Sonoma Raceway 2022-02-05
This was my first time at Sonoma Raceway in the M3. The last time I was here was in 2012 in my old E46 ZHP. Things have certainly changed a bit on all fronts!
## Goals
1. Sub 2 minute laps
2. Practice traction management at 100% friction circle and beyond.
## Recap
Session 1: Cold with plenty of traffic. It felt foreign yet familiar. This session was about learning general reference points for braking, turn-in, apex, exit. I was also learning the traction limits of my tires. There was lots of traffic but that's okay its the first session.
Session 2: Traffic was tough. The flaggers kept pacing a blue flag to everyone..I look back and there was NO ONE. I was a bit confused at that point and I couldn’t get a decent full lap in until the session was over.
Session 3: Tons of traffic again. I was either too slow for someone, or someone was in front of me. I couldn’t space myself out where I could have a clean lap. It was a good exercise for learning the limits of tires as I was fighting traction at T2, T6, T7, T11.
Session 4: Traffic was still there but I started to get used to the RS4 limited traction near the end of the session. Unfortunately, still stuck at 1:58.50 from earlier morning session.
Session 5: Last session of the day, there were fewer cars and was able to get some space. My last lap was on a blazing lap but my fuel gauge was touching the white line of the E and I had fuel anxiety and decided to pit. I already was out 1 more lap than I should’ve! I think that would’ve been a PB of the day if I kept going but I rather not temp fate and be that guy on the track out of gas. Aim Solo data shows last session lap 9 was the best but I pitted for gas. It combined best rolling time to achieve a 1:51.9 but I'm having doubts in the data since it's so far off from my existing times. Either way, I’m glad the m3post folks and others I talked to, convinced me to keep the RS4s on and work on traction management. There were a few gnarly slides like the T2 slide linked below and I am pleased that I felt comfortable sliding the car around to a certain degree. This is a skill I never worked on and that is changing now! My spin at Laguna in October 2020 reminded me that my driver skill needs further progression!
View post on imgur.com
## Issues
Media issues still plagued me from last event. From the last event, I thought my GoPro Hero 9 was overheating so I dropped the settings to 1080p60fps instead of 2.7K60fps. However, it would still would fail as soon as we reached pit exit. This time though, my wife was able to catch the error message saying some sort of SD card error. Luckily I borrowed a friend’s SDCard and it was able to This would've been great had I didn't make one change before the event. I was tired of turning on my mic or forgetting to turn it off|on between sessions and not having audio on my videos. So I replaced my battery powered mic with a standard purple panda mic to drop that task. But, I didn't test the mic with the GoPro before the event. Because of this, the GoPro mic settings were set to "Powered Mic" and ended up with great video with no audio. Sigh. haha. At home, I finally figured it all out and I HOPE it is good next time around!
GoPro settings will be:
2.7K@60FPS
PurplePanda Mic + Standard Mic setting
New 128GB UHS3 microSD Card
## Media
Photos by @Slomaigai
Photos by @lowtecrob
Photos by SpeedSF official photographer @tfp_media
He caught my slide too lol
What's next
Parts are starting to collect. We will see which ones I decide to tackle.
-Bimmerworld Solid subframe bushings
-SPL rear toe links
-Slon VANOS Covers
-Dinan Pulley
Congrats, you made it to the end. Ha. You will never get your time back.
