Track forum general chit chat.

[Visceral]

Originally Posted by dparm

Good info. I wish my rate was that cheap, lol. Then again, I'm doing Road America which isn't exactly revered for its generous runoff room and low incident rate.

Why does the SCCA Track Night in America option drop the price by like 25%?!

TNIA has a sponsorship deal with them. Having a done most of the TNIA's this year, I'm sure the actuarial data back's up my observation that its the most dangerous event I go to.

The rate for the 991 on PIR is between $850-$1000 per event, so yeah I know what you mean about appreciating the low rate for the BMW.

[dparm]

Originally Posted by Visceral

TNIA has a sponsorship deal with them. Having a done most of the TNIA's this year, I'm sure the actuarial data back's up my observation that its the most dangerous event I go to.

The rate for the 991 on PIR is between $850-$1000 per event, so yeah I know what you mean about appreciating the low rate for the BMW.

I've never done TNIA. What are those events like?

Damn, $850 per event? I thought I was getting screwed at $466, but then again, your 991 is probably worth more than my car.

[Visceral]

Originally Posted by dparm

I've never done TNIA. What are those events like?

Damn, $850 per event? I thought I was getting screwed at $466, but then again, your 991 is probably worth more than my car.

The struggle with TNIA is that there is no due diligence applied to who signs up for which run group. Anyone can sign up for intermediate or advanced.

They might (or might not) get yanked back down after a couple sessions, but by that point some of the damage is done.

We had a group of about 20 wealthy international students show up to the first one of the year with their fancy street cars (C63s, M4s, etc) and they had distributed themselves among the three run groups so that they could each take the same limited pool of young women with them as passengers. It took officials awhile to figure this out from the student's poor english... but none of the present officials spoke Mandarin and they were mostly occupied trying to prevent people taking passengers.

There's nothing more irritating that having an M6 lowered on street tires poke through corners and the no-passing zone, and then dragrace you down the straight... in advanced.

[Chris_PDX]

Originally Posted by dparm

I've never done TNIA. What are those events like?

Damn, $850 per event? I thought I was getting screwed at $466, but then again, your 991 is probably worth more than my car.

I literally just did one last Friday. I wanted to try them out again after doing one two years ago and found it a cluster-fuck. I ended up sending an email to the person who runs TNIA nationwide with feedback. Rather than typing something up, I'll copy and paste what I sent to him:


Hi Heyward - I was given your email by one of the workers at the PIR TNIA event this past Friday regarding feedback from a participant.

I attended a TNIA event several years ago and hadn’t been back since due to how unorganized the event was ran. I decided to try it again this year to see if it had improved to add it back to my yearly track rotation. I attended the June event which was very wet and raining, so there were only a handful of cars in the advanced group so didn’t give a good representative sample of how the event went, so Friday the 10th was a much better indicator.

As a disclaimer, I am an instructor with the Portland BMW club and Cascade Sports Car Club (sanctioned ICSCC driving school). Below is a copy and paste of what I posted on FB for my other track junky friends (many of whom are advanced/license holders/instructor drivers):

——————

OK, my fellow track rat people are waiting on a review of the current state of Track Night America @ PIR. I slept on it.


TLDR: Not going to do it again.


Long Version:

1. At the drivers meeting for Intermediate/Advanced, it was stated that the Advanced group would have open passing anywhere, including 10/11/12. Several of us objected to that and the organizer said if that's how "the track rules it" then we'll refrain from passing in 10/11/12. Phew.


2. Passing was either side, whenever people wanted. "There is no wrong side" for passing. That means you had people darting to one side of the track or the other to start point by which led to some sketchy passing.


3. Car control: I've never seen so many offs in a single day in the advanced group before. We had 4 cars off in a single session, including one who appeared to try to keep up with me through 10, went off through 10/11 and came back on track just behind me as I went through 12. If I had slowed down any he probably would of ran into me (a blue Boxster, for those wondering).



4. Of the 30 people in the advanced group, based on who I saw as I went through traffic, maybe 10 I would of classified as advanced. The rest where at the Intermediate level... or worse. Driving lines were off in a lot of corners (4a/4b, 6 especially), which lead to unpredictable behavior as people braked mid-corner or chased apex’s, leading to sliding and scrubbing speed mid corner. A lot of folks were running wide onto kerbs on the outside of turns, leading to suspension bumps and getting the car very unsettled. Lots of folks hopping the T3 inside kerb with predictable results.


5. I will say that the vast majority of people who pointed me by did so safely, but there was more sketchy point by/passing than any other group we normally run with. A lot of black flags by the corner workers to call people in though, which was good. Corner workers did throw out debris flags when necessary, but the drivers meeting said yellow would be used for ALL cautions, so anyone not familiar with the debris flag would of been confused


Overall, the organization of it was a lot better than last time I went (in the dry) several years ago, but the on track behavior still leaves a lot to be desired. I know they are trying to make this not a school and something just for fun, but not coaching beginners on vaguely proper lines and consistency means they are just reinforcing bad habits. Most of these folks I’ve never seen at any other PIR track day, which means as soon as they hit up BMW, CSCC, HOD, etc. they are in for a rude surprise.

——————

I’ve had students at other days ask me about TNIA, and I’ve been telling them I wouldn’t recommend it due to the lack of vetting of self-selected run groups and the quality of the on track behavior. Unfortunately, my experience on Friday just reinforced that. I want TNIA to succeed and become more respected, but at least in Portland, it has a reputation that needs to be fixed.

[dparm]

Originally Posted by Chris_PDX

I literally just did one last Friday. I wanted to try them out again after doing one two years ago and found it a cluster-fuck. I ended up sending an email to the person who runs TNIA nationwide with feedback.

That's disappointing to hear but thanks for the info. Sounds like it's just a free-for-all and any asshole with a "street legal" car can show up and do whatever they want.

[Chris_PDX]

Originally Posted by dparm

That's disappointing to hear but thanks for the info. Sounds like it's just a free-for-all and any asshole with a "street legal" car can show up and do whatever they want.

Basically it. They don't enforce driver meetings, we had one (broadcast on the PA several times, and the organizer going down the line of cars in pre-grid telling people) after our first session, and literally 1/3 of the session's attendees were present. And nobody cared.

People die doing this hobby, I liken it to rock climbing. You don't just have a novice show up at a new rock face and send them up with a "have fun!". But this is what they are doing.

I saw so many people who clearly just didn't understand basic car control in the Advanced group that there is ZERO chance I would take my street car there. Or my track car, for that matter.

[Visceral]

Originally Posted by Chris_PDX

6 especially

I'm still not sure about your 6 line

I'll explore it further on Friday...

[scotty_miller]

Originally Posted by dparm

I've never done TNIA. What are those events like?

Damn, $850 per event? I thought I was getting screwed at $466, but then again, your 991 is probably worth more than my car.

TNiA in a nutshell.... advanced run group is a joke. You'll have trains for days. It's just a bunch of big American muscle cars that don't want their egos hurt by giving a pass

[dparm]

Slight change in topic: can anyone recommend a helmet bag that can actually hold a HANS? Every one of these that I look at makes you either disconnect the HANS and put it in some separate compartment, or it is designed ONLY for a helmet and nothing else. Heck, unless you're willing to get one of those massive rolled gear bags for $200, the duffels can't even hold it "assembled". I just don't like the idea of constantly disconnecting and reconnecting.

So far I have only found four bags that can do it:
-Sparco Cosmos
-Last year's OMP helmet bag
-Puma
-Stand21

[warp10]

Originally Posted by dparm

Slight change in topic: can anyone recommend a helmet bag that can actually hold a HANS? Every one of these that I look at makes you either disconnect the HANS and put it in some separate compartment, or it is designed ONLY for a helmet and nothing else. Heck, unless you're willing to get one of those massive rolled gear bags for $200, the duffels can't even hold it "assembled". I just don't like the idea of constantly disconnecting and reconnecting.

So far I have only found four bags that can do it:
-Sparco Cosmos
-Last year's OMP helmet bag
-Puma
-Stand21

Stilo helmet bag fits

[Chris_PDX]

Originally Posted by dparm

Slight change in topic: can anyone recommend a helmet bag that can actually hold a HANS? Every one of these that I look at makes you either disconnect the HANS and put it in some separate compartment, or it is designed ONLY for a helmet and nothing else. Heck, unless you're willing to get one of those massive rolled gear bags for $200, the duffels can't even hold it "assembled". I just don't like the idea of constantly disconnecting and reconnecting.

So far I have only found four bags that can do it:
-Sparco Cosmos
-Last year's OMP helmet bag
-Puma
-Stand21

This is what my wife and I both use. HANS fits under the helmet and the zipper closes just fine. https://www.amazon.com/Bell-2120014-...ell+helmet+bag

[Chris_PDX]

Originally Posted by Visceral

I'm still not sure about your 6 line

I'll explore it further on Friday...

By all means, keep hugging that left side :P

I'm not driving HPDE on Friday, but am on Saturday.

[Chris_PDX]

Originally Posted by Visceral

I'm still not sure about your 6 line

I'll explore it further on Friday...

Observe this master-class lap by Eddie.

Note this is on slicks, but same line still applies.

[XCUSE_M3]

Question, has anyone ran larger endplates on there rear wings? I have a APR GT250 and would think that larger endplates would help the air flow since the APR endplates are very small in size to the foil. Looking at AJ Hartmans endplates he has for the e46 and seeing them on a local car they are huge in comparison. Any info would help I would not say I know much about aero but have been reading alot about the function of them.

Thanks in advanced

[bigjae1976]

Originally Posted by scotty_miller

TNiA in a nutshell.... advanced run group is a joke. You'll have trains for days. It's just a bunch of big American muscle cars that don't want their egos hurt by giving a pass

I did TNIA at the Milwaukee Mile. That was well run and never had an issue except with a stupid CRX.

Glad I'm reading this here!

[ThunderMoose]

Originally Posted by bigjae1976

I did TNIA at the Milwaukee Mile. That was well run and never had an issue except with a stupid CRX.

Glad I'm reading this here!

I did a TNIA at NOLA and it went ok thankfully but I am disinclined to do another based on feedback here.

[dparm]

Originally Posted by bigjae1976

I did TNIA at the Milwaukee Mile. That was well run and never had an issue except with a stupid CRX.

Glad I'm reading this here!

Come to think of it, I did one at the mile a few years ago too. Seemed fine, though a few people decided to ignore the sage advice of not hitting the wall banked wall...

[dparm]

For those of you running harnesses, do you put one of those spare seat belt buckles into the receiver while running on the track? If so, where did you get the spare buckle?

Or do you just drive with the light on?

[slicer]

Originally Posted by dparm

For those of you running harnesses, do you put one of those spare seat belt buckles into the receiver while running on the track? If so, where did you get the spare buckle?

Or do you just drive with the light on?

I coded the seat belt warning out using alex at alpine. A friend of mine bought some belt inserts from eBay or amazon for his GTR. Worked for him. Not sure if coding can be done on Corvette.

[Visceral]

Originally Posted by dparm

For those of you running harnesses, do you put one of those spare seat belt buckles into the receiver while running on the track? If so, where did you get the spare buckle?

Or do you just drive with the light on?

A benefit of the Schroth Quick-Fit Pro is that it plugs the belt receptacle, so no light or warning

[roastbeef]

Figured out a way to hang the spare trunk so it is out of the way and won't get bumped. I love these husky Velcro straps in the garage!

[SQ13]

I’ve done two TNIA events at Harris Hill. First time, I was either in novice or intermediate. It was okay..some courteous drivers, some who drove like asshats. One driver almost rear ended my buddy and went off track as a result on the warmup lap.

Second time I was in intermediate. Got held up very little. I was probably the fastest driver in the group and got point bus pretty quickly. Good group of int drivers. Ran my first session in novice bc I missed first int session, and some asshole in his shiny new crapmaro refused to point me by for the first half of the session..corner workers never gave him a blue or black flag... I hate drivers who won’t let others pass because of their ego.

I was going to do one at COTA in advanced, but my car got flooded before I could bring it to Austin :/