Project Trackday

What a weekend!

I set out earlier this year to attempt to buy and prepare a car to take to the track for under $4,000 and now I can finally say that I have completed the goal that I set.  Spent all weekend at Putnam Park Road Course in Mount Meridian, IN learning the track and the behavior of the car and it really has put a lot of things in perspective for me personally.  I’ll try to sum up the weekend over this and the following post…

Left to head out to Putnam early Saturday morning, arriving about 7:20am and got the car in queue for on-track tech inspection.  Everything went fine and I was back in grid awaiting registration by 7:50.  The event was broken down to 5 run groups; Instructors, Blue, Red, Yellow and Green (in order of experience).  Met my instructor for the weekend (Mike, who by my luck happened to be the most knowledgeable person in the Miata community I have ever come across) at the drivers meeting  and then headed up to take the first session of class for the Green group.

After the class session I met up with Mike and prepared to head out for our first session on track.  It was cold and damp conditions so we decided to try out a wet line so I could get a feel for it.

Car #17 in the cold pits awaiting the session start...

The amount of grip in those conditions on the wet line was amazing and judging by the rest of the cars on track for that session it was apparent that they were trying to learn the course on the dry line, so it was relatively straightforward to pass several cars in that session.  The session lasted 25 minutes but they were extremely useful as I had never experienced the difference in grip levels in the wet between a dry and wet line.

Setting up for turn 9 on the wet line

By then the misting rain had stopped and the track began to start drying slowly.  I took a ride with Mike during the instructor group in his car and he planned on showing me the race (dry) line and talking me through the points on the track (turn in, apex, exit) that I should be going for in the next session.  Another Miata came up and then the two instructors decided to have a little fun while I watched from on board.  First thing that struck me as impressive was how these guys were able to go into the braking zone less than half a car length apart and trust that they would brake at the same time…

Mike's car in the paddock

During the second run we worked on a dry race line and my goal was to hit all of the turn ins, apexes and exits.  We also adjusted some shifting points on the track to increase the speeds through the corners.

Getting ready to head back out for session 2

Late in the session I was starting to feel that the car was really down on power in the straights, and then one lap later going down the straight I could barely get the car into 4th before going into the braking zone for turn 1.  One turn later I saw the black flag and steam started pouring out of the hood…  We immediately pulled off track and the session was red flagged with only a few minutes remaining in the session.  A hose somewhere had clearly blown and all that steam was coolant spraying onto the hot exhaust pipes.  After a quick inspection, I got a tow back to the pitlane to assess the damage.

Getting towed back

After checking carefully it was evident the coolant loss was coming from near the back of the engine, and after a bit more probing I found the bad heater hose that had cracked.  Luckily Mike just so happened to have a spare on hand (not to mention a trailer of Miata parts!) so I was able to replace the faulty hose during lunch and not miss any track time.  Topped off all the fluids and the car was ready to hit the track again.

Busy at work during lunch to get the car ready for session 3

After lunch I headed back up to the classroom for the second classroom session, and then just as soon we were back on track for session 3.  Finally the sun had decided to peek through a bit and the track was completely dry and finally warming up.  The lunchtime repairs worked perfectly and the car ran well for the remainder of the weekend.  In session 3 we focused on consistency in hitting the key track points and tweaking the line as to suit my car in particular.  By this point it was clear that all of the times I had been complaining in the past about the car understeering/etc was not really that important.  What was much more important was how to set up turns to avoid getting those problems in the first place!  If the car was understeering in a particular corner and I had been doing exactly the same thing as the previous lap when it was just fine, it wasn’t because the tires were getting greasy or the pressures were changing.  I was simply coming into the corner faster because I had gotten a better line through the previous corner, and needed to realize and adjust my inputs accordingly.

Here we go again... Session 3 is about to start

Back to the paddock I was left with a lot of things to think about.  The first session I may have hit 80mph into braking for turn 1, but now I was easily hitting 90 and braking later and harder for the turn, focusing on setting for turn 2 that came immediately afterwards.  I was able to hang if not pass most of the cars in the group between turns 1 and 10, but as soon as I got on the main straight they were gone, right until the braking into turn 1 where I was back on the tail end of the cars.  The main point was still consistency lap after lap, especially through turns 5 and turn 8.  I could hit all the points at a bit lower speeds when I was stuck behind following, but when I was in the open road I was still early apexing and missing apexes on occasion.  Mike said I had hit every single track in, apex and out on the track quite a few times, but I had not done every single one on a complete lap yet…  The only corner I was consistent and hitting the cues every time was turn 9 and 10 because the course is very flat around that section and it is very easy to see where the car needs to be well before getting there.  During the break the course was closed temporarily due to a large shunt by a Porsche GT2 coming out of turn 10, causing significant damage to the rear end.

GT2 at turn 10 into the hay bails and guard rail at high speed

Quite a bit of damage

It was a stern reminder of what can happen at the only corner on track without significant runoff.  I had been very comfortable at turn 9 and 10 since session 2 and was very consistent through it so I made sure a crash there didn’t phase me and affect my driving through the corner.  The final session of the day I was finally able to string together a handful of laps where I hit every cue on the track.  Some real progress and I was able to leave day 1 of the 2009 Pumpkin Run with some good things to build upon for day 2.  Already 100 minutes of track time and I was ready to get some R&R before doing it all over again.

Turned out to be a beautiful day to be on a track

Down the main straight