Oh boy, I'm comfortable in any car you put me in and any student I'm with. And I don't get nervous but it pisses me off if you're on my *** for an extended time.

And I keep my students in check, with no problem and I too tell them to get the attention of the front driver but back off until we have a passing zone and not stay on their ***. Plain and simple. There were other instructors that were unpredictable too or drove like they were the only people on the track. So like I said I wasn't the only instructor out there with issues.

BTW I handled my students brake failure flawlessly and so did he coming to a stop, and my LICP/brake failure flawlessly. We went back out and went faster with no problems. So please spare me just a little on that and my track times were on par with your times. That's all I have to say.

 

Thai please do because it is not recognizing my Trackmaster data file which is CSV or Google Earth or KMV (or something)


Oh and let me just thank Thai, Chu, Marc and everyone else who helped me with my car and driving the correct line. The advice was extremely helpful for me getting comfortable on this track. Wish I had a little more time out on track, think I could have gotten closer to my goal of 1:16, it was without a doubt out there. Thing was annoying with spitting oil, antifreeze all over engine bay most of weekend, this last heat most problems were cured except the water and oil temps were through the roof!. This was the only session brakes felt great, pedal was hard and no issues at all, but I was not killing them, braking a little earlier and was trying to be a little smoother.

Last lap is the one where I almost lost it after turn 1, not nearly as exciting on video as it was in person. I will get the crazy brake experiences posted up later.

 

Mike, have you tried doing a pressure check on the rad, and just flushing the entire system and put new coolant in? Your coolant did look stagnant when I looked in the rad. I don't think you're far from having this thing near perfect. A lot of the issues you came with were diagnosed and resolved over the weekend. Anything remaining issues are simple fixes imo.

Thanks again for letting me use the truck. I hope I made it worth your wild...no homo.

 

nelson, how many warm up laps do you do? seems like a lot...

 

I'm not trying to argue with you about any of this, I am only telling you the same thing Marc and I told you Sunday.

Why are you getting pissed off (and I'll add; if that pisses you off, reevaluate what you are doing out there--red mist wrecks lot's of cars)? They are on your bumper because they are faster than you. Big deal. If they are on your bumper for an extended period of time you aren't pointing them by quickly enough. If you are in the instructor's group and they aren't passing you without a point by it's because they don't trust you. So you give a preemptive point by...give it early and commit to the line you've told them you are going to take. Problem solved.

I don't know if you had your student in check (my comment about "controlling the car" was a general statement about instructing, not actually directed at anything I saw you do on track with your student). I do know that your student was way off line in several places after he was solo'd on Saturday afternoon--Again, I NEVER saw your student on track while you were in the car, so I am not sure what you taught him, only that he was not doing it right without you. He did seem to get his act together for Sunday and was putting in some pretty good laps, mostly on the proper line.

Yes, there were other unpredictable instructors...I've talked with a couple other guys that complained about two of them in particular--one guy is a BMW CCA instructor and said he won't instruct with TD again because of how bad he perceived these couple of instructors to be while on track (both in the red group and while instructing their students). I know who he was referring to (he did not mention you).

Laps times be damned...I wouldn't care if you turned a 1:30 in an advanced group if you were doing it predictably and consistently--I was that guy when I had my Miata; slower than any other car in the PCA advanced groups (mostly GT3s and Cup cars). No one had a problem with me because they knew where I was going to be in every corner and on every straight.


Moving on...

My first session on Saturday...only video I have...it won't be done rendering for another 25 minutes or so, but will be here when it is done:
http://youtu.be/7umvJtaOknQ

 

For the record I had no problems operating your camera before and after it left my hands on Saturday, did you get the video from the stands?

 

RT pressure checked system and said I had a bad radiator cap, gave me stock replacement. Also they charged for all new fluid if I remember correctly. Fluid is month old approx.

The overheating is really weird. How in the hell did I not blow up motor. Out of eight 20 minute sessions (never was out for a full session because of gas) car was pegged on H for 7, oil was maxed out on temperature too. I run CBRD radiator, AMS oil cooler, slim fan on radiator and fan on oil cooler stopped working. I think lines got cut and it is in a spot that is hard to get to. I do not think the oil cooler fan would have helped anyways.

As far as E85, it was a pain but it was fun out running every car in blue the entire weekend. I gave 1 point by this weekend to an S2000, he was on my azz going through the chicanes, definately faster there so I let him by. Think I had to much powa Bro on the straights where it helped me. An example of taking the correct lines, less powerful car (if it was bone stock, which I doubt BTW ) was giving me the business. When I let him by he friqqin pitted that lap, I was dying to try and chase him down. Need to watch video to make sure it went down like that, but I think I have it right. Besides him I did not see anybody in my mirrors.

On the point bys, I had a rule of 3 Mississippi the first day. Thai schooled me on giving at least a car length of distance when waiting for a point by. There were a few cars in Blue that were driving me nuts, making me follow way slower than I wanted to for a lap or two. Get out of the friqqin way when peeps are behind you. Anyhow he also said to get the car in their mirror so you can be sure they see you. I used that method quite a few times, sometimes people don't realize right away when your behind them and I understand that. Then there are the people with expensive cars who refuse to let a less expensive ride pass them. Same stuff at Pocono 5 years ago, nothings different.

 

Japan has problems with Radiation, plans to E-vac Tokyo (drift) have been made.
This sucks.. I don't want any radiation or glow in the dark with my Over-nighted Parts from JAPAN.

And if you go to Japan, don't touch the black dirt with your hands. Blue dirt is bad too.

 

Totally not your fault, it acted up one time before and then magically started working. It has to do with the eject and loading of cassette tape. Thanks for shooting with my camera and all the pictures.

It recorded but in the process of getting ready to download the thing crapped out on me.

 

I've just been informed I rank 3rd in most active user on the entire forum as of today. MAPerformance ranked first. I don't know if that's a good thing or bad.

 

mike, that blue group seemed pretty slow compared the last intermediate event i ran with PCA. there were only a handful of us that we fairly quick in there and you, chu, me and the s2000 were i'm pretty all of them (i can't think of anybody else).

that e92 m3 looked promising on the first day but dropped way off. he was a nice guy though.

 

so let me get this straight, the only car that was faster than you in the blue group was a tiny little s2000 that was mostly stock and ran on 93 pump. huh, that's interesting.

 

That sounds right except for one thing. 6 out of 8 sessions I did not see him near me, he was behind a few times but I lost him never was really close, possibly because of traffic, not sure. The other session you drove my car the entire time, so I am not counting that. I would say he drove the better line than I did that session, 2nd day maybe he got real comfortable or figured out the line or had a great instructor.

 

It seemed like I was just passing people at will, no effort in catching people. So Blue group must have been slow, guess a few of us should have been bumped to black second day..

 

I am waiting for a critique of how I drove that session. Where was I offline, what things were wrong in video? My fast lap was the last one, so I would like for you all to focus on that lap. I thought you guys would have torn up my video by now....