My first HPDE event at Pocono Raceway (Pics and thoughts)
08-28-2007, 09:51 AM
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My first HPDE event at Pocono Raceway (Pics and thoughts)
Cross posted in GDD
My co-worker (Dan) and I both attended our first NASA/PDA HPDE event at Pocono Raceway this past Saturday (8/25/07). Registration started at 7:00am. Luckily Dan arrived early and got a nice spot under the garage area in the shade. I can't imagine spending most of the day under direct sunlight. I felt bad for my girlfriend who was there with me, as she was out in the sun taking pictures of us while we were out on course.
Saturday's HPDE session was on the South Course of the Raceway. Pictured below:
See below for pictures/explanations:
My co-worker Dan and my 2007 GPW S2000. Minimal mods are as follows: Espelir Active Super Down springs, Cusco front strut bar, OEM lip. Complete with a nail in the left rear tire and no alignment. Haha.
Nice Porsche 944 parked near us.
This was inside the garage area opposite ours. Most of the competition cars, as well as the instrutor cars, were in this area. I liked the orange car, I guess it's some sort of wide bodied 280Z? Was pretty loud.
A very modified Subaru STI. Driver was very nice, and gave me a pretty nice description of his car. Notice the 9-million point roll cage inside.
A Chevy Nascar? It was very loud, but surprisingly not that quick. Most of the Z06's passed it on the straights. I think it may have been simply testing and tuning that day. Many of the other competition cars were actually running a race/time trial.
A "kit" car sold by this company called Diasio. There's an RX-8 rotary engine in the rear, coupled to a sequential transmission. Also a very nice owner, explained quite a bit about the car. Body was all fiberglass, and the frame is ~2.5 inches from the ground. The front lip of the car is 2 inches from the ground.
The next few cars are in the competition class. I heard some really loud cars out on course so I ran to grab my camera. This car was probably the 3rd fastest out there that day. Not sure what model Porsche it was. There was a GT3 and some sort of early generation wide-bodied Porsche that was louder.
The crazy STI pictured earlier right behind the Home Depot Corvette. Actually, it's not the Home Depot Vette, but it looks like it. Same color, and lots of tacked on parts (at least it appeared so). Both very fast.
Porsche car again behind (I think) a Sentra?
Line of HPDE 1 cars in the grid ready to go. Dan's car was the 3rd car from the left (BMW 325i) and mine's also in the row back there. We were waiting to be matched up with our instructor for the day. My instructor's car was the E46 M3 in the foreground.
Rounding the last turn before hitting the Super Speedway portion (banked area).
Catching up on the track ready 328is using my 3rd gear Vtack!
Dan's car rounding same turn as above.
Catching up to a suprisingly slow Corvette (non-Z06). Later found out that the guy was very nervous.
OMG, Hi2u!!! >_<
Another S2000 I spotted there. Spoke to him a little bit. It's an AP1 with a fiberglass Mugen top, 18" wheels, and a CF lip. He was in the competition class I believe. His username is Kamikazee on http://www.s2ki.com, same as his license plate.
I had to get a shot of the one car that was faster than me. The 350Z was pretty quick on both the Super Speedway portion and the infield turns. I didn't speak to the driver, but I could hear that it had an aftermarket intake, and some sort of built in bumpder duct for the intake.
Thoughts:
Before I begin, I must stress that I am a newbie to HPDE and driving events. Many of my comments are probably pretty basic sounding to some of you, so forgive me. On the other hand, I was pretty damn excited and had a lot of fun....so deal with it.
We started the day with registration, tech inspecting the cars, and classroom instruction. The fee for the day was $240 (plus $40 for NASA yearly membership, and a Grassroots Motorsports magazine subscription). Tech was new to me, and I didn't know you had to empty absolutely EVERYTHING from your car, even your floormats! I didn't like that I would have to put my feet (and have my instructor put his feet) on the bare carpet. Oh well. My co-worker's BMW was flagged for a bent rim. Luckily he had a full sized spare ready to go. I passed with no issues.
The classroom sessions, in my opinion, didn't do me much good. There were some basic safety talks and some terminology explained. These included turn in, apex, track out, understeer, oversteer, etc. I knew all of these already. I did learn a lot about what each flag meant, as there are about 5 or so.
The first session out on the track was just a drive-through to learn the course. The instructor got in the driver's seat and took me around the track. They showed me where the turn in, apex, track out, and braking zone cones were.
Unfortunately, there was a shortage of instructors so we came in and my instructor got in another car, while I followed them in my car. I thought it would be fine, but as soon as I started driving, I realized how wrong my lines were. I definitely needed an instructor of my own. Later, I went to the registration area and requested one, and I did get one. Kudos to them.
The next few sessions, I was the driver while my instructor sat along side. I was surprised how much following the correct line could make me so dramatically faster. What I thought would take me/the car longer to pass turned out to be the fastest line around a corner. Initially, I was VERY nervous so I didn't shift too smoothly, plus I only used 3rd and 4th gears. Even on the hairpin, I stayed in 3rd bogging around the turn. On the Super Speedway portion (17 degree bank), I stayed in 3rd and didn't surpass ~80-85mph. My hands got so incredibly sweaty that I was afraid it would slip on the wheel. However, my instructor was VERY impressed with my driving and kept saying "Are you sure you didn't do this before?" I didn't. He said he didn't have to tell me things he had to tell most novice drivers such as to keep both hands on the wheel at all times, rev match downshifts, and keep your head up. Whatever...I was still very nervous and I felt as though I could do better my next time out.
The next session, I told myself beforehand to relax. Turns out, my hands didn't get too sweaty this time. I utilized 2nd gear on the hairpin and followed a GREAT line through until the Super Speedway portion. I gained a LOT of distance and caught up to pretty much every car in the infield portion. I shifted into 4th on the banked area and hit 90+mph. I also turned off the traction control, like my instructor suggested. My issues this session were:
1. I still needed to improve my lines, as I was "cheating" and turning in too early, as my instructor put it.
2. I was too afraid (even on the banked section) to go much faster than 95mph because I felt like I was going to slam into the outer all. My instructor told me not to worry and I was not even close to wiping out, and I could eaily go 30mph faster if I wanted to.
3. I would look at the car in front of me. If that driver follwed a wrong line, I would follow as well. I needed to look PAST the car at the turns/cones ahead.
4. I didn't even notice any flaggers out there, as I was concentrating too much on driving.
On the 3rd session on course, I tried to fix all my above problems. I'm proud to say that I did and I drove significantly better. I hit 105mph on the outer circle,
perfected my lines, and looked past the car in front of me. I passed pretty much every single car out there in my class (except for the 350Z). We were even in the twisty infield, but he was faster on the outer speedway. My instructor said that he was confident that I could drive by myself on the last session and asked me if I wanted to. I said sure.
The 4th and final session on track was probably the best, although I did spin out once. I have a nail in the rear left tire, and it slowly lets out air over the course of 2 weeks or so. I guess the stress/heat of the driving that day accelerated the air loss and turning right hard would cause it to spin very easily. Besides that, I drive just like my 3rd session and felt as if I did very well.
Hope you enjoyed my short story. I may have left out a few details because I had so much in my head. Feel free to ask me anything and I'll try my best to answer. Only things I didn't like were:
1. The incredible heat. It was VERY hot that day.
2. Wish the classroom time was more productive, as I didn't feel I learned anything in there.
3. Cafeteria closed quite early so when I walked the 10 minutes to the cafe, it was closed. I needed water badly.
4. My perfect condition front end was full of melted rubber and bugs. It took a crazy long amount of time last night to clean it all off. Eventually it all did.
My co-worker (Dan) and I both attended our first NASA/PDA HPDE event at Pocono Raceway this past Saturday (8/25/07). Registration started at 7:00am. Luckily Dan arrived early and got a nice spot under the garage area in the shade. I can't imagine spending most of the day under direct sunlight. I felt bad for my girlfriend who was there with me, as she was out in the sun taking pictures of us while we were out on course.
Saturday's HPDE session was on the South Course of the Raceway. Pictured below:
Originally Posted by [url
www.poconoraceway.com[/url]]South Road Course
A 1 mile (actually 1.13) course utilizing the south infield road course and Pocono's high banked turn #1 of the tri-oval. The course has ten turns, including a hairpin,
and three short straights. The course varies in width from 30'-90'.
A 1 mile (actually 1.13) course utilizing the south infield road course and Pocono's high banked turn #1 of the tri-oval. The course has ten turns, including a hairpin,
and three short straights. The course varies in width from 30'-90'.
My co-worker Dan and my 2007 GPW S2000. Minimal mods are as follows: Espelir Active Super Down springs, Cusco front strut bar, OEM lip. Complete with a nail in the left rear tire and no alignment. Haha.
Nice Porsche 944 parked near us.
This was inside the garage area opposite ours. Most of the competition cars, as well as the instrutor cars, were in this area. I liked the orange car, I guess it's some sort of wide bodied 280Z? Was pretty loud.
A very modified Subaru STI. Driver was very nice, and gave me a pretty nice description of his car. Notice the 9-million point roll cage inside.
A Chevy Nascar? It was very loud, but surprisingly not that quick. Most of the Z06's passed it on the straights. I think it may have been simply testing and tuning that day. Many of the other competition cars were actually running a race/time trial.
A "kit" car sold by this company called Diasio. There's an RX-8 rotary engine in the rear, coupled to a sequential transmission. Also a very nice owner, explained quite a bit about the car. Body was all fiberglass, and the frame is ~2.5 inches from the ground. The front lip of the car is 2 inches from the ground.
The next few cars are in the competition class. I heard some really loud cars out on course so I ran to grab my camera. This car was probably the 3rd fastest out there that day. Not sure what model Porsche it was. There was a GT3 and some sort of early generation wide-bodied Porsche that was louder.
The crazy STI pictured earlier right behind the Home Depot Corvette. Actually, it's not the Home Depot Vette, but it looks like it. Same color, and lots of tacked on parts (at least it appeared so). Both very fast.
Porsche car again behind (I think) a Sentra?
Line of HPDE 1 cars in the grid ready to go. Dan's car was the 3rd car from the left (BMW 325i) and mine's also in the row back there. We were waiting to be matched up with our instructor for the day. My instructor's car was the E46 M3 in the foreground.
Rounding the last turn before hitting the Super Speedway portion (banked area).
Catching up on the track ready 328is using my 3rd gear Vtack!
Dan's car rounding same turn as above.
Catching up to a suprisingly slow Corvette (non-Z06). Later found out that the guy was very nervous.
OMG, Hi2u!!! >_<
Another S2000 I spotted there. Spoke to him a little bit. It's an AP1 with a fiberglass Mugen top, 18" wheels, and a CF lip. He was in the competition class I believe. His username is Kamikazee on http://www.s2ki.com, same as his license plate.
I had to get a shot of the one car that was faster than me. The 350Z was pretty quick on both the Super Speedway portion and the infield turns. I didn't speak to the driver, but I could hear that it had an aftermarket intake, and some sort of built in bumpder duct for the intake.
Thoughts:
Before I begin, I must stress that I am a newbie to HPDE and driving events. Many of my comments are probably pretty basic sounding to some of you, so forgive me. On the other hand, I was pretty damn excited and had a lot of fun....so deal with it.
We started the day with registration, tech inspecting the cars, and classroom instruction. The fee for the day was $240 (plus $40 for NASA yearly membership, and a Grassroots Motorsports magazine subscription). Tech was new to me, and I didn't know you had to empty absolutely EVERYTHING from your car, even your floormats! I didn't like that I would have to put my feet (and have my instructor put his feet) on the bare carpet. Oh well. My co-worker's BMW was flagged for a bent rim. Luckily he had a full sized spare ready to go. I passed with no issues.
The classroom sessions, in my opinion, didn't do me much good. There were some basic safety talks and some terminology explained. These included turn in, apex, track out, understeer, oversteer, etc. I knew all of these already. I did learn a lot about what each flag meant, as there are about 5 or so.
The first session out on the track was just a drive-through to learn the course. The instructor got in the driver's seat and took me around the track. They showed me where the turn in, apex, track out, and braking zone cones were.
Unfortunately, there was a shortage of instructors so we came in and my instructor got in another car, while I followed them in my car. I thought it would be fine, but as soon as I started driving, I realized how wrong my lines were. I definitely needed an instructor of my own. Later, I went to the registration area and requested one, and I did get one. Kudos to them.
The next few sessions, I was the driver while my instructor sat along side. I was surprised how much following the correct line could make me so dramatically faster. What I thought would take me/the car longer to pass turned out to be the fastest line around a corner. Initially, I was VERY nervous so I didn't shift too smoothly, plus I only used 3rd and 4th gears. Even on the hairpin, I stayed in 3rd bogging around the turn. On the Super Speedway portion (17 degree bank), I stayed in 3rd and didn't surpass ~80-85mph. My hands got so incredibly sweaty that I was afraid it would slip on the wheel. However, my instructor was VERY impressed with my driving and kept saying "Are you sure you didn't do this before?" I didn't. He said he didn't have to tell me things he had to tell most novice drivers such as to keep both hands on the wheel at all times, rev match downshifts, and keep your head up. Whatever...I was still very nervous and I felt as though I could do better my next time out.
The next session, I told myself beforehand to relax. Turns out, my hands didn't get too sweaty this time. I utilized 2nd gear on the hairpin and followed a GREAT line through until the Super Speedway portion. I gained a LOT of distance and caught up to pretty much every car in the infield portion. I shifted into 4th on the banked area and hit 90+mph. I also turned off the traction control, like my instructor suggested. My issues this session were:
1. I still needed to improve my lines, as I was "cheating" and turning in too early, as my instructor put it.
2. I was too afraid (even on the banked section) to go much faster than 95mph because I felt like I was going to slam into the outer all. My instructor told me not to worry and I was not even close to wiping out, and I could eaily go 30mph faster if I wanted to.
3. I would look at the car in front of me. If that driver follwed a wrong line, I would follow as well. I needed to look PAST the car at the turns/cones ahead.
4. I didn't even notice any flaggers out there, as I was concentrating too much on driving.
On the 3rd session on course, I tried to fix all my above problems. I'm proud to say that I did and I drove significantly better. I hit 105mph on the outer circle,
perfected my lines, and looked past the car in front of me. I passed pretty much every single car out there in my class (except for the 350Z). We were even in the twisty infield, but he was faster on the outer speedway. My instructor said that he was confident that I could drive by myself on the last session and asked me if I wanted to. I said sure.
The 4th and final session on track was probably the best, although I did spin out once. I have a nail in the rear left tire, and it slowly lets out air over the course of 2 weeks or so. I guess the stress/heat of the driving that day accelerated the air loss and turning right hard would cause it to spin very easily. Besides that, I drive just like my 3rd session and felt as if I did very well.
Hope you enjoyed my short story. I may have left out a few details because I had so much in my head. Feel free to ask me anything and I'll try my best to answer. Only things I didn't like were:
1. The incredible heat. It was VERY hot that day.
2. Wish the classroom time was more productive, as I didn't feel I learned anything in there.
3. Cafeteria closed quite early so when I walked the 10 minutes to the cafe, it was closed. I needed water badly.
4. My perfect condition front end was full of melted rubber and bugs. It took a crazy long amount of time last night to clean it all off. Eventually it all did.
08-29-2007, 04:05 PM
#3
Honda-Tech Member
Re: My first HPDE event at Pocono Raceway (shamoo)
awesome!
I ran that course about 5 years ago in my DB8 gsr sedan and had a totl blast, it ws my first HPDE and was a life changing day of fun and brakedust.
thats a fun litte course for sure.
nice write up!
great pics!
how was that white S14 240sx out there on track?
love the cool track-only cars you can see at trackdays like that, the orange 280zx and the 944 look pretty serious, very nice.
I ran that course about 5 years ago in my DB8 gsr sedan and had a totl blast, it ws my first HPDE and was a life changing day of fun and brakedust.
thats a fun litte course for sure.
nice write up!
great pics!
how was that white S14 240sx out there on track?
love the cool track-only cars you can see at trackdays like that, the orange 280zx and the 944 look pretty serious, very nice.
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09-03-2007, 05:52 PM
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NICE!!! I'm so envious, the closest real track is forever away and I don't have the means to get there right now.
And I'm not surprised at all that the NASCAR ran slowly.
And I'm not surprised at all that the NASCAR ran slowly.
09-04-2007, 11:47 AM
#11
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Re: My first HPDE event at Pocono Raceway (S@nt0s)
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by S@nt0s »</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> nice writ eup on your day at the track! gotta love thoe track days! </TD></TR></TABLE>
Nice write up
those 350z's are a bullies.
nice writ eup on your day at the track! gotta love thoe track days! </TD></TR></TABLE>Nice write up
those 350z's are a bullies.
09-04-2007, 01:35 PM
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Re: My first HPDE event at Pocono Raceway (owen_the_soyboy)
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by owen_the_soyboy »</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
how was that white S14 240sx out there on track?
love the cool track-only cars you can see at trackdays like that, the orange 280zx and the 944 look pretty serious, very nice.</TD></TR></TABLE>
It wasn't going too fast. I was quite surprised that I did very well and I passed most cars, including that 240. Unfortunately, I was concentrating too hard on my own driving to notice how others did. I only noticed the faster 350Z and my friend's grey BMW 325i.
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Russ713 »</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">those 350z's are a bullies. </TD></TR></TABLE>
Yes they are! However, we were even throughout the twisty infield section. He apparently had more ***** on the outer banked Super Speedway portion. Maybe his wider tires helped too. I felt as though I would slide right into the wall, and even my instructor said I could go ~30mph faster. He was probably going 5-10mph faster than me in that area.
how was that white S14 240sx out there on track?
love the cool track-only cars you can see at trackdays like that, the orange 280zx and the 944 look pretty serious, very nice.</TD></TR></TABLE>
It wasn't going too fast. I was quite surprised that I did very well and I passed most cars, including that 240. Unfortunately, I was concentrating too hard on my own driving to notice how others did. I only noticed the faster 350Z and my friend's grey BMW 325i.
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Russ713 »</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">those 350z's are a bullies. </TD></TR></TABLE>
Yes they are! However, we were even throughout the twisty infield section. He apparently had more ***** on the outer banked Super Speedway portion. Maybe his wider tires helped too. I felt as though I would slide right into the wall, and even my instructor said I could go ~30mph faster. He was probably going 5-10mph faster than me in that area.
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