Here is a few roughly edited laps around Waterford Hills. I only recorded one session for which I had an instructor, so don't mind the background chatter.

The track is 1.5 miles, tights and quite curvy. It's rather slow, but very technical and still plenty fast to pull some serious G force and get you in trouble. My first time here, so I wasn't pushing too hard and I'm still working on my line, yet I felt quite beat up after the full day out here. Fun times though, enjoy!

 

Nice! Looks like a fun track!

 

Nice track

 

On a related note. Does anyone know if the early stages of tire chunking look like this? At first I though it was just a little molten rubber, but it seems to be going deeper into the thread.

This is my first set of track dedicated tires and I'm not sure what to expect in terms of how exactly they wear. I know they will be done before I ever wear the thread out, but not sure how their ultimate demise might occur.

 

I'm no expert, but due to the transitions between concrete and asphalt at that track I would say that looks normal. I don't see any chunking.

 

Thanks Brian, that's what I was hoping to hear. If they do go after the next track day I will have to replace them net season. This time I'll go with an extreme performance summer tire like BFG Rival or Potenza RE-11.

 

Just wondering,
Have you noticed a change in tire grip, since you've been putting them through some heat cycles?

 

No, they are still consistently gripy. The first lap until they come up to temp would a bit more skiddish, but by the second lap they would "hook up" nicely and last for the remainder of the 10-12 laps.

I once had them over pressured though for a few sesions at Gingerman Raceway (at 36 psi cold), and it was a disaster. They felt greasy and only offered about 85% of typical grip. Once i got them down to ~33psi cold the grip came right back.

 

Congrats it did look very technical, and narrow too, or is that a camera illusion?

 

Thanks Roger! Yes, it's narrow. 2 lanes wide at best. 50mph in most curves felt "fast".

 

Thanks for posting, looked like fun. One of these days I am going to make it out there.

 

How'd you like the track? I may take mine out there next year.

 

It's good fun, and close to the Detroit area. Worth the drive. I hope you make it out there!

It's the slowest, tightest and most dangerous (little run off room) track in Michigan. It's fun, and it's very challenging, particularly for larger, heavier cars like our Mustangs. My best lap time so far was 1:25, while a well driven Sec Miata's are in 1:19 category. If I pushed really hard (and was fearless) I could probably get down to 1:23ish, but I doubt on street tires I could by any faster than that.

With that said this is a great learning track. If you go in not expecting to break any speed records and just focus on corner entry, holding the line and corner exit you can learn A LOT on this track. But plan to stay on the track, if you go off there is a good chance you'll hit something.

If you have a high HP car and want to go fast I'd recommend Grattan. Its less curvy, but still techinical, it has an faster average speed, and it has the longest straight-away in the state. I get to ~135mph on stock 5.0 power. All but 2 corner also have a lot of runoff room.

If you want to learn cornering, focus on lower speed execution of turn in and precision out of the curve I'd recommend Waterford.

Gingerman is somewhere in-between those 2 with good width of track, nice straight sections and high speed corners. And the most runoff room of any Michigan track.