight premium and have 98/100 available for $8-$9 a gal. 110 unleaded available for $9-$10.

Of course in Europe gas is nearly 3x as expensive as here so these prices would seem like a bargain :)

God Bless the bleeding-heart, hand-wringing, entitled-acting, miscreant socialist democrats who run our state.

why do you guys bother on a stock ecu? car is tuned for a maximum of 91.

I usually don't run the high octane, but I did once just for the heck of it. Didn't make any more power according to the butt dyno but less timing was pulled towards the end of the session. The ECU does automatically advance timing to a certain degree, within the limits set by the program.