street stock tires

[betelgeuse]

If you're out on the track doing a TT and worrying about crashing.... you're not going to win anyway no matter what tires your running.

Greg

[Track wheels]

Hey Track Wheels, get a life!! We get dozens of trolls come on to this forum and tells our rules are wrong. In the 14 years I have been a member and the 10 years I have run with COM, R compound cars have been allowed in all classes, and just becouse you think that SS cars should run hard compound tires, do you think we should just change our rules to accomodate you???? If you want to become a member, attend our events, attend board meetings, then we might take you seriously, other than that you are just wasting bandwidth.

I regretted the tone of my last letter after I sent it.
So here`s a few things I would like to share with you.
Of all the exciting things I learned to do,
tracks days are one of the most rewarding and privileged experiences I have ever had.
What is special and amazing is that everyone shares their knowledge freely in a spirit of friendship.
I know that where I came from and where I hope to go in terms of knowledge and skill is the direct result of
volunteers who wanted to pass on their skill and never ask for anything in return.
I`m at the cross roads in terms of the commitment to tracking/racing.
Every step means more money, more time and sometimes more hurdles, but I hoping that
the party never ends. I have a young family and racing, money and time are scarce commodities.

Here`s the thing. My car is driven as a family car 99 % of the time by my wife,( I get the van) with the same tires I use on the track.
These are extreme summer performance tires ( re. Tire Rack ) Dunlop Star Spec with a 200 wear rating.
Not bad on the track and usually last all summer -
the only other tire I have are snow tires.
Call me lazy, call me cheap, call it playing the safe card, but it looks like it`s time for a change.
I`m going to need some advice on stickier rubber and
a few more track days to work them in.
By the way, how many wheels can I get inside a BMW 135 and still drive it to the track?

[CP]

Stick with the stock tires that came on your 135. They'll be plenty sticky enough. A daily driver and R-comps is a bad combo, especially if you have to explain an incident to your wife about why you wrecked her car because you had to have race tires on it for a track day.

[cfossum]

Never mind that!
I won a season championship in 2005 with my wife's daily driver that had RA1s on it all season long. Drove it to and from the track that way. Talk about lazy.
-Carl

[Track wheels]

Never mind that!
I won a season championship in 2005 with my wife's daily driver that had RA1s on it all season long. Drove it to and from the track that way. Talk about lazy.
-Carl

I'm watching my little 7 year old girl doing her gym class,
and I'm taking notes... Toyo R1A

[6PAK72]

Gotta support Cy here.

Carl, you know how to drive RA-1's.

If you've got a street-level stock car, no brake upgrades, no suspension upgrades, the RA-1's are sticky enough to get you in trouble you cannot get out of, particularly if you haven't had the benefit of COM's instruction.

Newbie, my wife and I started out in a highly prepared (old) sportscar, and ran Bridgestone Comp-TA's for a season. That decision kept us out of a lot of trouble while I was consistently messing up enough for an instructor to tell me I gave him the scariest ride he had ever experienced ...once we learned really how to drive, the RA-1's were necessary to keep us safe at the speeds we were hitting.

That said, you can totally drive RA'1's like your grandma, and they are a fantastic tire, even in the rain. IMO, it's a progression, not completely smooth, but more like a step to a plateau, the another step, then a plateau.

Come, get on the track. Everyone will welcome you, really. I've never met such a great group of Type A's.

Do the smart and simple stuff - good brake fluids, maybe uprate your pads to a street-sport, (Hawk HP's). Make sure your car is capable of keeping you safe, and going where and when you want it to. Get a GOOD helmet, gloves, driving shoes.

Then, LISTEN to the guy in your passenger seat, and do what he tells ya - by the end of the day you'll be MUCH faster, and the car won't make a lot of difference, the driver WILL.

And, bring your wife - mine LOVES driving, and solo'd this year. Next year she's going to be a terror.

[chaos4NH]

Howdy Track Wheels. Welcome to a forum that sets the bar high. And, if you choose, welcome to a club that will teach how to drive safely, fast and have fun! As I have previously stated in this thread and a similar on recently, start with your street tires, upgrade your brake pads, be sure your mechanicals are in good shape, then begin your "career"!
I have had a number of offs and one big banger in the past 3 years, none of which were the fault of anyone/anything but the driver. If all those instructors you talk about drove within their limits of knowledge and attention span, there would have been much less excitement in the case of the poor student (who was obviously being taught incorrectly).

After a 14 year break in track days with COM - started in the 70s with a stock Javelin, into the 80's with an outrageous Camaro - I came back with a very tame 2002 Nissan Sentra S-ER (Automatic!) on street tires. Heck I even spun that dog out and had a couple of offs. Then came the Speed 3 with one year on mostly street tires and nothing but a cold air intake .Was voted most Improved driver that year. The next year I found out what the car would really do when I installed a factory coilover suspension and Hoosier R6s. Have since used RA1s, Kumho V710s Avon T1s and Goodyear R1s. None of those tires has cost me more that $100 each and most were scrubs in the $50 range. I have enjoyed this daily driver for over 6,000 track miles, and 74,000 miles in my daily travels for work. Over that period, I upgraded from Carbotech RX6 pads to R8s, to R10s and most recently R12s. I also used those same pads on my daily drives (too lazy to change just for the track).

Point being, you can enjoy your daily driver and be competitive (when you are ready to COMPETE not just drive fast enough to scare yourself to death at the limit).
I envy you with the BMW 135! It would probably be my choice if I were to run another "daily driver". Wow! 300lb/ft of torque at 1200 RPM

[Track wheels]

Hey Sam that is quite the story
Y

I run Hawk Plus pads and everything's been trail and error.
But the BMW six pot front calipers can't take much heat
and read there have been some total brake failures at the track.
So I brought it in just to be sure - my pads and rotors were done anyhow
And they said the calipers were toast.
I'm probably lucky to be alive.
The 135 is a great track car but it has taken
a long time to get rid of the under steering nonsense.
Haven't hit anything yet but at Mid Ohio, I got that
Instructor back who spun twice with me in his race
car by beating the stupid but lucky record and losing
it at kink in the long back straight in a heavy rainstorm
and spun so many times I almost made to turn 7.
God knows I owe him one.

[subsonic]

...More importantly, we can thank a couple of rows of old tires for saving our necks. And because of that, I'd never blame my tires...cause you never know if you'll meet them again.

Even some good drivers blame their equipment, but almost all bad ones do.
Blaming one's tires is a copout. You need to adjust to track conditions. Those guys in the incidents mentioned just ran out of talent.

http://www.turnzero.com/technical_resou ... _generator press "generate new excuse" until you find one that works for you.

[kfoote]

Here is a little history on the "as delivered construction" rule.

COMSCC has been around for a long time. It was formed over 50 years ago.

I have been involved with COM for longer than most. I attended my first TT with my dad at Bryar in teh early 80's (before I could drive), and somewhere I still have a beer mug that the family won as a trophy from the annual COM Turkey Trot Rally (!).

The as-delivered construction clause was originally designed so that cars that has bis ply tires had to run bis ply tires, and cars with radials had to run radials, primarily so that the two didn't get mixed on the same car. As virtually all tires on all cars are now radials, and virtually all tires now are radials, I'd recommend that this rule now be clarified to require radial tires in SS and ST classes. Yes, there are still bias-ply R-compound tires out there.

As someone who played with the construction differences in the late 90's back to back on the same car, at that time it was a wash, though they drove completely differently. The radials have progressed enough in the last 10 years where in a road course setting, the radials should be faster on just about everything now so it's pretty much a non-issue at this point.

[brucesallen]

Kevin,
Please submit a rule change to fix that "as delivered construction"" rule.

[kfoote]

Rule changes for SS and ST submitted. With the spirit of the rules, I'd say it's OK to leave the bias ply option open for SP and Prepared

[Özgür]

track wheels, if you don't mind me saying, you seem too pre-occuppied with crashing. If it is on your mind to that extent, your chances of crashing will be higher IMO. Also, you might be pushing things beyond your current ability. I guess even the pros scare themselves every once in a while, but if you are constantly concerned, you might need to take things down a notch and take your time with gaining more experience. I sure get scared here and there as well, but I've found that as you learn more and become more comfortable with driving at speed, you grow more confident and calm, which helps you perform better.

I don't mean to say that one shouldn't be concerned about crashing. Safety comes first, but if you drive within your limits and show up with the proper equipment, you will be as safe as one can be on a race track. I don't mean to lecture, and I sure worry about putting my car into the wall as well, but as one learns more, the chances of that happening should decrease although one ends up driving faster if that makes sense. As to the instructors who had offs while driving solo. I guess they weren't "expert" drivers after all. In my book, an expert will not make that kind of mistake while driving solo, and should be able to drive consistently at 10/10ths. Those folks tried to do 11/10th and it didn't work. An expert should know how to recover from a mistake that would lead to an off. (I'm not claiming to be an expert or anything...)

[nateh]

To avoid crashing, the best approach is to always hit your marks. If you can't hit your marks every time, then slow down until you can.

[Track wheels]

Appreciate all this advice.
I drive with one arm - left arm and left chest
quite useless. Hurt by a nut who took me out drag racing on the
Wrong side of the road.
I am aware that car control is critical
so I try extra hard to anticipate problems
While at speed and while in my armchair.
So far so good. Run in A group in most clubs
with no contact in 4 years and maybe over
35 track days.
I do want to get a safe tire that is stickier than
a 200 wear rating.
I use auto with paddles and the trani makes it
Possble to just use my right arm by never
Letting go of the wheel.