VIR Full Course HPDE2 in-car video

[jon dawes]

Here is a little video of one of my [better? best?] sessions from the last NASA event at VIR. I am driving my CMC Mustang GT in group 2. Bob Hammond is the instructor in the car [thanks Bob!]. As will be obvious from the video, I do some things better than others, but overall it was a good session for me and I'm focusing on the positives of it rather than the negatives [good advice from Ross Bentley and others]. I am on street tires and I allow them at least one lap to warm up. Have a look-see, you may be one of the many cars passing me lol!

 

[Robnie0723]

Very nice Jon - smooooth!!!

 

Looked like a small run group or do they just spread out like that on full course?

 

I've only been out a couple of times in HPDE 1 on North Course, hit the full course first time in March. The videos really help, such as getting a flavor of what looks like a blind turn near the top of the climbing esses. I hope a Miata can climb that section without becoming too much a rolling speed bump...

[jon dawes]

Looked like a small run group or do they just spread out like that on full course?

Well part of it was that I got out a little late, but you can always pit in if you're 'stuck in traffic' and the grid workers will help you get some space between you and the other drivers in your group.

The videos really help, such as getting a flavor of what looks like a blind turn near the top of the climbing esses. I hope a Miata can climb that section without becoming too much a rolling speed bump...

Hehe...yeah that turn's fun. I think most people slow down WAY too much. Once you 'get the hang of it', you can carry LOTS of speed through that one. I haven't quite figured it out. I watch these videos and smack my forehead at times and wonder why I made certain choices. Other times I give myself the thumbs up for this or that. It's a great course, both the North and the Full.

 

See you in March!!!

 

Here's the second part of that session:

 

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JD

Edited March 6, 2008 by Guest

[Gonz]

cool. thanks for putting that up.

 

Car sounds good. What gear are you running?

 

Gonz.

[jon dawes]

Hey Gonz! It's Jon, we emailed a coupla times here and there about our Mustangs. The green 94 GT I told you about took a poop that weekend [head gasket], but my race car was fantastic. The info I have on the car has them listed as 3.73s. But to be honest, it feels like you'd NEVER get to the top of fifth gear. The car's got most of the CMC 'goodies' as well. It's a handful compared to my very forgiving 2007 Mustang GT, but it's more fun to try and learn how to drive the race car [it's a 1995 Mustang GTS by the way]. As for the exhaust, it's got the stock headers [required under CMC rules], unknown h-pipe, and flowmasters with dumps. I prefer the sound of this car with tailpipes, but they'd just rub against everything in the rear so I don't think that's gonna happen!

 

Here's a pic of the car:

[STRINGER]

First to second video....HUGE improvement. Very nice. Staying in the gas longer and reducing the braking zones. Using all the track, smooth on the wheel from what I can see

 

VERY NICE

[Gonz]

Very nice Jon - smooooth!!!

. I hope a Miata can climb that section without becoming too much a rolling speed bump...

 

nah, climbing Esses are where you Miata guys are supposed to catch all the big cars.

 

Hey Jon - I watched some of your other videos including the ones at "comp school" where Colin is driving your car. Wow, that was pretty cool.

 

You looked smooth, like everyone said above. I like the way you came out of Hogpen; seemed like you carried pretty good speed onto the front straight.

 

Congrats on moving up to HPDE2. Don't recall if you were already there last year. I'm sure I'll meet you some time this year. I'd like to check out the race car too.

 

3.73s makes sense. You were getting through the gears pretty quick & once you get to overdrive 5th, all acceleration ceases.

 

Gonz.

[jon dawes]

As I watch the videos, I see where I could get on the gas earlier, do some more trail braking, enter turns later, not shift from 3rd to 2nd lol, and I think I'm turning in too early at the top of the roller coaster [T13?] but I've seen many different lines driven so I'll work on that one more, too! I'm excited to get my time down to [not gonna tell you] on my street tires and then move to the RA1s. It's a personal goal and so far I'm WAY off by like 13 seconds, but every lap I either let somebody pass [which is totally ok w/ me] or I didn't go all out for whatever reason in places that I could have [like both of the straights].

 

Anyways, it was fun once I sort of figured out how the car was different from my other car...especially drifting around T1 and T10

 

Gonz do you have a preference for 2nd or 3rd gear coming out of Oak Tree? I know how at least once CMC driver does it [3rd], but I still feel like I get up to speed faster by going to 2nd rather than 3rd. That said, I don't know what the car's torque curve is like and that info may or may not help determine the best gear.

 

Blah blah blah...

 

JD

[jon dawes]

First to second video....HUGE improvement. Very nice. Staying in the gas longer and reducing the braking zones. Using all the track, smooth on the wheel from what I can see

 

VERY NICE

Thanks String. I'm actually a 'white knuckle driver' and that can't be seen from under the gloves lol. I will work on a lighter grip on the wheel to better feel what the car is doing. I've been reading a bit and think that it will help me to not have a death grip on the wheel. I'm better than when I started, but could loosen up a bit!

[Gonz]

Gonz do you have a preference for 2nd or 3rd gear coming out of Oak Tree? I know how at least once CMC driver does it [3rd], but I still feel like I get up to speed faster by going to 2nd rather than 3rd. That said, I don't know what the car's torque curve is like and that info may or may not help determine the best gear.

 

Blah blah blah...

 

JD

 

less shifting is better, so if you can do it in 3rd, that's at least one less shift, possibly two.

 

Was your CMC driver on street tires too ? Whether he is or not, he's must be carrying more speed through the turn, allowing the car to get into the power band quickly in 3rd.

 

If he drove your car, I'd go with whatever he recommends & try to match his cornering speed. Get the corner speed up and you might find 3rd gear works well.

[jon dawes]

less shifting is better, so if you can do it in 3rd, that's at least one less shift, possibly two.

 

Was your CMC driver on street tires too ? Whether he is or not, he's must be carrying more speed through the turn, allowing the car to get into the power band quickly in 3rd.

 

If he drove your car, I'd go with whatever he recommends & try to match his cornering speed. Get the corner speed up and you might find 3rd gear works well.

This was Colin driving my car. I'm still using the street tires and he was on my RA1s. There's no question he's carrying more speed through the turns as you saw in my other youtube/comp school vids.

 

JD

[Gonz]

if it makes you feel better, the two times I drove VIR ( in my WRX) I ALWAYS had to use 2nd gear

 

 

but that's a dinky 2.0Liter with no bottom end torque.

 

Are you doing the SVTOA event at Shenandoah Circuit on May 3&4. That seems to be my target for my first event of the year. Then I hope to do all the NASA Summit Point events too.

 

Gonz.

[FlyingDog]

For the TrackDaze event this week, Peter Krause was the classroom instructor. He said he has about 12,500 laps of VIR full course. He said don't use second at Oak Tree (unless you have a close ratio box where 2nd is effectively 3rd). I find that hard to believe since Miatas get a jump on my coming out of Oak Tree when I'm in 3rd, but after the south pit entrance everything behind me fades away.

 

On the climbing esses I easily keep up with Miatas but that is probably the place where I received the most advice from Colin and Kent on the line. I haul ass through there and have scared myself a couple times with the speed I can carry around the blind south bend. I have no idea how fast I exit the esses, but I've entered at over 100 and have my foot down most of the way through.

[STRINGER]

For the TrackDaze event this week, Peter Krause was the classroom instructor. He said he has about 12,500 laps of VIR full course. He said don't use second at Oak Tree (unless you have a close ratio box where 2nd is effectively 3rd). I find that hard to believe since Miatas get a jump on my coming out of Oak Tree when I'm in 3rd, but after the south pit entrance everything behind me fades away.

 

On the climbing esses I easily keep up with Miatas but that is probably the place where I received the most advice from Colin and Kent on the line. I haul ass through there and have scared myself a couple times with the speed I can carry around the blind south bend. I have no idea how fast I exit the esses, but I've entered at over 100 and have my foot down most of the way through.

 

 

Well I will find out about Oak Tree...but I will add to your post with Roebling Roads experience.

 

In turn one I started staying in 4th instead of 3rd, though it felt like I was slower....I actually gained a huge amount of ground by staying in the higher gear. I plan to try the same thing at Oak Tree...but using 3rd instead of 2nd after a few runs through it to feel it out for the first time.

[Robnie0723]

Very nice Jon - smooooth!!!

. I hope a Miata can climb that section without becoming too much a rolling speed bump...

nah, climbing Esses are where you Miata guys are supposed to catch all the big cars.

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence

 

Celebrated my 1yr HPDE anniversary by taking the Miata out on for the first time at VIR Thursday. Spent the day lapping with FAASST during their SCCA class on the North Course. Ended up with around 3.5 hrs of track time with less than 10 cars on the track (thought I died and had gone to heaven . By the end of the day I was able run full throttle from uphill to roller coaster so I feel a little more confident things will be OK.

[SGray]

Nice job. I was out there with you in the Black Miata. Nice work straightening out 6/6a and getting on it early coming out of Hogpen. btw, I am in second coming out of Oaktree. Lots of high HP cars in our group so I did a lot of pointing. And I was not comfortable running anywhere close to that red 944 , so I did not have anyone to really run with. It was a great weekend though.

[jon dawes]

Nice job. I was out there with you in the Black Miata. Nice work straightening out 6/6a and getting on it early coming out of Hogpen. btw, I am in second coming out of Oaktree. Lots of high HP cars in our group so I did a lot of pointing. And I was not comfortable running anywhere close to that red 944 , so I did not have anyone to really run with. It was a great weekend though.

Thanks Steve [that is if you were referring to my 'nice work' lol]. To his credit, the driver of the red 944 warned us ahead of time that he was 'just getting back in the saddle' so to speak as he'd been away from track days for a number of years [if I remember correctly what he said in the class room].

 

Here are the remaining videos I have of that weekend. They are from one session on Saturday, although I'm not sure which one. Included is a red 325 going off in the climbing esses...I assume everything was ok since I didn't hear anything in the classroom or otherwise about it.

 

 

I was not very confident that day...which may or may not be obvious from the videos.

 

Enjoy!

 

JD

Edited March 11, 2008 by Guest

[kbrew8991]

less shifting is better, so if you can do it in 3rd, that's at least one less shift, possibly two.

 

to a point, otherwise we'd all run every track in 5th gear so we wouldn't shift at all

 

need to balance shifting time with what parts of the powerband you're using

[Alan_Wolfe]

I can't believe your instructor didn't say anything about you shuffle steering. Sorry to rag on you man, but that is just not safe. Your right hand was all over that wheel. You can't get any feel like that. Just wanted to make sure you knew.

 

Alan

[jon dawes]

I can't believe your instructor didn't say anything about you shuffle steering. Sorry to rag on you man, but that is just not safe. Your right hand was all over that wheel. You can't get any feel like that. Just wanted to make sure you knew.

 

Alan

No apology necessary. To each his own. Part of it is a function of the seat. It does not fit me well as it comes up under my right arm farther than it ideally should. All of that will be worked out over time. My mentor said the opposite about my hand position on the wheel, but I appreciate that there are many different schools of thought out there on just about every subject. Just recently I read in Speed Secrets 2 that one of the best ways to get the right 'feel' on the wheel is to practice having a very light touch on the wheel [rather than a death grip]. I don't think the author [Ross Bentley] was saying to use a Jedi mind-trick and let go of the wheel, but never have I had instruction NOT to shuffle steer, nor was I consciously doing that...if indeed I was.

 

What would you recommend [asking sincerely here]?

 

JD

[Alan_Wolfe]

I've always been taught (NASA-NE, PDA, M Club when I lived in Jersey; and TDE, PCA here in Texas) to find a comfortable position about 10 & 2 and keep them there. If you got a seat issue I'd try to get that resolved. I find it hard to believe the hand off the wheel can possibly be better than the hand on the wheel. Thus the evolution of modern open wheel and sports cars to paddle shifters and little square steering wheels.

 

I've also been given the advise to hold the wheel with the thumb up (like a tennis racket or golf club), not with the thumb hooked around the wheel (like a baseball bat). The reason is you will tend not to hold the wheel with a death grip. It seems to work for me.

 

Cussing and discussing is part of this sport.

 

Alan

[NorrFam]

Jon

 

Pre-positioning your hands for some corners is not exactly shuffle steering. That will keep you from having to cross your arm over in front of you on the top. Cant do it in the climbing esses but most of the other corners it works good.

 

The thumbs up is the first thing my first instructor told me. Will keep you from breaking thumbs also if you hit something. (hit a front corner of the car and the wheel WILL turn in your hand) Even my wife picked it up from me and drives her car with the thumbs up now on the street.

 

Paul

[SGray]

My opinion is that there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to steering; shuffle vs 10/2 or 9/3 static. It really is whatever works for you. I was taught to shuffle, but I think it is more like prepositioning like Paul mentioned. If you've got your hands at 10/2 constantly and have an issue in a tight turn you might find yourself having to go full lock, then what? You'll have to shuffle or take your hand completely off anyway unless you have the benefit of a really great steering ratio. My instructor did not comment on my shuffle steering either. My hands are still on the wheel, albeit lightly, except when I shift. Sure on sweepers I might not shuffle (preposition) but else where I will, and it works for me.

[kbrew8991]

its all about results - if you can smoothly control the car with your pinky finger while picking your nose with the other hand....

 

if I have a student that isn't getting it done in that dept I will get them to try holding a 9-3 position though, that seems to get a bit better results than other stuff I've tried