Yes do the forum

 

If this is your first experience on the track I doubt you will do any damage to tires and brakes, it takes some experience to go fast enough to do any damage during one track day or weekend as you normally are only on track for between 6-7 sessions with classroom instruction. You will get faster during the sessions but likely not enough to put hard wear on the car. Go and have fun, go as fast as you want, your instructor won't push you more than are prepared to go. That being said, once you have the bug and go more often you can count on wear on the tires and brakes. Get racing brake fluid so you don't boil the fluid (very bad thing to happen as noted above). There are small modifications you can make to ease expenses ( dedicated race brake pads, dedicated tires, and depending on the car a race harness can be a good investment. Personally I am going to consider investing in a separate car for the track so I don't worry so much about the Jag. Old BMW's, Miata's and Porsche's make great track cars and can be had cheaply.

 

Taking the XKR on the track is fine if you're disciplined enough and NOT competitive enough to keep the speeds and the action fully under control.

On the other hand if you see yourself trying to run away from that Corvette or that GTR and try setting faster laps than they do, I fully agree with investing in a track car. If you push your expensive and pristine car long enough, hard enough, you will crash it eventually. I crashed two very nice cars on tracks before realizing that a dedicated race car was the best way to go for me.

A dedicated tube-framed race car (used), one-quarter of the price of a new XKR will go far faster on the track, costs less to maintain and repair in case of a collision. There are a few things worse than crashing your beautiful street car and having to worry about how to get home from the track and how to get the wreck out of there. I've been there and have seen that scene far too many times. Needless to say, once you crash a car like an XKR, its value will fall through the floor no matter how good the repair work is.

Albert

 

Buy track insurance before you go. It is expensive and per day, but will cover you if you wreck. I did HPDE for 17 years before I damaged a car ... I hit just the rear corner at 35 m.p.h. and managed to bend the frame. A total loss!

BTW folks around me know that Summit Point Raceway, a.k.a. BSR in WV has four courses and instructor-led HPDE's every month. Once you get to a certain level, you're free to ... wreck, I guess. :-)

 

I hate to hear your insurance didn't cover you. I have lucky that in 11 years I have never had an incident, however my insurance guy told me I would be covered at the track as long as I had no timing devices, no trophy's are awarded or it is not considered a race. That is one reason I have always done HPDE. It worries me that your insurance didn't cover it.

 

Is there anything I can do or say to convince you to do it in the XKR? Like how the tires don't even show wear after I slid them relentlessly, or how there was no noticable pad wear through 10 corners and standing on them twice every 1:40 seconds in particularly brutal brake zones?

It's an HPDE...you could even drop down a run group to enjoy it at lower speeds and greater safety! You know you won't be happy until you get it on track. I promise you won't need new tires afterwards, and the wife doesn't even need to ever know! It's in your DNA...come on buddy, do it!

Bruce

 

Last week I did a 1/2 day performance driving course at Bondurant. I think this was an experiment for them and might have been the first time they let people do such a course in their own cars. As such, they didn't have any insurance options available (like they do if you take one of their normal courses that only uses their cars).

Before I went, I was a little bit nervous about the potential risks involved to my car so tried to find insurance but couldn't find any insurers willing to cover it. After phoning Bondurant and asking about exactly what would be involved I decided to take the risk and go uninsured.

Most of the course was indeed low risk, timed slalom/autocross and braking while steering exercises, however one part involved doing a high-speed "follow the instructor" (no overtaking allowed) on a race track. We were instructed to leave at least 2-3 car lengths between us and the car in front at all times, however an Italian kid in a BMW M6 clearly thought he was too special to follow the rules and was usually no more than 3 inches off my rear bumper, which was particularly worrying and risky given the speed and hard braking we we're doing.

I'm pleased he didn't hit me in the **** but it was probably more down to luck and also my continually avoiding braking hard, rather than his driving skill and/or reaction time. The need to do that killed my enjoyment of that part of the event and it also made me realise the stupidity of going on a track uninsured, even for just a lead-and-follow exercise. I now see that avoiding an accident on track is much less about your own skill than factors genuinely out of your control, such as the sanity of the moron behind you. With the benefit of experience, I will never risk going on track uninsured in an expensive car again, so I would really like to know from who/where can one get this track insurance that you speak of?

 

Most, if not all, auto insurance agencies will not cover HPDEs.

There are a few companies that will insure your car (physical damage only, not collision). Try www.ontrackinsurance.com or HPDE Insurance Program

Oh and the same day I wrecked my car, a guy showed up in a brand-new Shelby Cobra and wrecked the front end trying out drifting. Better to be safe than sorry!

 

Drivers following too close are not tolerated in most schools. It's hard to focus ahead when you're driving in your mirrors.

Now tell us how you and your '08 XKR performed! Which did better?

 

It was a great experience, well worth it. I think I did pretty good, there were moments mostly accelerating after coming out of corners where the BMWs apparently couldn't keep anywhere near me. With the big 6 pot brakes you get with the portfolio ed. I was able to significantly outbrake them too (which was why i was worried about the moron behind me). I was loosing grip on corners way before them though. The XKR is a drift monster, it is immensely controllable in a drift situation which is great, but it sometimes feels like it is trying to go there early when you get close, which is not necessarily a good thing. It might have a lot to do with my tires, I'm running Michelin Pilot Sport A/S Plus's mostly because the car is normally my daily driver and they supposedly last upto 40k miles. From my previous experience with Pirelli P-Zeros I wished I had them fitted at that moment. I would only get about 8k miles before needing to buy new ones but would have felt a significant improvement in cornering performance on the track.
Tracking the car bought out a very noticable problem with the paddle shifts being mounted on the steering wheel rather than the column. The steering ratio already isn't nearly as aggressive as I'd like.. IMHO it takes way too much turning of the wheel to go round corners. After the first quarter turn I tend to move the wheel through my hands rather than cross my arms as it gives better control but this leaves you continually double-thinking and hunting around the wheel to find the correct paddle. This ends up being so cumbersome its practically impossble to manually shift effectively under track conditions. Consequently I soon gave up trying and left the car in DS auto. That said, DS auto behaved remarkably intelligently on the track so I don't think it cost me too much time. I think Ferraris etc. have the paddles mounted on the column, so they dont move with the wheel. That solution would be way more preferable/useable, at least to me.
There was another excercise with a very small twisty (timed) course mapped out in cones designed to teach car control. On the track the auto DS mode was remarkably intelligent, however on this course it was very noticeably not shifting down early enough when applying power on/after exiting corners. I'm not sure what the difference was, probably just the lower speed, but because of the paddle problem mentioned earlier I was also driving this course in DS mode, which was definately costing me significant time penalty. I wanted to run the course again with the traction control tuned completely off to see if that was the problem (and also to just see how squirly the car gets), but didn't get the chance to do another run due to time.
My 2008 XKR has a 4.2 litre engine. At a Jaguar Alive driving event a month or 2 ago I got the chance to drive a newer 5 litre XKR around a similar coned track and an XKR-S in a 0-80-0 event. It was great to finally have the chance and conditions to compare my car to those, and see just how much of a difference the bigger engine and 4 years newer makes. Obviously theres no replacement for more power, and if I'd have had that XKR-S with its lowered intelligent suspension and limited slip diff that M6 driver would have been soundly thrashed everywhere, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover generally how capable and also how similar in cornering/handling at least to the 5 Litre XKR my little ol' 4.2 is.

 

In most HPDEs the driver behind must wait for the driver ahead to signal them to pass, pointing the side they want the driver to pass them on.

 

I'm trying to figure out how to get both cars down there to be honest. But I've got this brand new set of 275/35r18 R888s that need to decorate the track with their shreddings! How can I deny them that pleasure?? ;D

 

How do those Toyos compare to Michelin or Pirelli? Toyo and Yokohama seem to be quite a bit cheaper but I see them on a lot of fast cars... Is there much if any performance trade-off for the cost saving?

 

I'm now also wondering how hard it would be to find & retrofit some nice column-mounted paddle shifters.

 

The Toyo's are for my 350Z, not the Jag -- just to be clear. However, the R888s are also R-compound rubber. Very soft, quite nice. I've used both these and the RA-1s at the track. I actually like the R888s a little more, as they seem to heat cycle better than did my RA-1s. I did use them for a little while in the rain a couple of times to test their wet traction. It's OK, but not something I'd use on the street to be honest. Plus, as soft as these are, I'd be surprised to see even 10k miles on them. I just replaced some nasty Hankooks with the new Pilot Super Sports, and I'm liking them so far. My CFO won't approve a tire swap on the Jag until I wear them out a little more, but I think I'll replace the Dunlops with the Michelin's too.

I suppose if you were in a place that never saw rain, you could justify R compound for street use. But... they'll spoil you too. They STICK. After switching back to streets, you have to remind yourself that the hand of god is no longer pushing down on the car in corners and that sliding WILL happen if you don't calm down!

 

It sounds like a good time, and you were generally impressed with the car on track. All season tires were obviously not at all well-suited when cornering grip was required, or under significant throtte, and I suspect your apparent tranny downshift reluctance was caused by them. I originally thought the same. The DSC system senses tire slip and reduces engine power, tranny downshifts, applies brakes to the slipping wheel, and who knows what else. More slip is allowed in "Trac DSC" setting, and perhaps unlimited in "DSC OFF" mode. Some slip is just fine, and even desirable to assist control by the trained drive in autocross type settings like you were doing, but your A/S tires and DSC were really conspiring against you. I was really surprised the XKR didn't have limited slip before the 2010 upgrades as that obviously let the tires slip more as well.

I would suggest you need to adjust your driving style to keep your hands on the wheel through a half wheel rotation...one quarter is not nearly enough for performance driving. You should also never need to turn sharper more than that. Since I haven't used the paddles in hard cornering yet I can't say how effective the paddle placement is under those conditions, but use of paddles as your hands move with the wheel is very desirable. Otherwise I think you'll find the Auto-Sport and DSC OFF settings quite good for the twisty bits...and better tires if you're in a hurry!

Bruce

 

They'll learn to live with the diappointment! Besides, the Dunlops will perform and wear better in the cooler weather, while all the goodness of the R888's will shine through in the hotter stuff But if your CFO is like mine, not even that argument will work...and there's always another event.

I'd hoped to do some training exercises in the XKR before throwing it to the wolves at Mosport, but after lap one I was totally at ease with it. I kept pushing harder probing the limits but all I found was total control, and progressive breakaway. You're going to be impressed...whenever you get her out there!

Bruce

 

I'm building a 1987 XJ-S into a race-car. I own two 87 Cats, an XJ-6 that I love and the V12 XJ-S. The XJ-S was given to me otherwise I would never gut one the way we had to meet the SCCA compliance rules for the 24 hours Of Lemons race. I ran BMW's in the past and I enjoyed it but rolling an old Cat onto the track next spring will have them screaming at me. Ok.. howling and sneering perhaps. I took nearly 1,800 lbs out of the car during it's strip-down. I'll add back another 300lbs with the full SCCA cage installed. The V-12 is very impressive with the weight loss and drag encumbrances removed. It's pretty much a muscle car now. I do suggest running on a Lemons team to get a taste of the track before you try actual racing but you'll have to join a team. The experience is amazing and you don't have to worry about wadding up your nice cat either or insurance issues. I'm running Aviation fuel and the HP is startling. Keeping it cool is a challenge though. 2 radiators, three scoops, an electric fuel cooler and a 2 1/2" open exhaust works well. If anyone knows more about race tuning please chime in. Right now the cat can smoke the tires and drift easily at moderate speeds under 60 MPH. Any performance tips would be greatly appreciated. I need a new front cross-member too. Any info ? Thanks, Kev

 

Would love to take a driver's course, but I don't see any near Boston that are relatively affordable. Would like to sign my girlfriend and I up.

Anyone know of any?

 

This question had comes up alot. Insurance companies sort of allowed driver's ed events. Not any more. You would need to get supplemental track insurance. With PCA there were several companies that offered event coverage.

If you are new to track events, find an intro event(HPDE). PCA offers a program where we instruct newcomers by teaching, braking, cornering, skid pad, etc... Any brand is welcome for that. Just has to be tech'd beforehand. Other organizations have similar programs. Other option is to try autocross.

For an event like that a stock car is fine. If you do a full track weekend, stock pads are okay, but you will wear them appreciably. Most new to track drivers use the brakes ALOT. Most decent performance tires are okay and quite honestly give more feedback(screeching) which is helpful for learning.