It was a great weekend, but HOT, most of both days (except first thing in the morning) was 90F+...
This weekend I was on my Hankook R-S4 tires (225/45/17 front and 255/40/17 back) and they did great!!! I was 4 seconds faster than June 2017 on the Nitto NT-01 and 3 seconds faster than September 2017 on the Maxxis RC-1. Note that is probably more a testament to how slow I was going those other times... But these Hankook R-S4 did great, wore evenly, no chunking of the edges, etc...
Setup:
Front:
Camber: -3
Toe: zero
Rear:
Camber -2.5
Toe .08 degree in per side, total .16.
Peachstate PCA has been trying a more "Chin" like format with 4 run groups instead of the usual 5 PCA groups. They combine novice and intermediate instructed into group 1, intermediate solo into group 2, and advanced solo into group 3 and 4 with 4 being like the Chin red group, where a point by must be immediate anywhere on track. They ran 4 sessions per day, mostly 30 minute sessions with 1 25 minute session I believe. It was lots of track time!
Because it was my first time running with Peachstate PCA (and because my previous events at Road Atlanta were not registered through clubregistration.net so they couldn't see my history and thought it was my first time there), they put me in Group 2 - intermediate solo. That was fine with me since I don't get to Road Atlanta that often, but when I got to the driver meeting, they had assigned checkrides for everyone that was a "first timer" and I was in that category. I got Dale, a senior instructor with a beautiful 987.2 Boxster Spyder (that I had actually seen before at Road Atlanta in 2014). He was great, gave me some good tips and helped me get some more speed in the esses, and when we were done he gave me my choice of moving to either group 3 or 4. I took 3, because there was a lot of really fast hardware in group 4, cup cars, etc...
Most of saturday was getting my groove back on, and I ran several strings of laps that were better than my previous best time of 1.52.x, but it all came together the last session Saturday where I ran a couple of 1.49.x including a 1.49.171 which turned out to be my fastest time of the weekend.
One interesting thing in this lap, for some reason I decided to try and go 3->2 before T7. I was usually leaving it in 3rd because I felt that making the shift would cause me to overslow. It turned out it did, I was typically having a vMin of 44-45 in T7 leaving it in 3rd, and a vMin of 40-41 when going to 2nd, but this lap going to second, I could see the predicted lap time going down all the way down the back straight. A Goal for next time, make the shift but still keep a vMin of 45
Sunday I ran 3 sessions and then left a little early and skipped the 4th session.
The first session was just me getting warmed back up, and oddly there were hardly any cars so that video isn't very noteworthy (not that any of them are )
The second session had some cool cars, a Ferrari that I feel I caught but then had to drop back to run a cool down lap, I think I could have had him after another lap or so
The final session was probably my best and most consistent session of the weekend, although I didn't set my best time there, it had the most consistent fastest laps, and when I watch it, it feels fast (often they feel really slow when I watch them).
For these last to sessions I was playing with my GitUp G2 camera (Chinese GoPro clone) it seems to have better audio and picks up the LEDs from the Apex Pro better.
I also tried a new thing these last few sessions - a couple times I went from 3->6 going under the bridge and drove flat through turn 12, trying to build up my muscle memory and bravery. I am getting to where I am at the top of 4th at the end of the front straight, so I may try going 3->5 and staying flat in 5th, and then going 5->4 before T1. We'll see. It is hard to keep that foot flat...
I only got to talk to a few other Boxster owners, and Marvin (swiftmotoring) came by Sunday morning and hung out which was really cool, and he took a lot of photos which are on his facebook page).
There was only 1 986 Boxster in the instructed group and that driver was paired with a pro driver as an instructor... I was jealous. My student was a young man in a 914, by the end of the weekend we passed all the old 911s and 944s in our group, and a 370 Nismo Z (or maybe a 350?) and the big cars like Caymans and newer 911s weren't passing us nearly as much. And if they passed us on the front straight, we were on them hard all the way through T5 and had to lift in some instances because we were too close in the esses...
It was really hot so I think I am on break for a while, next event is September at Roebling Road with Florida Crown on labor day weekend, come out!
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