NJMP Lightning and Thunderbolt

[paradocs98]

I ran with SCDA at New Jersey Motorsports Park on Monday and Tuesday. Great event--chance to do both Lightning and Thunderbolt in one trip.

SCDA, as usual, is a great group to run with. Nice guys, great mix of cars. Ian and Elivan, who run SCDA, have SCCA championships and various track records between them. I recommend them for anyone looking for Northeast US track events.

Weather was good, if a bit hot on Tuesday at Thunderbolt. I managed to break into the 1:16s at Lightning and 1:36s at Thunderbolt, both bests for me. I'm sure others may be faster, but I was happy with myself.

Once again, the E90/2 M3 proves to be a very solid, credible car for HPDE events. In the advanced group, the well-driven street cars that I know will be consistently faster than me are Z06s, 911 GT3s and GTRs. Otherwise, the M3 holds its own very very well. (And it takes me to work every day, including in the winter, hauls the kids around to activities, hauls groceries, and makes runs to Home Depot.)

A couple of laps from Lightning:

A couple from Thunderbolt (the first couple of laps I followed a friend in his M Coupe so I could video his lines for him):

Nice oversteery/tankslapper moment from an E36 on Lightning:

Surprise on Lightning--that car is awfully tall...it's an X5M! Complete with roof rack! He gave me a point-by and I saw three kids and two dogs in the truck, all with helmets.

[arter]

I miss doing the combo with SCDA ( didn't work out date wise with me either opportunity this year). I liked how you got faster when the yellow vette served as a rabbit for you on Thunderbolt.

When I am on a empty track, I tend to mellow out a little. I get my best times trying to chase someone faster than me.

I have 2 Watkins Glen runs coming up. With GVC BMW and then a week later with NASA. With GVC, they will get upset if anyone hits a wall and with NASA you walk around and count the wreaks in the paddock ( I have seen 12 in 1 weekend).

[paradocs98]

Originally Posted by arter

I miss doing the combo with SCDA ( didn't work out date wise with me either opportunity this year). I liked how you got faster when the yellow vette served as a rabbit for you on Thunderbolt.

When I am on a empty track, I tend to mellow out a little. I get my best times trying to chase someone faster than me.

I have 2 Watkins Glen runs coming up. With GVC BMW and then a week later with NASA. With GVC, they will get upset if anyone hits a wall and with NASA you walk around and count the wreaks in the paddock ( I have seen 12 in 1 weekend).

Hey there!

The yellow Vette was a C5 Z06 driven by an instructor. (Our last run of the day mixed in instructors and intermediate 2 with advanced.) I told him it was my highlight of the day following him. I saw him coming up behind and pointed him by, and then tried to stay with him. I managed to hold a steady distance behind him for a few laps. He got me to step it up, but I was also trying to concentrate on my own line. I didn't want to run out of talent trying to directly mimic him. He got very sideways at a few points, especially right before I pointed him by. That's why I let out a "woo-hoo" in the video clip, watching him hang it out in my mirrors. He later told me he was using $99 Firestone all-seasons, and burning through them at will.

Unfortunately, there always seems to be damage of some sort at any of these events. For these two days, there was a different C5 Z06 that blew its engine, spilling oil all over the track, a Porsche 944 or 968 with a Chevy V8 engine swap that also blew its motor, and an exotic LMP-looking kit car that looked vaguely like a Saleen S7 that proceeded to catch on fire and melt its plastic engine cover (driver reportedly okay, thankfully). Fortunately, no big smashes into the guardrails that I was aware of.

[RingMeister01]

Cool! Thx for sharing

[bkrM3]

Cool videos!

My first time at Lightning (also was my first track weekend in the M) was at the end of August and, according to Harry's lap timer, I was running almost 10 seconds slower than you

Nice to be able to watch someone else's lines in a relatively similar car.

I'm going back to Lightning in October, this time with AD08s (265 square) and have a feeling I'm going to have to learn everything all over again...

[LightWerkz]

Nice work!
1:16's is definitely great at Lightning. Do you have more track time over on Lighting?

On thunderbolt you can easily shave a few seconds. I feel that track is more technical and rewarding, especially when you break it down into segments and become more consistent.

Few tips from what I can see from the video.

On the straight away I'm hitting 130mph on this track, and thats through GPS, not indicated on speedo. You should be holding on the throttle for longer, and braking way deeper in the zone. This alone wont give you another 10mph, but coming onto the straight you can easily carry more speed.You're hitting about 90mph just before the last straight, and that leaves atleast 5-10mph of improvement on that corner alone which will get you into a much higher mph on the straight. Just lift real quick, and then get on the gas right away and hold it deep into the zone.

On Turn 3, you're letting off the throttle a little early. Dont be afraid to get all over the curbing, its very wide and will help you carry more speed. On the exit, the curbing is also wide. This comes with experience and confidence though, just ease into it in this area.

T4-5, those look pretty good. I early apex into 4 and that works pretty well. Track out, and then try to hug the curbing on T5.

On T6, you're a bit off the Apex, and can once again carry more speed in this are, similar to T3. Not sure if thats your normal line, but bring it in a little bit and carry some extra mph through this section.

Coming into T7- get into the apex closer, and you should be on the throttle all the way until you are braking for the tight right hander. Brake hard, and this is where you want to rotate the car, to get that right front tire on the curbing. This is a must! It takes alot of work to get this corner down well since it can be approached in some many ways, but once you do you feel it!

Thats all I really got for you now. What tires are you running

Im going to Thunderbolt this Thursday/Friday. Havent been with my E90 M3, but with the E46 I was consistently running at about 1:32-1:33 pace, with my best being 1:31.5. I run with Nitto NT01's and on the E46 it was a street car with PFC brakes and TC SA suspension, so nothing fancy.

let me know if you have any questions!

[mid-corner fun]

really good lap times, especially for Lightning, congrats!

Chasing (or being chased by) a faster car helps a lot, and what better place to test this than with SCDA, tons of worthy car/driver combos and Ian runs great events. It's a shame most of their events are on weekdays this year, can't really attend these

[will.c]

1:16 at Lightning is beast! Lightwerkz gave me a ride in his E90 pulling those times; I crapped my pants at T1 when he was still on full throttle past "5" doing 130+.

Honestly, no matter how hard I try, my self-preservation instinct simply won't let me replicate it.

[arter]

Originally Posted by will.c

Honestly, no matter how hard I try, my self-preservation instinct simply won't let me replicate it.

I think that is my number one thing to go faster, to get myself to push closer to the cars limit. I always hit the apex and think, I could have done that much faster. Well, as long as your having fun.......

[paradocs98]

Originally Posted by LightWerkz

Nice work!
1:16's is definitely great at Lightning. Do you have more track time over on Lighting?

On thunderbolt you can easily shave a few seconds. I feel that track is more technical and rewarding, especially when you break it down into segments and become more consistent.

Few tips from what I can see from the video.

On the straight away I'm hitting 130mph on this track, and thats through GPS, not indicated on speedo. You should be holding on the throttle for longer, and braking way deeper in the zone. This alone wont give you another 10mph, but coming onto the straight you can easily carry more speed.You're hitting about 90mph just before the last straight, and that leaves atleast 5-10mph of improvement on that corner alone which will get you into a much higher mph on the straight. Just lift real quick, and then get on the gas right away and hold it deep into the zone.

On Turn 3, you're letting off the throttle a little early. Dont be afraid to get all over the curbing, its very wide and will help you carry more speed. On the exit, the curbing is also wide. This comes with experience and confidence though, just ease into it in this area.

T4-5, those look pretty good. I early apex into 4 and that works pretty well. Track out, and then try to hug the curbing on T5.

On T6, you're a bit off the Apex, and can once again carry more speed in this are, similar to T3. Not sure if thats your normal line, but bring it in a little bit and carry some extra mph through this section.

Coming into T7- get into the apex closer, and you should be on the throttle all the way until you are braking for the tight right hander. Brake hard, and this is where you want to rotate the car, to get that right front tire on the curbing. This is a must! It takes alot of work to get this corner down well since it can be approached in some many ways, but once you do you feel it!

Thats all I really got for you now. What tires are you running

Im going to Thunderbolt this Thursday/Friday. Havent been with my E90 M3, but with the E46 I was consistently running at about 1:32-1:33 pace, with my best being 1:31.5. I run with Nitto NT01's and on the E46 it was a street car with PFC brakes and TC SA suspension, so nothing fancy.

let me know if you have any questions!

Thanks for the tips--I'll try to apply them next time out. First few laps in the video I'm trailing a friend who was running a bit slower, so I wasn't getting up to speed on the front straight. I typically will hit high 120s-130 mph (true/GPS) just prior to braking for turn 1. Speedo says 140s--our speedos are very optimistic! I did get the feeling that I was braking a bit too early for turn 1. It's just a matter of getting used to it and braking a bit later each time until you hit the right spot. Part of it is psychological--Thunderbolt's turn 1 is not uphill like Lightning's, so you feel that you need to scrub off more speed before coming into it.

Turn 3 has been tricky for me. I sometimes forget and apex it a bit too early, and then end up with very little room at track-out. It's one of those turns where you can get into trouble, pushing wide at track-out and then pinching it a bit to stay on track as you drop your outside wheels in the grass, creating a spin to the inside. It's also very rough and nasty in the runoff there, so I tend to error on the side of late-apexing and being conservative. Turns 4-5 I'm starting to get better at, carrying speed through 4, then braking hard for 5, trying to stay mid-track for turn-in for 5 instead of drifting wide, and then getting on the apex curbing of 5. Sounds like I could stay even tighter on the inside through 5, though.

I'll try to brake harder in the octopus and get over quicker to the right-hand curbing prior to the left-hand hairpin. Through the esses, then, I never quite feel perfectly comfortable. You hear a lot of people say to just shoot straight through here, but I never feel that I can do that. I'm always having to do the quick back-and-forth transition through the esses. I've then been trying to get over to the left hand side as soon as possible to settle in for the last turn onto the straight. It took me a while to get the confidence to not brake in that last turn, and just breathe the throttle instead, but I don't have the confidence to keep it floored through that last turn as you clip the right-hand side curbing.

I'm running Toyo Proxes RRs (40 treadwear rating, R-comp) in a 275/35-18 square setup. Before that I was doing Nitto NT01s.

Originally Posted by mid-corner fun

really good lap times, especially for Lightning, congrats!

Chasing (or being chased by) a faster car helps a lot, and what better place to test this than with SCDA, tons of worthy car/driver combos and Ian runs great events. It's a shame most of their events are on weekdays this year, can't really attend these

Thanks--agreed, it's hard to get time away for a weekday event. And yet they're well attended, so there are a lot of people who are lucky enough to be able to do it. Then again, there are people who show up in their $1M luxury motorcoaches to trackdays. Not me.

Originally Posted by will.c

1:16 at Lightning is beast! Lightwerkz gave me a ride in his E90 pulling those times; I crapped my pants at T1 when he was still on full throttle past "5" doing 130+.

Honestly, no matter how hard I try, my self-preservation instinct simply won't let me replicate it.

Thanks. It's hard to be the passenger. I rode with a friend of mine at Monticello in his C6 Z06 as he flew in close formation with two other Z06s in the Advanced group. I really almost lost my lunch.

[klammer]

Great videos and looks like a fun 1-2 punch on the different tracks, those are some pretty short laps, but know those can be pretty exhausting with no straights to really rest on. Btw, that was awesome seeing the X5M out there...priceless!!! Might be adding these tracks to the list too, although next year might have to hit the west coast

[dmw16]

Great videos on two nice tracks. The videos and added feedback from you (OP) and others is helpful.

I've run Lightning and Thunderbolt twice (1 2-day event each) and think Thunderbolt is a lot more fun, but Lightning is great too. NJMP is a nice facility all around.

[LiM3y]

I used to prefer Thunderbolt over Lightning, but as I have improved, Lightning rewards you more with a good line...however, I am still of PDX pace here!

The one tip I have is for T-bolt, if you put your front left wheel on the inside curbing of the Octopus, it affords a big bump in front end grip in the corner and allows you use more throttle going around that corner and launch you down the esses. This came from Elivan who picked it up when he ran here in the Rolex Grand-Am race a couple of years ago. It seems to work whenever I manage to get my ass far enough left to use it.

[mid-corner fun]

Originally Posted by LiM3y

The one tip I have is for T-bolt, if you put your front left wheel on the inside curbing of the Octopus, it affords a big bump in front end grip in the corner and allows you use more throttle going around that corner and launch you down the esses. This came from Elivan who picked it up when he ran here in the Rolex Grand-Am race a couple of years ago. It seems to work whenever I manage to get my ass far enough left to use it.

That sounds like the defensive racing line (which would be used in GrandAm), I'd imagine you'd get more grip but you'd have to spend more time turning as well with that line. Which defeats the whole purpose of getting out of the octopus as fast as possible and shooting straight through the esses, no?

[LiM3y]

Try it and see...part of the fun of HPDE. I felt like it was pulling the front end around and set you up better for the esses when I got it right...so I guess that is an N=1 for the 40+ laps that day!

[knolow]

Originally Posted by LightWerkz

Nice work!
1:16's is definitely great at Lightning. Do you have more track time over on Lighting?

On thunderbolt you can easily shave a few seconds. I feel that track is more technical and rewarding, especially when you break it down into segments and become more consistent.

Few tips from what I can see from the video.

On the straight away I'm hitting 130mph on this track, and thats through GPS, not indicated on speedo. You should be holding on the throttle for longer, and braking way deeper in the zone. This alone wont give you another 10mph, but coming onto the straight you can easily carry more speed.You're hitting about 90mph just before the last straight, and that leaves atleast 5-10mph of improvement on that corner alone which will get you into a much higher mph on the straight. Just lift real quick, and then get on the gas right away and hold it deep into the zone.

On Turn 3, you're letting off the throttle a little early. Dont be afraid to get all over the curbing, its very wide and will help you carry more speed. On the exit, the curbing is also wide. This comes with experience and confidence though, just ease into it in this area.

T4-5, those look pretty good. I early apex into 4 and that works pretty well. Track out, and then try to hug the curbing on T5.

On T6, you're a bit off the Apex, and can once again carry more speed in this are, similar to T3. Not sure if thats your normal line, but bring it in a little bit and carry some extra mph through this section.

Coming into T7- get into the apex closer, and you should be on the throttle all the way until you are braking for the tight right hander. Brake hard, and this is where you want to rotate the car, to get that right front tire on the curbing. This is a must! It takes alot of work to get this corner down well since it can be approached in some many ways, but once you do you feel it!

Thats all I really got for you now. What tires are you running

Im going to Thunderbolt this Thursday/Friday. Havent been with my E90 M3, but with the E46 I was consistently running at about 1:32-1:33 pace, with my best being 1:31.5. I run with Nitto NT01's and on the E46 it was a street car with PFC brakes and TC SA suspension, so nothing fancy.

let me know if you have any questions!

good feedback. I myself will attempt.

[Groundpilot]

Originally Posted by LiM3y

I used to prefer Thunderbolt over Lightning, but as I have improved, Lightning rewards you more with a good line...however, I am still of PDX pace here!

The one tip I have is for T-bolt, if you put your front left wheel on the inside curbing of the Octopus, it affords a big bump in front end grip in the corner and allows you use more throttle going around that corner and launch you down the esses. This came from Elivan who picked it up when he ran here in the Rolex Grand-Am race a couple of years ago. It seems to work whenever I manage to get my ass far enough left to use it.

Aaron Povoledo said the same thing about using inside curbing in the Octopus during one of his open track events.
During the track walk he told us to feel with our feet how much grippyer that curb is compare to the black top. So when you put your inside front and rear tires over there, you feel how much faster your car goes trough that crazy left hander, altimately giving you higher exit speed out the most important turn of the track.
Jayson, by the way great time on lightning

[paradocs98]

Originally Posted by LiM3y

I used to prefer Thunderbolt over Lightning, but as I have improved, Lightning rewards you more with a good line...however, I am still of PDX pace here!

The one tip I have is for T-bolt, if you put your front left wheel on the inside curbing of the Octopus, it affords a big bump in front end grip in the corner and allows you use more throttle going around that corner and launch you down the esses. This came from Elivan who picked it up when he ran here in the Rolex Grand-Am race a couple of years ago. It seems to work whenever I manage to get my ass far enough left to use it.

Originally Posted by mid-corner fun

That sounds like the defensive racing line (which would be used in GrandAm), I'd imagine you'd get more grip but you'd have to spend more time turning as well with that line. Which defeats the whole purpose of getting out of the octopus as fast as possible and shooting straight through the esses, no?

Rob (LiM3y) is right--Elivan told me the same thing during this event. I tried it during my last two sessions, and it worked well. While it is a defensive, protective inside racing line, it is also a shorter distance around, and the inside curbing does give you more grip (unless it's raining, I suppose). I had always been staying maybe 4 or 5 feet off of the inside curbing, but at that spot it feels like running on half of the Lime Rock skid pad--it's a throttle-modulated, see-saw battle between understeer and oversteer. And if you go out way wide to the outside, it's a mess--lots of marbles, and the camber of the track falls away to the outside.

[will.c]

Originally Posted by LiM3y

I used to prefer Thunderbolt over Lightning, but as I have improved, Lightning rewards you more with a good line...however, I am still of PDX pace here!

I really feel the same! Thunder's octopus T9 might generate more errors but the consequences are relatively small b/c it's followed by the slow left-hander. I didn't see too much difference in laptimes even if I messed up T9 and also T5 there.

But in Lightning, if I mess up T5 or the entrance of the bulb, my laptimes would show it clearly, vice versa. Also very rewarding if I get them right once a while.

[mid-corner fun]

Originally Posted by paradocs98

Rob (LiM3y) is right--Elivan told me the same thing during this event. I tried it during my last two sessions, and it worked well. While it is a defensive, protective inside racing line, it is also a shorter distance around, and the inside curbing does give you more grip (unless it's raining, I suppose).

Time to try a new line I guess then, will let you know how it goes next month (NASA).

Originally Posted by paradocs98

I had always been staying maybe 4 or 5 feet off of the inside curbing, but at that spot it feels like running on half of the Lime Rock skid pad--it's a throttle-modulated, see-saw battle between understeer and oversteer. And if you go out way wide to the outside, it's a mess--lots of marbles, and the camber of the track falls away to the outside.

Yep, that's my usual line, a few feet off the curb and away from marble-land, position the car at the far left at the end of the octopus and straight through the esses. I guess if you manage to ride the curbing all the way to trackout you'll still end up at the same end position.

[paradocs98]

Originally Posted by mid-corner fun

Time to try a new line I guess then, will let you know how it goes next month (NASA).



Yep, that's my usual line, a few feet off the curb and away from marble-land, position the car at the far left at the end of the octopus and straight through the esses. I guess if you manage to ride the curbing all the way to trackout you'll still end up at the same end position.

Try it and report back!