The track day and racing thread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > The track day and racing thread

Yeticopter: Nov 19, 2004; Everybody's favorite urban legend, now airborne.

kill me now posted:

uhhh what?

I ran through numerous sets of pirelli grand am slicks for a few years and never had any sort of major issues. I also know lots of people who run slicks like conti scrubs, hoosier R6/A6/R100 that have never had any issues beyond eventually developing some play in their wheel bearings or having to replace a tie rod.

You are over exaggerating this as an issue. Maybe don't run slicks if you're driving some 20 year old rusted out E30 but there isn't some epidemic of slicked up track cars having massive on track suspension failures.

If you're tracking your car you should be going it over with a fine toothed comb before you get to the track as well as looking it over as well as you can between sessions. I caught some play in a tie rod one day (I was on street tires) while checking over the car during the lunch break. I ended my day early and that was that, had I not looked over my car then there may have been a bigger issue.

To be contrary to everyone else, as long as you've had some prior track time and are confident with your car slicks are awesome and can be super cheap if you get once used scrub slicks from a race team.

Slicks + dedicated track pads = Serious fun

Thanks for posting this, most people I've done track events with think slicks are no big deal, as they should because after a bit of racing even the most aggressive summer street compounds just aren't gonna cut it. I guess the lesson to take from that is if it's your first or second or third time on the track in your mostly stock DD, don't bother with slicks. You get a lot more grip but it's also a lot less forgiving so if you start losing grip at previously untouched speeds you could get yourself in a bad situation. I've seen a lot of people make the mistake of bringing some heavily modified street machine like a WRX with tons of boost but no safety or even brake upgrades, and either cook the poo poo out of their tires/brakes or have a really bad off. Like a lot of people have already said, once you bring your car to the track you have to learn to drive it all over again. Don't start investing money in modifying it until you know exactly what you want to change about its driving characteristics.

And yeah, definitely want to emphasize the pre-track inspection part as well. I don't really have the means to swap pads and wheels myself, but if I swing by my mechanic's place a day or two ahead of time he can give me the all clear. It really helps a lot to have the peace of mind that your car is in 100% good working order before you start beating the crap out of it. I didn't do this with a recently purchased 280z a couple summers ago, and whatever lovely brake fluid was in the reservoir lasted about half a session before fading out and sending me into the grass backwards at NHMS. I ended up backspinning the motor too and that tired old bitch completely poo poo the bed a few weeks later on I-95. What a failed project that was.

On a different note, what's the best source for getting a quality racing helmet? I've been using my motorcycle crash helmet for years but I want to upgrade to something more legit with built-in communicators and such. My main fear of ordering one online is that it won't be sized right, and a bad fitting helmet will gently caress me up on the track worse than anything. I have an auto-X opportunity this weekend so I really need to figure this out soon.

Yeticopter fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Jun 20, 2012

# ¿ Jun 20, 2012 03:32

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 05:17

Yeticopter: Nov 19, 2004; Everybody's favorite urban legend, now airborne.

Muffinpox posted:

Pffft, everyone says west coast tracks are the best but you have to be pushing to wreck out there. Limerock uphill death corner 4 lyfe.

Not saying I don't take that corner like a grandma, but the downhill righthander scares me more. After coming off that exit backwards at 100+ mph (into the grass, no collision) I doubt I'll ever push it more than 1-2 mph more.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2012 07:26

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