VIR Private Test Day + TSCC HPDE: May 2023
Perfect weather for some useful testing
Friday was actually a private test day that a friend hosted for his/his wife’s wedding which was awesome. Weather was gorgeous, couldn't have been any better. It was 8hrs of open track time for 17 people total. I managed to pull off a 2:12.55 the second time I went out in the morning. Track was a bit warmer, car wasn't heat soaked, and I happened to do pretty decent all the way around the track.
I took the opportunity to play around with tire pressures and sway bar settings. I ended up finding the most time with my H&R 26mm front bar on the stiff setting vs the soft one, and 35psi was faster as well. You can read more about my front sway bar testing here.
I was unable to improve on my time any further but still had a great time with friends. I did manage to throw my old GoPro on the back to watch for smoke out of the tailpipe - it only caught one instance so I didn’t think much of it at the time. Ignoring that later turned into a mistake which turned into learning all about the MK7 PCV system. But for the remainder of the day/weekend I was otherwise unaffected.
Then Saturday-Sunday it was cooler, Saturday was nice most of the day with a bit of drizzle in the afternoon, then Sunday was rain all day but not a miserable downpour or anything. Great for learning. I actually brought some new Continental ECS tires on a set of [free] ugly OEM wheels I picked up from a friend that I bought to specifically as rain tires on track after my excitement on the back straight hydroplaning in February.
The track was damp for my first afternoon session (third of the day) Saturday where I did 2:30 -> 2:26 -> 2:23.55. It was definitely wet but there wasn't any standing water yet. Surprisingly the DS3.12s/1.11s got up to temp enough that they got very grabby partway through the session. At the end of it, I actually drove straight off in T1 as it was all over ABS.
This was probably my most "exciting" rain session on Sunday. Passed a few cars, driving like 7/10 the entire session tip-toeing around. Ended up trusting the brakes too much and on the last lap at the end of the session I drove straight off in T1. You can see the initial brake pressure spike at the end, followed by pumping it (a bit too heavily in hindsight) before just accepting it and driving straight off. SimosTools stayed connected the entire time so got data to go with it which is fun.
My final session Saturday I ran 4 laps from 2:42.28 to 2:47. There was standing water but it wasn't to the point of rivers flowing or anything yet.
Sunday I was honestly just completely wiped out. I ran a 2:57 on the first lap with traffic, then 2:52 -> 2:50.52 -> 2:52 again.
The second session got cut short where I did a 2:55 -> 2:54 being very conservative before that happened.
The third session I was going to do lead-follow with a guy in an Audi TT who wanted to see the line so I did that at like 6/10ths so he could keep up doing a 3:08 and then someone else went off track again cutting the session short.
I was tired as hell from all the driving and being up late from Friday night for the wedding party, etc and know I wasn't as sharp as I should be on Saturday, which carried over to Sunday as well.
That's one thing I've had to really recognize is when I'm not feeling 100% is when I start making stupid mistakes. Usually it starts by realizing "did that guy give me a point by or no?" or "was that flagger waving something?". I love coming to these events for the social aspect of things, but staying up late and hanging with friends is counter-productive if I want to actually focus on driving.
