07/26/06 Speedware trackday up at Pacific Raceways in Seattle. I don't go to this track all that often. One issue is the 160-some mile drive, but the main one is that the track surface is in very bad repair. It tears tires to shreds, which is what happened to the Goodyears on the Meanie a couple years back. Today would prove no different. Woke up at 4 am for the 2.5 hour drive north and spent the entire time debating the wisdom of not taking NoDoz. Every time the lane divider dots would startle me awake I'd wish I had eaten at least one pill, but then... Anyway, after some traffic in Tacoma I arrived at the track in time for tech inspection. Formalities completed, time to check out the machinery onhand. Quite a few cool vintage cars running in the race group today. The sound of the engines warming up is awesome.

Modern stuff didn't disappoint either - an Atom (more on that later), a 260 hp Caterham, a few Minis old and new, a couple Ferraris (which were running in advanced group but really belonged in intermediate - a stock Mini on street tires should NOT be passing a 360 Challenge Stradale or a 430! ;)

Rob, the Atom's owner, has been quite instrumental in bringing the cars to the states and connecting Craig (owner of Brammo in Ashland) and Simon (the car's designer). It was Rob's first Atom that I test-drove in Ashland a while back. This is his second one. It has a 245hp Honda motor, magnesium wheels and trick suspension. Later in the day, after getting a ride from Rob, I got a chance to drive it on the track for a few laps. It's a fun machine! (see video).

Going between the Atom and the Mini is an entertaining study in contrast. The Atom is definitely a track toy. Yes, it IS possible to drive it on the street but it really requires a lot of sacrifices. Also, a quirk of this particular car is that the one-piece seat interferes with the elbow when shifting into 2nd, 4th and 6th gears which required some getting used to. Adds to the character, I guess :)

And now, for DarkHelmet's adventures. Which started out well enough, the relatively cool (mid-60) morning weather keeping the track surface temperatures in check for the first session. The sessions are 30 minutes long which gives ample time to experiment with lines and such. The pavement is really nasty - rough, bumpy, with lots of washboard sections, patches and generally the smoothness of a cheese grater. I was expecting the right front tire to take a beating and sure enough, at the end of the first session huge chunks were missing from the tread, cords showing in places. So I swapped front and rear on the right side (making sure to re-torque the bolts several times!) and called TireRack to order a new set - hopefully it will show up Friday. Not the first time I call them from the track to order tires. The swap, along with rising temperatures, allowed me to run one more full session and two shorter 15-minute half sessions, for a total of about 100 miles on the track. At which point it was obvious by feel that the tires were gone and I still had the drive to Portland to contend with so I called it a day. Still, between whatever tracktime I did manage in the Mini and the Atom drive, it turned out to be a very fun day.

The good news is that the new brakes work quite well on the track. Good stopping power and no fade. The car does tend to move around a lot under braking but it's likely just the pavement that's making it do that. The previous evening I swapped from the BP-10 front pads that came with the kit to the BP-20 compound that TCE recommended for track work. The track pads actually seem to work OK on the street too so I might keep them in for a while.

I ran the datalogger for all sessions and it showed a best lap time of 1:45.9 - about 2.5 seconds faster than I did in the Meanie a while back but still far short of the 1:39.5 that the M5 managed. Below is a video of a lap behind a Caterham and an Elise.

By comparison, in the Atom I got a 1:44.7 after only four laps. This is not really indicative of the car's performance as such, since I wasn't pushing it on the account of it not being my car and the lack of familiarity with it. The Atom feels really light and direct with pretty linear power delivery. FUN. I'm quite looking forward to mine (some issues are pushing delivery out further, unfortunately).

07/31/06 (updated 08/01) The day started with running the 900 for the first half of this bike/car trackday. Then, having faced a few challenges (see the 900 page), I went home over lunch and got the Mini. As usual DarkHelmet got to rub elbows wtih all kinds of interesting machinery.

Did a quick two sessions giving passenger rides, then went to take a look at how the brakes are holding up. Good thing I did - the front pads are completely gone!! Should have brought the spare set I guess. So while the brakes do work quite well the wear is pretty ridiculous - between Seattle and these two sessions it's only about 150 track miles, down to the metal. Ouch.

I dropped a note to an engineer at Wilwood to see what their opinion/recommendation might be. He said he'll get back to me in a couple of days. In the meantime, need to go swap to the spares before I drive anywhere. To add to the frustration, my driving wasn't really any better than my riding today. While the bikes ran without the chicane the cars did use it so the car/bike times are not directly comparable. But GPS showed consistent mid-1:37s, about a second off my target pace despite the better brakes and new tires. Of course at the end of the day the tires weren't looking so new anymore either. Hmm.... Guess this was an 'off' day for me. I did manage to pass the two Radicals but it's small consolation. Other drivers are variable but the clock doesn't lie. There are three more trackdays next week so hopefully I'll be able to get issues sorted and make progress. We'll see. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely having fun here - it's just that sometimes I wish it were a bit easier :) On the plus side, I'm always learning.

UPDATE:

The guys at Wilwood suggested that I run 'B' compound pads on the track and BP-10 on the street, so I have a set of 'B' fronts on the way. The old pads went back for analysis - would be interesting to see what they conclude (if they choose to tell me that is). Next trackday is next week, August 8. Then two more 11th and 12th. So I'll probably need new pads in two weeks :)