After owning the Corvette for almost 2-1/2 years, finances, schedule, and preparedness all came together, allowing me to "track" the car...finally. The "track" in question is Miller Motorsports Park, in Tooele, UT -about 45 minutes from my house.

www.millermotorsportspark.com

I've been Drag-tracking the car since shortly after I bought it, so the significance of this is that it's a real road course, finally -which is a big part of the reason I bought the car.



Anyway, my friend Chris owns an '05 BMW M3, and is as interested in road tracking his car, as I am, mine. He found out about an organization called www.lappingdays.com that rents tracks and hosts "track days" w/pro instructors to help you better your driving skills. The general format is the group is divided into 3 groups; beginner, intermediate, and "proficient" -I don't think that "Expert" is the proper term here. Due to my lack of Road course experience, I was placed in the "beginner" group to start with. Each group goes out on track, w/an instructor in the car, for 25 minute sessions. My first session was tough for three reasons; 1. I was trying to get "comfortable" w/the Corvette (and it’s limits) on a track, 2. Everyone on the track was S-L-O-W, in the beginner group, so I was wasting a lot of time following, or passing putt-putt mobiles, and 3. my instructor, assuming that I was truly a novice to "high performance driving", was flapping his jaw the ENTIRE 25 minutes. He wouldn't SHUT UP –and he wasn’t telling me anything that I didn’t already know! That was annoying and distracting, to say the least. Fortunately, at the end of the session, he talked to the event organizer and recommended that I move up to the middle level.

In the "Mid" level group, I got a different instructor, and he was cool. He basically told me that he'd keep quiet, watch what I was doing, THEN comment. He never did say much, and after two sessions w/him one of which I spun out and slid off the track (thereby finding the aforementioned limits of the car!), he actually recommended that I move to the advanced group, which was cool b/c in that group, an instructor is not required.

At that point, we had lunch, and I borrowed a vacuum cleaner and tried to get the bulk of the dirt out of my car from the spin-out. What a mess! (they make you run w/windows open) Anyway, I got the car back to a non-embarrassing state, ate lunch, then we had, I think one more 25 minute session, then they opened the track up. That was awesome. We could come and go from the track as we pleased, no instructors in the car, as much or as little driving as we wanted from around 2:30 until about 5:00. That's a lot of track time. Chris and I consumed most of that time, running our cars, and it was absolute, addictive fun! Amazing, I say!

I learned some things;

First; the C6 Corvette is an absolute MONSTER on a track. It has tons of power, tire, brake, cooling, awesome gearing...it's just an amazing car for the track...just like Chevy said it would be. No false advertising there, that's for sure (ahem! VAG). It’s especially impressive, considering that it really IS a street car first (and engineered for a particular demography). But I ran the sh|t out if it that day; over 150 TRACK miles(!), and a tank and a half of gasoline (got ~9 mpg for the day), in 100*F + air temps....and the car didn't care. It didn't phase it one bit. In comparison, when I took my GF's Twin Turbo Stealth to the track this spring, I smoked the brake pads in two laps. The 'Vette seemed invincible to track abuse. It just didn’t care!

Second; I learned that one of the biggest factors in "racing" is capacities; the ability of the car to manage energy: aka Heat. My friend Chris was having issues w/braking system performance, and engine/oil temps running (very) high in the M3. He could easily mitigate that by driving slower. But a vehicle w/better heat management can run faster for a sustained time frame, by dissipating the energy as fast as it's generated.

Third; one tank of gasoline isn't enough for a day at the road course(!) Using a car like that consumes an enormous amount of fuel.

Fourth; Don't spin out into dirt, w/your windows open! That is, unless you really like operating a vacuum cleaner. A lot.

Fifth; going from 110 mph to 40 in ~100 feet is bad-assed. Doing it repeatedly and NOT having issues w/your brakes is even more bad-assed.

Last; You don't need to shift much. Or at all in my car, and on that track. But I had always imagined running on a road course would involve nearly continuous action of the shifting mechanism to keep things working efficiently. I ran the whole 2.2 mile course in third gear only. On the front straight, my car would just barely clip the rev limiter (6500 RPM) at about 110 mph...right about when I'd need to pile on the brakes for turn 1.

Anyway, this is probably pretty boring for most, but I thought that it was freakin' amazing! Below is an edited-for-time segment from one of our 25 minute sessions. I captured the entire 25 minute session in my little Cannon PowerShot SD300 digi cam, and I was amazed at the quality of what it captured (quality degraded notably when DL'ed to Youtube). My “mounting system” for the camera was literally, that I duct taped it to the front side of the center view mirror, then aimed the mirror as best I could. As I pulled out of the pits I hit the shutter button, and then I clicked it again pulling into the pits at the end. Anyway, here is the vid, chopped up into about 7 minutes. For “speed reference” note the red/white curbs as the pass out of view beside the car. Also, the sound quality is way, WAY better when hooked to some type of sound system. Lap top speakers don’t cut it. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh5GxMDWrkw

 

Not boring at all. Great write-up!!!! Sounds like you are a natural.

So how far is Miller from St. George? I'll have my Vette up there in early September.

 

Seriously, 9mpg on the track isnt bad. Most turbo cars get 5-6 and other engines get 7-9mpg

 

Great write-up.

 

Thanks for the props! What skill I DO have, I learned in autocross, and indoor karting. I'm sure I could stand to learn a lot more, but I felt like I did pretty well, established a good foundation, and learned some limits.

MMP is about 4 hours from St. George. If your car is going to be here in October, Miller is hosting an open track day that features the FULL TRACK; 4.2 miles. Chris and I are definitely going to attend that one, for sure.

I forgot one bullet point of "learning"; Even though the day cost me $350 entry fee, this is a BARGAIN!! For that price, and the amount of time I spent on the actual track, it works out to about $1.50/minute. By comparison, Indoor karting generally runs about $1.10/minute, SCCA SoloII runs about $6.00/minute of actual on track driving time, and drag racing (at RMR in SLC, UT) works out to about $20/minute! YIKES!

 

Boring?? No way!! Good write up and I enjoyed watching that vid you posted up. Trackdays are a ton of fun...I must say though, your line is definitely better than your buddy in the M3, he definitely could have run alot faster than he seemed to be doing but that's fine, we're all learning anyways and it's good you guys got out there. But yeah, once you were by him, you seemed to be running tighter lines whereas while you were following I noticed a few times where you followed his less than ideal lines. At any rate, good times.

 

Nice job. Amazing feeling that first time on a real road course isn't it? I had my first track experience earlier this month at Road America. I can certainly sympathize with you about the sinning out. I had one spin on turn 8 and spun out into the grass. It was actually kind of comical with everything seeming to happen in slow motion watching the wall of grass and dirt come flying in the window.
I wish I could say that I had the same luck as you on the brakes though. On the 3rd run of my 2nd day I was coming up to turn 5 (95 degree left hander off a nice downhill) at about 130 and when I hit the breaking zone at the top of the hill my brake pedal went to the floor. With a little bit of downshifting and a LOT of swearing and panic I somehow just managed to make it around the turn without eating the wall. Needless to say with 4 sets of pads completely gone my day was over.
If you are serious about getting some track time and want to learn to take your car and yourself to the limits you should look into some of the clubs like NASA. http://www.nasaproracing.com/
That is who I did my 2 days with and they were absolutely fantastic! I can't think of a bad thing to say about them and everyone there. I believe the 2 days at Road America cost me around $380 and that was for a 20, 25, 30, and then another 20 minute session each day. Before the first session there is some classroom time where they went over the course and gave pointers about each and every turn including focal points to aim for on approach, points to turn in at and where you should be hitting the apex on each turn. There is also a classroom meeting after each session to go over anything that happened, get mor pointers and driver training, and any questions and answers.
For the actual runs, at the first level (HPDE1) you are assigned a qualified instructor (mine raced GTS for 9 years) who will take you through every step of the course as you are driving it and give pointers wherever needed with the goal being to teach you to be able to get around the course as fast as YOU possibly can. It was invaluable experience for me to have someone sitting there next to me guiding me as to where to enter every turn, where to hit the apex, and then where I should be exiting the turns. By the second day it was no longer a matter of where to hit the turns or where to start laying on the brakes but more about figuring out what the maximum speed is that I can enter and exit each of the turns at.
Slower cars weren't much of a problem either. Passing on the straightaways is allowed and the cars are instructed to do wavebys to let the faster cars go past. The corner workers signal whenever a car has a faster car behind them that is going to pass. I had one time on the front straightaway where I was able to overtake 3 cars in one shot. NASA Actually runs both the HPDE1 and HPDE2 (drivers who have passed HPDE1 and can solo) cars at the same time with the HPDE2 cars starting out first since they should be faster. Our group actually had somewhere between 20-25 cars in it and I found that in most of the sessions once I got past the HPDE 1 cars and the slower HPDE2 cars I actually spent a good amount of time without cars in front of me or behind me.
The second day (provided everyone is doing good the 1st day) they may even add a couple more passing zones. We had the option of adding 2 more passing zones in a variety of spots but as a group we all opted to only take one of them (between turn 7 and 8) so that we can have opportunities to make passes in a spot that would require a little more preparation to execute properly.
Anyways, to make a long story short, I got signed off on HPDE1 and am doing my next event with them in October at Autobahn CC but I still plan on doing the HPDE1 at least for the first day just so I can have the instructor there to teach me all the trick of a new course.
If you really want to get out and get the full experience (at what I feel is one heck of a deal) you really should look into NASA. They can take you from doing your HPDE to doing time trials and full on races.

 

I know what you mean by entertainment per minute. The nice thing about Miller is it looks extremely safe, nothing but dirt to run off into. From watching the video, I liked the way you tracked that M3 down. People always assume the M3 handles better, but you just proved what I've always said, the Vette actually handles better! (or maybe you are a lot better driver, but I'm sticking with my story)

 

Ahh your post brings back wonderful memories of my first track day! Thanks for posting. Just be warned, once that bug bites your wallet won't be the same!

Having traversed the same path, here are a couple of thoughts if you are interested.

I strongly recommend you get some Nitto 555RII's, you won't believe the difference. It's night and day and you can drive to the track on them. I run mine on cheap but strong C5 wagon wheels - being a Z51 I have to change my front rotors and caliper mounts, rotors from NAPA mounts (abutments) from Gene Culley, cheap. Plus the NAPA rotors are cheap when they crack (which will happen eventually, I carry a spare set to the track). C5Z06 wheels will stick out in back about an inch, if you're lowered it could be a problem, though I have a friend that runs them with no problem.

After cooking my brake fluid once, I switched to Motul 600 fluid and I like Hawk HT-10 pads. Brakes are almost like tires in the fun factor. For brake cooling I went to C6Z front brake ducts, super cheap mod and necessary. Here's my write up.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=1569941

I installed a trans temp and diff temp gauge - the Z51 trans cooler does a nice job, but the diff gets close to 300. I limit my sessions to 20 minutes or so, after watching three friends with C5Z's burn up their transmissions on the track running longer sessions (but they didn't have coolers).

IMHO don't bother with the track/street combo pads. In my experience they suck on the track and dust like crazy on the street.

There is much more great info and experts in our Autocross and Road Course forum here if you're interested. http://forums.corvetteforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=23

 

Man! There is some awesome info in this thread, both on car prep, and the NASA group...and I really appreciate it! I'm going to implement some car mods for sure; what I can afford, and incrementally.

I feel like I want to comment on this: I drove both cars; Chris and I switched cars for probabaly a total of ten laps or so. So I got great back to back, on track experience w/both cars.
SOTP, the BMW "handles better". Obviously, the 'Vette handles better; it goes faster around the track. But when I say "SOTP, the BMW handles better" what I mean is that it's easier to drive to it's limit (which is lower than the 'Vettes limit) than it is to drive the 'Vette BOTH to IT'S limit, AND to the BMW's Limits. IOW, driving the 'Vette behind the BMW, while the BMW is at it's max effort (w/Chris driving) is more work in the 'Vette, then that same speed is in the BMW...even though the 'Vette can still go faster.

WHY? Well, the BMW has way better steering, better damping (by far), and therefore, is much more stable, "pointable", and just plain easier to drive. To "fix" the 'Vette's SOTP deficit compared to the BMW, I think you need: Shocks and suspension bushings through out. Get rid of all that slop that was put in there for the demograph I eluded to in my first post. Then, I beleive that the 'Vette would feel more composed, tighter, and more stable.

So which car "handles better"? Chris was lapping the Miller East track in ABOUT 2:00 Minutes flat, as timed by me, from my car following him, and using my in-car timer. I was lapping ABOUT 1:52-1:54 during my max effort runs, using the same timing method, so clearly, the 'Vettes limits are much higher. Plus I could sustain that level w/o over heating anything.The BMW behaves better and is easier to drive, but the 'Vette maintains a higher average speed on the track, So....

Also, the 'Vettes capacities are much higher; cooling, braking, etcs. In addition to over heating his oil, coolant, brakes and brake fluid multiple times (after about 5 hard laps), Chris also delaminated part of the tread from the carcass on his front right Michelin Pilot's, which tells me that his car is also over heating the tires too.

Note: When Chris and I race Karts and SCCA SOLO II (in the past "dual driving" the same car), he and I are essentially dead tied.

 

One thing I have to say about taking your car to any kind of track is it's a great way of moving things from your "want" list to your "need" list. When I first got my Corvette I had lots of thing on my "want" list. Now it seems that most everything is off of that list with the exception of things like a supercharger and either on my "need" list or my "done" list.
It would appear that the only other list that can keep pace with the "want" list and the "done" list is the ever growing list of bills. LOL

 

Awesome, glad you had fun. Thanks for the great write up!

 

Just like all these guys have said. Nice write up, and great vid for being a point-n-shoot, duct taped to the rearview, haha!

I found myself halfway into your video rooting for you to get around the M3. For those things being "the ultimate driving machine", it sure was leaning and swaying a hell of a lot. And the guy was having temp and brake fade problems?

Wonder why all the car 'rags are jocking the M3 so heavily, and admonishing the Vette. Proof is in the pudding I guess...

Good thread, OP.

 

You got you feet wet, now the fun begins, moving into advance to soon is ok but be careful and follow the lead of more experienced drivers. There is no substitue for seat time and experience, and all newbies think they are good drivers. I have been tracking for years, PCA instructor and run in NASA and PCA events, and learn something new every track day. The c6 is a good track car you will eventually want to improve things to suit your driving style and get better lap times. But road courses open up a whole new dimension to sportscar ownership. I tell my friends it is like adult disney world everytime you are on the course.

 

Sounds awesome.

When my dads CTS-V comes in we're going to be going to a local road course to beat on it and my vette. Should be a ton of fun!

 

Yep, HPDEs are addicting.

Get ready to start taking a hit to the bank account. $$$$$$

Been about 5-6yrs since I had done it (with Camaros back then), and I got bit by the bug this summer. I've done three events so far, and hope to squeeze another one in before winter.

Already got plans for next summer (racing seats, rotor upgrade, alignment, and some stickier rubber)!

Be careful and keep the shiney side up!

 

Well, I FINALLY had time to clean the car up from the above. It took me 3+ hours to do JUST the interior, with 2 of those hours for just vacuuming! There was sand EVERYWHERE. Of course there was sand all over the seats, floor, under the seats, all over the dash, console, etc. But when I say everywhere, this is an example. You know those storage bins in waaaaaaay in the back on each side? Yeah, those had dirt in them, but this is even crazier; the LIDS, have a sort of carpet in the UNDER side of them to make them look more finished, I guess. There was dirt, up above that carpet, inside the storage bin door lids!! LOL!

Anyway, if you're at a venue that has a gravel off-track area, I recommend avoiding an open-window excursion off track! lol

 

Could be worse, on my first track event the president of Our club gave me a ride in his race prepped Viper and took it off track. At the Homestead NASCAR track there is a road course in the middle, and the runoffs are filled with rather large rocks...man those things made a mess of his Viper!! I'm sure he would have much preferred dirt vs all the dents and scratches. And I would have never thought so many rocks would get inside the car. It was sure a mess. So I know what you are going through!

 

Yeah, I know it could have been WAY worse(there was a sign about 20' further, than were I ended up stopping!). I DID sustain a lot of scratches/chips, as the material ranged from 1.5" to dust. So that kind of sucks, but...part of the sport.

I just couldn't believe the places that I found dirt. Unreal.

Bummer about that Viper. Doesn't sound like fun.

 

Good news is it taught me a VERY important lesson....he said, my brakes are getting weak, let's just do one more lap. I said OK.

He told me after we stopped safely, after ZERO brakes heading into a 90 degree turn at 120...learn from me. When your brakes feel funny, GET OFF THE TRACK. I didn't heed that lesson, felt my brakes getting spongy and stayed out, and nearly went off at a different event at the same turn oddly enough. But since then I really feel that brake pedal and listen to what it's telling me. The cooling ducts & Motul help a ton BTW.

Yea, I really don't go to car shows anymore after I started tracking my car. Kind of changed my whole perspective of Corvette ownership. Sad to say I don't wash it as much either...I just drive the SNOT out of it.

And I love every minute of that.