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Originally Posted by ThunderMoose
At the 1-yr mark, I bought a track prepped E46 M3. It had 1/2 cage, harness, seat, decent brakes and suspension. I also bought a HANS pretty soon after. It was street legal and I towed a little tire trailer with it to and from track.
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This is just awesome, I love it. My original plan was to buy an E46 M3 track car once I had reached the level that having a car for the track made sense. What you have described seems just perfect, really.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThunderMoose
I don't necessarily think that you need to buy another car, but I was going to have to start investing money in my E92 to keep tires from cording, plus I started getting nervous about pushing the limits in my DD.
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I really wanted to buy another car, but I have mostly decided to dual purpose this car for the remainder of this track season, maybe longer.. I'm not sure yet. I do understand being nervous about pushing the limits in the DD at the track though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThunderMoose
I stayed in instructed run groups for about another year. But I had a SoloDL and a GoPro and I was reviewing my data and sharing files with friends. My point is that don't rush to go solo. Get as much instruction as possible. Not all instructors are fast drivers nor are they all good at meeting you where you're at and improving your driving, but most are and I learned a ton.
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I am in no rush to go solo. I was the only intermediate student that had an instructor all weekend, but I specifically told my instructor at the beginning of the weekend that I had no desire to go solo. I will have an instructor as long as they will give one to me. I have been blessed with fantastic instructors at every event I have attended. I have them to thank for where I am today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThunderMoose
Intermediate is about improving your driving but it's also about improving your situational awareness - seeing all of the flag stations, looking through corners, recognizing faster cars coming behind you and working to make and give good passes. Lap times are secondary, although they will naturally improve.
Don't rush to add go fast mods or sticky tires. I set goals as to when I earned mods. I pretty much stayed on NT01's for about 2-3 years. Once I started hitting lap time targets, I added some power. Once I hit new targets, I added Hoosiers. Once I hit some targets after that, I added Aero. But again, my very first mods were safety and tire preservation (camber plates).
From time to time, I end up driving a few laps with the intermediate groups. They are pretty much the worse and sketchiest driving group out there. Lowest situational awareness. Sometimes 2-3 laps before a point by. T rex points. Points given with right hand. Missing all kinds of apexes. The only group that actually frightens me to drive with it. Don't be that person.
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I have always had great situational awareness and I am great at giving point bys. I probably gave 50 point bys during Saturday and part of Sunday, as I was a brand new B student and I was one of the slower cars out there throughout most of the weekend. Two things I do need to improve on are looking every time at the flagging stations as I pass them, and looking through the corners. And, you're absolutely right. I would agree that intermediate run groups are sketchy, for sure. I focus really hard on hitting my apexes, but I saw some really sloppy driving by a number of the B students, and most of them did not have instructors with them to help correct the bad habits.
I like the idea of adding certain mods or upgrading tires based on hitting targets. I will hold onto that idea for the future. I have RE71s right now and I plan to keep using them for a while, and I have Ground Control street camber plates that I will be installing soon hopefully. Not much else is planned for the immediate future, unless I do some safety or brakes upgrades.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThunderMoose
When you get promoted to Advanced, consider doing Time Trials. Competitive driving but you can do it with your HPDE vehicles. Its a nice bridge between HPDE and W2W.
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That's really good advice to do time trials before jumping into W2W racing. I like that
Just great advice in here, thank you so much!!