Bemused and Confused

The first track day for the Delphin Rat. We have worked hard together to make this day happen. I was both excited and worried. I am a pessimist, so I always imagine the worst. But, I trust my work and I know that all the stuff that I did was solid. I could still imagine raining big engine parts all over the track though. I really shouldn’t worry so much.

I got up early and got ready to hit the road. I checked the oil and a few other things before leaving. The oil was a tad low so I topped it off. I threw the oil bottle into my kit just in case. Everything else looked good.

The drive up was uneventful. The loud sounds in the car do get a bit old and the seats are not exactly comfortable for long trips, but that is not what the car was built for. Unfortunately it was raining. It was spotty, but it did not show any signs of clearing up any time soon.

I got to the track in good order and I emptied the Rat out. I drove over for inspection. I was actually glad that it was raining. The rain on the windshield hid the long crack on the driver’s side. I didn’t want to go through all this trouble only to have the car fail the tech inspection. Just as I went to get out of the car, my hand bumped the windshield wiper lever while getting the key out of the ignition. DOH! The wipers work well… did I mention that earlier?

There was nothing to worry about though, the inspector did not even look at the windshield. We passed tech easily. I parked the Rat and went over to collect my number and schedule. I got number 21 this time.

The Delphin Rat ready for track duty. No, I haven’t got it registered yet.

We got our normal driver’s briefing and the reminders on what all the flags meant. This was to become important later on.

A friend from a previous track day had parked his beautiful E36 M3 next to me. He didn’t remember me, I was a bit disappointed. But then I mentioned that I used to drive the Silver Sloth, and then he remembered. He is a bit like me, you have to put the car with the driver before things click sometimes. Jack is an ex-fighter pilot and he really gets a lot out of that M3. He is featured in one of my earlier videos from last year flying (hehe, couldn’t resist that one) by me on the back straight. We talked off and on during the day. He was going to have his wife come out and ride with him for a session so she could see what it was all about.

I also chatted with Fred. He was instructing again so he would not be driving in my group. But, it is still nice to see him and chat about getting faster.

The Advanced group went out to start the day. It was still raining a bit and the track was definitely wet. To top things off, Bruce Feller had knocked his oil cooler off his PRO3 E30 race car the day before and gotten a lot of oil on the track. Also, there was a wreck in turn 7 where another PRO3 car got hit by a RX7 in the nose. I think he lost his oil cooler too so there was plenty of oil down on the track. I should make an entry about those races. I was up there for the day and the PRO3 guys, Bruce, Mike and the gang were great to hang around with.

Anyway, the Advanced group was out on the track so Jack and I went up into the stands to watch for a while. We noticed this Porsche with an outlandishly huge wing on the back. Jack even made a comment about it as he went down the straight. The next thing we notice is the red flags waving. The red flag means to pull your car over and stop at the next turn station. This is very unusual and also something that goes against the normal thing. You never want to stop your car on the track if you can avoid it. But, the red flag requires it because safety vehicles need to get onto the track immediately.

We watched the ambulance head out onto the track. Not good. We watched as the advanced group drivers seemed to ignore or be confused by the red flags. They should have pulled over at the turn (flag) station and stopped. Some kept going but most seemed to stop.

A few minutes later we found out that a black Porsche had hit the wall leaving turn 3. This is the same place were the Porsche wrecked on my last track day. The driver was fine it turned out. The rest of the Advanced session was canceled and the Instructors got ready to go out.

Then the organizers called us over for another briefing. It turned out to be a bit more of a chastisement. We were again reminded of the meaning of the flags and told that if we screwed up again, that we would shut the track down. The flags are very, very important. It is the only way the organizers have of communicating with us when we are on the track. You must check every flag station and you must know what to do when you see a flag. Simple. The advanced group had one session taken away as a reminder.

Twenty minutes later it was our turn to go out. I strapped in and put on the helmet. The top of the helmet still rubs a bit against the roof even with the race seats, but I do fit. I fired the little beast up and we drove on out to the pre grid.

The track was still wet even though it had stopped raining. The starter gave each of us a good briefing about the conditions and where the oil was at. I started up the video camera and waited.

Finally, we got out onto the track. We had to run 4 yellow flag laps first to get us a chance to feel out the track. Unfortunately, the M3 in front of me was being extremely careful and we never got anywhere near up to speed. In a way this was good because I could evaluate how the car felt at slow speeds. By this time, there were about 6 cars following us around and you couldn’t see any other cars in front of us. This is how we were lined up when the green flag fell.

The M3 took off at a pretty good pace so there was no passing done on the front straight but by the time we hit turn 4, we were all bunched up behind him again. On the back straight, I waved everybody past me and some, but not all got around the M3 too. Then on the front straight the M3 took off again, but then slowed to let the other cars pass. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to him before the end of the passing zone so I had to wait again. But, this also gave me the chance to push the car a bit more, but still keep it pretty slow. Everything was feeling good and it was running strong.

I passed the M3 on the back straight and took off on my way. The track was still very wet so I didn’t do anything much better than a 1:50. Plus, I was still getting used to the car. It was a good session for that reason, but the rain and the traffic made it a bit of a bust otherwise.

The second session was a bit better. After letting some cars by, I got some decent laps in. I was starting to push the car a bit by now. There was a dry line on the track, but anything off line was still very wet. I started to get the tires to talk to me a little bit, but not much.

The brake pedal seemed very soggy to me and I had a hard time modulating the brakes. This was important because I still had no ABS available and the track was still wet with oil in a few places. I was taking it very easy with braking starting just before the 500ft mark on the front straight and at the 400ft mark on the back straight. There were times when it felt like I just wasn’t getting enough braking. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the damp track, the brakes or the fact that my fat feet were hitting the brake and the gas at the same time. The pedals are closer together than they are in the Silver Sloth so it was taking some time for me to get the feel of it. I think the problem was mostly the wet track, honestly.

We had lunch under mostly a clear sky. It was starting to get a bit windy, but the track was pretty much dry. Jack’s wife arrived and he went to get her a helmet. I was thinking that her ride was destined to not end well, but she seemed pretty happy to be there. Personally, I think I would get car sick riding too many laps with somebody else driving. As it turned out, she had a good time and spent the whole session in the car.

I checked the oil and the fluids during lunch. I noticed that the oil was down to the lower mark on the dip stick. Not good. I had noticed the car belching some smoke when I left the line for the second session, but after talking to Jack and revving the car up and watching the exhaust, we figured that the smoke was from a rich mixture. He told me he noticed it out on the track too when he passed me (DOH!).

I topped off the oil from the container I had thrown in my kit this morning. I decided I would run the third session and check it after that.

The third session was finally on a completely dry track. I ran some very good laps. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the video camera turned on so I don’t know what kind of times I was running. I am guess somewhere around a 1:40. I was hitting about 110mph down the front straight and a bit over 115mph down the back straight. This is a bit faster than I could do it in the Sloth.

The car itself handled very well. Turn-in was great compared to the Sloth. I could make adjustments in mid corner with throttle easily, the car would respond quickly. I could also just turn tighter and the car would turn more (up to a point of course). In fact, I was getting a bit nervous about the rear end stepping out on me. I could never do this with the Sloth so I had no gauge for determining how much was too much. I approached this with caution. I did get the rear to wiggle around a bit after a while, but I am sure there is a lot left there that I am not using.

Also, the Falken Azenas tires don’t talk a whole lot. In other words, they don’t squeal as much as my other tires do. That on top of the noise inside the Rat made me be very careful about how much I pushed the car.

The responsiveness of the car is way, way better than the Sloth. With the Sloth, you turned, waited for the car to decide what it wanted to do, wait some more while the weight shifted to the proper side, and then it would go where you pointed it. The Rat is much more quick than that. It does the same thing, but sped up about 10 times. Body roll was much better controlled and I felt like I could really flick the car around. Going through turns 1 and 2 and also between turns 10 and 11 were where this was most obvious. I could almost jerk the wheel leaving turn 1 to get the nose pointed in the right place to get on the power and exit turn 2. What fun. The Sloth just wouldn’t respond like that.

I never got close to spinning. But like I mentioned earlier, I could really tell that once the weight got shifted and the car stabilized in the corners that I could have carried a lot more speed into the corner. Now it will just be getting used to it and trying to make use of the car’s capabilities.

I was very happy after the session. The car was running well, staying cool, and handling very well. I was not the fastest car out there by any means. Jack lapped me again… with his wife in the car… err… not that she was all that much extra weight or anything… I better stop now, the hole is getting deeper. But I was not the slowest car by far. I wasn’t even pushing the car all that hard. The brakes were working better than they were in the morning, but they still did not feel that good to me. I will need to bleed them some more and see what happens. I didn’t lock up the brakes either so there is probably more capability available that I am not using. I still was braking a bit early just to leave that extra margin for error. I could have cut the braking zone down a bit but I was carrying more speed than I was used to as well.

After the session I let the car cool down and then checked the oil again. Dang! Down to the lower mark again. I went over to Mike from Pacific Motorsports and asked if he had any oil I could buy. He just gave me two quarts of synthetic that he had there for one of the other race cars. Very nice of him to do that.

I used up both quarts in the car. That is almost 2 quarts of oil lost in a 20 minute session. Really not good. I decided that I couldn’t run the last session. I really didn’t think I was burning the oil. That much burned oil would have left a huge cloud behind the car. I think the oil was spewing out of a leak somewhere. There was a small puddle under the car, but not nearly enough to be called a sizable leak. But I couldn’t risk oiling the track down for everybody to slip on so it was an easy, yet painful decision.

I burned up about a quart in driving up from Albany and running two sessions on the track. And then I burned up 2 quarts in one 20 minute session. Hmmm, very odd. And I didn’t seem to use up any on the trip home. I suspect the oil loss has something to do with the g loads out on the track. Possibly the oil pan gasket or something like that. I guess it is something else I will have to get fixed before the next day. I will have to ask around with my E30 buddies to see if any of them have seen this before.

The trip home was only marred by an accident that slowed up traffic before I-84. After that, it was clear sailing all the way home. I did stop at a gas station in Woodburn to check out the oil level. There was no change so I drove on home.

I will have to look into fixing the rich condition too. I did burn through some Techron in the first full tank, but I might have to try some Seafoam next. If that does not work, I may have to replace the injectors. The PO had a “ProFormance” ECU chip in the car. I had removed that and put the original chip back in so the fuel mapping should be OK. The spark plugs I pulled out of the car looked OK. No oil and just the normal brownish coating on them. I will check the new spark plugs this weekend if I get the time.

All in all it was a good day. I got some good laps out of the Rat and she is starting to show her potential. The driver is not ready to exploit here wiles yet, but the car seems very willing. I am disappointed that I couldn’t run the last session, especially since I didn’t get any good video of the third session. But, hopefully there will be other days.