Michael_vroomvroom
Well-Known Member
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Some sudden relaxing of the covid19-restrictions here in Spain allowed the organisers to arrange a trackday on a few days notice, with about 12-13 cars attending.
I installed an app called Track Addict I've seen other use, to record my sessions. I wanted to include part of the steering wheel in the picture, as I've seen others ask for that when commenting on driving, but after reviewing things later, I see I mounted or angled my phone at a rather stupid place. One can see the steering wheel, but the track itself is really hard to see with the way I angled the camera.
Can't do anything about that now of course, but will try to find a better place to mount my phone next time.
For this trackday, I for the first time also installed some dedicated racing pads on the front brakes. I used Ferodo DS1.11, to replace the Ferodo DS2500 that come with the car stock and which I use for my daily driving.
For reference, all Mustang GTs in Europe come with the PP1 six-piston Brembo brakes (though not most other PP1 stuff). As a novice, I have a feeling the brakes are pretty good relative to my driving level.
I'm still too novice to notice the difference from the DS2500, except there was some noise when braking with the DS1.11, which I did not have with the DS2500. I wanted some dedicated racing pads as I'm hoping they will, if nothing else, last considerably longer than the DS2500 pads on track, so I can save money by not replacing them so frequently.
Please also correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking that I do not need to do any specific cleaning of the rotor when interchanging the DS2500 and DS1.111 brake pads, as they're from the same manufacturer, and presumably of a similar material compound.
The track video referenced is what is my best lap according to the app. Not sure if it's possible to suggest any improvements based on how poorly I had mounted my camera/phone?
There are some things I'm already aware of:
- I should brake much later.
I almost always end up braking a bit too early, and then coasting for some tenths of seconds, before doing the turn, or sometimes, even braking again after coasting a little.
I feel I can step on the brakes much harder and later without problems, but I'm scared about ending up at the turn with a speed faster than I can handle.
I've raced motorbikes on the track, so I'm not so much worried about injury (compared to on the bike, sitting in my Mustang feels really safe), but it's my daily driver too, and if I were to follow the old adage of not tracking anything you can't afford to wreck, I'd not be bringing my Mustang anywhere near a track.
Yesterday I unfortunately went off track twice during the morning sessions. They warned us that due to the rain that had been there earlier in the morning, the track would be really slippery, and that we should choose different lines, trying to stay of the existing lines that had rubber from countless other sessions on them, but I still spun out twice. No other harm than some not-yet-inspected stone chips, but I want my car to keep looking beautiful. ;-)
- Not sure if I should shift into first gear sometimes too? As one can see from the video, I'm almost always in second or third gear. I think I was never in first gear (tried it a few times on my second track day I think, but did not work well for me at the time), and only a few times in fourth gear.
- Other things, like how and where to enter the turn, are not obvious to me yet, except I'm sure I'm doing them in a sub-optimal way.
That lap was 1m46s for me. For reference, there's national champion driving on this track too, in a Porsche GT3 RS. Believe he also placed third in Europe a few years ago. His times are around 1m16s.
At the end of the day, as a Christmas/end of year special, they also had what they called a "Speed Attack": "Fastest terminal speed over 700m, 1 car at a time, multiple runs." For this we started about 100 meters before the right turn you can see at the bottom of the map in the video. Winner is the one that manages to have the highest speed at the end of the long straight following the turn.
I've never tried anything like that before and thought it was an interesting way to do things, as rather than just a straight line drag race like seems to be so popular in the USA, you have a turn to do first. This of course means you cannot push the pedal to the floor from start to finish, but must take the turn as fast as you can, but not faster, before flooring the gas pedal after the turn and to the end.
Coming in third here, I managed to win an exquisite Spanish cheese. Winner was an BMW M4, clocked at around 177 km/h I think. Second was a Seat (Spanish brand, now owned by Volkswagen) racing car, and third my Mustang GT, clocked at around 165 km/h if I remember right.
I could have taken the turn faster if I'd been better, and perhaps also shifted faster, but could be have been worse, though that would have required there to be more than three participants. I'm sure one of the Porsche GT Cup cars on the track that day would have won had they joined, but for some reason, the drivers of those did not bother to join. So cheese for me. ;-)
I installed an app called Track Addict I've seen other use, to record my sessions. I wanted to include part of the steering wheel in the picture, as I've seen others ask for that when commenting on driving, but after reviewing things later, I see I mounted or angled my phone at a rather stupid place. One can see the steering wheel, but the track itself is really hard to see with the way I angled the camera.
Can't do anything about that now of course, but will try to find a better place to mount my phone next time.
For this trackday, I for the first time also installed some dedicated racing pads on the front brakes. I used Ferodo DS1.11, to replace the Ferodo DS2500 that come with the car stock and which I use for my daily driving.
For reference, all Mustang GTs in Europe come with the PP1 six-piston Brembo brakes (though not most other PP1 stuff). As a novice, I have a feeling the brakes are pretty good relative to my driving level.
I'm still too novice to notice the difference from the DS2500, except there was some noise when braking with the DS1.11, which I did not have with the DS2500. I wanted some dedicated racing pads as I'm hoping they will, if nothing else, last considerably longer than the DS2500 pads on track, so I can save money by not replacing them so frequently.
Please also correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking that I do not need to do any specific cleaning of the rotor when interchanging the DS2500 and DS1.111 brake pads, as they're from the same manufacturer, and presumably of a similar material compound.
The track video referenced is what is my best lap according to the app. Not sure if it's possible to suggest any improvements based on how poorly I had mounted my camera/phone?
There are some things I'm already aware of:
- I should brake much later.
I almost always end up braking a bit too early, and then coasting for some tenths of seconds, before doing the turn, or sometimes, even braking again after coasting a little.
I feel I can step on the brakes much harder and later without problems, but I'm scared about ending up at the turn with a speed faster than I can handle.
I've raced motorbikes on the track, so I'm not so much worried about injury (compared to on the bike, sitting in my Mustang feels really safe), but it's my daily driver too, and if I were to follow the old adage of not tracking anything you can't afford to wreck, I'd not be bringing my Mustang anywhere near a track.
Yesterday I unfortunately went off track twice during the morning sessions. They warned us that due to the rain that had been there earlier in the morning, the track would be really slippery, and that we should choose different lines, trying to stay of the existing lines that had rubber from countless other sessions on them, but I still spun out twice. No other harm than some not-yet-inspected stone chips, but I want my car to keep looking beautiful. ;-)
- Not sure if I should shift into first gear sometimes too? As one can see from the video, I'm almost always in second or third gear. I think I was never in first gear (tried it a few times on my second track day I think, but did not work well for me at the time), and only a few times in fourth gear.
- Other things, like how and where to enter the turn, are not obvious to me yet, except I'm sure I'm doing them in a sub-optimal way.
That lap was 1m46s for me. For reference, there's national champion driving on this track too, in a Porsche GT3 RS. Believe he also placed third in Europe a few years ago. His times are around 1m16s.
At the end of the day, as a Christmas/end of year special, they also had what they called a "Speed Attack": "Fastest terminal speed over 700m, 1 car at a time, multiple runs." For this we started about 100 meters before the right turn you can see at the bottom of the map in the video. Winner is the one that manages to have the highest speed at the end of the long straight following the turn.
I've never tried anything like that before and thought it was an interesting way to do things, as rather than just a straight line drag race like seems to be so popular in the USA, you have a turn to do first. This of course means you cannot push the pedal to the floor from start to finish, but must take the turn as fast as you can, but not faster, before flooring the gas pedal after the turn and to the end.
Coming in third here, I managed to win an exquisite Spanish cheese. Winner was an BMW M4, clocked at around 177 km/h I think. Second was a Seat (Spanish brand, now owned by Volkswagen) racing car, and third my Mustang GT, clocked at around 165 km/h if I remember right.
I could have taken the turn faster if I'd been better, and perhaps also shifted faster, but could be have been worse, though that would have required there to be more than three participants. I'm sure one of the Porsche GT Cup cars on the track that day would have won had they joined, but for some reason, the drivers of those did not bother to join. So cheese for me. ;-)
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