Another Track Day!!
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Evolving Member
Joined: Feb 2005
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From: San Luis Obispo, CA
Another Track Day!!
My buddy Alex and I hit up Thunderhill again for an NCDA event. Interesting event (90% idiot drifters), but the price was right.
Alex has a '99 e36 m3 with some bolt-on suspension, intake, little stuff like that. 240HP and RWD. We had 6-7 sessions of 30 minutes each (TONS of time for the money!) and we met up with a new friend named Andrew with a track-only e36 m3. (shown below)
Andrew has tons more experience than us and he really knows T-hill well. He took the time to show us his line and where we should be tracking out further, turning in later, etc. and after a few laps behind him, Alex had absolutely no place where he could gain ground on me and I would gain several car-lengths on him per lap, sometimes more. I felt really consistent improvements throughout the day and I gained soo much more confidence. I was using 90% of the burms in many corners and I was finally hitting triple-digit speeds about halfway through the day. A few drifters tried to cheat and go out during our peaceful grip sessions and we mostly scared them away. I would pull hard on a 240 in the middle of a corner 'cuz he would be drifting and eventually most of the idiots got the point and stopped using our sessions for drifting.
Last year at the track I was on stock suspension and my KDW's. I tore chunks out of the fronts (mostly passenger side) and had that set on the rears this time (so good tread on fronts this again this time). I also have since added the RRM rear sway and perches, along with the RRM rear tie bar (which was added since my last auto-x). I immediately noticed that in most on-camber turns, the car was so much closer to neutral. In a few corners there wasn't much evidence of FWD at all. There are of course many exceptions, such as off-camber corners (i.e. turn 5a) but I could feel tons of improvement (Thanks RRM!
)
The outside temp was about 108 degrees and the drifters were keepin the track hot, so the damage to my tires was even more devastating than last year. Once again the passenger side front was by far the worst, most likely due primarily to turn 2 (in which my exit speed was pushing 75) and I would have to fight the FWD on exit pretty hard. For the life of me I could not wear the driver-side front evenly, even though I could hear it screaming all the way through many right-handers.
pics of damage:
My rotors are pretty badly warped, which is very obvious when getting on the brakes from 100mph+ very hard to make turn 1. I ordered EBC redstuffs but they didn't come in time so I'll hopefully be re-surfacing rotors and bedding in the EBC's soon.
Overall I couldn't have been happier about the event! I would recommend t-hill for anybody, whether it's your first time or you've got experience. If you've never been on track, you MUST do it!
Alex has a '99 e36 m3 with some bolt-on suspension, intake, little stuff like that. 240HP and RWD. We had 6-7 sessions of 30 minutes each (TONS of time for the money!) and we met up with a new friend named Andrew with a track-only e36 m3. (shown below)
Andrew has tons more experience than us and he really knows T-hill well. He took the time to show us his line and where we should be tracking out further, turning in later, etc. and after a few laps behind him, Alex had absolutely no place where he could gain ground on me and I would gain several car-lengths on him per lap, sometimes more. I felt really consistent improvements throughout the day and I gained soo much more confidence. I was using 90% of the burms in many corners and I was finally hitting triple-digit speeds about halfway through the day. A few drifters tried to cheat and go out during our peaceful grip sessions and we mostly scared them away. I would pull hard on a 240 in the middle of a corner 'cuz he would be drifting and eventually most of the idiots got the point and stopped using our sessions for drifting.
Last year at the track I was on stock suspension and my KDW's. I tore chunks out of the fronts (mostly passenger side) and had that set on the rears this time (so good tread on fronts this again this time). I also have since added the RRM rear sway and perches, along with the RRM rear tie bar (which was added since my last auto-x). I immediately noticed that in most on-camber turns, the car was so much closer to neutral. In a few corners there wasn't much evidence of FWD at all. There are of course many exceptions, such as off-camber corners (i.e. turn 5a) but I could feel tons of improvement (Thanks RRM!
)The outside temp was about 108 degrees and the drifters were keepin the track hot, so the damage to my tires was even more devastating than last year. Once again the passenger side front was by far the worst, most likely due primarily to turn 2 (in which my exit speed was pushing 75) and I would have to fight the FWD on exit pretty hard. For the life of me I could not wear the driver-side front evenly, even though I could hear it screaming all the way through many right-handers.
pics of damage:
My rotors are pretty badly warped, which is very obvious when getting on the brakes from 100mph+ very hard to make turn 1. I ordered EBC redstuffs but they didn't come in time so I'll hopefully be re-surfacing rotors and bedding in the EBC's soon.
Overall I couldn't have been happier about the event! I would recommend t-hill for anybody, whether it's your first time or you've got experience. If you've never been on track, you MUST do it!
Holy hell, those tires are trashed. I haven't tried a proper track day on my KDW's, only autoX, but never seen that kind of damage on them.
Lanzer - have no fear. The KDWs are GREAT street tires, but as mentioned, they're not designed for heavy track duty, especially if the track has a particularly nasty surface.
Lanzer - have no fear. The KDWs are GREAT street tires, but as mentioned, they're not designed for heavy track duty, especially if the track has a particularly nasty surface.
Evolving Member
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 220
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From: Socal
Yea, don't worry about the tires. Thunderhill is really hard on tires. A few years back me and my cousin took our rx-7's up there and we both had to get new tires. I was running BFG's and he had toyos. But dude, that is one fun track! 
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