Homestead DE report

[san rensho]

Had another fun track day at Homestead this Saturday. There were very few cars, its the hottest part of the summer, so that kept the crowds down.

So I waited until the last day, Thursday, to sign up because I wanted to see the last minute weather forecast since it rains regularly down here during the summer and my rears are down to the wear bars, no running in the rain for me. Friday afternoon after work I prep for the track day, just a brake fluid flush. I take the wheels off and I inspect the tires. Left rear has a drywall screw in it thanks to the construction on the house across the street. What to do? Its 6 o'clock on a friday so there is no way I can get two new rear tires before the track day. So, either I lose the fee, or I patch the tire. I decide to put a plug in it. After much wrestling, I plug the tire, pump it up to the max, 44 PSI and go to bed. The next day, the pressure is still 44, so I decide to go for it.

The next day, the whole time on the track, in the back of my mind is the fact that I am running a plugged tire, so I am hesitating in the two fast corners, 1 and 10, which I can run flat out in my low HP car, but now I'm backing off.

What I did was forget about 1 and 10, which you really have to hit fast to get a good lap time, and just concentrate on trying some new lines in a couple of the slow left right segments (turns 3/4and 12/13/14).

I was able to make some progress pushing the car until the rear smoothly broke away slightly, and getting a good drive out of the corners. but I also realized that as I approached the slow segments, cars were getting up on me, even though I was able to pull away from them in the exit. Then I realized I was overbraking in the corner before the slow segments. The approach to both of the slow left/ rights are two fairly high speed corners, 2 and 11, right after the fastest corners, 1 and 10. I was late braking 2 and 11, which got me panicked a little and caused me to overbrake into the corners before the left/right segments . So then I backed off on the late braking and concentrated on maximizing speed on the corners before the left/right segments and things went much better.

So I learned something, which is good