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Thread: GT86

  1. #581
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    Nice one! In some ways I like wet trackdays, the speeds are lower and you can 'play' with the balance a bit more easily.

  2. #582
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    Very cool that you got out, sorry about the rain. I've been wanting to do one of the Pocono nights for two years but taking two days off work for it has been an issue. Hopefully next season.

    What did you think of the overall program experience? Would you do it again?

  3. #583
    Administrator dodint's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by samoht View Post
    Nice one! In some ways I like wet trackdays, the speeds are lower and you can 'play' with the balance a bit more easily.
    Keeps the high hp cars off your ass. Had a really wet TNiA last year in the Mustang. All the big hp cars were on slicks, was carving right around them on street tires until a dry line formed. One of my best memories from running these.

  4. #584
    We All Live in a Yellow BRZ The359's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dodint View Post
    Very cool that you got out, sorry about the rain. I've been wanting to do one of the Pocono nights for two years but taking two days off work for it has been an issue. Hopefully next season.

    What did you think of the overall program experience? Would you do it again?
    I thought the program was good. I'd say my only complaint was that the beginner group was the largest group of all, so you had no choice but to be stacked up behind other people on track, especially since Pocono only has three passing zones and I have no power. So going into a lot of the heavy braking zones I had no choice but to coast in and take it easy. The girl I was with in the intermediate group, I rode along with on one of her rides and she could be much more aggressive on braking and acceleration because there were not a lot of cars around, but at the same time I thought she was being too aggressive with it in some places and she could have been faster if she finessed it better.

    But other than that the guy in charge and the rest of the SCCA guys were very informative and helpful. The only downside to Pocono is that there is no concessions at the track and of course you're out in the middle of nowhere, so we had to bring food and drink along with us. But I'd definitely do it again, hopefully in the intermediate group so I can try and be more aggressive with the car. I checked the G meter in the car and all my steering was maxed out, but my acceration and deceleration were not even 0.5G.
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  5. #585
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    Bummer, and good to know. PIRC has a food truck that comes out.

    The guy in charge is a guy named Jon. I didn't realize until recently that he's in charge of all of it; he attends every single TNiA. I always thought it was ran by local clubs and a guy from national comes out to spot check, but no, they travel around and the same people run every event to ensure consistency. Very cool. Tom O'Gorman was the Novice coach two weeks ago at PIRC; not sure how many events he does personally. He's the PWC TCA champ this year, and as Russ says, was probably wearing blue sunglasses if he was there.

    If you're ready I would definitely do Intermediate next time. It's not really about times or flat out skill, just whether or not your point-bys are good and your aware enough to read flags. I think you'd be fine. The SCCA mandate is 25 cars per mile or less, but the TNiA folks try to keep the density lower than that. But it still happens, the Intermediate group at PIRC was unusually slow last time; even with going through the pits multiple times I kept catching the back of a long train.

    I will say Advanced is tough without a bunch of horsepower. It shouldn't be that way but with self-classing that's how it works out. You'll get fantastically good at point-bys, though.

    Pocono must have been so much fun. I haven't been there since about 1995 so to me it's still just a giant NASCAR complex; really looking forward to getting out there eventually.

  6. #586
    We All Live in a Yellow BRZ The359's Avatar
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    The novice coach I had was named Paul, young looking guy. There was an SCCA guy doing photography that we talked to off and on but I don't recall his name. And yeah, Paul wasn't local, he took us out on paced laps in a rental car.

    The infield was surprisingly good, very smooth and there were concrete curbs on every corner. The only thing I noticed, while riding in the other car, is there must be a bump in the middle of the first corner because her car always lost traction going in there, but on my car I had no problem, and looking at the video we were both doing roughly the same speed, so I don't know what the problem was there. I thought the second section of corners from the back to front stretch were more interesting, you could open the car up and all the corners were different, while the first section was all cookie cutter 3rd gear corners with a slow hairpin at the end.

    The tricky part was the transition from infield to oval, there was a concrete patch running across the track where the infield wall would normally be attached to the ground, so it was always bumpy and the grip levels were iffy so I never wanted to push coming off the front and back stretches. I'm sure in the dry it'd all be perfectly fine though.

    Here's her final run in a turbocharged FR-S:


    And my final run:
    Last edited by The359; September 19th, 2018 at 09:47 AM.
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  7. #587
    Senior Member Leon's Avatar
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    Great that you've had the opportunity to use the car on the track.

    They're surprisingly competent even in 100% stock form, well, other than the brake pads, which I found to be made out of cheese and defeat.

  8. #588
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    Quote Originally Posted by Leon View Post
    Great that you've had the opportunity to use the car on the track.

    They're surprisingly competent even in 100% stock form, well, other than the brake pads, which I found to be made out of cheese and defeat.
    I have the Brembos, so I really want to have an opportunity to really push hard on the brakes.
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  9. #589
    Senior Member Leon's Avatar
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    Ah right, I had the baby brakes, and had to upgrade the front pads to Endless, after I could cook the OE pads into fade within a 90 second street sprint (type of race meeting).

  10. #590
    Senior Member Leon's Avatar
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    So whose 86 is subject to the valve spring recall?

    There are a bunch of horror stories going around in the local club of all the f**k ups having happened due to the dealers "fixing" the cars under recall. Check engine lights, cars randomly stalling, and then yesterday a car dropping its breakfast immediately after the recall (while still at the dealer, not even back to the owner from what I've heard).

    I wish I'd heard this prior to dropping my car in for the valve springs to be replaced (engine out, but not heads off) on Wednesday.

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