Monday, May 30, 2011

[5/28/2011] Track Report (TMP)

Event: Open Lapping Day
Track: Toronto Motorsports Park, Cayuga
Weather: 15°C Overcast (morning), 20°C Sunny (afternoon)

Another weekend, another track day! Today I learned a valuable lesson: ALWAYS CHECK YOUR GEAR BEFORE EVERY EVENT

I was stupid and only checked the tread on 1 of my tires the night before track day. When I got to TMP I found that one of my tires was already showing cords, and another 2 had essentially no tread remaining. I had to put the corded tire on the RR and tire that had a bit of tread left on the LF to make sure I survived on the CW track.

Because my tires were absolutely dead there wasn't much to "test & tune" ... with newer tires that had tread the tire pressures/temperatures would likely go up faster and my damper settings would also need to change. I decided to try playing with the settings anyway, setting my fronts at 32 psi, rears at 34 psi, dampers to +24/+28. A very rear biased setup, just to see how it felt. You can see what happens the first time I take T2 in the video below :) For the remainder of the day I set my dampers to be stiffer in the front because my rear tires had no more grip and I was drifting all over the place. Final settings were +24/+20.



I had no idea that the C7 spring cruise was on the same day -- which explains why such a huge crowd showed up in the afternoon. Apparently 80+ cars were registered for lapping. It was absolute madness!! They let a lot of beginners on the track that didn't have a clue what they were doing. Some guys were driving at speeds of 60 kmh at times and holding everyone up. They didn't understand that you had to signal to let the other person pass, or they would move off-line to let you pass (which is dangerous because it's unpredictable). I personally witnessed 4 people go flying off the track - including a GT-R R35 and S2000 that lost his rear bumper. Close to an hour of track time was lost waiting for the tow trucks to get these guys out of the ditch... Regardless, it was nice to see such spirit at a track event and that the interest for these kinds of things still exists. I managed to have a few nice battles with friends, 2 of which I've included in my video below.



I definitely need a break from the track. CSCS isn't happening for me since I need to reload on tires, brake pads, and possibly even rotors. I might still go to spectate and help out if I can though... we'll see. My next event is SRTA on June 26th which gives me a few weekends to relax.

Update: So apparently there was some drama surrounding the S2000 that went off and lost his bumper. The S2000 blamed the Prelude behind him for rear-ending him and later on confronted the Prelude driver with a group of people intending to start a fight. The Prelude driver had his side of the story on tape. All of that drama can be found here.