Video: Mustang at Grattan Raceway
 

I finished my first event of the season with 3 Balls Racing at Grattan. Good fun, though I was hoping for more grip out of the Hankook Ventus R-S3s. They are grippiest tires I have used yet, but not by as much as I hoped. As evident from all the small corrections and the big skid at ~5:50 :jester:

Looks good, you should just go for some R1's or Z214's... the grip is incredible and it makes the car much more fun.

Anyways good car control, sounded like it pushes some but will rotate if you get on the gas quick. Handling is fairly neutral? What settings do you have the shocks on?

Very nice 5.0, looks like a good time.

Hey D, thanks. Handling is fairly neutral. Though yesterday there was definitely a tail happy tendency. Under-steer was minor. I could easily step the tail out with throttle, but if the rear got loose for reasons other than throttle it felt like the front was going to loose the traction too.

I like the Konis set to 3 clicks (3x180 deg turns towards stiff) front and 2 rear (mid way between soft and firm). I have the single adjustable, so I can't tell you much more. I think I just kept pushing for grip which wasn't there. Good thing about the RS3s is they fall away progressively. This helped me catch a lot of slides yesterday.

Once these wear out I'll look into ~140 thread wear street legal tire. Still no plans for trailer or tow vehicle. I'll start researching soon.

Also, here are some photos from the day. First picture is my car. And the last is a S197 with a 530hp Aluminator XS :heh:

Thanks Rog! oops, never uploaded the pic of mine :doh:. Here it is

Few laps around Gingerman. I did the Advanced group with CGI Motorsports there yesterday. Will upload some pics later.

Ok, so here is some shots. Lots of sweet cars, and mostly American this time. Corvettes, Camaros, Mustangs and just a few BMWs, Honda's Subarus etc. I was able to get by 2 of the 3 Camaro ZL1s. The 3rd was faster.


I'm starting to like the pretty Hankooks more, they felt Grippy and hooked up this time. I just had to slow down more before the turn-in.

Oh, and by the way, 3mm of pad lining (30% of the pad) is not enough for a full day. These fell apart on me right after the last session. I had to do a roadside pad swap.

Looks like great fun. Great driving, too. I love your correction at 5:55, nice work. Interesting to see the new BMW M4 GTS, we don't have any of those in our area yet.

Thanks Pete! I'm still in shock I caught it, haha. I've been working on reigning it in. Can't drive like that and expect to stay safe. My Hankook R-S3a like 35psi hot and warm weather, and I need to go into turns slower. Between these 2 changes I think I can stay hooked up.

That was a gorgeous M4 GTS. It looked sick, crazy wheels and all.

I was also battling a pretty well driven M3. It was stripped, caged, and wearing Hankook R-S4s. Guy said they were noticeably better than the R-S3s, but I managed to reel him in anyway :nice:

I've done that with pads before... actually at VIR last year, I thought I had more rear pad left than I did, and when I hit a curb with a student at one point, one of the pads knocked out of the caliper and I lost brakes for 2 pumps in a ~95mph braking zone. Got exciting for a minute... The calipers don't play well with pads worn that much, glad you didn't have an incident as a result

Tire pressure makes a HUGE difference as you know. I found that the Pirelli DH slicks I was running at the Glen yesterday liked about 22psi cold and 28-29 hot. They had incredible grip there. Actually one lost pressure overnight and I (stupidly) didn't check in the morning... it turned out to be 22 HOT... must have been 12-14 cold when I went out. Luckily it was on the passenger front which is only loaded up in a couple corners, and not the 115mph 1.5g corner.

Anyways, fun times and glad your tires are working better!

Hey Derek, I know, I got lucky. I went to the track with front pads at 3.5mm of lining. They lasted 7 sessions, and fell apart 10 minutes after the last one. As I was exiting the track I heard a terrible grinding noise from the fronts, and 20 minutes later when it kept getting worse I pulled over and did a road side pad swap to save the rotors.

But I got lucky, if it happened in the 120mph brake zone 10 minutes earlier I would have been screwed. Lesson learned though, don't go to the track with less than 4mm of lining.

I'm looking forward to the Raybestos ST-43s which are now in. They are supposed to wear better, and I only have 2 events left this summer. Maybe 3 if I'm lucky.

How do you like the Gloc XP8s? And do you use them on the street or swap them for your track outings? I'm going to need some new pads and trying to decide what to get...

Hey Rog, I keep the XP8 in the rear permanently. It's a good intermediate rear pad on the track in combination with a more aggressive front pad, but it is noisy and dusty on the street.

Noise is bearable with the rear pads, but they squeak and squeal non the less. Also they generate more dust than the stock Brembo fronts!

If you're planning on keeping it mostly on the street I'd suggest you look elsewhere. Are you looking for a more aggressive bite? You could give AX6 a shot. They are more autox type pad but you could DD them with less of the noise/dust issues. Hawk also has some decent pads like the 5.0 or street race.

And here are a few laps around Mid Ohio. I only got 2 sessions in today, but managed to shave over 2s from my previous best lap time. I know I had more too. There was a Ferrari Challange race going on in parallel with our sessions, and then it got really stormy.

Anyways, here is a few laps before the rain closed the track. I'll upload some photos later.

Few pictures from yesterday at Mid Ohio.

The Ferrari Challenge was happening in-between our sessions, and the NASCAR drivers were practicing for their event in a few weeks. They were drafting each other in 4 race prepped Miatas. It was interesting.

Oh, and that last picture is a Kenny Brown GT4 Mustang, and it's the only S550 (other than GT350s of course) which has been faster than my car so far.