GT Motoring

Great story - and great pictures!

adrs2k

I had my buddy Nathan 34witt that I met in Germany in town staying with my prior to our long Wake the Devil 2012 drive. Our CR sisters got to spend some quality time on the road and in the garage together. I have to say cruising around for the past 5 days with two ABP CR's has been awesome! The stares we got, and I think we counted being video taped by iphones on 4 separate occasions. We got to wash, cruise, and plasti dip 159's emblems while he was in town. Also took a day and went to the dyno to get tuned locally by UMS. 159 is loving life now with a 3,800 rpm vtec engagement point

I also finally found a name that was fitting. I have now named my car Sophia or Sophy for short. I think that once she was officially named she became very happy because I had the best drive ever with her and she was amazing!

Here is my CR #163 and 34witts CR #159.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8069384737/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8069384737/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr

Just another picture of my car just before we hit the road on Saturday for our all day Mountain and Canyon cruise.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8069390826/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8069390826/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8069363006/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8069363006/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8072683563/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8072683563/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr

matt96ex

Love the plate on your buddys car! Great pics as always!

adrs2k

A little out of order but just came across some old photos I had. First up are the pics of my CR from the online advertisement from the Honda dealership.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8120126245/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8120126245/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8120139914/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8120139914/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8120126163/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8120126163/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr

Then a couple more pics from the Vegas Indy Car event

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8120129027/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8120129027/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8120139804/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8120139804/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8120126465/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8120126465/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr

adrs2k

Finally got my CR out on track for its maiden track day! Car was awesome and a lot of fun. This was the first time at this particular track so I was trying to learn the lines most of the day. That also means it was difficult to compare my CR with my '04 that I used to track. Also had a lot of oil blow by throughout the day which caused a lot of smoking in corners which will need to be rectified before my next event December 8th. Enjoy the pics that were taken by the on track photographer a few from my fiance of me smoking, and the videos I took from my last two sessions of the day. Our local S2ki group was able to get some group rates on the track day so I believe we had 10 S2000's out there. Most of which were first timers but I think they are all hooked now!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8217995411/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8217995411/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8219080534/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8219080534/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8217999863/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8217999863/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8219085052/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8219085052/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8217876704/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8217876704/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8217877338/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8217877338/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr

Me having some fun with traffic.

adrs2k

Last session of the day and probably one of my better laps of the day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kGBc...2&feature=plcp

adrs2k

Here are some videos from my most recent track day this past weekend. Focused on picking up the throttle earlier and also trusting the car. This was a different track then before. It was kind of like a giant go kart track which meant you could really attack and be aggresive. I found myself having abrupt and sharp inputs to the wheel but its what got the car around the track quickly. I ended up having pad fade, and boiled my brake fluid though. Track was short with a couple hard braking zones and then no real chance for the brakes to cool as there were still a few other sections that required some quick stabs of the pedal. It was still a great day and we had about 8 S2000's out there for

Early throttle, colder tires, equals

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u29lNCJu70Y

My only good session without much traffic, no passengers, and my tires and brakes were up to the task still. This run was earlier in the morning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFJfEndMzQ0

adrs2k

Heading back out on track this coming weekend, Saturday Feb 9th. I was hoping to get some brake ducting on the car, and also some front roll center/camber adjusters and increase camber to around -3.2 in the front but I ran out of time. I will be tracking the car as is and I think I learned some things after watching the videos above so I will work on my lines and techniques instead.

adrs2k

Here is my track day synopsis for those that care

Impressions on the day:

Track was slippery and dirty the entire day! I never saw so many spins, accidents, and off track excursions at a track day before. My first session wound up being about 8min long because of an accident, my second session went the full 20minutes, my third section was maybe 6-7min, then black flagged, then we got back out for a few more laps. So after three sessions I probably had maybe 35-40 minutes of track time. I was exhausted from a long week at work, getting up early, and sitting around the track all day so I skipped my last session of the day which would not have started until 6pm. I think its important to know your limits and call it quits when you feel fatigued. After all the incidents etc I decided to not push my luck. That and my ETD had decided to come unbolted at the end of the session and started banging and rattling around during my cool down lap so I decided my car and I were ready to call it quits


My goals for the day were simple, and I am happy to say I achieved them all.

1. Continue to work on early throttle application
2. Carry more speed into and through corners
3. Use the brakes less, and stop over driving (over braking). Last event I faded my brakes and this event I was good. I tried to use less braking and was not as "hard" on the brakes at times and I was able to keep my brakes strong all session long (not having passengers probably was what really helped though - no extra 180lbs of ballast)
4. Hand positions/movement-

For me I think my driving got to a new point. I am now very comfortable in the car and I let the car do its thing. Meaning, I drove more by the seat of my pants and just guided the car around the track. When the rear of the car wanted to slide or come out, I let it. When the car pushed, I would give it more gas and help drive the car out of corners. So for me it was a good day on track and I learned a lot and continue to learn to trust the car. I think that is the hardest thing to over come when tracking the S2000. Trust and confidence. You know the car can do it, but you have to mentally let yourself give the car the control to do what it wants. Yes, I still have tons to learn as we all do. Driving fast is one of those skills that you can never truly master.

Some pics by Mike and I. Thanks again Mike for taking my camera while I was on track. You took a couple great shots!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8461700989/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8461700989/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8463203550/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8463203550/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8461702503/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8461702503/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8462799720/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8462799720/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8461701355/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8461701355/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8462800854/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41071623@N03/8462800854/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41071623@N03/, on Flickr

Lastly, I decided that if I wanted to start getting faster I wanted to track lap times and some data to start trying new things while on track. I use my gopro videos to watch after and before events to see what my hands were doing, my lines, and areas that looked like I could gain time. I downloaded the Harry's Lap Timer pro version, bought a suction cup mount for the car and downloaded racerender to overlay my video and data. I watched some old videos from my last time at East and tried to get some timing off those videos to compare to what I did this weekend. I think I ended up almost a full .8 seconds faster this time out. Same car, same settings.

Harry's was easy to use. I was able to select Firebird East from a menu of all North American tracks. I turned the app on while in line waiting to go out for my session. It uses GPS and per-determined sectors and timing points so when I started my laps it automatically just started working. A cool feature is somehow it was synced up with whatever timing and scoring was using at the track because if a yellow flag came out the app would use my GPS and flash a yellow flag warning every time I came up on that section. It was also nice when I settled into a rhythm and had no traffic to watch my lap times and sector times to see how I was doing. The racerender program took awhile to figure out and I had to publish the video a few times and adjust audio to clean it up. It is very easy to use and pretty cool as seen below. I def learned a lot about the app and figured out some tricks, so if anyone starts using it hit me up for tips to save you a lot of time.

mugenjibz

Awesome shots from the track! Your car looks great as always