Ran a high speed autocross this weekend at Gingerman Raceway. It's been about 15-16 years since I been out on the race course. No video's as I don't have anything like that.
The course was basically the full track with 4 slaloms thrown in to slow people down.
My car is a Golf R with an EQT E30 tune (I was a last min add-in and had just filled my tank with E30 mix), it was quite fast, I was over 90mph on the front straight even with a 3 cone slalom.
This was my first VW I've owned and first I've raced. It handled excellent, my only mods are H&R rear sway bar (which made me nervous it was going to cause a lot of oversteer...it didn't, not even close, backend was planted), CSS hubs/knuckles, Neuspeed RSe10 18x8.5 wheels with 245/40/18 Pilot 4s tires, the tune mentioned earlier downpipe, and an aftermarket intercooler.
Brakes, well that was my problem. I switched from dusty stock to TRW TPC 1633 (the OEM pad maker's ceramic low dust version, which they are excellent at low dust). They actually were okay for the first two runs then gave up from there. After the third run they were smoking pretty bad and were giving up, so I had to slow down and had more fun tossing the car around a little more to bleed off speed. I was able to get all 4 brake disks blue with lots of smoking.
The lesson here is to prepare for track events, I could have overnighted some better pads or even just put in the OEM pads but I didn't realize the event was going to be this intense or should I say, I didn't realize they would design the track to be so fast with the wide variety of skilled drivers. One driver totaled his car, he was fine thank goodness, he lost it in one of the fast 3 cone slaloms.
I did have an off as well, just after a 'jump' landed, hit the brakes went full ABS and they just couldn't do it, slid into the corner to bleed off some speed and 4 wheels off, that lap was still faster than more than half the people there, lol.
I ended the day 19 out of 91 cars, learned a lot about my Golf R, was very impressed with it's handling and stability on the race course and was reminded, with power comes restraint as in brakes. Maybe next year I'll come with better pads and more competitive tires.
The course was basically the full track with 4 slaloms thrown in to slow people down.
My car is a Golf R with an EQT E30 tune (I was a last min add-in and had just filled my tank with E30 mix), it was quite fast, I was over 90mph on the front straight even with a 3 cone slalom.
This was my first VW I've owned and first I've raced. It handled excellent, my only mods are H&R rear sway bar (which made me nervous it was going to cause a lot of oversteer...it didn't, not even close, backend was planted), CSS hubs/knuckles, Neuspeed RSe10 18x8.5 wheels with 245/40/18 Pilot 4s tires, the tune mentioned earlier downpipe, and an aftermarket intercooler.
Brakes, well that was my problem. I switched from dusty stock to TRW TPC 1633 (the OEM pad maker's ceramic low dust version, which they are excellent at low dust). They actually were okay for the first two runs then gave up from there. After the third run they were smoking pretty bad and were giving up, so I had to slow down and had more fun tossing the car around a little more to bleed off speed. I was able to get all 4 brake disks blue with lots of smoking.
The lesson here is to prepare for track events, I could have overnighted some better pads or even just put in the OEM pads but I didn't realize the event was going to be this intense or should I say, I didn't realize they would design the track to be so fast with the wide variety of skilled drivers. One driver totaled his car, he was fine thank goodness, he lost it in one of the fast 3 cone slaloms.
I did have an off as well, just after a 'jump' landed, hit the brakes went full ABS and they just couldn't do it, slid into the corner to bleed off some speed and 4 wheels off, that lap was still faster than more than half the people there, lol.
I ended the day 19 out of 91 cars, learned a lot about my Golf R, was very impressed with it's handling and stability on the race course and was reminded, with power comes restraint as in brakes. Maybe next year I'll come with better pads and more competitive tires.
