ROLL-CALL: Buttonwillow 9/19 & 9/20 - San Diego BMW CCA

[Hellride]

Originally Posted by aus

Didn't this event sell out?

It did. They mentioned *because* of the club racers (which was great - especially the Sunday race) they only had enough track time for three groups. So they combined C with D. After doing my corner worker duty for the C group, I could understand if there were some not too happy folks in C...

[aus]

Originally Posted by Hellride

It did. They mentioned *because* of the club racers (which was great - especially the Sunday race) they only had enough track time for three groups. So they combined C with D. After doing my corner worker duty for the C group, I could understand if there were some not too happy folks in C...

That's just not a good idea. D group can have grandfathers and soccor mom's. I remember a lady in an AMG MB that was driving like she was going to the mall and an OLD dude driving a Chrysler wagon in the D group!!

At AAA Speedway, the combined the B's and C's.
Having the Club racer's is a double edged sword since that means less track time for the students and combined groups.

[Dascamel]

Originally Posted by aus

Someone got TWO black flags???

*cough* *cough*

Very rough morning, I'll leave it at that. Rest of day 2 improved. Roughly 8 days with BMW CCA, those were my only two black flags ever. Outside of the "short bus" session, great weekend.

Last session of the second day in B group was great, everyone went home. Most open track I've seen in a long time.

[Paddy]

Originally Posted by aus

That's just not a good idea. D group can have grandfathers and soccor mom's. I remember a lady in an AMG MB that was driving like she was going to the mall and an OLD dude driving a Chrysler wagon in the D group!!

At AAA Speedway, the combined the B's and C's.
Having the Club racer's is a double edged sword since that means less track time for the students and combined groups.

It wasn't so bad, I was in C as a first timer on the track. There were a few times traffic backed up and pretty much ruined a lap (speed wise), at which point I just concentrated on driving the line and then made a pit stop to get some space.
There were plenty of "slower" cars out there but in almost all cases they signaled for a pass early. I passed as many as 3 cars on the 9-10 straight, having to take the corner from the middle of the track on a few occasions.
I think the extra traffic was part of the "game", generating different conditions on each corner. If it wasn't for the traffic I wouldn't have had a chance/reason to take the 10 corner so far out. For me it definitely added to the experience.
There were plenty of laps where things were nicely spaced and I could chug along nicely.

As mentioned above, last session on Sun was definitely much lighter,

Fun Fun Fun...

BTW, I noticed vibrations in my steering on Monday, I took the car in for rebalancing of the wheels. The guys at costco were shocked, I only bought the tires 3 weeks ago, now they're showing cupping on the outer edges and the sidewalls have a few small gouges in them :-) Though they were impressed when I told them I was just at the track for 2 days, the manager said "well you're using the tires/car as it is supposed to be used, so great!"
The rebalance seemed to do the trick. The guys at costco were talking about race weights (which they don't do) but they reckoned the weights they use are more likely to fall off at a track. Anyone know what the difference between the Race/Normal weights are?

[Hellride]

Originally Posted by Paddy

The guys at costco were talking about race weights (which they don't do) but they reckoned the weights they use are more likely to fall off at a track. Anyone know what the difference between the Race/Normal weights are?

Interesting. ALL of the weights fell off my wheels. I need to go and get them re-balanced and will ask them about race weights. I'm sure it didn't help that is showed 104 degrees on Saturday - but really? All the weights?

Couldn't have helped the grip, that's for sure.

Glad you found some positives from the traffic in your group. From the corner station, the trains were dangerously long.

[lucid]

BMW CCA tends to run events conservatively. The good thing is the events are pretty safe and you don't see drivers screwing around and pulling stuff. The bad thing is there are some painfully slow drivers in just about every group, including Group A or 1. For instance, it's highly unlikely that you'll see a painfully slow driver in HPDE 3 or 4 in NASA, but you might run into some characters that push things a bit too far for an HPDE.

I just got back from WGI, and they addressed the painfully slow driver issue by training everyone in the advanced group to learn how to pass into the corners. So, when you caught up to someone at the end of a straight or the entry of any corner, you were given a point by, and had to get on the brakes later, extend your braking zone, trail brake and wrap yourself around the apex. Great exercise and worked wonders for everyone. It especially worked out for me, since I never really can pass anyone on a straight in my E30 although I was turning faster lap times than many, so I could take advantage of this by passing into the corners.

Before someone jumps in and starts claiming trail braking kills or something, I'll tell you that if the entire (advanced) run group is trained in a structured manner to execute this, things work out beautifully and everyone ends up leaving the track much happier and also as better drivers. My point is, depending on what club you run with, you might already be doing this, but it is very productive when a club takes the time to actively train an entire run group together on a specific skill like this one as opposed to just letting it happen by itself.

The real point of the exercise, apart from passing, was to teach people off the line driving and how to handle a situation in which you realize you are going into the corner too hot. The solution is not to do what you would normally do by braking in a straight line, turn in late, and lift hoping that will slow you down. It is to turn in earlier, brake all the way into the apex (extend your braking zone), and if you think you can make it, trail brake and wrap the car. If you think you still can't make it, you just need to keep on braking straight past the apex and go off the track that way to slow yourself down as much as possible, but we didn't practice that.

[m3larson]

Towing the M3 back home with the X5 i was told by three different gas station attendants that the tires on my trailer where all going to pop and then I will die in a fireball crash. I kept telling them, thank god I got to run ButtonWillow first Then I thought if I drove faster with the trailer I would make it home faster having less of a chance for the tires to blow. This is why I am not an engineer.

[slikk66]

Originally Posted by Hellride

It did. They mentioned *because* of the club racers (which was great - especially the Sunday race) they only had enough track time for three groups. So they combined C with D. After doing my corner worker duty for the C group, I could understand if there were some not too happy folks in C...

I was in C and it sucked.. I never had to point anyone by a single time the whole weekend and was lapping the same people 2,3,4 times per session.. after having to sit behind their asses for 1/2 lap everytime. And for some reason, these jokers would point by and then I swear they would hit the gas.. I got a black flag for late pass once I think when the A/Bs were working the corners.. I was #13.

I don't care what group I run next time as long as it's not the lowest where all the wives/girlfriends go in their daily drivers while their significant others run in the higher groups...

Was fun tho, I really want to do Laguna Seca next.. isn't that usually around first of the year? None of the calendars seem to have anything from 2010 far as I can tell.

[Dascamel]

Originally Posted by slikk66

I was in C and it sucked.. I never had to point anyone by a single time the whole weekend and was lapping the same people 2,3,4 times per session.. after having to sit behind their asses for 1/2 lap everytime. And for some reason, these jokers would point by and then I swear they would hit the gas.. I got a black flag for late pass once I think when the A/Bs were working the corners.. I was #13.

I don't care what group I run next time as long as it's not the lowest where all the wives/girlfriends go in their daily drivers while their significant others run in the higher groups...

Was fun tho, I really want to do Laguna Seca next.. isn't that usually around first of the year? None of the calendars seem to have anything from 2010 far as I can tell.

Yeah, when I worked the corners for your group I just felt like pointing the passing flag to everyone. The trains were real bad.

Then the instructors hit the track, zero trains, late passing was permitted. They looked smooth and got by each other w/o any fuss.

[aus]

They should have combined B/C instead of D/C since the SLOW folks are in D.

[Dascamel]

Just a FYI, another event is coming up in Buttonwillow, Nov. 12, 13. Not BMW CCA, but with the Audi guys instead. Been hearing good things about them. Post up about it in the e90post tracking section.

[axm]

@slikk66. I was on corner 10; you were really much quicker than your peers.