After racing bikes for years, I tried out the 24 hours of Lemons in a car and determined I should not drive a car on the track. I just feel too immortal. On the bike, It's just your gear between you and the pavement and you literally drag your knees through the corners. In the car...there is just so much protection.

Fast forward and my neighbor has been leaning on me to join his Aston Martin club at Thunderhill. I finally caved. I figure Aston Martin owners will be more 'civil' than WRX/Boxster/Vette/etc types and I will probably be able to keep my ego in check while getting to open up the car more than on the street.

My new wheels arrived today. I'm debating throwing on some good sticky rubber before the track day or just continuing to wear on the stock P-Zeros. Other than that, I'm looking forward to returning to the track. It will be interesting to see if I can come close to my bike times. On a 500, I managed 2:02. On a 1000, 1:55.

 

Im in the same boat. USGPRU 125 and 250 GP for many years. East Coast. I didn't track my Spyder but with NJMP an hour a way... Tempting. I am sure I will get totally hooked again..

 

Wear the P0's...once they're worn you can get shot of them knowing that they were piut to good use!
Then, stick some good rubber on and see the lap times improve.

 

Not an opinion on the tires, eeeek, yet I wonder what you have learned about Thunderhill's policies? A friend said that I'd be limited to 135 mph, and would be required to have a supplemental roll cage on my convertible, based on his experience with his Beemer vert. I know the stock roll bars, rise up several inches if the car senses it's rolling, but I don't know if Thunderhill would accept that. Plus, 135 is not a fast enough limit to test my skills, as I've done that already on selected occasions.
Tks

 

I've been going to Thunderhill for 20 years. Most of those days were on bikes and I have never heard of a speed restriction there imposed by the track. In fact, I have gone up into 6th gear on a GSXR1000 while going all out. 135 was probably passed in 4th gear.

What may happen is that different track day orgs have different rules. Each one that rents the track applies their own rules. Some to 'point to pass', some require roll cages, some require a race license. It really varies. The track itself has much more basic rules. I have some buddies that run track days for cars and I'll ping them to see what their common rules are.

 

This is from the TrackMasters website:

[b=justify]Roll Bars [/b]=justify- A roll bar is a great investment in your safety and we would like to see all cars on track equiped with bars. However, not all of us have dedicated track cars, so a roll bar may not be an option for you. If you have a convertible you must have either factory roll protection (hoops, auto-deploying anti-roll posts, etc), or an aftermarket 4+ point roll bar. Convertibles are not allowed in our Advanced run group without an aftermarket roll bar. Hoops and auto-deploying posts are allowed in our lower run groups, but not in Advanced.

Here's from Hooked on Driving:

HOD Policy on Convertibles: 2016
HOD does not allow cars without rollover protection to drive in our High Performance Driving Events. This would include Porsche Cabriolet, pre-996 (air-cooled), Mustang, Corvette, Camaro, Firebird, Miata (all generations), Solstice, GXP, Solaris, first gen Z3’s, most British and Italian sports cars from the 40’s through the 80’s. T Top versions of these cars are allowed, as are all Corvette Coupes. Fiberglass hardtops do not provide structural protection thus they do not qualify the car.
In order for these cars to be eligible, they must have four-point, structural roll hoops installed to an SCCA Solo 1 Time Trial rules standard. They can be bolt in or welded, but must provide a full hoop with down bars from the corners of the hoop triangulating toward the rear of the car. We highly recommend that cars with this kind of protection installed, also utilize a five point safety belt system for both driver and passenger.
The following convertibles with factory rollover protection, are allowed: Porsche Cabriolet (996, 997), Boxster, BMW Z4, Audi TT, Nissan 350/370Z roadster, BMW M3 and 3 series (1999-present), Audi Convertible, Honda S2000, Mercedes S, SLK and CLK, and other cars with stated production “factory rollover” protection.
NOTE: it is also required that drivers of cars with their tops down, have eye protection, with a minimum of glasses/sunglasses, but HOD recommends a full-faced helmet with shield down.
Miata Owners, please note: Mazda makes no claim that their bars on 2006 and newer Miatas offer rollover protection. An after-market roll hoop meeting the requirements stated above must be installed.

I imagine it's similar with other organizations. I've also seen lots of pictures of factory convertibles at Thill.

The only time I've heard of speed restrictions on convertibles were at the drag strip. Faster than a 12.0 1/4 mile required a roll bar at certain drag strips.

 

Full writeup to come later. Short version is I had a blast, but I know me and I don't think I will track the car again. Don't get me wrong, I had a great day and thoroughly enjoyed driving the car is this environment. I pushed the car and was very surprised by how well the Falken FK510 tires did. The Dynamic Computer in the car had me at 1.17G in the turns (I don't know how accurate that is).

Fun facts:

I went through 18 gallons of gas in 81 miles. Filled up and repeated.
The power of the car was on point, as was the AWD system. I did manage a 4 wheel drift in one over a hill off camber corner.
Motorcycle racing lines 100% applied.
Now I know what some of you are talking about with 'body roll'
132 mph indicated on the front straight.
The Aston Martin DB11 AMR is a joy to drive...and you feel the extra power.

So why would I not track the car more? Time and money. The car would need improved suspension, dedicated track tires and more. Additionally, paying for the track day, track day insurance, etc. This car is my daily driver.



I took some footage with a borrowed gopro. I need to figreu out how to make a decent video. By default, the dam thing seems like it's trying to 'look through the corners', which is a little hard to watch. I think I had the gps turned on, so it should give me the ability to do a track overlay.

 

Thanks eeeek, looks like fun, as is your description. Is the photo an example of the body roll? Was the 132 a likely max at that point of the track?
Doc

 

Yes, that's what the body roll looked like. It felt like more, though.

With my background, I'm used to leaning into the corners and the fact that the car would lean away to the corner goes against what I'm used to. It was a little unsettling to my mind and it will take some more getting used to. I would want to take it a little easier, but, as the day went on, I started to trust that the car would have an initial body roll and then would be stable. I just had to trust the initial "flop". It doesn't look too bad and is nothing like, say, a Camry, but inside the car as I'm starting to push it, I felt like so much more. I never felt this on the street, so I can see how many people feel the F-Type doesn't have any body roll, especially when pushing it on the street. More seat time would get me to trust the car more. As the day went on, places where I would back off the throttle I learned to trust and power through.

As for the max speed, I'm confident a couple of little tweaks to my exit of turn 15 would net more speed. If you told me that someone with more seat time got 142 mph at that same spot, I would not be shocked. If I can ever figure out how to download the gps data from the gopro, all my flaws will be on display.

On this day, I was one of the more aggressive drivers out there. I've put so many laps in on this track on my bikes that I have turn in points, apexs and exit points for every corner. I'm not joking when I say I have thousands of laps at this track. Doing the math off the top of my head, I would say probably well over 5,000 laps there. I've also jogged it a couple dozen times, and the slow pace with your eyes wide open really let's you get into the nuances. This was both a good and a bad thing.

The good thing is I knew the lines. The bad thing is that gave me some hubris. I don't know much about driving a car hard and I just can't think of myself as a novice. I did take some laps with Aston Martin's driving pro and he complimented me on my lines and commitments to the corners and gave me some solid tips about hand positions, tweaks to the exits, braking points and trust in the car (this was in the AMR DB11). I've not reviewed all my laps yet, but it looks like my best may have been about 2:07. On a 55hp bike, I've managed a 2:02 and on a 190 hp bike I've done 1:55. I could see getting my time down to 2:00 as the car sits. It would be a combination of trusting the car/myself more and making small tweaks to my lines/throttle points to get on the gas sooner.

Now I need to teach myself how to edit video...