#like. roy. roy. you were limping down the street for like 5 minutes

[lady-of-the-spirit]

Sometimes I think too hard about Roy only cracking his knee back into place before he walks onto the pitch and not before.

[idreamofdriving]

The beginning

This blog will be dedicated to my track driving experiences. I have loved motorsports, particularly auto road course racing, since I was a small child. I was able to do my first official track day this past weekend (6/16/18) at Road Atlanta. I started out in HPDE 1, like most others, and had an excellent instructor in Roy Parsons. I used my daily driver, a 2017 VW GTI at the event and it did pretty well considering it was on factory tires and brake pads. Only mods to date are an APR stage 1 (low torque) ECU tune, APR carbon fiber intake system, GFB DV+ diverter valve and Motul 600 brake fluid. 

Some takeaways from anyone considering doing their first track event:

1. Trust your instructor. They did not just happen to be there that day. These guys know what they’re doing and want to help you develop into a fast and safe driver. I’m pretty sure that I will never forget my instructor. 

2. DOT (full-face sport bike helmets) may be legal, but you have to have this intercom piece in your helmet to talk with the instructor on track. It was incredibly painful for me and the intercom piece jammed into my ear to the point it was distracting. I ended up buying the cheapest SA rated helmet sold by my new friends at Discovery Parts. Apparently many SA rated helmets have a little gap in the ear area for these intercoms. 

3. Get track day insurance. I used Hagerty, but there is no way I could have pushed as hard as I did with confidence without this. A very new (2017 or 2018) Corvette had a spin turn 11 with our group and had minor damage (he was lucky that it wasn’t far worse). 

4. Respect your car. I knew I had to drive back home, so I was short shifting to keep temperatures and stress on the car down in the final sessions on Sunday. Unless you’re an F1 driver, we can all still learn something by focusing on smooth transitions and line mastery. My last session, I shifted at 4500 rpm (redline is 7100) and was only 1.8 seconds off of my fastest lap of the weekend. My oil temperatures got really high and I had to cut one session short because the dual-clutch gearbox overheated and the car went into limp mode. 

5. Watch your tires, brakes, and fuel. I separated these from point 4, because I didn’t feel like these were actual abuses of the powertrain. 

- fuel: pay attention to how much your car is using and know the size of your tank. I lost 10ish minutes of track time because I started a session with more than 1/4 of a tank, but received a sudden notification of 0 miles until empty. Your car’s fuel estimates are often based on driving habits so I did not get a warning for 30 miles, 20 miles, etc that I usually do in normal driving. I typically get 25-30mpg and averaged 7.6 mpg at the track.

- brakes: by Sunday afternoon, my factory pads were done. I had 8000 miles on the factory pads, but there is now well under 25%. Get track day friendly pads.

- tires: I was using factory all-season tires. I could push hard for 1.5-2 laps before they became too hot and really lost a lot of grip. My instructor recommended 200 or maybe even 100 treadwear tires. Do not use R-compounds if you are just starting out as they do not give the cautionary feedback of street tires. 

6. There are always faster cars and faster drivers. Learn from the latter. It can always be humbling to yield to lower power cars, but if you follow them through the turns and watch their lines, you just might learn something to help you develop. 

7. Try not to get frustrated with the traffic. Trains (strings of cars that you are not allowed to pass, but may be faster than) do form. We are all learning together, but not all at the same rate. It was hard for me not to get frustrated with this. Check your mirrors, back off the car in front of you, and let some clear track come to you. The longer the session goes on, the better chance that these will clear up. 

This will probably be mostly a stream-of-consciousness type blog, so... you’ve been warned. 

I’m working on editing the GoPro videos from the event down and will post them soon.