gkmccready

2006-06-28 Evening prep

Spent the evening getting the front caliper brackets swapped out
(from C6 Z51 back to base), putting some cheap NAPA rotors on the
car, and slotting in the PFC 01s on the front end.

Ran out to pick up an [expired] harness from a buddy since my
TeamTech harnesses weren't going to arrive in time.

2006-06-29 Up early, long day of prep, then the drive to Willows, CA

New caliper brackets, rotors, and PFC Z compound pads for the rear.
Futz around with a Motive Products Pressure Bleeder since I need
to flush the system with Motul RBF600. Don't bother buying the
generic kit... the J-hooks, chain, and generic cap are a true pain
in the ****. I'll let you know if the Motive 1108 GM adapter works
any better -- first thing I did 2006-07-01 was order the adapter.
Finally got the brakes done, and added a bottle of Water Wetter to
the surge tank -- is there another rad cap hiding somewhere?

Feeling pretty good about the day so far... start into the DRM
brake cooling duct installation. If you haven't figured it out by
now I don't screw around with brakes -- once upon a time, my very
first trackday, I overheated my brand new brakes on my '87 RX-7
TurboII and I plan never to have that happen again.

DRM Ducts weren't too bad to install. It did entail cutting the
stock front brake ducts _and it shouldn't need them cut at all_.
It also required cutting up the wheel well plastic where the stock
ducts terminate. And finally you end up drilling a hole in the
frame to fasten the ducts to... DRM, if you're listening, for the
C6 you should re-work the ducts so they mate up to the duct work
in the undertray so you just take the old duct off, you don't cut
it, and this should be a simple slip fit. Also, rather than screwing
the duct directly to the frame you should have some clip mechanism
so it's easy to remove the duct (to replace the stock duct for
street duty, or even to make it easier to gain access to replace
the fog lamp bulbs...).

After this I hung out for a bit because my Hardbar harness bar,
and lap belt bars were supposed to show up. I finally gave up
waiting and heading out around 6:30pm for Willows, CA and proceeded
to get there about 9:40pm or so. Got stuck in stop'n'go traffic going
through San Francisco to cross the bridge. Bugs on I-5 were crazy...
entire front end was a mess when I got to Willows. Fill up the car
at the local Shell hoping it's cheaper than gas at the track.

2006-06-30 Thunderhill Motorsports Park

Check out of hotel 7mi from track about 6:40am and head to the track.
Gates are supposed to open around 7am and I want to be early enough
to scope out a decent parking spot. I arrive to open gates, and
all the shady spots under the awning taken... later in the day I
find the guy that was at the front of the line when the track opened
and he got "the last" spot under the shade structure since everything
else had been "reserved" with tires left the day before.

Not finding shade, I go for the next best thing and park close to
the shade, and near to the Corvettes. C4 coupe (first event, group
C), C5 FRC (street tires, "cheapest brakes I can find", instructor,
group A), C5 Z06 (Toyo RA-1s, serious track prep, instructor, group
A), C6 Z06 (totally, completely, utterly stock, group B), and me
(C6 Z51, base rotors, PFC 01 front pads, and brake ducts, -1.1deg
front, -0.9deg rear, group B).

Drivers meeting is uneventful, usual "don't spin, don't hit anything,
drinks lot of water, take care of yourself and your car." Almost
thought about hanging out with the instructors and students at the
end of the meeting to see if they talked about lines since I've
never driven Thunderhill and I didn't get assigned an instructor.
Nice not to get stuck in Group C even though I'm new to the track,
I've emailed back and forth with Bonni @ TEAM Racing for years on
various lists and thankfully she was kind enough to recognize my
past trackday and autocross experience... very nice since I hadn't
been on a track since 2001.

I'd already decided to start the tires (stock Supercars) at 28psi
cold... same as I drive every day, same as I autocross, basically,
same as I always drive the car. Car's ready. I'm ready. Check the
torque on the lug nuts and life is good.

First session out, stumbling my way around the track, but it's
going okay... keeping up with the guy in front of me who's obviously
more familiar with the track. All is good until he pulls enough
gap that I lose him climbing the hill into T9... *think* Where did
this turn go? Feels like I should crest the hill and go right.
"Oops!" It's good to be slow on this first lap... road wasn't where
I expected when I crested the hill -- quick correction to keep from
putting 2 (4?) wheels off. Near the end of the session I see the
chief instructor come out of pit lane behind me in his Spec Miata,
unfortunately our limited passing zones didn't let me immediately
wave him by so I can learn the line. Driving a little bit in my
mirrors trying to see where he is I get a bit loose in front of
him -- odd, he gives me some room and then he's not really close
enough when we hit the passing zones for me to wave him by. :-)

After the session he says I should find him for some tips. I keep
looking for him throughout the day, next time I see him is on the
cool down lap of my third session so I drive my line just very
slowly (cool down lap, duh!) ... I finally track him down after
lunch and introduce myself. His only comment was that I wasn't
using enough of the track before turn-in. I explained to him first
that T1 is "bloody scary on street tires" and I wasn't tracking
way out to the right because somebody got released from pitlane in
session one right in front of me in the first session of the day.
He convinced me to just watch for that and still get wide... by
the end of the day I was doing that except now I really had to
brake because I could carry way too much speed into T1 for the
tires to deal with. Aside from that he seemed to think I'd found
the line pretty well -- and he was surprised I was on street tires,
so that made me pretty happy.

Session after session I felt more comfortable in the car and with
the track. I wish I could have collected a few lap times just to
see if I was progressing or not. Kiss of death was taking a passenger
with me... from the time I rolled up to registration this nice
woman had fallen in love with the car so I told her once I was
comfortable I'd give her a ride... of course, that was my worst
session. The heat of the day was upon us, the track was hot, the
tires were hot, and I was hot... either I was trying to show off
a bit or I was having a bit of brain fade on the second last session
of the day (fifth session!)... no offs, but I blew my apex atleast
3 times that session. Got held up by a modified 3rd gen RX-7 on
Toyos... only way I was going to get by was under braking and that
was a no-no in my group. Julie, the passenger, seemed to have a
good time. She'd come up with a co-worker of hers that was in a VW
R32.

Oh, I've decided I need something beyond a mental checklist when
I get in the car to go out for a session. Twice I forgot to turn
off all the nannys, so twice I ended up running in Competitive
Driving Mode... honestly I couldn't really tell the difference
outside of the brake dust on my rear wheels only got bad after I
forgot to turn the nannys off. I should have tried to hold the
button for the 5 seconds but it was a lot easier to just push it
twice and find Comp Mode... I believe you can't turn everything
off over 15mph or some such nonsense?

I was starting my sessions with about 32psi in the tires (still
warm), and the last three sessions the car was telling me *ding-dong*
42psi is too high! Being lazy I didn't adjust pressures since the
nanny only kicked in on the last lap (just before the cool down
lap) of the sessions... hot pressures of 38-40psi seemed about
right... although the tires were pretty greasy in the heat.
http://www.petting-zoo.net/photos/TEAM-2006-06-30 ... these pictures
are after driving back to the aforementioned Shell. More pictures
should show up on http://www.gotbluemilk.com/ eventually ... I was
the Le Mans Blue C6 #4.

Oh yeah, I was getting used to the *ding-dong* near the end of the
sessions for the high tire pressures... in the last session the
*ding-dong* (aside from me) was Low Fuel! I did approximately 130
miles on the track, in six 20 minute sessions, and went through
about 16.7 gallons of fuel... DIC said 7.8mpg for my time at
Thunderhill. I was trying to keep an eye on oil temps and the max
I saw on track was 270F and that fell quickly during the cool down
lap so I was happy with that. The C6Z was running lower oil temps,
but he was also taking it a lot easier than I was -- not that I
was really pushing 10/10ths.

So, a lap at Thunderhill is pretty fun! Front straight is T15-T1
and I was hitting 120+mph in 4th. Held fourth until the Cyclone
where I'd downshift to 3rd on the uphill into T5, I could have
probably grabbed 3rd going in to T2 but it never really seemed to
matter much. Hold 3rd until just before the T7 dogleg where I shift
to 4th. I chicken out at T8 and brake to 70mph -- I can hold a lot
more here, not sure why I kept slowing down so much... I just didn't
have faith in the tires. Depending on traffic I'd downshift to 3rd
in either T10 or T11. Back up to 4th after T13 and hit about 120mph
before braking and downshifting to 3rd for T14-T15. And then start
it all over again. http://www.thunderhill.com/html/trackmap.html

I'm very glad I spent the time, effort, and money on the brakes.
Some of the brake zones are intense, and I could brake later than
a lot of folks -- including some Miatas on DOT-Rs. Another note
about the Miatas... a Spec Miata driver was telling me that if he
did T14-T15 perfect he could hit 105mph at the end of the front
straight. No wonder they're saying they don't brake for T8!

Overall I think the C6 in what I'd consider a basically stock
configuration did really well... I don't feel I held anybody up at
all, I really only had to wave by less than 5 folks all day, and
2 of those were so I could follow them to see how they drove the
track, the other 3 I got tired of having behind me while I was held
up by that 3rd gen RX7. That said, I never caught up to the Ferarri
328gts or the C6 Z in my group so we must have been running reasonably
similar times... one of the Group A Miatas said he was turning 2:18
laps so there's a lot of room out there when you spread out.

What did I take away from my day at Thunderhill? I need tires.
And I want anti-sway bars. Some of the pictures the Got Blue Milk?
guys got are pretty wild... almost dragging the air dam on one side
with the other side seemingly inches higher than normal. (I guess
the tires were sticking not bad afterall!) Oh, and you really do
need harnesses if you want to truly enjoy a trackday. Hanging onto
the steering wheel and wedging your knees against the door and the
tunnel is just a pain, and painful... my left knee digs into the
speaker grill which has a great cheesegrater effect!

Did I mention I'd ordered a harness bar, harnesses, and lap belt
bar? The harnesses were special order, I'd managed to borrow one,
though. The harness bar was supposed to show up Thursday, but DHL
failed me. My wife sent me a text message when I was about 20
minutes away from the house on the drive home last night -- "Harness
bar is here!" (6:55pm Friday). The bar being late is through no
fault of Hardbar (Gary Hoffman) ... I was supposed to pull a panel
and verify a bolt size and it took me a couple of days to find the
time to do that. I can recommend to anybody that dealing with Gary
is a good thing.

Any which way you cut it, it's great to exercise the car, and enjoy
the day at the track... even if it's 97+F outside.

glen

PS- Happy Canada Day!

gkmccready

Hopefully Dan doesn't mind, I'm going to bring a Thunderhill comment from another thread over to this one:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...7&goto=newpost

Your elbow? For me it's my left knee against the speaker grill! You should call up Gary Hoffman at Hardbar as soon as he's back from his honeymoon... he convinced me to get his bar, lap belt bar, and the TeamTech JetPilot harness. Once that's in the car I'm sure I won't have any knee problems! Safety and brakes, then everything else.

ErnieN85

Glenn, Great write up. Glad you had fun. It looks like the brake work paid off for you too. BTW I'm told they work even better the less you use them!

gkmccready

It's all about traction now. Can't use less brake until I have more traction for the corners... or atleast I have to believe I have more traction! The guy with the C6 Z took out the C5 Z on Toyos and said it had significantly more grip than his car -- and he's got 30mm on me up front, and 40mm more in the back in his C6 Z!

One day I'll take our Miata out just to compare. :-)

StArrow68

Great write up and can't wait to get out again as well. You will find that turn 8 with the greater run off compared to prior years is comfortable at faster speeds even on street tires. I'm running Z06 wheels and Z06 size Kumho's (275/295) on a C5 coupe and I brake to just above 90 at turn in and get back on throttle early to plant the rear. That is after 3 years working up to it, it took awhile. Much more fun now since before all you had was the outside berm and a rut which had several people flip, the reason for the stripes on the new run off area. Hope to make it up on the 8th but can't be sure of my schedule at this point. Thanks, again.
Randy

gkmccready

Can't resist: http://gotbluemilk.com/web060630/4/index.html

I guess next time I'll do a bit better job at taping up the lights. :-)

danswofford

I've got a 6 point with a stock seat and I'm all over the place. A racing seat is a must.

ghoffman

The nice thing is all of our stuff is modular so if you start out with a harness and Hardbar you can get a racing seat later if you want and it all works together. I leave tomorrow for the Honeymoon, so talk to you all when I get back.

yellow01

I learned that one recently. It was fine with street tires, but as soon as I went to track tires that was it... time for a real seat.

My left cheek cramped up one lap on a long right handed sweeper trying to keep myself from sliding

gkmccready

Well, selling the wife on a race seat would be much harder than on the harness... unless, perhaps, there's a setup that's not insanely priced but still retains the power gadgets.

I do, however, have a spare Kirkey intermediate in my garage already, but swapping seats as well as brakes for a trackday is starting to sound like a lot of effort. :-)

StArrow68

Another reason to keep running street tires, not as fast but with my harness bar and Crow 6pt in the sport seats it keeps me mostly in place. And changing seats does seem like too much work, although I did see one guy doing it at Pahrump out of a trailer and it went pretty quick.

gkmccready

I haven't looked yet, but I assume the seat is really just four bolts and a harness for the power seat... it probably takes next to no time, but it's one more thing to swap in and swap out.

I'm not fast enough to do 10 minute rotor changes like I've seen in another recent thread... probably takes me about two hours to swap rotors/pads/caliper brackets/brake duct hoses front and rear when I go at a nice easy pace.

yellow01

This is getting to be all I do with the car, very occaisional street, so I'm considering a seat that stays in. Unfortunately the nice ones aren't a drop in the bucket.

pewterhdtop

Glad to see you had a good time! I was the instructor in the Pewter FRC running the "cheapest" brakes I can find and street tires. Interesting enough, T8 is much nicer now and can be taken on streets at near 100 mph with a little tap on the brakes to transfer the weight to the front of the car. The new runnout area is awesome. You had a great writeup. I will add that the day was wonderful with no incidents and the program from TEAM was very well run.

Next time you are out, let me know and I will offer some pointers. I had a student in the C group, but none in the B group, always willing to run more sessions if even from the right seat.

gkmccready

Hey! "Cheapest" was your word that day, I believe, not mine. :-) It was great to watch you run up into T14, you were flying along. Hopefully next time at T-hill I can get up the gumption to hit T8 a lot faster then... when I was peeking down the fastest I think I took it was about 73mph and typically it was closer to 70mph. There was way too much exit room at that speed so I'm not sure what I was so worried about. I also need better entry speed into T1; it's a little busier so I never really glanced down to see what I was doing. I spent all day well within the traction limits and I wasn't really correcting any sliding so I know there's a lot more there, but it was a great way to get back out on track.

You guys were great; it was well run, and I had a great time chatting with you!

pewterhdtop

The key is that you had a great time without any off track excursions! TH is a great track since it is wide open and fairly forgiving. I am sure that you will get faster as you gain seat time at TH. Turn 1 is also one of those that is deceiving, you can carry a lot more speed into it than it seems. The key to a good run down the straight into T14 is nailing T12 and T13. T12 is one of the slowest turns on the track, and is also one of the most difficult to get right.