dannobre, there's an Alpha track day next Thursday (the 17th) if you can make that one.

I'm just planning to run the usual pump super unleaded 91 octane, although I'm also going to run a little pre-mix. Somewhere around 1/2 ounce per gallon.

 

I ran pre-mix at the track too, in a 1/2 oz per gallon mix on 91 octane. Can't say it felt any different than when I ran without the premix, but it sure didn't hurt.

Interesting though- I'm running the S flash now and was on the previous flash last time at the track. I burned way less oil this time over last. I went through about 1.5 quarts of oil last time out and only about 1 quart this time and I got a lot more miles this time. I thought the S flash was supposed to increase oil metering, but I guess that's only at partial throttle applications.

 

Ya.....I know...but I can't make the Thursday ones unless I'm on holidays. It's Fri/Sat/Sun for me most of the time. I'm in for the Sept 9/10 PCA & BMW club double header....Should be a ggod one. If your interested contack Tom Olsson
olssons@seanet.com for info

I run pre-mix as well as the highest octane pump gas I can get locally down there...usually 92.

Would be good to get a few other RX-8's out to some of the track days.

Have you been to Portland or Spokane....if not you should check out some of the Cascade , or Team Continental days in Portland...or FATT in Spokane.

 

I haven't driven at Portland or Spokane, but I'd like to. Sounds like the portland days are a bit cheaper as well, although the extra travel time makes it more difficult for me.

I'm off to the track tomorrow for the Alfa lapping day. From the schedule they sent out it looks like it will be close to two hours of track time. They have 3 run groups scheduled, but I'm not sure how many cars. It's been a while since I've been on the track, so I signed up for the B group. They are going to have transponders available for all drivers in the A and B groups, so that will be really nice. My camera is mounted in the car, so hopefully I'll get some good footage that I can share!

 

Like my lazy ***?

 

^^ Ya...you resemble that comment

 

I'd be interested to hear about the transponders and insurance- one advantage of not having any timing equipment anywhere is that it makes insurance claims much easier. I'd probably be able to claim my car with my current insurance policy from a Speedware day, but it specifically calls out "timing equipment" as a no-no, so I'd wonder about that at an Alfa day.

The track marshal last week said that he had testified in court a few times and the lack of timers always led to a win for the driver and the insurance co paying out.

At the same time, I have no idea if I'm doing better or worse throughout the day, so that kind of sucks. I'm fast in my head

 

As time goes on, more and more insurance companies are changing their "racing" exclusion from the old "not covered if participating in a timed event" to "not covered if event takes place on a location capable of supporting a race." My insurance agent tells me that I'm still covered for lapping days, without timers, but I don't take a lot of comfort in that. In any event, I assume that the day is coming quite soon when lapping on the track is not covered (indeed, why should an insurance company assume that liability without the payment of extra premium?).

If you can't afford the loss of your car in an accident on the track, it probably would be better not to track your car.

For me, in view of the several roll-over accidents I've seen on the track this year alone, I'm going to be retiring my car as a track car very soon, and replacing it with a Spec Miata--cheaper; a hoot to drive; race-ready, and as safe as a car can be at these activities.

As for the benefit of transponders/timers, I would like the feedback, but there are much better (albeit more expensive) means of getting the same information--GPS dataloggers--which give far better information. Merely timing laps at a lapping day, when laps often are interrupted by either letting others by, or being held up for a time by slower cars, is of limited use. You can get a lot of data on your driving without those timers--for instance, are you catching more people in braking zones? Are you becoming one of the faster cars in your run group as you get more experience? Are you going around the track faster than more powerful cars?

The most fun I have at the track is not around timing, but, rather, with hooking up with a car/driver very close in speed around the track with me, and see if I can consistently catch him (or put additional space between us), especially if it's a different car (i.e, more powerful, but perhaps not quite as good on the turns or at braking). You really can get a lot of feedback on your driving that way--how consistent are you? How are your lines? Are you hitting your apexes every time?

 

Well said 124Spider. I just changed insurance policies and I checked specifically for the racing exclusion. Mine's still written to cover me, so I might as well take advantage of that for now. I fully expect it to evaporate someday soon as well.

All your points about using other cars on the track are exactly the things that I do, and I'm out there to have fun, not to push it harder and harder every lap. Sometimes I can keep up with an s2000 and I know I'm really, really rockin'

I'm getting real tempted to get a track-only toy as well. I was talking to a guy in a Spec Miata at the last event and it sounds like lots of fun, but then I'll find myself spending weekends at tracks all over the west coast. What a shame.

I assume ProFormance is a no-timers club as well?

 

Correct. They allow data loggers, which store the data until you download it, but they do not allow timers.

 

I'm curious myself about how the transponders might affect insurance. I wrecked my motorcycle at Pacific Raceways a few years ago and the insurance company paid for it because it was a track day and not a "race". I was shocked that they would pay for it at all, but it sounds like maybe they are learning now. I didn't end up running with a transponder, but I wonder if something had happened if the insurance company would use the fact that some people were using them to deny insurance. I guess I should clarify with my insurance company what their policy is on these type of events, but I'm a little concerned about calling up and telling them about it.

The track day went very well yesterday. It was well run, but there were quite a few cars there so it was hard to get clean laps. They had me run in the C group since I hadn't done any events with them. The C group was mostly very slow, but it turned out better because there were less than half the cars than there were in the B group. I don't think many people in B were able to get clean laps. I either tried to grid at the front or the back, which allowed me to get a couple clean laps in the front or hang way way back and get a few clean laps before catching the car in front of me. The downside to a slow group was that even with tons of space in front of you, you still catch the cars ahead within a few laps. I was definitely rusty, but I was getting a good feel for it again near the end of the day. I still have tons of time to gain. The RX-8 is really amazing on the track for a stock car. My car is completely stock other than an alignment and front brake pads. Like dsmdriver I had a lot of people ask me what I'd done to it, or what kind of tires I was running. Everybody is always shocked when you tell them it's stock. The car was very neutral. It will definitely go faster when I drive it better. I think my corner entry speed being too high is one place I can improve a lot. I end up causing the car to push and have to rotate the car mid corner with lifting or quickly stabbing the brake with my left foot. I wasn't running a transponder, but I checked a couple of the laps on the video and saw my clean laps were around 1:47. I have no idea how this compares to others, but I know there is a lot of room for improvement.

The only problem I had with the car was the engine light. In the first session I saw it blinking so I came in to the pits and it went off. I went back out on the track and had no more problems. The second session I saw it blinking again about half way through. I was a ways from the pits so I slowed down a little, but continued driving. After blinking a few more times it went solid. I came into the pits and shut the car off. I let it sit for a few minutes before starting it again (as others have apparently had luck with) but it stayed on. I checked all of the fluids and everything looked fine. I tried resetting the PCM and the KAM but this didn't help, so I drove a few miles to Schucks and had them hook a monitor up. The code said "Cylinder 2 misfire". I had them clear the code and it didn't come back on. After that I tried to be much more aware of RPM. I could barely hear the engine with my helmet and the wind noise, and I couldn't hear the "beeeep!" at all, so I think it's possible that I revved a bit high a couple of times. In the afternoon sessions I tried to do my shifting at 8k RPM and I only saw the flashing CEL one time. I came into the pits and it went off immediately. Dsmdriver, did you ever have anything like this happen? I've read elsewhere on the forum that people have seen the CEL on the track after a spin or after way over revving. I never spun and I doubt the engine ever got to 9,500.

My tires held up pretty well I think. They are definitely showing some wear, but I think I could get a few more track days out of them. There was a lotus Esprit there that had something like 11 track days on his stock tires, and they still looked good. I wasn't on the track with him but it looked like he was pretty fast. He attributed it to his car being so light. Maybe another reason to consider a miata track car. I attached an image of my front right tire at the end of the day.

All in all it was a great day. The Alfa club ran the event very well, but if the Speedware days really have been short on people I think I would much rather run one of those next time. I didn't count but if I had to guess I'd say there were close to 50 cars yesterday, half of which were in the B group. Each group had four 20 minute sessions, then there was one 30 minute session open to everybody at the end. It happened immediately after my last session, so I took a break and only got about 15 minutes of it. Total I probably got less than half the track time dsmdriver got last week and I probably got a much smaller percentage of traffic free laps.

On the subject of lap times, you're right that data aquisition is more useful. But if you don't have it lap times are the next best thing. The laps with traffic have to be thrown out, so I agree that it can be difficult on a track day, but I'd bet it would have been useful for dmsdriver on the last Speedware day. With data aquisition you can get a lot of different data. When I was racing shifter karts we had Stack systems with longitudinal and latitudinal G-force, brake position, throttle position, steering position, RPM, and speed. The most useful by far was the wheel speed graph, combined with lap time. We had 3 drivers on the team so we could overlay all three of our fastest laps and figure out where to make up time. It usually turned out that we were all faster in different parts of the track, so we could help eachother a lot. We also usually found that when we felt faster we were slower. That's the biggest reason I'd like to have my lap times for the track day.

Ok, I'm rambling. To sum up, I had a blast yesterday and will plan on doing 1 or 2 track days every year. If I feel I need more than I'll buy another shifter kart, cause it's a bigger rush and a lot cheaper. I'll try to get some video uploaded soon.

 

Here's that image I meant to attach.

 

I finally got around to putting up a video of one of my laps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHjL48YbmMw

The wind noise was really bad on the camera mic, so you can't really hear the engine or the tires very much. I added some music to make it a little more entertaining. It's just a single lap. I almost lost the back end in the last corner. It started to come around and I started to correct, then I felt that feeling when it's about to go so I jerked the wheel to catch it.