You should be fine, considering some of the cars I have seen there over the years .

I hope you guys have a GREAT time, I hope something comes up and this meeting gets canned, but right now, it looks like I am still heading out.

 

very cool, I can't wait to play lead follow with both of us running mid-pipe's.

is yours louder than mine was. I was fine at RR with their sound limits, I had no issues.

 

I think it's louder than what I heard from you guys but it could just be that I'm not used to hearing it. I had to improvise a little with the bolts that attach the mid pipe to the down pipe meaning I had to go to Lowes and by some that I thought would work. Maybe it's not sealing good or something? Anyway it is LOUD! Especially when you first start up and it is cold. By the time I got to work it wasn't as bad but still very noticable. It's gonna sound great on the track though.

 

you put your gaskets on--- right? True the mazdaspeed exhaust is a bit louder than the RB's most of us have been running. Sounds good though. Funny thing --it sounds louder on the inside than it does outside!
Wait to you take the seats out!
OD

 

I put the gaskets back on. I listened outside of the car while it was running this evening and all of the sound is definately coming out of the tailpipes so I don't think I have a leak. No CEL yet.

Is it Friday yet?

 

Looks ya'll will have good weather. Brisk in the morning so make sure you get those tires warmed up!

 

You guys are killing me, I WISH I could come down. I have yet to make reservations to NYC, hoping that it gets moved, but as of yet, no luck.

 

1 !! Almost there

 

Stay safe guys
on rails enjoy that pipe--it is REALLY nice on the track--you can tell exactly where the rpms are.
oscd

 

You guys keep the shiny side up......have a great time!!!

 

Well, there was a shot I was almost able to get out of it, but it fell through, so I am back in NYC again.

You guys have a GREAT time, and take some pics.

 

Have a great time, see you all on Sunday. I realized recently that my parent's house is about 44 miles away from CMP. Why I never checked earlier I'll never know. I'll stop by on the way back home. Next time, I think I'll just stay up there instead of getting a hotel.

 

Sigh, I may be up Sunday, it looks like we are going to be done on Saturday.

 

Have a great weekend guys! Be safe, have fun!
I will be checking in for reports. Can't wait to hear about the new config.

 

Well, I am in NYC, watching this thread, INSTEAD of being at the track. Wow, I can't believe how much this actually sucks. But worse, because I am not home, i am going to miss my daughters father / daughter dance at her gym class (she is 4).

 

so how did the weekend go? some of us have not been to the track in ages, and want to hear stories, see pictures and watch track vids.

 

NASA-SE's season opener has come and gone and those who were there (most of them anyway) had a great time. The weather was excellent starting out in the low 30s for the drivers meeting but warming up into the low 60s. The new configuration of the track is a huge improvement. Turn 12 and 13 have been replaced with a long increasing radius sweeper that really shoots you out into turn 14. Turn 14 got opened up a bit by paving about 12 feet extra on the inside allowing the corner to have a bigger arc and be a bit faster. All the corners got new paving too so they are grippier than before.

OnRails - was cookin' it literally and figuratively. His midpipe/MS exhaust combo was belching huge fire sometimes more than 2 feet long. The sound of his car is perfect too. With some brand new 275 width R comps, he had lots o'stick. On Sat, I went out in his session with Onrail's B-I-L as my passenger. Lets just say I was driving as hard as I was willing to drive with a passenger in the car and Onrails was able to stretch a lead on us.
Don C - in his awesome 3rd gen RX7 was there. It was his first time at CMP and I got the chance to ride shotgun with him on Sunday morning to show him some tricks. We then did a lead follow. His lap times must have come down by 5 seconds after that.
Donna C - in her bad *** Exige S was out playing too. That car is cool! This was Donna's first time at CMP too and she had a blast gaining speed throughout the weekend. Don towed the track cars up while Donna and Kevin drove up in the R8. That thing got lots of attention in the paddock. It didn't see any track action except for a few laps at lunch.
KurtBob - decided to bring his 8 instead of his Miata. Both Kurt and I ended up as being some of the few instructors with 2 students. Almost everyone had only one.
Bruce - a new guy from NC at his first HPDE. I got to instruct him and take him from being completely novice to a shade under completely novice. It is always challenging to work with someone who is a complete newbie and getting some base skills established. We made progress each session and by Sunday session 4 he was getting smoother and faster. We ran the gamut from slow and jerky to over driving the **** out of the car to slow/smooth/faster.
Team ROAR Racing - was out in full force with 2 cars. Adam went for his racing license and raced on Sat and Sunday. He looked great and ran a quick race. He took 1st on Saturday and I assume also on Sunday. Rob took the race car out in TT and ran some damn fast laps. I don't know what class it falls in (maybe B) or where he finished. Results should be up on mylaps in a few days.
Me - it was hugely busy for me. On Saturday I ended up driving in 7 sessions and instructing in 7 sessions. (One session got cancelled due to a crash at the track by a TTA Subaru STI). I won TTD and took home a trophy on Sat night running a 1:53+. On Sunday I decided to skip the first TT session since I thought it was practice only and wouldn't count. Well my time from Sat was beaten by a BMW. I spent the next 3 TT sessions trying to get it back. I finally was able to put together a good lap in session 4 beating Saturdays fast lap by over a second and beating the BMW by .4 seconds. My best time of the weekend, good for the CMP TTD record and a win on Sunday was 1:52.05
My HPDE2 student in an STI was making excellent progress and I was going to get him a check ride to move into HPDE3 until disaster struck. He let his friend who had blown the motor on his Impreza RS drive his car in HPDE3/4. His friend went off in the kink and went drivers right through the tire barrier. The STI was banged up and that was the end of their day. The car suffered cosmetic damage to the front and rear bumpers, and the body panels on the drivers side. He was able to drive it home.

We also had some visitors at the track. Jeff from Charlotte came out on Saturday and hung out. On Sunday Lego came by for a bit. Lego had some static cling stickers made for me and they worked very well. My static cling skills needed some work as one of the stickers came off as I didn't put it on properly. The rest were fine. Lego also had a prototype hood protector but I beleive he is going to do a bit more R&D on it. If you need stickers of any kind, hit up Lego on trakdecals.com.

 

congrats on yet another TTD track record, and another trophy to put on your nightstand. you are gonna need a bigger nightstand.
sorry I could not go this time around, but the April dates are now on my calendar, and have been cleared with the boss.

 

Tears up.....man I wish I was there.

 

It was good seeing everyone on Sunday. The weather was just amazing. I saw the disaster Sunday afternoon with the borrowed Subaru. Terrible thing to happen. It just wasn't a good weekend for Subarus. There was an incident on Saturday (I've heard) that sent someone to the hospital.

 

What a fun weekend! Weather was nice for Feb. Not nearly as cold as I remember it last year. As TA mentioned I had some new rubber for the weekend. This was my first time running R-Compound tires. What a difference! It really made the car very different to drive. The first couple of sessions I had to learn it all over again. I also had some alignment issues going on. The car had been set back to a street alignment and it really showed. I had understeer like crazy. I made some changes to tire pressures and got some coaching from TA to turn in a little slower and that made a real improvement. I found that if I extended my braking zone a little and turned in a little slower I could just lay on the gas the rest of the way through the turn without any fear of the tail coming out. I'll get a little more agressive on the front camber before Road Atlanta.

On Saturday my brother-in-law Alen came down with me to spectate. TA was nice enough to give him a ride on one of his sessions. Thanks TA! He is still talking about it. Now he is thinking about what kind of track car he wants to buy. One of my buddies from the Charlotte RX-8 club came down around lunch time on Sat as well. He is a long time rotary owner and had a track prepped 3rd gen RX-7 before the RX-8 that he drives now. You can tell that he really misses it because he was drooling all over Don's pristine RX-7.

As far as the new track layout goes....I really like it! It makes the track a little faster and the sweeper from 12 - 14 is a lot easier on the car than the old configuration. I found the new pavement in the carousel and in the new section to be a little rough. The car kind of skipped across the track from apex to track out. You can see it and hear it in the engine on the videos I made. The new layout made for some strange shift points for me. I found myself hitting the rev limiter in 3rd right before the braking zone coming into 14. One thing that I was not expecting was that some of the improvements to the edges of the track took away the visual cues I was used to using for my turn in points. I was like "Where's that little dirt patch I usually aim for?" It was a good exercise in having to find the line.

As you may know, this was my first time in HPDE3. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. At first I was gridding up in the back of the pack so I could stay out of everyones way. I got a lot of practice making passes in the turns from 1 - 3, through the carousel, and in the new section from 11 - 14. I was very pleased with the way I was able to handle it. Later on Sunday I started lining up at the front of the grid so I could get some practice giving more point bys. I watched my mirrors like a hawk and made sure I wasn't holding anybody up. I also managed to see all of the flags that were thrown over the course of the weekend. This paid off since we had an actual black flag on Sunday when the Subie went through the tire wall after losing it in the kink. I did make one mistake when I accepted a point by after a yellow flag and before the next flag station. I knew it as soon as I did it and was pissed at myself for the messup. Nobody saw it but I knew I had done wrong. Overall it was a great experience though.

I've already put together one video for you. This one has me chasing TA and KB and mixing it up in traffic. It is raw and unedited. The video is in Divx format.

Divx Player Links:

DIVX PLAYER FOR WINDOWS

DIVX PLAYER FOR MAC

Video. Right-Click and download for best results. Warning it is 80 MB! :

Track Video

 

The kink is deceiving for AWD cars, I have seen a 'capable' driver run off at 140 in an Evo, but stay flat footed, through the dirt, and bring it back withou loosing time. I have the vid somewhere. Not me though .

 

Thanks for the write ups!
OnRails - downloading the vid now. Want to see the new track config in action.
Congrats on a successful DE3.

TA, Bro.. what can I say.. fast bastid.. sorry I missed it. I was gonna ask if I could stand in and accept the trophy so I could meet the trophy girls....

Sorry to hear about the Subaru guys, am pretty sure I know all of them. They have a little group that hangs out together and I ended up eating lunch with them at CMP last year, then ran into them at RA and RR. Nice guys.

 

Ok, I watched the vids, and have some questions. TA, was your car skating mid corner, or was it just upset due to the extra weight? OR, are you on stock suspension? Your car seemed very under-dampened on corner exit. I liked much of the line, but there is more time for you both through 3, and through 8. YOu both need to enter the corner about one car length deeper. I know, that wil mean turning in right after (as close as possible) after breaking. Be careful not to overload the front wheels, but if you do this, it will allow you guys to carry more mid corner speed, and should allow for less inputs mid-corner (due to the better entry angle).

1:53 is not bad, good times, I hate i missed it. My GT will be classed in TTC, any ideas on their times?

 

Plucked from the Nasa forums for you STF

the new record holders are:
Code:
Class Name Vehicle Time
TTR
TTU Jack Beaulieu Mazda Miata 1:56.45
TTS Thomas Lyman Acura Integra 1:44.57
TTA Team England Corvette 1:44.85
TTB Dennis Malevanyi BMW M3 1:46.90
TTC Everette Parson BMW 1:49.25
TTD TrackAddict Mazda RX8 1:52.05
TTE John Haff Mazda Miata 1:53.24
TTF Jeff Kay Honda Civic 1:55.34