paging Champ / anyone else thinking of doing the Snet 300

there a **** of a lot of corners on the new 300 circuit:



Also, clearly I've never driven an F2 car, but is it just me or is he
braking/engine speed slowing very late into some of the corners?

 

I've not driven an F2 car but I have driven a similar style car on a
Palmersport day. I spent my entire session on track recalibrating my
brain about how late I could brake and how fast I could go round
corners.

With the car weighing nine tenths of **** all and a ludicrous amount of
grip, you can brake a hell of a lot later than you'd expect to be able
to. And with the front and rear wings providing a metric ****-ton of
downforce, you can take corners way, way faster than you'd dare to in a
normal car.

Put simply, he can get away with it because he's in a Formula 2 car.
Don't try the same trick in your RX8.

 

+1. The other thing I had a problem with was how early to get on the
power as you're coming out of the corners. I was pressing the loud pedal
far earlier than I had thought possible before. Especially with the
Porsches - mmmmmm still my favourite the way that thing powers out.

 

I take on board all your comments - but what I was getting at is that
he still seemed to be slowing down 1/2-way through some of the
corners; I'd always thought that the rules were "do all your braking
in a straight line" and "slow in, fast out". But what the **** do I
know, when it comes down to it.

oh, I won't - I'll be driving like a puff; as it's my only vehicle at
the moment, I really can't afford to do any damage to the RX.

 

It's also nice not having to wait for the suspension to catch up
between the two.

 

Like the wind?

 

Depended on the car really. The porkers were quite happy to be booted
through a corner once turned in but didn't feel particularly grunty and
the gearshift lag was terrible. No real surprise they were slower round
the track than the Clios.

The M3s, otoh, needed a bit more respect - they'd fishtail all over the
place if given too much gas while pointing in the wrong direction.
Deeply wonderful cars.

The Formula Jags felt a bit sluggish if anything. They really didn't
feel like they made 250bhp. Absolutely amazing in the corners though.

 

To a point. I did a session immediately before in one of these...

http://www.palmersport.com/palmerjaguarjp-LM.aspx

....(or its predecessor) and the instructor made a comment about my
braking. He hadn't realised I was left-foot braking and told me it's
best to leave a fraction of a second between the two pedals, around the
same as it takes to move a foot from one to the other, because it gives
the car a chance to settle.

 

It's nowhere near that simple. E.g. you don't want to be doing "slow
in, fast out" if it's a small bend at the end of a long straight with
either a very short straight or another bend immediately after.

 

Like a magic dragon.

 

Are you going on the OpenTrack day tomorrow ? There'll be a bunch of M3
CSls from cslregister.com there as well. Pity Snet's so far from
anywhere or I might have signed up too.

 

well, it's less than 90 miles from me, so not far from "anywhere".

 

Like sugar

 

Don't you do that on your bike?

--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Inter-Continental Hyperbolistic Missile , CBR600F-W racebike
in the making, TS250C, RD400F (somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

Interesting, because letting off the brakes while in the corner is
exactly what I do. It's smoother. Just never thought about it before.

 

You should try and blag a passenger lap from someone too, they're pretty
different to a std 330.

 

I've only driven an M3 (the new V8 version) on a track once.

I'd quite like to do it again. And again. And again.

 

That's pretty much why I posed the question in the first place, I knew
you did too.

Over the past few years of doing trackdays here and there my mate Danny
has been giving me instruction. I was in the same boat as the chap
Champ instructed, doing exactly the same things. Danny's taught me how
to brake fairly deep up to the apex and then get straight on the
throttle. My riding is so much smoother now and lap times have seen a
huge improvement.

--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Inter-Continental Hyperbolistic Missile , CBR600F-W racebike
in the making, TS250C, RD400F (somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

Not driven the V8, I had both my E36 and E46 M3 on the track a few
times, but haven't done it in the CSL yet. I've mostly come to the
conclusion that taking a road car out on track, although fun, is a)
really expensive and b) ultimately slightly unsatisfactory as you very
quickly run into the limitations.

A proper stripped out track car with uprated brakes, suspension and a
cage would be the way to do it if you had the time/space/money etc.

 

A really good road car won't have great limitation on a track..... except
for the brakes. That's the first place to spend money on suitable
pads/fluid.
Expensive? in tyres, hell yeah.