ShaneM

thats the prob for me, going outside the facotry stagger is said to upset the balance of the boss.

Argonaut, no i don't have wide feet, wear a 10.5, i've had trouble with left foot braking with puma driftcats and my piloti shoes too. it may just be that i never left foot brake so i lack the sensitivity for it in that leg. a lot of people are like that. when i try if i don't tangle with the clutch, i end up stabbing too hard. i just give up those portions of a second generally. luckily im fairly quick on the move between throttle and brake and don't have issues.

i do a bastardized left foot brake sometimes rather like heel toe by positioning my foot just right on the brake and rolling off onto the throttle, but i don't like that too much. ive ended up on the brake and gas at the same time a few times and that isn't a pleasant feeling coming off a 130mph straight to a nearly 45-degree corner.

Sleeper_08

It might then be necessary to get a set of adjustable front and rear sway bars to get the balance back.

On regular Mustangs most serious trackers use a square setup for two reasons;
1) more tire on the front helps with the front end weight bias and reduce understeer
2) you can swap front to back to even up the wear on the fronts

Argonaut

Maybe its not necessarily the pedal positioning but rather:
- Need more practice
- Using left leg to brace yourself in fast right hand turns
- Slow footspeed - on a dry track everything happens so quickly its really hard to do
- Lack the nads to master the technique at high speeds. with everything else going on its hard to devote some of the little gray cells to thinking about using the left foot on the brake
At least those are my reasons for sucking at it. But like I mentioned previously - doing it on a wet track is easy, good practice and not at all scary. I know in TX you don't see much rain, especially last year, but if you get the opportunity give it a try.

Argonaut

Shane - IMO you shouldn't worry about a square setup affecting the balance of your car. You say your car is neutral right now but, as I'm sure you are well aware, it can easily be made to understeer or to oversteer based on driver input. I.e. its all about the driver. Even if a square setup does cause the car to be slightly more loose a good driver will quickly adapt and can even use that to his advantage. Fundamentally your car is good at this cornering thingy - a square setup isn't going to change that fact.

On the other hand - getting a set of light weight 18s has several advantages. Sleeper mentioned some. Others: much cheaper and easier to find track rubber, including scrubs for $100/tire. Light rims are something that can be immediately felt. I don't know what your current rims weigh, so maybe it wouldn't make a diff to you but I've done back-to-back: session 1 on 25 lb cast rims, session 2 on 19 lb forged rims - you immediately notice a difference in feel (not that it makes my lap times any quick...LOL).

moochman4life

Brad, WTF dude...you working on your instructor cert or something?

But to stay on topic, Brad is right: you can find some barely used slicks (scrubs) for less than $100 per tire. I found my rebadged 275/35/18 Hoosiers at Bimmerworld for $75 a pop...BARELY USED...just one heat cycle.

Shawn Sexton

Did another track day yesterday at Sebring
W/R6 tires, I must say these tires have great grip!

I had run all day w/4 sessions, and at no time did I have any loss of grip in the turns! I know I'm leaving a lot of speed on the table, but I'm a novice so I have a lot to learn.

I have better insight into why the instructors preach a late apex too.

One interesting thing is that we ran on the track a week after the 12 hr race, and there was no rain since then, so the track had lots of rubber down. I managed to coat the hoosiers with another layer of rubber to the point at the end of the day, I was slinging it off on the high speed parts of the course. Thought I was going to get black flagged from all the debris slinging off!

Well the brakes are all worn out time to replace!

As far as the driving goes, I was told I have the line down fine, just have to calm down in traffic, things get tight in the green group, there were about 40 cars out there.

I have the heal toe figured out for single down shifts, but 2 downshifts, I have to work on speed and consistency.

All said, I think it was a successful day, but more important, fun!