Published by hothatch on 25 Feb 2008
Track Day 2.5 – The Bigger Picture
Yes, I did have the firm intention not to track my car on winter tyres anymore. And no, I didn’t stick to that intention. Having the newly fitted brakes bedded-in and having built a new camera mount, I just couldn’t resist. I needed to test these things, didn’t I? Especially since the weather was perfect again. I did however manage to confine my testing to one 15-minute turn only. Which was enough for a first evaluation of the brakes and plenty for testing the camera mount.
First the brakes: Initially, the new setup doesn’t seem to have any more bite than the standard brakes. They just might deliver a little more stopping power, though, which is really hard to tell, if you can’t drive both setups back-to-back. I do believe, however, that they in fact deal with heat better. As opposed to the standard brakes, I could brake just as hard and late at the end of the 15 minutes as I could on the first quick lap. Something that I wasn’t capable of doing consistently before. So, that is good news, but more experience is needed for a final judgement. And there’s always the unknown factor of brake fluid. I changed to brand new ATE Super Blue Racing and don’t know where the boiling point of the old fluid was, so that in itself might account for better stability. And there’s of course some psychology involved. You can never really trust yourself on these things, I suppose – If you want to believe that your brakes are better, you’re likely to feel that. But I’ll just disregard that factor and pretend I’m objective.
Second the new camera mount: As I wrote earlier, I wasn’t at all satisfied with the flimsy suction mount on the wind screen I had. So I made a more sturdy mount for the headrest. Mainly in order to be able to see my steering inputs and my shifting. As you can see on the picture, it’s a pretty simple design, which is more or less based on the CruiseCam or the mount available through Hague in the UK. All the parts I used can be obtained in a do-it-yourself store and assembly is pretty straight forward and self-explanatory, I’d say, so I think there’s no need for a step-by-step guide. (If anybody thinks otherwise, just drop me a line and I’ll consider it.) Here’s a video of two laps shot with the new mount. Much better, I think – despite the fact that the camera used is still the little Sony DSC-W55. I’d say it’s sufficient for my needs:
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Third my performance: Much better, I’m pleased to report. I was a lot more disciplined than last time and did a better job of concentrating and making small mental notes whenever I suffered from understeer on turn-in (still my main problem) or screwed up slightly in any other respect. The hardest two turns for me, regarding turn-in understeer, are the “Teich-Kurve”, the “Kiwi-Kurve” and less severe the “Süd-Kurve”. I really worked on those and while I didn’t get them right all the time, I did make progress. I discovered that a little bit of trail braking is really helpful here, as to keep more weight on the front and thus improving traction. I’m not all that good at it, yet, but I’m planning to work on it more in the future.
As far as actual lap times go, I’m still not consistent and certainly not getting faster lap by lap, but this time I attribute it to the tyres more than to my driving. After two quick laps, they’re getting rather vague on feedback, which is to be expected with winter rubber and a temperature of around 14-15°C, I suppose. I can only counter that to a certain extent, as it is not really predictable for me, and I constantly need to make adjustments to my driving. GPS Lap Timing looks rather reliable this time. I had proper satellite contact all throughout the turn, and the best time it shows is a decent 1:51.081 (give or take a few tenths, I’d say) on the second timed lap, which was also the lap that felt the best. In case you don’t remember: that is almost two seconds faster than last time. Although some of it will simply come from the fact that I used second gear in one of the turns where I used third before.
I’m rather pleased. And I promise that this was my last track appearance on winter rubber (in fact, I’m calling my tyre supplier tomorrow to make an appointment for swapping).