08/05/07 One more track outing, a Porsche event. M finally decided to do a trackday so this provided a good opportunity to record the progress of someone who is basically a novice at the track. She has been a passenger countless times but aside from a couple laps at Zandvoort and Nurburgring recently, she hasn't done much actual track driving herself. The GPS traces below tell the tale.

The black trace is from the beginning of the very first session (with much traffic), a 2:00 lap that is typical of a first-timer at PIR regardless of what car they're driving. Had I been timing myself eight years ago I suspect the result would have been about the same. With some coaching along the way, towards the end of the session M picked up the pace and finished with a 1:55 lap (red trace). Basically a bit more speed on the straights and in a couple of the corners. Getting more comfortable in the second session produced a further 7-second improvement with a 1:48 (green trace). You can see better use of the throttle resulting in more speed on the straights, more confident use of the brakes and more corner speed. This became the new comfort zone and typically this is where a novice would plateau for a few sessions, sometimes even several full trackdays. The trace still has the 'novice signature' - the speed peaks are rounded which comes from lifting early, then applying brakes some time later instead of holding the throttle pinned until it's time to brake.

Having the GPS data and the laptop right there at the track proved very useful. I was able to show the specific differences between her laps and my own (the puple trace, a 1:34) and talk about exactly what was happening where and why. Along with actual rides in the same car at the faster pace I convinced M to be more deliberate with the controls in the third session. Knowing that the car has plenty of margin is a big confidence booster. I talked her through a couple laps and then just shut up and let her drive. The blue trace, a 1:43, is the result. The thing that stands out most is the use of throttle and brakes - much better drives out of pretty much every corner, more straightline speed and carrying it further into the braking zones. The 'novice signature' is now gone and the car accelerates right up to the braking zones. So, in just three 20-minute sessions a full 17 second improvement. Comparing the blue and purple traces shows where another 9 seconds can eventually be found, which will come with familiarity with the car and the track environment in general. All in due time.

Today I also had a student in the intermediate group, an M3 driver who has done several DE events but hasn't driven this track before. In the first session I immediately spotted a tendency that could lead to a problem - adding throttle on corner exits without unwinding the steering - but didn't communicate it soon enough. So on exit of 12 the power comes in, steering stays put and the back end goes around. Lots of grass everywhere but no contact with anything solid so no damage done. A good wakeup call, both for the driver and for me as an instructor. Interestingly this echoes the conversations Larry and I had on Friday about the tradeoffs of carrying speed through corners vs getting a good drive out and the fact that throttle and steering are 'connected'. The lesson for me here is that when I see a potential issue I need to be more proactive in addressing it. Of course without the experience of the spin it would have been harder to communicate to the student the importance of what I'm saying... So it all works out I guess. The rest of the day we worked on correcting this and a couple other issues and towards the end excellent progress was made. My student's driving became more confident, deliberate and controlled. Would have been interesting to run the datalogger in his car too.

All in all, another great day. Always more to learn :)

08/08/07 I knew the last trackday was going to use up the rest of the RA1 tires and I was right. So they lasted 5 full trackdays. Not too bad. A bit surprising was the nature of the wear - this time the fronts got corded on the INSIDE. I'm only running -1.5 degrees camber so my best guess is that it's all the heavy braking that's doing it, the front suspension compresses and causes more negative camber in that situation. This is backed up by the fact that left and right tires are worn nearly identically (PIR is mostly right turns).

What surprised me even more is that I cracked one of the Wilwood 12.2" rotors. Both rotors had surface cracking since a couple trackdays ago but now one has a crack all the way through and you can feel the pulsation under braking. Wouldn't have expected that. We'll see what the folks at Wilwood have to say about it. In terms of performance though the brakes are awesome and with proper pad choice (Polymatrix B for track, BP10 for street) the pads don't fade and last quite well. Brake feel is crisp and stopping power is excellent. Yes, the calipers really do look purple these days. They started out black. I suspect this is an indication of the heat they have to deal with.

Finally, in anticipation of needing new tires and knowing that I have dented one of the Sport Edition wheels (they were too heavy anyway) I had ordered a set of SSR type C rims with BFG KDW2 tires on them. From past experience I decided to get these shaved to 1/2 depth right off the bat. So today I put the new shoes on. They look pretty cool and at 35 lbs the wheel/tire combo is a full 5 lbs lighter per corner than the old setup. Hopefully they'll endure better than the previous two KDW2 sets. I think overall this is the sixth set of tires for the car? Something like that.

If I finally get the Atom going, DarkHelmet won't get to do another trackday till spring. A well earned break really. With 22 trackdays in 13,000 miles and just over one year this has been a busy little car indeed. The only other vehicle in my past to reach that number was the Elise 190 but it took full four years to do it.

08/20/07 Finally got the replacement brake rotors from Wilwood. Their take on the cracking is that it's basically normal for that rotor from extreme heat-cycling. When I originally got the kit it came with 'race' 12.2" rotors. Those didn't crack but I wore them out quickly, partially due to experimenting with pad compounds that didn't work. By the time I figured out which pads to use (BP-10 for the street, Polymatrix B for the track and swap them religiously) the original rotors were pretty chewed up. I needed to replace them quickly and the race ones were not available so I went with 'street' 12.2" units. They are still vented and unidirectional but have a little less mass and are made from lower-grade iron than the 'race' stuff. Hence the cracking, because the 'street' rotors were basically not up to the job. Looking at the cracked disc it is somehow disturbing that this size brake would be inadequate for a MINI, no matter what it was made of :)

On the plus side abrasive wear is minimal so it seems the pad compounds are working well finally. Perhaps this means that the new set of brakes will last a while? One can only hope.

08/31/07 I really tried to get the Atom ready. My torn up, sore hands are a testament to it and there are even witnesses. We will probably (hopefully) get it fired up tomorrow. But that's a separate story. The point of this post is that DarkHelmet got to do its 23rd trackday.

Lotus days are always fun due to both how they're run (it's all about tracktime and driving) and the machinery they attract. This one was typical of that.

This was M's second trackay and we continued with the instruction. She made excellent progress, getting down to 1:39.6 which is even more of an accomplishment considering the MINI is now on street tires and her previous efforts were helped by the R compounds that were on the car at the time. It's a bit of an accelerated program since normally getting below 1:40 takes novice drivers considerably longer. I of course continue to learn more as an instructor too. I also set a street-tire personal best with this car of 1:34.5. All this added up to a lot of sessions which in turn burned up the remainder of the track pads. I expected that.

Fortunately the pad wear was very even so the rotors did not get scratched at all and generally held up quite well. All the people I gave rides to commented on the effectiveness of the brakes. Yeah, they work.

This weekend is the All-British Field Meet and historic races so a number of cool cars were beginning to show up. The one that caught my eye was this 1924 Bentley. Way cool. So very mechanical. Would love to have something like this to putt-putt around in on a perfect day.

Now, back to the Atom. Stay tuned.

03/02/08 The first trackday of the year for Dark Helmet. Originally we were just going to run the WRX but after the first session it became obvious that the Subie wasn't going to hold up to track duty so we went home and got the Mini too. Of course I was very unprepared for this, only having street BP10 pads onhand but decided to chance it anyway.

The track has been completely repaved and some changes were made to the configuration. The entrance to Turn 7 is now as wide as a parking lot, funneling down to pavement that actually seems narrower after the apex. Not quite sure what the thinking was there. The other major change is the elimination of a FIA curb in Turn 10 so now you can't jump it like before. Interestingly the GPS shows that this hasn't slowed me down any, I still do 82 mph through there. Overall the surface seems a bit grippier and doesn't melt tires as bad as it used to (may also have to do with it being a chilly day). The net effect of all the changes is a best of 1:34.1 which is almost half a second faster than my previous best on these tires, and this is with fading brakes too (and being sick with flu). So I would say that the new track is a little faster overall. Which is a little surprising, actually, if you consider that in the picture below the black trace is the new layout and the red trace is the old one.

From past experience I knew the BP10s disappear like chalk on the track so I checked them after every session. Sure enough, despite starting the day with full pad there was nothing left after just three 20-minute sessions so Dark Helmet's day was over. Now I really need to get the Atom trackworthy, finish the production dp1 design, etc. Lots on my plate so I best get to it.

04/09/08 It was supposed to rain. We were supposed to take the Rux. But last night I looked at Accuweather forecast and it showed no rain. At all. So I made sure DarkHelmet got new brakes (I lost count of how many sets of brakes it went through in its 16K miles - 6?). When I woke up this morning it was raining. Not on the Internet, but in the real world. Still, the course was set and Accuweather was stubbornly insistent the world is really a brighter place so in the Mini we went.

The day turned out to be a mix of wet and dry, never staying either way for long enough to figure it out completely. The good news is that the new pavement is much grippier in the wet than the old one was. It used to be that the only place you could find any semblance of grip in the rain was on the concrete pavement of the chicane. Now it's the other way around, and the transition is even more treacherous. Which saw yet another Porsche GT3 in an instructor's hands introduced to the wall. That's 3rd in 12 months (4th if you count the ridiculous autocross crash last year). As for us, we stayed off the walls but only just. I had my first offroading incident in quite some time and only the 5th (I think) in all the years I've been doing this. Likewise M had her first spin in the chicane, nearly followed with another the next lap but a decent save instead.

Neither of us broke any records, the lap times were pretty dismal really. OK, I was ourtright slow and M was seconds off her best as well. But regardless it was fun and educational. And that's all that counts. Many more chances to get it right coming up.

04/21/08 If global warming means snow at the end of April in Portland then we're having it in spades. Not ideal for trackdays, like the Lotus one today. But cold weather is actually good for street tires on the track and I'm sure the rapidly balding set of KDW2s that DarkHelmet is wearing appreciated it. Us - not so much. The Mini is basically M's track car now but with Larry grabbing the Exige for the advanced sessions, I got to run it a bit as well which provides for more comparisons.

Due to the busy schedule, after one ride along with M I sent her out solo for the rest of the sessions and it really paid off. She is making excellent progress - today her best was 1:38.25, only a little over 3 seconds behind my 1:35.0 same day / same car. The GPS traces show where she still has time to gain but the novice telltales are essentially gone now.

She still over-brakes for some of the turns and brakes early for 10 (interestingly her entry speed into 10 is a touch higher than mine but she doesn't carry it). Overall the plots definitely show the signature of an intermediate driver on the way to advanced, and laptimes back it up. She asked if I think she'll be faster than me someday - we'll see about that but I'd be thrilled :)

Of course not all went smoothly and towards the end of her last session, M made the classic mistake of 'driving in her mirrors' - worrying too much about the car behind. I actually enjoy pointing this tendency out to my students (M included) when I put some pressure on the car ahead to let me pass, their line goes to hell and they start looking in the mirror instead of where they're going. Thing is, at our trackdays there is no passing in the turns and what I always tell my students is that here the corners are yours, just drive them and check your mirrors on the straights where people can actually get by you. So M ended up offroading a bit, not quite a spin but rather an excursion in the grass. I was a couple cars behind in the Exige and waved as I went by. Afterwards her self-analysis was dead on though and I'm sure (or at least hope :) the lesson is learned.

A final thought - this being the day of comparisons, take a look at the plots above and then look at today's entry on the Exige page. Quite a few similarities there. Food for thought and proof that there's always more to learn. I look forward to it.