Track Days 2019 - Time Trials too
04-30-2019, 05:18 AM
#31
Former Moderator
Thread Starter
This is one of the track sprints. It’s 3 times runs from a start to a finish on parts of the north course which I thought was a lot of fun. This isn’t my best final run but the one prior. I forgot to turn on my camera. I’ll try to get a full report in tonight
04-30-2019, 12:51 PM
#33
Former Moderator
Thread Starter
Thanks Paul. Pitt Race report follows:
Drama prior to the buildup to the event.
On the Wednesday before the event, I was at Grand Premier Auto to get tires mounted on wheels and then on the car. Turns out I had tapered lug nuts and not the ball seat kind that actually fit the car, so the shop refuses to mount the wheels. AutoZone didn’t carry any and out of desperation I reached out to Greg. To my luck he had a set of lug nuts I could use and asked me to stop by. Got the lug nuts and some much needed motivation from Greg, got home and got the wheels on the car.
In the interim, Apex Pro reached out and asked me if I could be their ambassador at the event. ‘Twas nothing fancy, they just needed someone to hand out demos and if anyone wanted to make a purchase, facilitate the transaction.
I wanted to leave at 9am on Friday and figured that’d get me to Pitt Race by about 5:30 or 6PM following motel check in. But someone refused to let me go and wanted me to read her books to her. I complied.
I left home around 10:40 AM and drove through what was essentially a car wash all the way to my destination. Especially past Buffalo, it was raining so hard with a strong wind, that I questioned why I was doing what I was doing. In any case I got to the motel around 6PM and find myself to be only the second car in that lot. The other car there belonged to the front desk person. But the room was clean and that’s all that mattered.
I got to the track and finished registration and tech. The Apex Pro package had not arrived. Turns out the post office won’t deliver inside the track and the package was too large to leave in their mailbox so that meant I had to go into town and pick it up the next day. They had a welcome party so I ate dinner there and went back to the motel. Before I did, I had a question about my class. My car although not listed ran in the Tuner 5 class. Even when I registered the Civic Si wasn’t listed and I selected Tuner 5 for class. Two weeks prior, I noticed the 2005 plus Civic Si’s were in Tuner 4. I didn’t think the car belonged there and sent an email. After all 2005 was the last year of the EP3 Si hatchback and 2006 was when my generation of the Si was launched and the sedan didn’t debut until 2007. The following generations got the 2.4 liter engine and then the current one is turbocharged and with a tune can lay down 240 HP. I got no response back to my email. When I asked at registration they called the head of the TT program and he said I should just run in Tuner 4. I accepted that and informed registration to change my class and they even corrected my tech sticker. In Tuner 4 I’d be up against STR cars like the S2000 and the NC Miata as well as Focus ST, but it’s not like I had a choice.
I got to the track at 7AM the next morning, got my transponder and used painters tape to stick numbers on the car. I hear someone calling out my name, and turn around to look. It was Jack Baruth (now working with Hagerty). He was there with his wife and son and his wife was competing in the Tuner 4 class in an ex Playboy Cup Miata, and she is a good driver too. He gave me some early am motivation and said he’d enjoy seeing me beat his wife so he could rag on her all the way home. I laughed and told him that was unlikely.
As I had to make a trip to the post office, I asked if I could run with one of the other groups as it’d be cutting it short to run to the post office and then get back and run with the advanced group. They said that was fine and that they’d work it out. So I did the touring laps of the track to get a feel and then made my way to the post office and back.
I ran my first session with the Intermediate group. Plenty of fast cars and I was slow, but I got a feel for the track at speed. I was also learning the car at speed. I was braking based on what I’d seen from videos and that seemed to be a bit early. Probably fine in a RWD car, but the Civic seems to like a later and longer brake application. I set a fast time of 2:26. It was disappointing as I’d seen video of someone do a 2:07 and I figured I should be targeting that. It had rained overnight and while the sun was up and the wind blowing, I knew an off meant a nice ride to barriers. Pitt Race was also intimidating I thought with its elevation changes and blind apexes. It needs you to build a rhythm and keep it flowing across all corners to set a good lap time.
After that first practice session I was gridded last based on time for my second session. The advanced group I was in had the fewest cars so traffic wasn’t much of an issue but I did get lapped by the class leaders - two corvette race cars and and a RX8 that I think was running in the modified class. I came back in from the second session and had dropped 6 seconds to a 2:20. Good but I had to find time.
There was an hours break for lunch, so I got a sandwich at the food truck and made my way to the Main Building to man the Apex Pro booth. Jack Baruth stopped by and asked how I was doing and told me I looked tentative in the second sector which is a series of corners with blind and late apexes. He said I seemed to be looking and then turning and then looking again and then turning. He said just the car and go. At worst I’d go four off and would have to go see Seamus at TCS again for an alignment. I decided I’d make some adjustments and tried them on the third run. No improvement in times.
In the final time Attack session though the track had warmed up and I also got some pointers from Tom O’Gorman. Not sure if it was that or if the track conditions had improved, but I came back in with a 2:17. That felt good and gave me a lot of motivation. I did apologize to the ND Miata driver that I passed before the green flag and said it was my mistake. He said that wasn’t an issue for him.
Jack and I spoke at the party and he said I was looking good and had done a great job knocking off nearly 10 seconds. He said knocking the next 10 off would be the hard part. I also got to converse with Frank Putman who I met at Time Trials Nationals last year and some of the other guys.
I looked at the results and was surprised to find myself being scored in Tuner 5 and that I was in third. I thought I should talk to someone but everyone was having fun at the party and I didn’t want to take away from the fun that was being had. After all everyone had worked hard all day.
I got back to the motel and got a good nights sleep. The next day I checked out and got to the track again at 7 AM. Got my transponder and thought about adjusting my rear dampers to make them firmer. Seamus, the guy that worked on the car wants me to run a staggered setup and that’s how the car had been adjusted. But with budgetary constraints I was running 225s on the factory wheels all around. I figured turning up the firmness would help rotate the car better, but it had started raining overnight and was still raining as we were called to grid for the track sprint so I left everything as it was except the tire pressures. The track sprint is like a high speed autocross on the track with a start and a finish. We’d get two laps as a group following the pace car and then be sent out on three runs. The best time would count.
There were issues with the timing equipment and after our pace laps we just sat in our cars on the front straight as the rain kept coming down. We finally got started. Jack who’d raced the old layout told me that after turn 1, the next three corners would just be one single steering input. I repeated that to myself and went out on my first run and came across with a time around 60 seconds. I knew the others were going faster so I decided that given how wet it was I’d run the car in a higher gear with the AC turned on and stability turned off. My second run was an improvement and I shaved 4 seconds off and was able to shave a further 4 seconds on my final run too. At this point the rain had stopped and I knew there was no way our times would hold up when the novice and intermediate groups would run. Sure enough as I pull into paddock I hear that someone had already beaten the best time set by the advanced group.
I talked to a guy in an e36 parked near me. He was there with his brother and was in the novice group. I told him by the time he got out, there’d be a dry line on track and he should stay on it and that he would do well. And he did.
We then had our first time attack session for the day. The rain started again as we were in grid and my times were again back to the best time I set in my first session from the day prior. There was nothing that could be done. Then the rain stopped and the other groups got a drier track to run on.
By this time, I was back in 4th and figured there was no need to go talk about where I was classed as there’d be nothing for 4th. There had been delays and issues like a dachshund running off the leash up and down the pit lane and with the cold rain and blowing wind, everyone was tied up. So it made sense to not bug them about one more “non-issue”.
There was a break for lunch following two crashes in the Intermediate group. Two cars had gone off on separate parts of the track and struck the Armco. This meant the novice group would get both their runs in the afternoon and several drivers in that group did very well.
For my last time attack session, the sun was out and the track was dry but there was a strong wind blowing north to south. This meant that going down the front straight I had help, but coming on to the fastest section of the track, the last corner leading on to the front straight the car was being buffeted sideways and that didn’t make for a very comfortable feeling. But I persevered and as I came on to the front straight for what I thought was a good lap, I saw the flagger at Start/Finish sort of hesitate and then he flew the checker at me. I acknowledged and then backed off and as I made my way towards Turn one I saw a waving yellow. A BMW 135 race car was off to drivers right in the grass. As I made my way around on the cool down another standing yellow followed by a waving yellow. Yet another car, a golf I think was off. I was happy I ran most of that session without much traffic. I pull in and check my times and saw that I did a 2:20. Not the best time, but the best I could do.
Pulled into the paddock and had a conversation with fellow drivers during impound. Talked to Jack and thanked him again for helping me with his words. I packed up the car and decided I’d stay for the trophy ceremony. I was taking to Brian from New Hampshire who was driving the same car in the sport class and who had set a fast time about 10 seconds quicker than me and remarked that I had no idea if there’d be a trophy given the confusion over classing. He looks up the results on his phone and said that I finished in third. He and others I’d talked to also felt the car belonged in Tuner 5, and I wasn’t sure if they’d made a decision to time me in that class or if there was a communication error. I walked over to the podium and approached CJ who was staffing the event. She said I should talk to Bob the director of competition. Now I’d met Bob in Kentucky and he knew me. So I described the situation and told them I felt the car needed to be in Tuner 5 and that it had run in Tuner 5 last year. I let them know that even when I registered I’d selected Tuner 5 for the class and didn’t get any questions. I also let them know about the email I sent and that at registration I’d asked them to change my class to Tuner 4 and that they’d updated my tech sticker too. I told them I didn’t want to take the trophy away from someone else and I’d gladly turn it in if they decided after the event that I was classed wrong.
Both Bob and CJ said I should take the award and that I deserved it for the work I put in. They said the trophy was mine and that no one would come back asking for it. They said I should take it and celebrate it. They’d have a debrief the next day and would discuss the situation and how the car was classed. They said it wasn’t my fault and I deserved it.
So I came home with a trophy and while I was 11 seconds off from Mark Shrivastava who finished first (over our fastest lap and who was also of the opinion that my car belonged in Tuner 5) I think I did okay.
Jack did seem to think my car needed a swaybar but Seamus was dead against anything other than the factory ones. I’ll probably go with the wider wheels and tires and run a staggered setup first and see how things go. After that I can decide on the swaybar.
Big shout out to Greg again for giving me the lugs and keeping me motivated via text. I couldn’t have done it if not for him. With parental responsibility there is so little time to work on the car, that I was nearly a train wreck until I left for Pitt Race. I also forgot to pack glass cleaner and realized that mid way to the track, but thankfully with the rain, I had no need for it.
This event was the first time I questioned why I was doing what I was doing. Plenty of guys run at nearby tracks and do well. I questioned if I have the motivation to go to Kentucky again this year. I hope to find an answer as and when I find speed and come to better terms with the car.
Also want to add that Pitt Race is a great track and the facilities there are top notch. Camping there should be a very comfortable experience. They have nice buildings and clean bathrooms
Drama prior to the buildup to the event.
On the Wednesday before the event, I was at Grand Premier Auto to get tires mounted on wheels and then on the car. Turns out I had tapered lug nuts and not the ball seat kind that actually fit the car, so the shop refuses to mount the wheels. AutoZone didn’t carry any and out of desperation I reached out to Greg. To my luck he had a set of lug nuts I could use and asked me to stop by. Got the lug nuts and some much needed motivation from Greg, got home and got the wheels on the car.
In the interim, Apex Pro reached out and asked me if I could be their ambassador at the event. ‘Twas nothing fancy, they just needed someone to hand out demos and if anyone wanted to make a purchase, facilitate the transaction.
I wanted to leave at 9am on Friday and figured that’d get me to Pitt Race by about 5:30 or 6PM following motel check in. But someone refused to let me go and wanted me to read her books to her. I complied.
I left home around 10:40 AM and drove through what was essentially a car wash all the way to my destination. Especially past Buffalo, it was raining so hard with a strong wind, that I questioned why I was doing what I was doing. In any case I got to the motel around 6PM and find myself to be only the second car in that lot. The other car there belonged to the front desk person. But the room was clean and that’s all that mattered.
I got to the track and finished registration and tech. The Apex Pro package had not arrived. Turns out the post office won’t deliver inside the track and the package was too large to leave in their mailbox so that meant I had to go into town and pick it up the next day. They had a welcome party so I ate dinner there and went back to the motel. Before I did, I had a question about my class. My car although not listed ran in the Tuner 5 class. Even when I registered the Civic Si wasn’t listed and I selected Tuner 5 for class. Two weeks prior, I noticed the 2005 plus Civic Si’s were in Tuner 4. I didn’t think the car belonged there and sent an email. After all 2005 was the last year of the EP3 Si hatchback and 2006 was when my generation of the Si was launched and the sedan didn’t debut until 2007. The following generations got the 2.4 liter engine and then the current one is turbocharged and with a tune can lay down 240 HP. I got no response back to my email. When I asked at registration they called the head of the TT program and he said I should just run in Tuner 4. I accepted that and informed registration to change my class and they even corrected my tech sticker. In Tuner 4 I’d be up against STR cars like the S2000 and the NC Miata as well as Focus ST, but it’s not like I had a choice.
I got to the track at 7AM the next morning, got my transponder and used painters tape to stick numbers on the car. I hear someone calling out my name, and turn around to look. It was Jack Baruth (now working with Hagerty). He was there with his wife and son and his wife was competing in the Tuner 4 class in an ex Playboy Cup Miata, and she is a good driver too. He gave me some early am motivation and said he’d enjoy seeing me beat his wife so he could rag on her all the way home. I laughed and told him that was unlikely.
As I had to make a trip to the post office, I asked if I could run with one of the other groups as it’d be cutting it short to run to the post office and then get back and run with the advanced group. They said that was fine and that they’d work it out. So I did the touring laps of the track to get a feel and then made my way to the post office and back.
I ran my first session with the Intermediate group. Plenty of fast cars and I was slow, but I got a feel for the track at speed. I was also learning the car at speed. I was braking based on what I’d seen from videos and that seemed to be a bit early. Probably fine in a RWD car, but the Civic seems to like a later and longer brake application. I set a fast time of 2:26. It was disappointing as I’d seen video of someone do a 2:07 and I figured I should be targeting that. It had rained overnight and while the sun was up and the wind blowing, I knew an off meant a nice ride to barriers. Pitt Race was also intimidating I thought with its elevation changes and blind apexes. It needs you to build a rhythm and keep it flowing across all corners to set a good lap time.
After that first practice session I was gridded last based on time for my second session. The advanced group I was in had the fewest cars so traffic wasn’t much of an issue but I did get lapped by the class leaders - two corvette race cars and and a RX8 that I think was running in the modified class. I came back in from the second session and had dropped 6 seconds to a 2:20. Good but I had to find time.
There was an hours break for lunch, so I got a sandwich at the food truck and made my way to the Main Building to man the Apex Pro booth. Jack Baruth stopped by and asked how I was doing and told me I looked tentative in the second sector which is a series of corners with blind and late apexes. He said I seemed to be looking and then turning and then looking again and then turning. He said just the car and go. At worst I’d go four off and would have to go see Seamus at TCS again for an alignment. I decided I’d make some adjustments and tried them on the third run. No improvement in times.
In the final time Attack session though the track had warmed up and I also got some pointers from Tom O’Gorman. Not sure if it was that or if the track conditions had improved, but I came back in with a 2:17. That felt good and gave me a lot of motivation. I did apologize to the ND Miata driver that I passed before the green flag and said it was my mistake. He said that wasn’t an issue for him.
Jack and I spoke at the party and he said I was looking good and had done a great job knocking off nearly 10 seconds. He said knocking the next 10 off would be the hard part. I also got to converse with Frank Putman who I met at Time Trials Nationals last year and some of the other guys.
I looked at the results and was surprised to find myself being scored in Tuner 5 and that I was in third. I thought I should talk to someone but everyone was having fun at the party and I didn’t want to take away from the fun that was being had. After all everyone had worked hard all day.
I got back to the motel and got a good nights sleep. The next day I checked out and got to the track again at 7 AM. Got my transponder and thought about adjusting my rear dampers to make them firmer. Seamus, the guy that worked on the car wants me to run a staggered setup and that’s how the car had been adjusted. But with budgetary constraints I was running 225s on the factory wheels all around. I figured turning up the firmness would help rotate the car better, but it had started raining overnight and was still raining as we were called to grid for the track sprint so I left everything as it was except the tire pressures. The track sprint is like a high speed autocross on the track with a start and a finish. We’d get two laps as a group following the pace car and then be sent out on three runs. The best time would count.
There were issues with the timing equipment and after our pace laps we just sat in our cars on the front straight as the rain kept coming down. We finally got started. Jack who’d raced the old layout told me that after turn 1, the next three corners would just be one single steering input. I repeated that to myself and went out on my first run and came across with a time around 60 seconds. I knew the others were going faster so I decided that given how wet it was I’d run the car in a higher gear with the AC turned on and stability turned off. My second run was an improvement and I shaved 4 seconds off and was able to shave a further 4 seconds on my final run too. At this point the rain had stopped and I knew there was no way our times would hold up when the novice and intermediate groups would run. Sure enough as I pull into paddock I hear that someone had already beaten the best time set by the advanced group.
I talked to a guy in an e36 parked near me. He was there with his brother and was in the novice group. I told him by the time he got out, there’d be a dry line on track and he should stay on it and that he would do well. And he did.
We then had our first time attack session for the day. The rain started again as we were in grid and my times were again back to the best time I set in my first session from the day prior. There was nothing that could be done. Then the rain stopped and the other groups got a drier track to run on.
By this time, I was back in 4th and figured there was no need to go talk about where I was classed as there’d be nothing for 4th. There had been delays and issues like a dachshund running off the leash up and down the pit lane and with the cold rain and blowing wind, everyone was tied up. So it made sense to not bug them about one more “non-issue”.
There was a break for lunch following two crashes in the Intermediate group. Two cars had gone off on separate parts of the track and struck the Armco. This meant the novice group would get both their runs in the afternoon and several drivers in that group did very well.
For my last time attack session, the sun was out and the track was dry but there was a strong wind blowing north to south. This meant that going down the front straight I had help, but coming on to the fastest section of the track, the last corner leading on to the front straight the car was being buffeted sideways and that didn’t make for a very comfortable feeling. But I persevered and as I came on to the front straight for what I thought was a good lap, I saw the flagger at Start/Finish sort of hesitate and then he flew the checker at me. I acknowledged and then backed off and as I made my way towards Turn one I saw a waving yellow. A BMW 135 race car was off to drivers right in the grass. As I made my way around on the cool down another standing yellow followed by a waving yellow. Yet another car, a golf I think was off. I was happy I ran most of that session without much traffic. I pull in and check my times and saw that I did a 2:20. Not the best time, but the best I could do.
Pulled into the paddock and had a conversation with fellow drivers during impound. Talked to Jack and thanked him again for helping me with his words. I packed up the car and decided I’d stay for the trophy ceremony. I was taking to Brian from New Hampshire who was driving the same car in the sport class and who had set a fast time about 10 seconds quicker than me and remarked that I had no idea if there’d be a trophy given the confusion over classing. He looks up the results on his phone and said that I finished in third. He and others I’d talked to also felt the car belonged in Tuner 5, and I wasn’t sure if they’d made a decision to time me in that class or if there was a communication error. I walked over to the podium and approached CJ who was staffing the event. She said I should talk to Bob the director of competition. Now I’d met Bob in Kentucky and he knew me. So I described the situation and told them I felt the car needed to be in Tuner 5 and that it had run in Tuner 5 last year. I let them know that even when I registered I’d selected Tuner 5 for the class and didn’t get any questions. I also let them know about the email I sent and that at registration I’d asked them to change my class to Tuner 4 and that they’d updated my tech sticker too. I told them I didn’t want to take the trophy away from someone else and I’d gladly turn it in if they decided after the event that I was classed wrong.
Both Bob and CJ said I should take the award and that I deserved it for the work I put in. They said the trophy was mine and that no one would come back asking for it. They said I should take it and celebrate it. They’d have a debrief the next day and would discuss the situation and how the car was classed. They said it wasn’t my fault and I deserved it.
So I came home with a trophy and while I was 11 seconds off from Mark Shrivastava who finished first (over our fastest lap and who was also of the opinion that my car belonged in Tuner 5) I think I did okay.
Jack did seem to think my car needed a swaybar but Seamus was dead against anything other than the factory ones. I’ll probably go with the wider wheels and tires and run a staggered setup first and see how things go. After that I can decide on the swaybar.
Big shout out to Greg again for giving me the lugs and keeping me motivated via text. I couldn’t have done it if not for him. With parental responsibility there is so little time to work on the car, that I was nearly a train wreck until I left for Pitt Race. I also forgot to pack glass cleaner and realized that mid way to the track, but thankfully with the rain, I had no need for it.
This event was the first time I questioned why I was doing what I was doing. Plenty of guys run at nearby tracks and do well. I questioned if I have the motivation to go to Kentucky again this year. I hope to find an answer as and when I find speed and come to better terms with the car.
Also want to add that Pitt Race is a great track and the facilities there are top notch. Camping there should be a very comfortable experience. They have nice buildings and clean bathrooms
Last edited by A 2; 04-30-2019 at 12:55 PM.
Extensive report. I'll re-read later.
05-01-2019, 05:20 AM
#35
Former Moderator
Thread Starter
My car all alone in impound
Tom O’Gorman was wearing Honda gear but driving this. He was the fastest driver at the event.
We finished 3rd. Coincidentally the guy that finished 4th was driving a Fiat Abarth 500 also classed in Tuner 4.
It’s a 11 year old car, so par for parts to fall off. My muffler tip shook loose and luckily I discovered it before I went on track
Drivers meeting on Day 1
05-01-2019, 05:27 AM
#36
Former Moderator
Thread Starter
So as any of you that have been out with Greg know that he used to wave to Newlin Keen while on track. I always admired that quality and worked on trying to do that. It was a good way to keep eyes up.
I spot Mike Berchak who was the event photog and am waving at him and giving him the peace gesture. At dinner, he comes up to me and asks me if I was trying to ham it up for the cameras like Stirling Moss. I told him I felt sorry that he was out there in the cold and was encouraging him to keep at it. He accused me (jokingly) of trying to make the cover of Sportscar magazine and then I said if that’s the case I’m going to ask everyone to wave at him while out on track. He wondered how I was doing that at speed. I told him that unlike the others I was out for a Sunday drive
I spot Mike Berchak who was the event photog and am waving at him and giving him the peace gesture. At dinner, he comes up to me and asks me if I was trying to ham it up for the cameras like Stirling Moss. I told him I felt sorry that he was out there in the cold and was encouraging him to keep at it. He accused me (jokingly) of trying to make the cover of Sportscar magazine and then I said if that’s the case I’m going to ask everyone to wave at him while out on track. He wondered how I was doing that at speed. I told him that unlike the others I was out for a Sunday drive
