Had my first track day yesterday...The HPDE @ Palm Beach International Raceway

Alstann

So, since I can barely contain the excitement of yesterday, let me just start by saying that doing a road course was one of the best, if not the best things I've ever done behind the wheel of a car. Better then any AutoX, drift, or drag strip I've done.

My basic setup for the car was 245/305 Potenza RE-11 rubber on the Volk wheels, Ate Superblue for the brake/clutch, KW Variant 3 set to KW stock specs, and stock brake pads over Z1 2 pc rotors. Otherwise, stock cooling.

The HPDE was a new driving club, and this was their first event. Best part? The price for the whole day, with instructor for novice and all, was 1 dollar. 1 DOLLAR!

We had 4 sessions of 30 mins each, and since this was my first event, I had a experienced instructor there to coach me through the lines and rules on track. I consider myself a decent driver, at least at AutoX, and I wasn't too nervous on the limits of the car. Mostly I was too excited, I've always wanted to be on a track and this was finally my chance to get started with it!

The car held up decently well - of course, being in novice, my first 2 sessions were slower paced until I got used to everything, but after that, I progressively got faster and faster at my instructor's command. After the first session, he felt comfortable with my control of the car.

The brakes held up quite well - no noticeable fade and great pedal feel. Oil temps did peak quite high, around 270 degrees on track when I was really pounding the car trying to keep up with a Evo 10 that had full bolt-ons. Tires held up very well as well - they feathered on the edges, but otherwise never got greasy or changed their characteristic under heavy load.

Two things did happen, however: My car had fuel starvation with 3/4 of a tank, which was quite annoying, and my clutch fluid boiled over. Clutch dropped like a rock to the floor when I attempted to shift hard into 5th on the back straight, and I ground the hell out of it. Had to back off for a couple cool-down laps before I came in. Luckily, it was my last session, so it wasn't a big deal. My stainless line is unwrapped and close to the header, so I plan on wrapping it up with some insulation and then bleeding the entire system again.

Overall, it was an awesome day. Perfect weather, and I gotta say, 300 dollar track days make sense. It's an outrageously fun experience, and I can't wait to be back on a track and learn to push the car to higher limits.

Video from my friend's WRx dash cam. I was the Z in front of him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snM8QVpwZ6o#t=102

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