ShaneM

We had a very (very, very, very) hot summer in Texas this year. all of the track days at Eagle Canyon Raceway ended up being cancelled until this weekend. i went up and spent the day on the track for the second time. I moved to the blue group this time, blue can be solo or have an instructor in car. i prefer an instructor since i tend to be inconsistent at this point.

Anyway it was a fun weekend there were some very nice cars on track. A guy brought out his new 458 Italia, still had the dealer plates. He has a paddock at the track and then went and pulled out his f355 challenge car for some laps. After he went around in the challenge car for a few minutes, he hopped into the 458 and took it out on track. He was flying, not afraid to drive the crap out of the car at all. The sound that car made at red line woudl give any car geek wood.

in the blue group there were two arial atom's, a lotus exige and the targa version of that car too (i forget what it is called, Elise?), another mustang, a BMw M3, and a new SRT8 challenger, and a srt 8 charger. the charger was running on slicks (the red car in the vids) i had a lot of fun. ECR is a tighter technical course. The back straight is good for 125ish in my car.

I didnt run my go pro on the first session because i wanted it for the later sessions. it turned out the first session was the most exciting. i left the paddock with two atoms in front of me and the rest of the group behind us. We put some distance on the rest of the group pretty quick and coming around on the second lap the black atom in front of me spun in a corner, i missed him without incident and ended up behind a blue supercharged atom.

First time i have seen one and i didn't think about how hard those cars can brake. i thought for a few seconds i was going to hit the guy going into the corner, he braked really hard and the first thing i knew he was right in front of me going into a corner at the top of a little blind hill on the course. Nailed the brakes hard and my **** checks nearly seized up until he turned in and all was fine. Moral of the story is don't forget when you can stay with light and agile cars in corners and straights, you can't out brake them im a 3800 pound Boss 302. anyway, im a road racing junky now, its such an expensive hobby! Im running all stock here save the long tube headers, catted x, and flowmaster hushpower mufflers. i am on the stock airbox and factory ford tune.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onP7V1p3w-k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gst0lci5uaw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_yWXGEJAOw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YUZQrbQpQM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtwigxUrBvc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27t8vgQvkbY

mustang0672

Looks like a lot of fun.

HxCGuitars

That's awesome! Wish I had something like that around here. Maybe I do and don't even know about it haha. Very cool videos!

808muscle

That looks like so much fun. Very cool that an instructor rides with you to help you get better. You were really getting into it on some of those corners. Would be cool if as a viewer of the video we could see your rpms and mph as well. Car sounds great too. Maybe a 2013 for me in the future.

ShaneM

http://www.na-motorsports.com/Tracks/IL/

ShaneM

yeah i have an app for my android phone that will do that, but ECR isn't in the database and i didn't have time to configure it. the back straight is good for 125ish, the front straight is 80-100 depending on traffic. as far as g's we were pulling all the factory tires could take
(and a little bit more on occasion) and the boss does over a 1G on the skid pad, generally cars can pull more than that on some corners, especially on-camber corners like the one coming down the hill at ECR 2-3. if you could see me and the instructor you woudl get an idea. the boss doesn't lean or roll much at all so it all looks flat, but i am sore today from trying to keep myself in place.

It's hard to imagine, the track record on that course is like 1:39. my best time was 2:11. Granted that record was in a prepped race car with a pro driver and i am on my second track day and a fully loaded street car on factory tires. i was much faster later in the day with several 2:13 to 2:14 laps in traffic. i did push the M3 guy hard enough that he made a mistake as you can see in one of the vids. He also told me he spun once in session two after he gave me the point by trying to keep up. i tried to talk to the guys driving the atoms, but they made it obvious they weren't interested in chatting.

im far from driving this car 100%, probably not even 75% at this point. I'm braking way too early, slowing down too much into corners and stuff. you can never understand hard hard it is to go against what your body is telling you is an imminent crash and trust the car until you do something like this.

the instructor keeps telling me throttle, throttle, throttle don't coast in a lot of these vids. my **** was telling me OMFG slow down! when i finally got the back on the throttle the car balanced out and went, its very nerve racking learning to do this, we all have years of doing certain things behind the wheel and road racing makes you basically do the opposite of every single one. You all should try this once, its awesome.

Argonaut

Ahhh track time....most fun you can have with your pants on. Great to see you are really enjoying your car. The S197 is a very competent chassis and with the Boss engine and suspension its even better.

A guy with an Atom regularly attends many of the same DEs I do. In the right hands that thing is F-ing fast, not so much in a straight line but in the corners and, like you say, under braking. I'd love to drive one of them. The Atom importer in the US is located at Virginia International Raceway (one of the best road courses in the country) and they actually host their own track days where you can try one out. Its really expensive but I'd sure like to do it sometime.

I agree on the sound of those Ferarri's, 8K RPM, flat plane crank...yea baby! I had the pleasure of trying to keep up with a 360 paddle shifter around Summit Point one time. The sound of the downshifts with its throttle blip is awesome, as is the acceleration.

What kind of brake pads you using?

JIM5.0

Great vids! Wish I had the spare cash to go up and participate. ***Frowns Jealously***

When you get your TracKey tune, be sure to let us know how well your car handles when you track it with that!

ShaneM

the car is all stock other than the exhaust mods. i almost forgot i did move to DOT 4 brake fluid and add the laguna seca brake cooling ducts.

Soldier GT

Man that looks like a blast! Like everyone else has said, I wish I had something like that around here!