4:30 am - Wake up. See time. Go back to sleep by calcluating the new power to weight ratio of my car with that titanium single exhaust....

6:00 am - Wake up. Watch Monaco final qualify. Still sucks BAR is out...stupid FIA.

7:30 am - Load car. Drive to Corel Centre. People drive fast in the morning. Had to merge at 140 kph on the Queensway. Who do they think they are...only I'm allowed to go that fast!

7:40 am - Regular's already there. Start to setup course. Have race day breakfast of chips and Pepsi. Bruce comment's, "you don't have a wife do you." How did he know that?

9:00 am - Do a couple of walk throughs. Greg, Mustang guy designed the course, to make it wide and open, or a course suited to his car Boy didn't end up that way. The first part was tight and technical, basically first gear (if you got 9k RPM) for the first half of the course.

11:00 am - Driver's meeting to start runs. Only 1 hour late, typical car club schedule! (Acutual MCO events are typically more on time, but it was the first one.) It's going to be one of those variable weather days, where you going to have to produce on the dry run or don't get a good time. Damn, I'm not good enough to be one of those guys that can just turn it on.

Run #1: Learn the course run. Told James to do the smart strategy of sticking in 2nd gear and forget about power. I try first gear as far a I can get Hit rev-limiter just in time for a corner twice. Almost exactly as I expected from the course walk...I'm good heh, heh. Coned once...not so good. 65s-2s = 63s learing run. Figure a good target is sub 60s, FTD probably 59s. Passanger seemed to have a good time.

Run #2: Becoming a conemaster this year. Too aggressive in some areas. 68s with 3 cones so 62s. Track group guy from work drops by for a ride. Showed him how autocross shouldn't be done.

Lunch: Try to goad Martin into autocross, since track dates aren't panning out this year.

Run #3: First rain happens, but pavement not that bad for run. Tracy (James' sig other) catches a ride. Promised her that I wouldn't spin the car. Drive a little slower, semi-wet = clean run 62s. Ends up being the fastest personal time.

Run #4, #5: Unmemorable wet runs with cones. Conemaster has emereged.

Ridealong #6: Get recruited as ballast weight for a Subaru with new V710 R-compounds. Typical AWD with good tires. Brutal grip, brutal ride, unsubtle and pretty fast too.

Run #6: Clean wet run, 65s. Most of the RWD cars suffer in the wet. But I got run in with the top down. Had to be done!

During the day typical miscellaneous driving advice and light smack talk. FTD ends up being 58s. Goad the AWD guys, get "Allan with the Talon" (Why I never rhymed that before I don't know) to drive my "real driver's car".

Fun run #1: Give Jeff a ride. CRX->Integra Type R -> S2000.

Fun ride #1: Allan drives my car. He gets the car to really dig in and grab the turn in and carry a lot more speed. Reminds me of the first well driven autocross S2000 from Sev of Montreal 3 years ago. Yep, proper weight tranfer control is prevent me from getting to the next level. Kinda levelled out with existing skills, maybe a a couple of seconds more with better lines, but I don't really command the car yet. All this in 2nd gear. So James I am right and getting power down is what's slowing us down!

Good to have a second S2000 running for comparing notes. Although Sunday's mixed weather is not the best comparo. James' second event has improved quite a bit. My experience has got him to 1-2 seconds of my time which basically took me 1 year to do by myself. Fritz said it right, time to stop helping

Customary after event dinner at East Side Mario's. Go home to watch F1 Monaco. Geez the McLaren is kick ass now.

 

Good review of the day, Yeah my best run ended up being a 65 but that was with a cone 63.976 I believe with no cone, that's pretty good. I watched the video of it and it was SMOOTH, except for a few places. Comparing it to my other runs it LOOKED slower. Just as it should, smooth == fast but LOOKS slow. Only about 1.5-2s off your time If I had more dry runs I would have been faster

But you would have probably been faster too

 

Thinking back, we were REALLY struggling for grip all day, obviously I need my 6 runs, I improve EVERY run I do, which is ultimately my goal right now. I came out faster on my first run this week than I did last week on my first run, which is good, my goal next time is to have less of a difference between my first and best, by doing fairly good off the bat.

The lot was so sandy in the morning and so wet in the afternoon, I only had a chance to do 1 run with grip really.

Unless it rains apparently this won't be a problem in Montreal.

I keep wondering how the RE050's would do for grip.....

Sitting with Fritz really makes you feel like you suck, he's got that car tamed so well, always on the edge, but it also makes you wonder if the car is easier to drive at the limit ...........

Fritz commented the S2000 stops like MAD, told me to brake later and later.

 

You can't compare times from event to event. Courses in the our lot can vary from 55-65s depending on design. The only way you can kinda judge is a % difference from FTD. FTD will be the best comparison since it's best that the course could be run. My honest assessment is that you were 4s behind me on the intro event and around 2-3s behind for event #1. And 1s is a big difference in pace. 1s is about 1 driving line mistake or 2 big driving errors or 10 gates where you could clip a pylon. You're learning fast because of the school and getting some good ride alongs.

If your runs have a big delta from fastest to slowest, that means you're still improving and learning. Once it gets consistent it means that you've reached the limit of your car or more likely a plateau in your skills, where there is something else to learn to get faster.

I wouldn't feel bad about Fritz making you feel like a bad driver. Fritz is probably one of the best drivers out there. He really shouldn't be near FTD with a 350Z on street tires, but his driving skill makes up for the difference. If you bench race, the turbo Miata, Klaus's BMW, my S2000 and maybe Chris's turbo Focus should be FTD. Learning you suck as a driver is just the first part of becoming a good one. Everyone thinks they are a "better than average" driver and don't realize what its like to really drive a car to its full potential. Only a rare few are naturally fast, I know I'm not. Thats why I always laugh when I read some of these internet posts about street encounters, modding the car to be "sick fast" or what's wrong with my car in the rain, it spun, etc.

Allan drove my car. He's never driven it before. If I had to guess he would probably be 2+s faster than me in my car. It can't be that hard to drive since he used to a AWD tank car. Until you're talking about 0.1s improvements, that's a drivablity difference. Anymore is driver skill. Allan reminded me how proper weight transfer feels in my car. I wasn't getting the weight on the front tires on turn in causing dreaded understeer, which required slower corner entry speeds. My cornering feels "flat". When Allan cornered he had a lift or slightly extended braking while turning in and quick transition to throttle balance. This causes the car to really dig in and carve the corner entry and allows for a lot more cornering speed. I forgot how to do it in autocross, which is a little different from taking a set on the track where you have more time to get the car transitioned.

 

Yes Fritz was telling to actually be trail braking into the corner which was interesting, I do this but as a mistake haha

Are you going to PMG next weekend?

I'm going to try to work on 1 thing each event, I want to work on braking later and harder, the car brakes MUCH better than I think and still can't judge when to slam them on for a corner.

That would be an easy exercise to practice if I could find a deserted spot to try it, just set up a coke can or something, and cruise at it at 60km/h and try to stop before it (obviously drive beside it ). The try it at 80 or 100.

 

Hey what about my S2000, I have a mad power given Intake and springs 'yo

Oh and don't forget the speedstar sticker, that's 10hp right there!

 

The only reason your car is not FTD capable is that you're on street tires. Mad power isn't important if it doesn't get to the ground. Second key to real performance.

I typically go to the road trips. Just be prepared to do a lot of driving for 4 runs. CADL has a lot of autocrossers, and the PMG is their best site. There should be around 120 drivers that day, and around 10 MCO guys. PMG is a car testing facility, with a perfectly flat and huge skidpad. There's also a banked high-speed oval, which weren't not going to use.