First Autocross

Where does the time go? Not into my blog, unfortunately, when I'm busy. I'm going to do better at being regular, however. There certainly is not a shortage of things to talk about, that's for sure!

Yesterday was my first real autocross event. Yeah, I've done a couple of short parking lot courses at NOPI and SEMA, but not the whole deal. It's really different than high-speed track driving...which is why I went in the first place.

This is still my first season of track driving and even if it wasn't I have to drive my car home from the event. So how hard do you push it? Good question. One I hoped to get some help on doing the much slower speed autocross. I figured safer there than anywhere else.

So the first round went really well, even though the surface was just a bit wet. Not wet enough to slide, in fact, the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tires performed wonderfully. I could hear the tires squealing through the two slolams, and in a couple of the turns, but it was always short of breaking away.

The second set of runs were on wet pavement and some falling rain. This time, even though I was extremely happy with the performance of my tires, I did a lot of sliding. Into several turns I could feel just a bit of understeer before breaking away into a more even, sideways drift. Accelerating out of one turn and coming across the short straight to the next turn I had to make a correction for a fairly significant rotation. And in two of the longer, tight turns I put enough foot to the floor that the back end wanted to push out a bit.

All of that should help me get a better feel for what it's like to push the limite harder on dry pavement. At least that was the point of it. I hit BIR again in less than three weeks. I'll know more then!

Automotive Art

If you love automobiles, you have to be interested in automotive art. And since you are reading this blog, you will likely appreciate me passing along this URL: http://www.reconstructions.com which is Michael Jerkot's website. Really nice work on this site, and I just found out that if you are in the Minneapolis area, you can view a showing of Michael's work. Here is the info:

From Oct 15 to Nov 15, drop by Java J's at 700 N Washington Ave S. Normally open 8am to 8pm, closing at 6pm on Sundays. I've seen the work in print, but never the originals, so I'll be stopping by!

All The Right Stuff

Going fast on the track takes the right tires (in this case, Michelin Pilot Sport Cup) the right line (using all of the track and knowing when to sacrifice for a greater gain) and the right instruction (in my case, the Skip Barber 3-Day Racing School).


In a soon to be published article I will discuss this video in-depth, and it may also become part of the new online course, Need For Speed...soon to be published on our site.





In the meantime, drive safely and have fun!

Solutions For Brake Fade

A couple of weeks ago, at the Mid America track, I experienced some fairly significant brake fade. Lots of turn on the track, and I was putting in a pretty good time, as fast as 1:59. A couple of times, later in the session, the brakes got really spongie...enough to get my attention. I knew it was time for a change.

The Boxster brakes are Brembo, stock, but I need more stopping power. Luckily I have Brembo GTs on the way, but they aren't here yet. What does Bob Viau at Auto Edge recommend?

Well, to start with, high-temperatuer SRF brake fluid, to keep the brakes from boiling the fluid when they are hot. I'll also be switching to Pagid Orange pads, which are much more aggressive than my street pads. Everyone says they will squeak on the street, but I can easily slip them out and put street pads back in when I go back to the street. Even I can do that!

Will I still want to go to the Brembo GTs after that? Maybe, but remember I drive my Boxster all year round, and my winter tires are on the stock 17-inch rims. My track wheels from BBS are 18-inches...which fit over the larger Brembo rotar. The 17-inch rims will not clear the rotors, I'm told. If I go to the Brembo GTs, then, I will need another $1200 of tires, and another $2000 of wheels. Could change the tires onto the 18-inch wheels...the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tires will be shot at the end of the season anyway.

It will be fun to see how it works out. I drive to Road America, in Wisconsin this Sunday for track time on Monday and Tuesday.

The Formula For Automotive Performance

It seems like automotive peformance should be more black and white than it is. After all it's mechanical, and cars in motion respond to the laws of physics with great predictability.

Not the case. Yes, there's a part of performance driving and performance modifications that is science...but there is another part that is magic...and both of these depend on, and are modified by, preference.

But the magic has been going well, lately. Here's me driving at MAM (Mid America Motorplex) in Iowa, last weekend. I'm about to sneak up on the first car you see, and pass him, but I end up letting a faster Mazda go by first.

Giving It Your All

I can remember many an early spring or late fall when the weather looked threatening and friends would bail on me when we had planned a horse ride. I can also remember that the rides they skipped were some of the best ones ever.

Weekends used to be 50 mile horse races, but now they are spent on in high performance driving events, instead. Not that much has changed however. I'm still competitive, and still bent on going fast. And I still have some of my best times when the crowd thins out.

That's me, waving to the corner worker to acknowledge a yellow flag.


My last trip to BIR was on Memorial day weekend. It was really hot. So hot that a lot of people packed it up on Sunday, and headed home to recuperate. Those of us who stayed for Monday got a bunch of track time, and I had one of my best days ever. Because there wasn't much traffic and everything was low key, I was able to take a different approach to the track. On turn 3 and turn 10...the turns before the two longest straights on the track...I tried dropping down two gears coming in, so that I had more torque and acceleration coming out onto the straights. It worked nicely, helping me hit the straights a couple miles per hour faster than before.

Whatever the sport, or whatever the effort in life...it pays off when you give it your all!

What's In An Alignment

There are two companies that do race tuning and actively support the racers in our local Porsche Club. I don't really know much about either of them, except that they both show up at events with their semi trailers and are therefore readily available to their customers.

A couple of weeks ago I chose one of them to install my Eibach springs and sway bars. We lowered the front about an inch and the rear about a half inch. But in lowering the car, we were not able to get to the alignment specs we wanted in the rear. We just ran out of adjustment room.

Then I went to pick the brains of the other group, for an upcoming article on alignments. According to the guy there, they have lowered plenty of Boxsters without being challenged by any resulting alignment problems. Hmmm-m-m.

So, next Monday I'll be at the second shop, camera in hand and asking pesky questions, while they do an alignment on the car. At the end of the week, I leave for Mid America Motorplex, in Iowa for another weekend with the NASA gang. The new alignment will be a compromise by design. Not enough negative camber for a race car, but more than you need an a street car. Could provide a bit more wear on the street than is optimum, but I don't want to give up on better track handling, either.

We will also be addressing a bit of what seems to be unpredictable oversteer. I'm wondering if that has to do with excessive toe out on the rear. We'll see what they say.

Over 40?

As it turns out, Skip Barber has a new program for drivers over 40. It just goes to show how customer focused they are.

Check it out at: http://www.harrisonvideos.com/vids/banquets2006/rt40plus-4.wmv

The Weekend With NASA

Looking back at the weekend, I wanted to get just a few things said.

First, it was hot! In the mid 90's...that makes a difference on how tires stick/slide on the blacktop...and it makes a difference in how much energy a driver can muster.

Okay, this is not the novice group. This is the wheel to wheel racing group at NASA. You're looking at turn 9 at Brainerd International Raceway, on Memorial Day weekend.

But in talking with others, my sentiments were pretty much standard for the weekend...

• The NASA crew was really efficient...everything went off on time, and that is rare at any kind of event
• The NASA rules for passing and safety make good sense and are easy to follow
• The people were the greatest...my special thanks to the guy who lent me his minivan to go into town and have the bead reseated on my flat tire!
• There was always something to watch, with all the different classes
• We all got enough track time to keep happy

If you haven't ever been to the race track with your car...and you think it would be cool...NASA can get you there, at any weekend event. Get on their website, take a look at the rules and how simple it is to get a street car on the track. If you are a first timer, they will put an instructor in your car until you are ready to solo.

And it's way past cool...you gotta try it to see!

NASA Day 1

I'm lucky my wife isn't going to read this, because she's going to ride with me (at speed) on the track tomorrow. Keep reading, and you'll see how lucky I am.

That's me, waving to acknowledge a corner worker's flag going into turn 3.

It's really cool having some sort of time to check on, every time you get off the track. The transponders that you rent for the TT class see to that. This morning I was pretty careful in the first session. ..just getting used to the track again. Still, I turned a 2:08...just a second off the last time I was up here.

The next round I was running better but it was getting hot. That kind of snuck up on me. I was kind of operating under the impression that the track was a constant. But just like things change when it rains, things change when it gets hot.

Turn 8 became my problem for the day. The tires were getting more greasy than I noted. The car started to rotate, and I made a correction, but it was too little too late and I swung completely and went off the track backwards in a pretty good cloud of dust. If you never heard the rule, it's "If you spin, both feet in!" That's just what I did; the brake to stop and the clutch to keep from killing the engine. Letting one car pass, I was right back on the track. NASA (and most other places) require you to leave the track and get your car teched if you go four wheels off.

By the time I got out of the pits, the gravel and grass in the bead of my left front tire made it go flat. Chris Orr, a Minneapolis BMW race tuner loaned me his air buble to air it back up, but you could hear it hiss as it was going flat again. One of the other guys loaned me a floor jack (mine did not go low enough with a flat) and yet another fellow racer loaned me his van to go into town so I could get the bead cleaned out and reset. I'd like to make the point here that everyone acts like you are family at the track. They know they can count on you to help them...and they are ready to help you. It's a great feeling!

Tomorrow I'm looking to get my fastest time while it's still cool. The second session today, I got a 2:06...one second faster than when I was at BIR a few weeks ago with Nord Stern (our local Porsche club). I would like to get to a 2:04. We'll see. Oh, did I forget to tell you the rest of the story? During the second session, my wife will be riding along! So you see, I haven't told her that I spun out today. Why make her worry?