Chris - You have just discovered the spot where there used be a gas station back when the track area was the City of Vanport. The cracks in the pavement right after the curbing on the left for 8 and extending to just before the "Porsche bumps" cones on the right is actually one of the most dangerous spots at PIR in the wet. Whenever it starts to rain even a little bit, oils start to seep up from underground in the cracks there and this always seems to get a lot worse in the Fall when it gets cooler.

I teach a line through that area that calls for almost no weight transfers (front to back or side to side) whatever in the wet. I always look to wet days in the cool weather as a teaching opportunity and spend a lot of time making sure they stick to my rulebook through that area.

Friday and Saturday was pretty amazing to try to drive in an S2k. We had almost no hints of dry track at all and on several occasions were driving in downpours. Traction was a scarce commodity and both dojo and I spent our lapping sessions driving at the limits of our ability to stay on the track - and spent our frontside straight time signaling for all of the Audis to go by

The only time I got to get my into VTEC was on the frontside straight when the passing was done or if no one was behind me. The one time I started to try to up the speed on the backside straight, I ended up in a 4 wheel drift sideways heading for the grass on the left.

Just for grins, I actually went to the track with winter tires (Dunlop M3s) on my car. I have always wanted to show up at such event (wet and cold) with good winter tires on just to see how they would perform. While they seem to do very well at street speeds for getting extra grip in these conditions, they really didn't make much of a difference at all when the speeds were went higher on the track. dojo and I were were running very similar speeds on most of the track and there was no appreciable difference that I could see compared to his car with OEM RE050's on....

 

Alan, this is VERY interesting. Just to be clear, we're talking about the area where weight shifts to the RIGHT of the car as you set up for Turn 8, more or less around the end of the rumbles at track left, below, correct?

CB

 

The oil seeps up in the track starting at the end of the FIA curbing to the left as you view the track in this shot and extends to just before the red lines pointing to the dip on the right hand side where the FIA curbs are. This photo is almost exactly where you want to be as you enter this stretch. The traction challenged area includes the asphalt encompassing about 3 feet out extending from the curbing on the left out towards the center of the track.

If you are early on the apex of turn 7, you will be too deep into the runout on the left here and will most likely be looking more towards the wall on the right here instead of the open track. This means you will need to do far more correction as you approach the curbing on the left and it will have to happen over the oil impaired track. Depending on how you have blown turn 7, there is a cement wall waiting to collect some more paint on both sides of the track and both have a lot on them already.

 

This explains a lot. Just to be cleasr: am I correct in my understanding that the wet line you teach is to pinch T7 hard, so that you never wind up at track-left on exit (instead putting yourself more or less at track center) and can then take essentially a straight-shot through T8, aiming straight for the Porsche bumps? Your description -- looking at the wall on track-right -- describes what I saw, as I was driving a traditional dry line at 6/10ths (or so it seemed until the car got loose).

 

Yep, that's what He's saying, it was a really interesting exp. b/c I'd (like you) never felt the car shift, shimmy, slide, whatever you want to call it, in that section.

the past 4 events in 6 weeks have been in the wet so needless to say I have a much greater appreciation on the car in the wet and the "subtlties of this track in the wet.

Coming off 8 (FIA curbing on your LEFT the car would (assuming you are under maint' throttle) want to take the car and slide it ever so gently, but you knew it was happening to the Right and towards the tire barrier (right). I felt this consistently in the rain under anumber of different attempts to reproduce the same exp. and found that it was simply a matter of having a non-flat turn (off camber) + adding throttle input/on-power and VIOLA you get that little nudge.

Again this was all BEFORE the Porsche bumps and made my resulting entry to T9 different than in the dry...

it was fun to watch from 4/5 as I hadn't before and remember seeing the Black 90's NSX among the other cars, that Elise was hauling and so was the red vettte, but I've been on the track with them before and know they are good drivers.

Lastly, if you COULD head over to the Motorsports / Racing forum and see if you can provide any insight to my post about Roll Bars on a 2005.. I've gotten 0 response and yeah I've done the archives and such and am surprised it's such a tough subject to find.. I need recommendations on bar/harness/seat as the car needs this for next season so I can drive with the groups in Seattle whom are changing their regulations.

TIA.

David.

 

See your thread, David. I've just written a few chapters for you. PM me if you have any questions.

CB

 

Thanks much, I'll check it out now.

 

Here's a sample of the lovely conditions we encountered at the Audi Event on Saturday Nov. 5.



Did I mention that traction was a scarce commodity that day?

 

Traction might have been in short supply, but this shot shows the suspension's taken a nice set and you're on the power. Nice job.

CB