03/11/07 Finally, the track season is underway again. This was my first outing, a PCA/BMWACA instructor clinic. The purpose is to teach new instructor candidates so we have more people available to instruct the novices at the increasingly popular club days. Two years ago I went through it as a candidate and this is my second year teaching as a senior instructor. The weather still being iffy in March, I had low expectations. Two weeks ago the extended forecast called for snow and as of yesterday the forecasters predicted solid rain and 50 degrees. So I left the street brake pads on the car and basically was just hoping for one dry open session so I could see if the Airtabs actually help any. Mostly the plan was to teach and to shake off the rust from over three months of inactivity.

Fortunately, the PIR weather gods don't pay much attention to forecasts. We got a solid day of 60 degree, overcast but totally dry weather. Sweet. Due to the arrangement with the Portland Karting Association which had the track in the morning we wouldn't get out there until about 1:30 pm. So the first half of the day was spent in the classroom and watching a drifting competition in the track parking lot (see video).

The crowd for this is definitely very different than our own - mostly highschool and college kids. Some of the instructors sneered a bit but I personally thought it was very cool. First, it is great that the city provides a safe, organized place to do this (even though some questioned the safety of the event, as far as I know none of the drifters crashed but unfortunately one of 'our' GT3s went into the wall later to end the day). Second, there is definitely skill involved. Some guys were really good, others obviously not so much. I was also surprised by the number of right-hand-drive, Japan-only 'grey' imports. Some of these folks are pretty hardcore. It looks fun, too. Wonder how Bikini would do at this? ;)

Then we finally got out on the track. Most sessions were spent teaching. The format is the usual - a senior instructor pretends to be a 'novice' and the candidate plays the instructor role and gets graded. It was kind of entertaining trying to remember and duplicate all the silly things that my students have done over the years. Aside from that we got two 20-minute open sessions where I got to do some testing.

First, the good news - I was able to shave 0.2 seconds off my best time on these tires with a 1:35.69. Nice to be making progress right out of the gate. The GPS datalogs tell an interesting story though, comparing to my previous best lap from last year (1:35.88).

The red trace is last year's lap and the black trace is from today. What it shows is that I gained some time in turns 7 and 12 but actually lost time on the back straight and a couple other places. Top speed is 108 mph vs 110 mph from last year. Because Airtabs only affect drag, top speed is where their effect would show up if anywhere. Sadly there doesn't seem to be any improvement and if anything it's a slight loss. They do appear to keep the rear window a little cleaner but not enough to definitively say it's an improvement. So in this particular case, at least the way I have them mounted, the Airtabs don't appear to be doing anything useful on the Mini. It was worth trying, definitely, but I think they'll be coming off. I do intend to keep experimenting with them on Bikini.

Another interesting thing the datalogs show is that I improved my lap time despite being slower in several places (turn 10 most notably and I knew this as I was doing it). The software says theoretical best is over a second faster - if I put together a perfect lap I'd be in mid-1:34 on street tires. Something to work on. Even as it is I did my share of the usual passing of Porsches of all kinds in a stock Mini (in the open sessions where it counts) which always brings out the evil grin ;) He he.

Overall, a great day and a great start to the season. Bring it on.

03/24/07 First regular trackday of the year, an Alfa club event. It was supposed to rain. Sadly, this time it did - the first rainy Alfa trackday in memory (going back about 8 years). So Dark Helmet got to play in the puddles. PIR is very slippery when wet and the tires had no grip out there, sliding through 60+ mph turns at 45 or so. Others seemed to be finding better traction than I on the same line so perhaps the tires need to be changed (they have quite a few trackdays on them and very little tread left). Dropping tire pressures significantly helped a bit but not enough to matter. I did get one and a half dry sessions and those were fun but unspectacular. Even so the front rotors and pads are now nearly gone. Perhaps just as well about the weather then. So basically I'm looking at yet another set of tires and front brakes. Price of having fun I guess.

Overall, pretty uneventful day but it was good to be out on the track again and that's worthwhile in itself. Hopefully weather will cooperate better for the upcoming trackdays so I can get some dp1 testing done. We'll see.

03/27/06 Porsche trackday. It was supposed to be 'periods of clouds and sun'. What we got was rain. And 45 degrees. Yesterday I got the dp1 ready just in case but seeing how it was already starting to pour outside at 10 pm when I was done, I knew DarkHelmet would get track duty again. So the dp1 was sitting there all dressed up and nowhere to go. Soon, though. Soon.

At the track, I ran a few laps in the first session and decided it just wasn't fun enough so I parked it. Just as well, it let me focus better on working with my student for the day. Second session didn't look too promising so I didn't even go out in that one, choosing instead to go home for lunch. I did snap a few shots of a vintage racer (Porsche 906? I'm ashamed to say I don't know the model) being test-run in the parkinglot. It only ran a few laps in intermediate and got towed back into the pits after some mechanical issue. It arrived at the track in a massive semi trailer with liftgate, glass sliding doors, etc. Major bucks.

Back home, checking the weather on the computer it seemed like things would be getting better in the afternoon... And indeed they did. The sun came out, temperature jumped 10 degrees, the pace picked up and I promptly burned through the remainder of my 'street' pads (Wilwood BP10) in the very first session. The following session the guy at the point asked if I was running special pads because the corner workers had noticed sparks and flames the last time I was out. Nope, I said, just used up the pads. Fortunately I anticipated this and brought the race pads as well. Unfortunately, one session later those were done too along with the rotors. Those rotors used to be slotted, as you can still barely tell...

Now I need a full set of everything. On the plus side, I shaved another 0.4 sec off my best laptime and it now stands at 1:35.3 on these tires. Of course the tires are pretty much done too... Looking at the data I improved in some of the places where I wanted to improve but there's definitely room for more. Theoretical best lap now stands at 1:34.2 so I still have another second to find out there. Always more to work on. Cool.

04/06/07 BMW club day. Since the dp1 is in need of maintenance and Bikini is not done yet, DarkHelmet got to run again. Actually this would have probably been the case regardless as I had both a novice and an interrmediate student and spent the entire morning in cars. For the afternoon I basically sent both students out on their own (both were ready) but still ended up giving a few demo rides. Thanks go to Eric for the picture...

The weather was perfect - sunny, warm, light breeze. A bit too warm in the afternoon actually. The tires started getting greasy and while I ran very consistent 1:35.4-1:35.5 laps in the morning, by late afternoon it was more like high 1:37s. The new pads/rotors held up well and I was able to improve my braking a bit. Not enough to make up for lost traction in the corners though, once the tires started overheating. This would have been good weather to run the dp1! Ah well, no complaints. A good day overall.

04/29/07 A Porsche day. Late start due to karts having the track until 1 pm. My dad and stepmom are in town so I dragged them out to the track hoping they'd be up for getting a ride in DarkHelmet and experiencing what it's about. Nope. Even mild street driving the day before was more than they could handle. I think my car addiction is a mutant gene :) So it goes.

Despite the promised rain the day turned out to be near perfect - sunny and mid-to-high 60's. This was the first day with the RA1s and I'm still getting used to them. First session I started with 38 psi cold upfront, lower than I'd normally run (KDWs I ran at 46). Halfway through the session the grip started going away - too much pressure. On pulling in, sure enough - 52psi hot. Ouch. The air coming out of the tires when I bled them down was uncomfortably hot. Second session felt better at least in that the grip was more consistent throughout. But I actually ran a fraction slower. Due to late start, two sessions was all I could get in. Had passengers in both and only managed a best of 1:34.9 which is a fair bit slower than I would have expected. I guess I need to figure these tires out better, both in terms of pressures and how to drive them. I definitely didn't feel like I was pushing it all that hard, always with plenty of margin. Took some video and of course GPS data, but none of it is anything too special. More for my own continued education.

Speaking of education, today I got a student with a 996 Twin Turbo. Typically, someone bringing a car like that out in novice session causes us instructors to ask extra questions. A fellow instructor even said 'good luck'. Attitude is the key thing. Fortunately my student had it right - he did well, understood what I was trying to communicate and had fun. Cool.

Overall, a good day if a bit short with only two sessions driving. As usual lots of cool machinery including one of the two other Atoms here in Portland. The most picture-worthy was a very clean GT40 replica. He didn't participate on-track but the car was sure pretty to look at.

Next trackday is the 7th, most likely will run DarkHelmet again. Followed by dp1 on the 8th. Assuming weather cooperates, that is....

05/07/07 BMW day. Beautiful weather, a bit chilly in the morning but perfect from 10 am on. Figured out how to drive the tires a bit better. A lot of the laps were right around 1:34 mark and a best of 1:33.9. So basically shaved exactly a second from the previous pace and it feels like there's another second to be had. Looking at the data I'm still overbraking in a couple spots but now I'm using the brakes better overall. As long as I swap the brake pads religiously and only use the track pads for the track and street pads for the street, the wear seems to be very reasonable. So the previously experienced brake destruction was in large part user error. I guess it was hard to let go of the dream of having one pad that will work in both environments... But now that I have it figured out, should be less of an issue. On the plus side the Wilwood calipers make swapping the pads a very quick and painless task.

It also seems that I've got the tires sorted. I'm now running 24 psi cold all around, which translates to 36 front and 34 rear when hot. There is certainly wear but it is about what I would expect and maybe even better than that.

Of course now that I'm consuming the consumables slower, gas price has hit an all-time high. Before the trackday filled up at the nearby gas station and had to pay $3.90/gal for premium. Ouch.

Overall, another nice event (19th for DarkHelmet in 11,000 miles). Decided to quit early as I needed to get some work done and get the dp1 ready for tomorrow....

05/24/07 A Porsche club day, DarkHelmet's 20th in 12,000 miles. My friend Mike is up from California to take some video of the dp1 tomorrow so today he was my student and drove in the Novice group. For having never driven on any track, nor ever having driven a Mini, he made excellent progress with a best lap of 1:40.57. We didn't log his first session but I know he started over 1:50. Gratifying, as always. And fun. For my part I made some progress as well with a best of 1:33.36, shaving over half a second from the previous best effort on these tires. Of course I shredded the left front to the point where it's starting to show cords so I was forced to do a cross-corner swap with right rear, reversing direction on both tires. My tire guru assured me this would not be a problem. On the subject of tires the slicks for the dp1 failed to show up and since I don't have a spare day like I did when the same thing happened to the muffler, I'm just going to run the Hoosiers. It will be a warm day so that will help. I also dropped the pressures to 10 psi cold so we'll see how that works.

There were several interesting machines in attendance. One was an awesome vintage Bug. He wasn't very fast (1:45-ish consistently) but it's the first Bug I've seen on a track and the level of detail and prep was satisfying to see. Right down to a matching Bus to pull the trailer.

Another interesting car was a genuine Porsche 908. It is a recent restoration and I belive is the same car I saw a couple events ago, albeit with different paint. I really like that it's not over-restored and the workmanship and materials appear appropriate to what a race car of that vintage would have been. There was a uniformed crew attending to it. Some informal timing from the stands showed a couple 1:29 laps, about the same as the dp1 and probably for the same reason. No point in pushing a newly completed car right off the bat.