combfilter

iTrader: (3)

OK, so i was on the waiting list for apex driving academy's school out at MSR in cresson TX. They sent me an email about 3 weeks ago stating that I could get in under the novice group. I thought cool, this place is close and I would like to check it out.

So the morning first session me and my instructor go out to do some drills. He bumps me up to their intermediate group where I get another instructor. He approves me for solo, boom we get that out of the way. so the rest of the day it's just me and the IS.

First, this is mostly for texas people. TWS (college station) totally blows away MSR (cresson) as far as a track for the IS. cresson is more for lighter less horsepower cars, and motorcycles. You can hold so much more speed out at TWS, and it seems to flow better. One interesting item, is that in 4 sessions at TWS i went through an entire tank of gas plus another 1/4, at cresson I used barely over 1/2 a tank in 6 sessions.

Second my review of the handling of the car pretty much is the same as my review from TWS. There is a lot of body roll, a surprising amount of understeer, and at cresson the car was having trouble finding the right gear because of the track being tighter. I never once had an issue with the auto transmission at TWS and at cresson it was jumping all over between 3rd, 4th, and 5th. I guess what I am trying to say is that it was hard for me to be smooth exiting the turns. The understeer was not 100% the cars fault. Actually, i would say that I am to blame for about 75% as I was entering a lot of the turns to hot, and therefore not hitting the right apex and having to fight the car back.

Finally, I learned a lot more this day on how to set the car into the turns better, and why I am causing a lot of the understeer problems. I did however, manage to run pretty much the best in my class, passing cars in every session without being passed (except by the instructor in his skyline).

I ran it on the stock potenza's which suck major *****. I know i said I was going to get some new tires for track day, but haven't seen the right deals on tirerack yet.

The video's below are from the last session where we are all very tired. I let out way way too much air causing the tires to whine on just about every turn. In the previous sessions I would barely ever hear them skid. I do manage to pass 6 cars in this session, and one of them was a lotus elise (which a monkey could drive). I got a lot of compliments from the instructors on my car. They were surprised by it's power, and one of them liked the way the car sounded.

In future sessions I will concentrate on setting the car better into the turns, and exiting the turns smoother.

OH and my camera mount worked good (diy thread here). I need to move it over to the right because the rear view mirror is in the way. Also the wind noise is bad, but what do you expect with the windows rolled down. The quality is crappy because, 1. i had the camera on the wrong setting to get the most out of its record time (not on purpose). 2. i had to convert from vob, to avi , to wmv, to youtube flv. 3. I could have focused it down the road a little more. Oh well, its good enough for me.

It was a fun day. There was 1 other IS out there. Nice guy, I think his name was Brian.

Instructors skyline:


part 1. of last session (first lap is under yellow flag so I don't get on it till around 2:15)

part 2 of the last session (this blue 350z had something done to it, because I only could catch and pass him via turns. On the straights he would even kind of pull away from me.)

part 3. (rs4 gets pass along with the elise)

Oh and last thing, listen to these m3's in this short clip. They sound wicked. there is a 335i in the middle of them which is quiet compared to the e46's. they sound beautiful.

Only one more track event for me this year and it's in June. After that, it's going to be way too hot down here.

Wish more is's would get out there!

t0e

iTrader: (1)

NICE MAN!!!

I cant wait, to get my IS out on the track!...

I really want a Sway bar though.
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Couple of Q's...

Did you uses your stock 18's?

Did you swap out your break pads?

How many total laps did you run?
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Oh and you should try using manual shifters, with such curvy track.

caymandive

iTrader: (2)

Way to rep out there Troy! If I lived closer, you can be sure I'd be hitting all these events with you.

2k4CamkilA

Not bad driving, my friend...

combfilter

iTrader: (3)

You will love the track when you go.

Brian231

Very cool, can you post some lap pics on the track?

oblivionis

iTrader: (2)

Looks great. I'm planning to make it to the track this year too.

xerxes717

Wow! Amazing stuff man, you've totally inspired me to go
Keep up the great work.

Gernby

iTrader: (1)

I'm glad you had fun out there. I'll try to remember to watch the videos when I get home tonight, but my first thought is that you really should use the paddle shifters to downshift before the corners (in the braking zones) so that you would already be in the correct gear for corner exit before you even enter the turn. As we know, this is the only value of our paddle shifters. Doing this really cleans up the corner exits quite a bit, which will lead to faster exit speeds, which leads to faster straights, which finally leads to better track times. If I ever get around to buying another pair of Hoosiers, I will be A) disabling TRAC and VSC, B) using ETC-Snow, and C) using the paddle shifters.

caymandive

iTrader: (2)

Snow mode!? I would think the slower throttle response and heavier pedal feel would not be of much benefit at the track. A and C i totally agree with.

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

Last June, I went on a similar event with Drivers Edge with my IS350 at texas world speedway as well, my instructor had a C5 Z06 and he was impressed with the way the IS drove. I was impressed too and I learned a lot

GSteg

iTrader: (15)

Awesome! Wish I had a track that's closer to where I live

Gernby

iTrader: (1)

From what I can tell about the throttle response issue, it just changes the linearity of the pedal. When i compare my datalogs of throttle position vs pedal pisition, it doesn't seem to slow down the transition to full throttle when you floor it. I think that the changes it makes to throttle response would result in more smoothness since the only time you are using partial throttle is when you are in the middle of a corner where it's more important to be smooth than it is to be fast. However, the biggest reason why I would use Snow mode is because the transmission would be more compliant with the paddle shifters.

DaveGS4

iTrader: (2)

Looks like a fun track day! I'm very surprised they moved you so quickly into solo (no comment on your driving skills, just observations from what I've seen at Porsche, BMW, Nasa events, etc plus it was a new track for you).

I'd suggest you look into a screw-on wide angle adapter (like this) for your camcorder. We added one to my wife's track car and it's perfect for edge-to-edge of the windshield view. Her camera mount is on the roll cage right between the front seats so you don't get as much driver's head though.

If you do a lot of this, I'd suggest a compromose between full-on racing Hoosiers and your stock tires. Both Toyo and Nitto make DOT approved tires that are available shaved or unshaved and great for HPDEs. We use Toyo's - the Nitto has a slightly softer sidewall.

combfilter

iTrader: (3)

Yeah I am looking at the toyo R888's. Just trying to get a good deal.