JemeJordan

I thought I would share my experience with my first instructional track day at HPR in Colorado last Sunday with my stock 98 Targa (Paid $15,000) (with upgrades to Hawk HT-10 pads, Z06 sway bars shocks and Hankook V12s )Read about it here http://69.89.25.185/~trexsoft/t-rexs.../corvette/z51/ total performance upgrade costs about $2000. My instructor was Chris Sarian of http://www.sarianmotorsports.com and I can’t say enough about his teaching abilities and patients, I would highly recommend him to anyone wanting to learn the basics. We took turns driving and mostly focused on track etiquette, racing line, corner entry and exit and braking. My fastest lap was 2.23 with the Nanny on and Chris did a 2.16 with the Nanny off. Not bad for a mostly stock Corvette with Summer Performance tires. I also did the recommended track day things like, install track pads, DOT4 brake and clutch fluid flush and my Corvette ran flawlessly with just a left front tire monitor indicator popping up in the third session and the worrisome feeling you get the first time you hit the Rev limiter on a straightaway. I find this totally amazing when you consider that I also drove 600 miles to the track and then 600 miles back home later that afternoon. I also found it interesting that there were some highly moded Corvettes that were going much faster but seem to be having constant mechanical problems that required loss of track time for the driver. One of them actually flew by us on the second lap and spun, braking some expensive parts which my instructor and I found pretty entertaining as we passed them by. So I guess Track Day Lesson 1 for newbies is: preparation, reliability and learning to drive are good things to focus on when you are just starting out. For timing I used the new QSTARZ 10HZ BT-Q1000eX http://racing.qstarz.com/Products/BT-Q1000eX.html which allowed me to quickly download and analyze my lap times by sector and I found that most of my lost time was due to early braking and early apexing, driving flaws which Chris had already pointed out during our sessions.

C5inWV

{I also found it interesting that there were some highly moded Corvettes that were going much faster but seem to be having constant mechanical problems that required loss of track time for the driver.}
Ah, yes, the Tortoise and the Hare.
They say your choices are fast, reliable, or cheap....but you can only pick two at a time.