First Track Day - Video (Track Warriors Please Ignore)

[utah]

I have not seen many of the track warriors post their R8 track day videos - so here is mine.

Next time I'll shoot from within the car because shooting the video from the grand stands makes me look like I'm crawling. I'm sure my lap times are slow but it's still easy to get well over 100mph on the track.

For a rookie driver like me, the R8 car handling characteristics on the track are fantastic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIk8VSE6Vbs

[randombloke]

Looks like good fun

I know what you mean about video making things look slower, I did some in car road runs and on the videos it looks like I'm only doing 30mph.

[wedouglas]

Anything you noticed about the R8 on the track or recommend? I'm taking mine out for it's first track day on the 26th. How were the brakes?

[utah]

From my perspective, the R8 is just a blast to drive on the track. The engineers worked hard to make this a track worthy car so I would recommend that everyone take it to a track even if its just once a year. I’ll do it again in a few weeks after I go to the Audi driving event in Sonoma.

Brakes:
The R8’s standard steel brakes are fantastic on the track. I know others have ceramics but I cannot imagine them performing any better. I have another sports car with ceramic brakes and they perform no better and maybe even have lower performance. Track days at our local track let you run about 30 minutes (they tell you 20 but always let you run 30 minutes). At 30 minutes I don’t believe even under the heaviest braking that the brakes will fade. They never faded for me. If you are tracking for over 1 hour at a time then perhaps there is an issue with fade. The standard steel brakes are confidence inspiring and excellent – you’ll enjoy them.

AWD or Mid Engine:
Not sure what the root cause is but this car can accelerate very early and very aggressively out of a turn. It won’t go into a turn any faster but either the AWD or the mid engine design it keeps the car stable while applying heavy throttle coming out of a turn.

I also read another post about using the AWD for early apex turn in. I would highly recommend you do NOT do that. The standard late apex turn-in gets you on the throttle earlier in the turn which is where this specific car excels. To me that was the most exciting part of driving the car that I did not know before.

R-tronic
I know most folks here are manual transmission lovers but the paddle shifters work fantastic on the track. And for folks who are not completely at ease with racing around the track (like me) having the car protect you from a dumb downshift which would over redline the car comes in handy. The downshift protection kept me out of trouble a couple times when I was close to a car in front and slowing to approach a corner, sometimes I would fail to realize what my rpm’s were and downshift at too high an rpm.

Electronic Stability
I kept mine full on and would recommend others who are not track experts to start the same way. The car will still slide a bit in hard cornering and the wheels squeal as seen in a couple spots in the video but the car was always stable and does not tail wag with ESP full on. I was curious what would happen if I turned it off but decided against it.

[Bodhii]

Hey Utah,.. I'm amazed that you found a track day when I wasn't at Miller! Sorry I missed you. The week before, on July 7, we had a full course track day. There will be three full course track days on Sept 26,27,28 with Porsche PCA, and a full outer perimeter course, Miller Day on Aug.29. The complete 4.5 mile, 50 ft. wide, 25 turn course really needs to be experienced. From the video, it looks like you were driving well, and having a good time.

As to the R8's brakes. I have many times driven Porsche Cup cars, and even with stock brakes, the R8 will out brake any Porsche, even if it has ceramics. I'm usually a strong believer in quantifiable data, but the braking data on the R8 just doesn't translate to real life on the track.

I have let the owner of Air Power Racing and the two head driving instructors for the area and one from NASA, take some hot laps with my R8. ( They are all very strong GT3R Porsche Cup racers). All four came back saying that if Porsches could stop like the R8, maybe 80% of the Porsche drivers would actually have SLOWER lap times because the R8 brakes so very well. They say that with such tremendous braking power, most drivers ( including me ) would be too tempted to go into the braking zones too aggressively, waiting too long to brake and approaching with much higher speeds,... and the result would be less overall smoothness thru the transitions from braking and turning. As we all know, its the smoothness that makes for the fastest lap times.

Of course this is easily corrected by better driver discipline when approaching each turn. But as these head instructors all say,.. the R8's brakes are so seductive and tempting, they can make all of us be too aggressive quite easily.

Also I must add that three of these 4 guys drove my R8 with the newer Pagid yellow, full racing brakes, which I cannot recommend for normal street driving.

My car is a manual stick and I drive with the sport suspension on, but with the stability control system off. The stability system can sometimes grab the car at very unexpected times. For me, I prefer it off. But it is really hi quality system that can allow most drivers to experience much much more than their driving experience would normally allow. It is much more sophisticated that the Porsche PSM system. BTW, I do honestly LOVE the R8 on the track, but I HATE the Ferrari-style metal gated shifter. The more I drive, the less the problems with it, but I do HATE it!

Utah, I hope I catch up with you soon. Cheers

[utah]

Bodhii - I looked for your car at the track that day. I struggle with what the proper line is around the course and would have liked to follow you (at a SANE speed) to learn it. I know the Ford/Miller group is based there and have cars and pro drivers who are also instructors. But I have no interest in driving a Ford around the track (Larry Miller is a neighbor so hopefully he does not come to this site).

I may go on Aug 29th but 25 turns is huge. I could barely get the pattern down for the 10 turns on the West track. I picture you and bz888 as twenty-something, single guys who live at the track and always drive balls out. I am unfortunately a bit older and will drive much slower in the Street Car group – not the racing groups.

If you do pass a black R8 that day with a guy wearing a huge smile that will be me. Please say hello.

Cheers.

[trev0006]

Great video, love the sound of the R8.

[peterh]

Utah,

I just got back from the 2-day "Sportscar Experience" at Sonoma. You will have a blast. It was a completely first class experience. The course is nearly all track time so you really get to fine tune your line on the track and gradually work up your speed over the 2 days.

Instructors were great - amazing thier skill level. Our main instructor was in the lead car, talking on the 2-way radio to us, watching the cars in his mirrors to make sure we hit the apexs etc, all while driving at probably on 50% his level.

Enjoy Sonoma!

[utah]

Glad to hear the good word PeterH - sounds great!

[Birdman]

Bodhii, I enjoyed what you had to say about the GT3 guys driving your car. I run the Pagid Yellows with upgraded fluid and I find the braking amazing. I do not run any races but I can see the temptation for late braking. I just added some track wheels with Toyo RA1 tires and was amazed with the added traction and stoping power. I run with the stability control in off mode #1. It is not completely off at that points but never comes on unless you get sideways somewhat. Do you run with it in the full off position? To do that you need to hold it down for three seconds.

I just came back from a track event. My student had an R8 with the gated shifter. He was kind enought to let me take it out for a full session. While it is a beautiful gear box, it is really not well suited for the track compared to the r-tronic system. Having tried his car confirmed that I made the right choice. The R8 is an amazin car and such a pleasure to drive at high speed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifX1ib_yHhI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLmdgyI3PuQ