gratuitous track picks

great weekend at thunderhill. 83 DEGREES but breezy CLICK HERE FOR MORE PICS

coo, pics

No way! You did it! Nice! So give up the deets. How'd you do, how was the suspension? Did the aero parts work out? Did you like the TT format. Pics don't tell the whole story.

Karlooz, That is where those Porsches thrive!! The full blast of 6800+rpm is what the is car made for. I was just at VIR this weekend and my instructor were Tom Bobbit(Nat'l PCA President) and Pat Dinnen(accomplished 911 podium finisher). Tom emphasized on smoothness and Pat showed me a new level of pure, maximized, WOT forward thrust of the 911 engine! I can't find the right words to describe it, but when he gave me a ride in his pre 90's 911, we were untouchable on that track. GT3s, Ferraris and Corvettes had to let us pass. I know its mostly driver's talents, but what a fine talented driving. His hands and legs were all just a blur on the control. Anyways, I'll post some pix soon. Thanks for sharing yours!! I'm sure you had a blast!

I love the sprint car style front wing on that blue 911. Looks like fun, how'd that suspension treat you?

Great pics! Thanks for posting.

Nice pics Carlos, your car looks awesome. IMO a 99-01 996 with an aerokit looks so much better than any other 996, except for maybe a C4S. Man I gotta get me an aerokit soon

the suspension is AWESOME. so easily adjustable. i found i already had the rebound set to where i want and pretty much had compression at full stiff. kept the gt3 sways @ neutral. thunderhill is quite smooth so i didn't have to play with the settings. the car was neutral with easily controllable induced oversteer. the car cornered so flast and transient response (though the esses) was much quicker and very stable. one thing i've found is that the limiting factor with regard to the suspension are the tires. i was running dunlop ssr r-compounds and they got greasy when they day grew warmer. played w/ pressures, looked at the shoulders and everything seemed good (wish i had a pyrometer though). too high (34/40 psi) and it was just sliding around. the SSRs were better at 28/34. they are still grippier than using street tires though. aero parts worked great. the front bumper was sooooo much better than stock. it wasn't hunting/lifting on the front strait (~120mph) and was rock solid. it was very gusty at the track with sustained winds so it's hard for me to feel if the wing helped. hell, it couldn't have hurt! the TT was fun. you gauge your fastest lap and hand in you time slip at the end of the first day. this determines the running order. 2 more sessions on the second day and then the TT which is 1 lap warm up/practice and 2 timed laps. was a lot of fun... felt like qualifying . i did worse in the TT than in the previous session by 3 seconds. on the last session on the first day i went off at turn 8. nothing big, just straight out, no spins, no drama but i lost my nerve a bit. one major thing, THIS CAR ROCKS!!!

that blue car/driver was seriously fast. just kept pulling away from everyone. it was a load of fun. suspension was awesome. look at the reply to bowman for more.

tanx

Wow that's awesome. Yeah I noticed the SSRs got a bit greasy toward the end of the day as well. I had a little 4 wheel drift coming out of 13 toward the back straight. Turn 8 is pretty hairy, it's by far the highest speed turn. So do you think you'll do the TT again? Did you get a roll bar and a fire extinguisher? What was your top speed on the front straight? I think I was around 115mph. Anyway good job man, car looks great, glad you got everything all dialed. My suggestions, hook up some Hoosiers for race day and get a GT2 wing to match the front.

Karlooz, awsome shots! Was it a "track photographer" or a friend taking pics? Mike, How did you find Tom Bobbit to be as an instructor?

yes, with these rear engined cars we have to be smooth. looks like you had a great set of instructors! POST YOUR PICS!

thx, the pics of me and my car was by a track photographer. the others were by me. big difference huh?

How do TT's run, don't think they have them up here, just plain old DE's ?

Great pics. What kinda laptimes were you doing? Bypass or cyclone? Regards. Mike

if your PCA branch doesn't have a TT series then some other groups like NASA, SCCA do. the event weekend is 2 days of track time. 1st day is 4 sessions and the second day is 2 sessions plus the TT. the TT is like qualifying for grid in a race. you run for the slowest time/fastest lap. at this event groups of 3-5 cars would go out onto the track 15 seconds apart. first lap is warm up then you go ***** out for the next 2 laps - these are timed. the TT is part of a series and you go for points.

i will definitely do the TT series again. i just got TT certified so i have to get a fire suit. i have the tequipment roll bar, sparco 6 point harness and a halon extinguisher. i've heard hoosiers are supersticky but don't last. i'll probably get some toyo ra1's, MPSCs or kumho v710s.... and a trailer to haul them oh ya, down the straight (clockwise direction) i was consistently at 120mph. had too much front brake bias and the car got twitch under hard breaking so i backed off a bit.

thx mike we ran clockwise (i gather it's not the most popular direction) without the bypass. you'll laugh at my times. before i went off i was doing 2:24~25 (that was with a wrist stopwatch). after i went off i was way too conservative and got a best run of 2:28.115. PCA-GGR lap record for thunderhill CW in Op is 2:10.12. i had a blast regardless of my times. one thing i did realize that at threashold breaking down into turn 15, the car got twitchy. too much front bias. i 've been running pagid yellow front pads and stock rears. i'll be running pagid black next time.

One of these days I need to try the CW direction. More then likely my laptimes will be way slower then yours : ). Great to see guys who do track days-it's what their meant for. Maybe one of these days we'll see each other. Mike

lol slower than me in your gt3?! you've got tons more tack time too, i've got 3 events. i did catch up to a gt3 rather easily though but it had to be his first time ever. he was in a white gt3 with the big carbon fibre wing. i am doing sears pt 11/13 and laguna on 12/01 both with trackmasters-racing. are you signed up? i'm sure we'll see each other one of these days

Tentatively looking at T-Hill with NASA 10 -29/30 and Nov 10 with NASA at T-hill. Maybe one more before the year hopefully LS. Yet to take to Infineon but that's my favorite track-one of these days when my wife goes on vaction-lol. Mike

How long a track is T-hill? What's the layout? I would like to run it someday, but it's a little far from Texas LOL!

DJ- it's 3.2 miles 15 turn track. Great track for ne car. Great track for momentum cars too-flows really well. Check out www.thunderhill.com for site map. Mike

Hey Karlooz, It was great to meet you at the track. Looks like I'll be in GGR's TT8 Class next season according to the presumptive classification scheme. See you next season! Pat

Thanks Mike, that's a sweet layout. Looks like you could run flat out turns 6 thru 9 (ccw), how is it in the GT3?

hey pat, it was great meeting you too. i hightailed it out of thunderhill after i got my time slip so apologies for not saying goodybye. i like the new class system. it provides a lot more competition with different types of porsches rather than a same model "series". did you see the results? you got a great time 2:15.666. good thing you are in TT8 cuz you bested my fastest practice time by 10 seconds. i am in TT6 and won my class because i was the only one that ran next season? are you done for the year ? see ya next season then

Well DJ- if you apex late at turn 7 then flat out is there but turn 8 is abit tricky-kinda a high speed kink slight incline hill. They since updated that turn 8 where there is more run off(right side) so full throttle up to 9 is possible. I went 2 weekends ago with new additions to track ie turn 8/ turn after the esses(another runoff-right) and new exit off to pregrid and paddock which I have to say definitely an improvement. All they need is a rumble stick at Turn 7 and be perfect set up for turn 8. My first 2 day event there spun 5 times(my '99 996 over 6 years averaging 10-12 de's a year- only once)-quite a steep learning curve and drivingwise it's all busy. Feedback is sensational and thus you make quite abit of adjustments but also gotta be smooth too or it'll bite- when I spun it was either/or but not both. CCW direction is the most common direction. Done all my events at T-hill CCw with bypass- and only once with cyclone. Best lap CCW with cyclone was 2:09 with Dunlop r's with rs 19's(Caleb did 2:04/Mooty 2:06/Fongster 2:07-all with GT3's). With bypass ccw best lap 2:03 on mpsc's/pagid rs19's(on dunlop r's with rs19's-2:05). This is with stock seats-no harness. I don't recommend it as I was bracing myself everywhere at the track at a turn but with adrenalin flowing it all goes to wash. I gonna get seats/harness next season. Hopefully you come up at some point : )-quite a few GT3 guys up here. Regards. Mike

Karlooz, I'll be w/ NASA at Sears HPDE3 in Oct then Sears w/ Trackmasters 11/13. Sears w/ Trackmasters should be a blast. Lots of PCA-SVR members will be there as it's co-sponsored by SVR. There will be a AX in the parking lot too. We'll have to go for rides in each other's cars at some event. See ya

btw, if you ever see a deal on motons come up again, let me know!!!

i signed up for the 11/13 event but was put on the waiting list so i signed up for the 11/14 tracquest/ncrc event instead. i'll be doing the trackmasters laguana seca evnet on 12/01. ya let's switch cars next time

awesome pics.. thanks for sharing karlooz! The car looks mean as hell with the GT2 front. I was thinking about switching over as well.

thx jon! ya the car looks totally different now. looked really tame, almost feminine with the old stock bumper (not the gt3 bumper).