Monthly Archives: August 2014

When you go to a track event for the first time, it’s easy. You bring your car, a chair perhaps and maybe some snacks. Later on, it gets more complicated. You see other folks showing up for their weekend, and unloading a whole pit full of stuff. Other folks show up and simply start opening bays on the RV to expose tool bays, air compressors, and more. So what do you need to REALLY bring?

Starting Out

When you first start, just get a torque wrench and a socket that will work with your wheels. A tire gauge is also a very good idea. Once you get to the track, someone will have air if you need it, but you will want to take care of torquing the lugs yourself. Always store your torque wrench unwound, so it doesn’t fall out of calibration, and don’t use it to loosen your lugs! It will degrade and break the mechanism.

A Bit Later

So now you find you like this track stuff. You’re still not bringing a set of track wheels, but you’re more than a beginner. Now you need to bring a few more things. Fluids are first on the list. Know how to look at your brake fluid, clutch fluid, coolant, oil, transmission fluid and power steering fluid. I use a five gallon bucket to carry my stuff in. Along with fluids, you will want funnels for all of them. DO NOT mix brake fluid and oil in any funnel! Best to not mix any of them, really, but most folks don’t want to carry many funnels. You may want to carry spare brake pads, if your car is in need of them during the weekend. You also want to start thinking about your energy level now. If you need to bring gatorade or some other electrolytes, do it. Snacks for blood sugar? Yep. Try to start establishing habits for what you eat and drink at the track so it becomes a reliable pattern.

Advanced

Now you’re in real trouble. It’s a real hobby, and you may be in for the long haul. The tool thing goes up quite a bit here. You may want to consider contracting a race prep service to come to the track with you, but it’ll cost you. If you’re going to do it yourself, you will want to bring more stuff: Racing wheels with sticky tires, and all the stuff to change them. Breaker bar, perhaps a cordless impact wrench. You will want a compressor or a high pressure air tank, for tire filling. Jackstands and a jack to go under the car. Always bring four! You may have to have all the wheels off at once. Brake bleeding supplies, including a bleeder bottle and perhaps a power bleeder (or a friend to hit the pedal) and the wrenches to bleed brakes. Wrenches for the other common size bolts and fasteners on the car (torx if you need it, some metric if you need that, any specialized sizes). Spares for stuff that can break on your car. I carry spare rotors, oil filter (and oil), a wheel bearing and hub, belts for everything, brake pads and at least one tie rod end. Then you need stuff to fix things you can’t forsee. Zip ties and racer’s tape are the staples here, but also some wire and pliers to bend and shape it. And a hammer. Sometimes, you will want to start trailering at this point, because all this stuff, especially the tires, take up loads of room. A tire trailer is another option, but a trailer is good because you can always get home if the car breaks.

Addict

When you’re all in, the sky is the limit. You can’t quite build a new car from what’s in the tool chest, but you can sure fix almost anything. Rather than list what you need to carry, I’ll give you a framework for thinking about it: Bring whatever you think you need to save the weekend, IF the fix can get done realistically at the track. So spare engines are not likely, but spare half shafts? Maybe. Spare splitter? Yep. You’re almost certainly trailering at this point, unless you have a very low threshold for car repair. Nothing wrong with that, you know, but I’ve had several weekends where I was able to save the weekend by staying up late Saturday night and working with stuff I brought with.

Pro

If you are racing and someone is paying you, you are not working on your own car anymore. It’s both a blessing and a curse. You may feel a lack of control, but at the same time, you are freed up to drive, and nothing else. It’s liberating, which is why you don’t see Fernando Alonso with a wrench in his hand. Track support and setup and data analysis are all key to getting top performance out of a driver.

It’s been a couple of years now since the Circuit of The Americas was carved out of the hill country near Austin. In that time, I’ve been fortunate enough to drive on it, and talk to my friends about it quite a bit.

Surprisingly, the verdict is mixed. Of course, the media is full of effusive, complimentary rhetoric from everyone who comes to the track. But race drivers are an opinionated lot. Does the track have what it takes to be another mid-Ohio? Another Watkins Glen? Survey so far says no.

The objections are mainly centered around one point: There are not enough fast corners. The straights are bookended by tight turns. There’s nothing like the famous kink from VIR. Nothing like even turn 1 at Texas World Speedway.

I’ve had a lot of opportunity to ride around on it, too. instructing gives you a different perspective on race tracks. Here’s what I learned: COTA is a thinking driver’s track.

It doesn’t require big balls to drive here, but it does need a big brain. Those tight turns at the ends of the straights? They are a puzzle. Also note that there’s plenty of room to take the turn wide or tight. How come? It’s to allow for different strategies. Sure, you can go under in turn 11, and risk your opponent going wide and generating more speed on the straight. And he has the room to do it. You attack in 12? Ok, now you have to hold your lead through the 13-14 complex and turn 15 before you can stretch your legs and run into the carousel. And then you have another tight turn at 20 to puzzle out.

You have to think yourself out of trouble on this track. Having the most guts will only get you driven around.

That’s why I believe it’s a great track. Race driving is very much a mental sport. COTA tests you on this most vital quality.

Rick Schwalenberg at the Driver’s Edge had a great idea: Since TWS is going away in the next year or so, we better drive all the configurations we can on it. So we decided to do four in one weekend. It was pretty awesome. I’d never driven the 1.8 mile short course, but it sure taught me this: It’s the best configuration if you want to learn turns 1-3 and 11-15. You get round to them so fast, it’s like concentrated practice.

We also did the standard tried and true 2.9 clockwise and counter clockwise.

The weekend was marred by two things: We had a car wreck in turn 6 and my suspension left the building.

The wreck was in Red group, and involved a new C7 corvette. He left the track surface in turn 6 and went over the berm where it’s a good drop. The car flipped. Driver was largely unhurt, but it’s always sobering.

My suspension on the right rear of the car decided to walk a little. Once we got the car home, I discovered the right rear eccentric bolt was turning freely! That meant the suspension was shifting around 1/2″ every time the right side of the car was under load. Made turning left exciting.

I loaded up a friend’s car (since Sheri was not along this weekend) on the two car trailer along with mine and we boogied back home, arriving before dark.

Been a long time between posts. Going to make an effort to post more often.

This last weekend brave Sheri Ray and I went to experience TWS once more with Chin Motorsports. http://www.chinmotorsports.com/

Chin is quite simply lots of track time for a budget price. They are friendly, and moving into the Texas area. Your only better deal would be the TWS PDS days, I think.

We went down on Saturday only, wanting to avoid staying in College Station with the crazy fluctuating hotel rates. Made for an early but easy drive.

We did all the car prep on Friday. New brake rotors for me, new tires for both of us. Tried out some Michelin scrubs (slicks) from JB Racing Tires. If you do track days and you don’t know about this guy, you should. John Berget gets truckloads of lightly used racing tires and sells them to folks like us for cheap. We got eight Michelin slicks delivered for less than $1500. I would estimate they had maybe 1-2 heat cycles on them. Hard to beat.

Day started well, with a new personal best for me, 1:50.8 counter clockwise. Getting better! The Tim Ray Splitter, Mk. 3 held together fine, even with an offroad expedition in the third session.

The last hour of the day is a Chin motorsports tradition: Happy Hour. They send everyone who wants to do it out on track. Sheri and I did lead follow for 45 minutes with her doing two laps, then dropping back and me leading for two laps. Very informative.

Then we loaded up and drive home. We were able to get the cars unloaded before dark to end a great day.