Well, it wasn't a track day. But it was me and 14 guys who
rented out the track for one day, 8-5, and had 4 instructors
to guide us in high-performance driving.

I was out in a couple of driver groups, but here are the interesting
facts. This is a 1.8 mile course. It has 79ft of elevation change. It
favours handling, not power. The longest straights are less than .5
miles long. The car ran about 2s behind a Lotus Elise 1.8, and about
4s behind a modified 2011 M3 V8 with over 420hp. Stil 10s slower
than a professionally-driven Comp. Spec Miata, but hey.

I had a lot of fun and learned a lot. By the last couple sessions, my
instructors said I was good to go without any further istruction!

One instructor loathed the car, saying it had no business on a
racetrack. This was my first lap, so we pulled off and he did a
a run at 5/10ths to show me the way 'round. He was tough on
me but apologized immediately after. He also amended
his remarks at the end of the day about the car. (he did drive it,
but mushy pedal feel, all season tyres, and never getting into
the CATS or the power... not going to give you the full picture.)

The next instructor had a nice style. He let me run the course, gave
me plenty of tips on the warmup lap, and never made overbearing
comments. I improved over 10s per lap in this time. He went home
a little early, but his sessions were great. He advised me that I had
excellent car control, and I simply needed to practise my racing lines
to make good laps. He also said that smoothness will make it feel slow,
but make the laps quicker.

My last instructor was a lot of fun. He took me a session driving my car,
and loved the way it drove (he was in a Hyundai Genesis 5.0 R-Spec
with 460hp this day, but he is a PCA/ BMWCCA instructor/racer).

He commented that the car had very neutral characteristics, good
steering feel, and that you could provoke something of a 4-wheel
drift without getting the car out of shape. Meaning, using the
shifting centre of gravity to sway the car whichever way you like.



He was also satisfied with my car control, saying that all I needed to
do was laps. My last instructed session was about 3:30.

I ran the car a few more times. I had a GPS lap time thing I rented
from the track so I could gauge my progress.

I have a ton of stuff from the day, but I'll share some of the cooler
stuff with you guys. If you have any questions feel free to ask!

I met some new friends, nothing broke, and I didn't crash. So it was
a huge success of a day in my book.

Ian

















https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmn_xi66__Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0sB...8&feature=plcp

 

Was that video near the end of the day? I'm asking because it looked pretty smooth to me, and good lines, good apexes, etc. Well done.

 

how much did it cost to rent the track?

 

Waterdragon, yes it was. Thanks for saying that nice stuff.
It may have been the instructor driving on the GoPro laps,
he took my car with me as passenger for one session.

He got a 1:40.6 lap, I got a 1:42.1 as my best lap.

Burmaz, it was $150 per person to rent out the track. Transponders
were an extra $25. The car used a lot of fuel, it used about 1/7th
of a tank every 15 minutes on the track. I estimate 3.1mpg for the
day. I never cleared the old average because I'd prefer not to know.

It was a great deal. If I wanted to go to Sterling, in FL, it would likely cost
$500 to do this type of thing. Not to mention is has a worse track surface
and no elevation change.

 

what's the tape for stone chips?

 

Sean, it's average 3M painter's tape, I didn't cover the whole car with it but
I wanted to protect the lip from chips and the front fender from other cars
chips.

 

Slap on some suspension and Avos twin screw and go back...

 

I'd say that proper track day tires and lsd will do more good than a twin screw on a track like that. But it certainly wouldn't hurt to have that extra 100-200hp.

 

such a nice car