One Lap in a Yaris

Back in Indiana

We're back in Indiana, and the roads still suck. (and yet, we're still paying more tolls for the priviledge of driving on them, go figure)

Made it to the "passage control" party at DEI near Cincinnatti.  They went all out for us, it was really nice!  Catered BBQ dinner, coupon for a free car wash down the street, product displays, local folks, and a really nice facility.

We ate dinner, washed the car, chit-chatted a little bit, and hit the road for South Bend.  And then...

Jeff was driving, I was catching some Z's in the passenger seat and I was awakened by the unmistakable sound of rumble strips.  This marks our second traffic stop of the week.  I never mentioned the first one because it was just stupid.  I got pulled over by a cop in KS because there had been 911 calls about "street racing".  (I won't publish the story behind that, but I heard about it)  I was just cruising through at 75mph minding my own business, and he didn't harass me... I'm not even sure why he stopped me other htan maybe just to make his presence known.  Was he expecting me to say "Yes, officer, it was me, I was racing on your streets"?

I digress.  Jeff got pulled over for going 80 in a 65, though he swears he was cruising 75 mph.  We just left a fuel stop here on the turnpike and just as we were pulling up, a red 3-door Yaris was leaving the pumps.  Hmmm???

Anyway, Jeff took one for the team.  While we were stopped, I think I saw half of the One Lap field fly past us!  I don't think I've ever seen that much of the One Lap field on the same road in such a short time.  You all owe Jeff $5!

Skidpad tomorrow.  I'm thinking I'll use a little more tire pressure in front, crank the front shocks stiff and the rear shocks stiffer... then see if all the fuss on the One Lap forum is true. (someone's griping that skidpad events shouldn't be part of the One Lap because they don't require any skill)  I managed .966 in the Sentra last year, but I had a lot more practice time in that car than I have in this one.

 

Done the Beaver

Just got done running the afternoon session at Beave-run.  Very fun course with most of it being taken flat out in the Yaris... accelerate hard up the front up-hill straight, gently tap the brake at the top of the hill and down-shift to 3'rd for turn 1-2-3-4 combos.  Turn 1 is kind of sacrificed to help you line up for turns 2-3 combo but I was able to flat foot the whole thing by running onto the curbings and using up a bit more track (and dirt/grass).  Then lift/down-shift to 2'nd and turn in early for turn 5.  Back on the throttle, shift to 3'rd through turn 6 and keep it flat through the blind downhill turn 7 into the back straight.  Track out of 7 and over to the right to line up for turn 8 which is right about where you reach 4'th gear.  Keep it planted through the turn 9 kink and get ready for the aggressive braking zone into the increasing radius turn 10-11.  This is the only hard braking zone on the track and once it's over you're back on the throttle power shifting through the up-hill front straight.  You reach 3'rd gear right before the blind kink turn 12 and up-shift to 4'th just past the start/finish line.

In the morning session the track was still a little wet and I was a little tentative.  The top speed as indicated by the SG-II was 93 MPH in the morning.  In the afternoon I delayed slightly at the start before taking off at the start since I had a big V8 Camaro ahead of me who I hadn't seen run.  By the first hot-lap I had already hit 98 MPH max as indicated by the SG-II, but just smoothing out the steering inputs on the back straight and waiting longer before braking into turn 10.  I pretty sure the times should be better than the morning.  People watching say I was gaining slightly on the Camaro but it didn't matter since he ended up spinning out in turn 10 and I got passed him without being slowed down too much.

Now we're on the way to Design Engineering in Avon Lake, OH where they are hosting us for a car show and dinner.  It's a mandatory check-point worth 50 points in the overall standings and then we continue on to South Bend, IN for our last event, the Skid-Pad tomorrow AM.  Loren is up for the dry skid-pad so I'm officially done with the track driving in the car and managed not to wreck, YEAH!! : )

Pics:

Morning run group waiting to go out

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Setting up for turn seven

 

 

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Second session coming down the back straight (turn seven)

 

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Second session catching up to Camaro

 

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Turn eleven on the next lap (just got past the spun Camaro)

 

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Signing off for now!

-Jeff

We suck, but our blog rocks!

I just ran the autocross.  While I was over there, a gentleman came up to me and congratulated me on having the most up-to-date One Lap blog.  I took that as my cue to go find a place to do an update!

Jeff ran the race track this morning.  New track, a couple blind turns, cold and a little wet... so he wasn't pushing it too hard.  Still, he finished something like 6 seconds back from our nemesis (nemesi?) in the ol' Civic.  2 seconds per lap really isn't bad considering their car is 300 pounds lighter and has at least 50 more horsepower.  Jeff promises to do better this afternoon, which is he is lined up and poised to do right now.

The autocross course was pretty simple.  A slalom, hard left, long decreasing radius 2nd gear sweeper (that bit a lot of people who underestimated the decreasing radius), short straight, sweeper to the left, skidpad turn to the right, another short straight and a ridiculously tight first-gear double hairpin turn.  The final shot to the finish had a little kink to the right in it, too.  I'd say the first half of the course was pretty typical autocross, the last 1/3 was pretty darned tight!  Would have been nice if they'd have called in a local autocross club to set up the autocross instead of having folks who apparently don't do a lot of autocross set up the course.  There were way too many cones, and it was a bit hard to follow.  Oh well.

They let us walk the course from about 10am until noon.  About 12:30 they started running the cars, and it was "just line up and run whenever".  One run.  No second chances.

I sat and watched about the first 20 cars run and became more confident in how I might finish overall.  There are a LOT of non-autocrossers in the One Lap roster, possibly half or more claim to have never autocrossed before.  Bad for them... good for me.

Josh (our bud in the old Civic) got fast through the slalom and blew the left hander to the point that he went to the outside of the gate.  I didn't realize he'd done that at the time, I just saw him lock up the brakes and knew that he'd blown his time... but with the off-course, his time didn't matter.  Bad for him... good for me.

I watched the Smart go through the course.  He made the same mistake a lot of people did and misread the decreasing radius turn, coming nearly to a stop there.  (a LOT of people were doing that)  If that wasn't bad enough, he blew the finish and DNF'd.  (bad for him... good for me)  I guess he walked the course really early, while they were still making changes to it.  The initial course design had the start and finish going through the same gate.  They had that changed before the first time I walked the course about 10:15, and they announced that the change had been made... and it was clear how the course was being run from the 20 cars that ran the course before him.  Dunno what the hell he was thinking.  But... someone decided to give him a rerun.  I guess I should have kept my head in the sand all morning botched the finish and gotten myself a rerun, too!

Anyway, after all that, I took my run a little conservatively to ensure that I didn't completely botch it.  Made one mistake.  I was SO set up for the exit of the decreasing radius turn, that I almost shot between some cones and cut the turn too TIGHT!  So, I lost a little bit correcting my course there.  Otherwise, I did okay.  The course was actually pretty fun to drive.  There was nobody else lined up to run at the time... I asked if I could take another run for fun, but they wouldn't let me.  Dammit.

Okay, gotta go get ready to try to get some photos of Jeff on track.

 

The Beav is wet

Yep.  It's wet this morning.  Forecast says it should lighten up around noon, and it might be dry for the autocross this afternoon.  I think I could handle the autocross either way, but dry will be better... maybe.

Jeff got some time driving on twisty mountain roads in the rain yesterday, so I think he'll do fine on the wet track today.  For us... the wetter the better on the race tracks!

9 hours later...

Okay, so our 6-7 hour drive was 9 hours.  It's not as bad as it sounds.  My math was just a little off.  Best case would have been about 7.5 hours, which is what the trusty GPS said when we fed it the destination.  That would have had us here by 10:30pm.

We ended up taking some of the Virginia/W.Virginia back roads to trim some miles from the trip, knowing that it was likely to not be the quickest way to go.  That ended up costing us 20-30 minutes, but Jeff really enjoyed the drive.  I somehow managed to sleep through some of it.

Stopped in Fayette, WV for a cajun dinner.  Yes, you read that right.  We didn't have time to stop for cajun while driving through LA, and when we started looking for dinner tonight, there it was... a cajun joint right there in the middle of WV!  It was pretty good stuff, but very mild.  Probably toned down for the local palate.  Anyway, that and a gas stop ate up another hour and got us here right at about midnight.  Good enough.

I drove from Fayette to PA through non-stop rain.  Fortunately, the traffic wasn't bad and it was a pretty easy trip.

Jeff is driving the BeaveRun track tomorrow.  Looks like it might be a little wet.  After the two track sessions, they're doing an autocross event that I'll be driving.  That could possibly be the event that the little Yaris will shine the most in... IF they make it a real autocross course and keep the straights to a minimum.

What day is it?  We're nearing the end of this thing, right?

Here's a quick photo from VIR.  You'll need to click it and click it again to see it full-size and see the car.  The track is beautiful, almost feels like a nature preserve or something with all the trees and rolling hills.  Doug, the guy traveling with the Smart car (NOT the owner of the car), got a fantastic picture of me apexing the turn with the big oak tree.  I'll get a copy of it eventually.

TheTrees

Oh, alright.  Here's another sequence that Jeff shot. 

Time for bed.

VIR is FUN

I really enjoyed VIR today.  It was a little damp in the morning session on the South course, which made me a little tentative (as if knowing that the brakes will fade if I use them too much isn't enough to make me tentative).  It was dry when we hit the North course later in the morning, but I still wasn't fast.  There are a lot of really fast blind turns on the North course.  I was just starting to get the hang of it on my third lap.  Both of the short courses are fun, but the North course would definitely take more than 3 laps to learn.

In the afternoon, we ran the full course, which eliiminated the more difficult sections of the North course and combined the rest with the South course for a very long and fast course.  Just scary enough to keep you on your toes, but with only a couple of the hidden apexes that are so common on the North course.

Overall, I really liked VIR.  It would be a long haul from Florida, but I could see spending a weekend there.

Jeff got a nice nap a while ago and is driving now.  We'll be in Beaver Falls, PA by around 10pm.  I need some sleep, myself...

Should have some photos to post later.

Another wet morning

Up  next, Virginia International Raceway.  We're doing three time trials at this track, so it will be a busy day.  It's wet right now, but not currently raining.  The forecast is for showers and light thunderstorms all day.  I guess I'm okay with that.

Jeff's results from the BMW track are in.  He did pretty well.  It was our best overall finish, I believe.  49th overall.  Unfortunately, it was still 5th in class, so we didn't improve our class standing.

So, wet could maybe work in our favor a little bit today.  I'm hoping for a good showing at the autocross tomorrow afternoon, too.  It's looking like 3rd may be out of reach for us... but maybe we can catch that pesky Honda?

 

BMW Performance Center

Just got done driving at the BMW Performance Driving Center.  The course layout was well suited to the small Yaris.  We each got to take a "recon" lap followed by two hot-laps.  I dropped a tire in the dirt and came close to taking out a couple of cones on the recon lap, which would have been a 10 second penalty.  Times aren't up yet, but we'll find out how I did later on tonight.

I really enjoyed the atmosphere at the BMW center!  We had multiple spectators come up to the car and introduce themselves, very friendly and enthusiastic crowd!  This made the event a great experience, along with the plethora of sexy BMW's : )

We're on the way to VIR, Virginia right now... probably stop for some dinner along the way.  This will be one of our earliest nights yet, we only have a 250 mile transit so we should be in bed well before midnight.

Here are a couple of photos... the blurred effect is un-intentional, I'm just travelling faster than the speed of sound : )

 

Bmw-theblur

 

Bmwdirtdrop

Who needs brakes?

Yeah, Jeff really understated the brake issue from this morning.  Turns out our Endless brakes aren't quite "Endless" after all.  Pad fade was evident on the first lap (which was really the second lap, as I took the recon lap briskly since I know the track pretty well), and by turn 4 of the second lap, the pedal was rock hard... but there was little braking happening!  I adjusted and after reaching the point where the brakes did NOTHING for just a moment, I let them cool on the long straight coming up to turn 8 and they came back.  I drove the last half of that session at somewhat reduced speed and used the brakes a lot less and got through it... but my time suffered by about 15 seconds overall.

For the second session, as Jeff said, I dialed up the Balls setting on the driver control module so I could get by using less brakes.  That worked pretty well, though I did experience a little bit of fade at one point.  Haven't seen the times from the afternoon session, but I'm sure I did better than in the morning.

I think the problem stemmed from me being very familiar with the track and how to drive it... but in a faster car.  So, in the morning, I was braking harder and in more places than I really needed to in the Yaris.  Plus, Old Jeff's Sentra that I was used to had completely bulletproof brakes that would take anything I threw at them!

Just arrived at the BMW center.  Time to get my puppy on course!

Carolina Motorsports Park

Loren just got done running two sessions at CMP.  He encountered our first real sign of brake fade during his first session, which cost us a few seconds, but he managed to limit his braking on the second session by turning up the "balls" knob on our now world famous "EDCM" (patent pending).

Now we're on the way to the BMW Performance Driving Center which is approximately 160 miles from CMP, where I will get to drive the afternoon session.  I can't wait!  The weather is beautiful and the scenery is just amazing.

-Jeff

Here are a few shots I snapped of Loren at CMP 

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