Dj's 1999 M3 Project

[D_Eclipse9916]

VIR February 18/19/20. Friday Instructor School and Saturday/Sunday Time Trials.

Get there Thursday night at 5PM for the Instructor School. 4 hours of classroom with Dan Unkefer. Definitely informative, but it is somewhat long for attention span and I was ready to get out of there by 9pm.

Friday morning we go to our classroom and are informed of our roles that day. There would be tons of open track time (yay!) and then a role playing session and a blind *autocross*.
Go out for my first session and the car works beautifully, nooo problems. And WOW, the car has immense amount of grip. The new diff, bushings, and Motons has changed the car dramatically. It just....sticks...even on street tires. Now was going to have to relearn the car...oh well. Very little understeer, car is incredibly neutral and stabile, slight 4-wheel drifts now a constant. I love it.

Then its time for the instructor role play. I am paired with Brian Bowers, a corvette Z06 guy. He goes first and almost immediately I notice he is aggressive and stuck to finding the "race line". I couldnt help but chuckle a few times when he was purposely understeering or trying to overpower the rear wheels. (OMG that z06 had tons of power and grip).
Then its my turn, my role is to be a complete newbie (unlike Brian who was supposed to be experienced) and was very agressive. I tell Matt on grid...im going to be a jackass, just in case they already didnt know this was instructor role play. After getting into the car and being called Ricky Bobby they gave us the opportunity on grid to go. I said I had to get my gloves on and shit so I waited a bit and then when everyone was clear I asked him if we were ready to go on track. He says yes, and I go ALRIGHT! In pits (disclaimer: NEVER DO THIS YOU WILL GET IN TROUBLE), I rev up and dump the clutch and basically do a hard launch after laying some tire down and go straight out of grid onto the track. Im sure then Brian knew exactly was happening and quickly ordered me to stick it in fourth gear and fourth gear only. After some complaining on my part (hey im supposed to be having fun, hey I want to go FAST!) I do as told. But im aggressive, and im a newbie so almost every other corner I late turn in and THROW the wheel understeering hard and making the tires sing! After another lap I threw it hard into 1 and held a drift out to turn 2 complaining that I wanted to go FAST!

The role play was a ton of fun, and after spending years learning the line, it was tough to get into the habit of purposely messing up. Some more open track time and now was time for the blind autocross. You literally blind yourself and have your instructor guide you through a purpose built autocross at low speeds. Its an interesting exercise due to the facts that you have to be very careful with what you say as to not confuse and use instinctual words instead of lets say turn at 3oclock.

Next up was saturday and Sunday....heres a first picture to break up the monotony of this post.


Time Trials Saturday:

First session out, its an HPDE/TT session, so untimed. I decide not to push it and David Meyer jumps into the car for some laps. Hopefully he had a good time.
Second session out is a TT only session and therefore no passengers so I decide to up the ante a bit. I start getting going and notice my pads are starting not to hold up. Deeper and more (remember to squeeze the pedal not hit) into the corners. About 5 laps in, I run out of talent and am coming in a bit too hot to oak tree. Instead of trying to save it and induce a possible spin, I just go four off at like 20mph and go back out on track. After being blackflagged (I swore in the rules it said it was up to the driver's discretion during TT but I was wrong), I came in and swore to Felton I wouldnt do it again
Third session, a new guy in a black porsche is gridded up in front of me (its supposed to be on times, but he was new so they put him where how fast they thought he was going to be. The flying lap in, im on his ass, through 1-5, he pulls hard on me through that small straight but then I have to almost slam onto my brakes entry of uphill esses as he proceeds at about 85 through the uphill ESSES. Christ, hes nice enough to let me by at the top of the esses and I pull some time but then we get to the straight. yeah...400 horsepower porsche against basically a stock powered e36 m3. He comes up to me and then ****ing passes me. Again im stuck on his ass and end up puddling my way through hogpen. This repeats the next lap (except grr he doesnt let me by again) so I back off...a LOT. I let him get as much time forward and even let another e46 M3 go by. After what should have been plenty of time, I come up on hogpen and get back into it.
This is wehre I went wrong, I got "redmist" in the fact that I thought I had to make that lap count. I am blazing through 1,2,3,4,5,6, and coming through the uphill esses I noticed the E46 M3 was not going quite as quick as I had hoped through the esses. As I go through them, I notice im catching up tremendously quick, so in a quick plan I remarked that I would back off at top of 9 and then go hard through 10 to get a run.. FAIL! I used a bit too much brake as im cresting and the car's back end starts a slow slide. If I correct ill go straight off at 10, so I hold the slide all the way down to bottom of 10 at which I correct, overcorrect and then hit the marbles at the bottom of 10 to the right. At maybe 45mph it goes into a quick flat spin and stops me. DAMN! Second DQ...im done for the day.

Sunday Time Trials
First session, another practice with HPDE4, I take it easy and have Jake Thiewes go for a ride. Have some fun, get back to relaxing and drive.
Second session, go out there and just get stuck with traffic, go figure.
Third session, This is where I finally get some free reign and go out, but having a tough time getting a quick clean lap but laying down with .2 second of my best the previous day.
Fourth session: Last and final, theres not many people there so I know I might get a good opportunity. The tires are a bit overheated and greasy and my driving was hellaciously sloppy (kinda embarassed to show video...it was bad). But when I came in...I nailed out a 2:14.3 on street tires, only .5 seconds off my class' record and grabbed first for the day in class by over 6 seconds. Shiiiet not bad for street tires when everyone else is on slicks.

Here are pictures, next debrief (wont be for at least a week I promise), I will go over my impressions of setup and what im doing to get the track record for this upcoming event.