Part 2 Ring trip update:
Firstly, sorry it's been a little while since part 1. I've been quite busy at the moment and I like to sit down and do proper updates to this thread whenever I get the chance.
So my first track day at the Ring with Circuit Days. There was quite a lot of anticipation with this track day as there was due to be a sizeable BMW contingent and quite a few well known Pistonheaders were attending too. I have to say, the best atmosphere of any day I have ever attended at the Ring. I had chats with loads of people and even got three very warm (no A/C!) but absolutely phenomenal laps with Ed aka
@Struggle in his E92. I realised after going out with Ed that I am nowhere near the limit in my car but it was also good to see how much these cars can be pushed and how much punishment they can take. I'm not sure I am anywhere near brave enough or have the skill level to beat on my car as much as Ed does but it was great fun nevertheless. Also, Direzzas are a flipping phenomenal tyre around the Ring. That was crystal clear from laps with him.
Perfect weather throughout the day too. There was a threat of some showers which never materialised thankfully. There were a lot of crashes though, I think a total of five cars binned throughout the day which is a fair bit higher than I was expecting. Driving standards were still generally very high however and people were checking their mirrors and indicating a lot which is not something I'm used to from TF.
Is it worth doing a track day at the Ring? I would say absolutely, yes. It felt a lot more safe and secure, you have the Dottinger Hohe straight which is actually more of a thrill than you would think, and the atmosphere was great. I would say value-wise it is better as well as the quality of your time on track is higher. And when it comes to having fun, my world view is that quality trumps quantity all day long. But that's just me. The only downside that I can see is that if you get caught with bad weather then it might be a bit of a waste of time but I would say it's definitely worth the risk and the investment. The one thing I'm wondering about is doing one of the Ringmeisters prime days with Destination Nurburgring as they are more expensive but the driving standards are yet higher still (from what I've heard).
It was great to meet
@ScottA1972 and some others. We all went for some train laps half way through the day and we took it easy for the first lap but went for it on the second lap. And I would have had some great footage of it if not for the fact that my gopro died literally as soon as we went under the gantry for the second lap. I kid you not. Infuriating!
Some pics of the day:
Edit: forgot to add a link to the only footage I managed to get on the day:
I have to say even though I had bags of fun, the car wasn't at its best and that never improved sadly. The wheel vibration issue got worse and I was scratching my head as to what it could be. When I got back to the UK I took it to have the wheels re-balanced just to be sure and voila! That fixed the issue. I know what you are thinking; why didn't I get this done whilst I was out there? Because I'm an idiot that's why. I guess I thought it might have been some warped disks but, yeah, I was wrong about that. The brakes were absolutely fine.
I also put the dampers back to soft before I put the car in storage and noticed that the right rear damper was a few clicks looser than the rear left which is probably why the rear never felt quite right.
I played about with tyre pressures for the Trofeos and they seemed pretty stable no matter what pressures you put them on. I went as low as 2 bar at the front but I found the car understeered a bit on this pressure so raised them again to 2.3 bar where they seemed to be happiest. This tallies with pretty much every other track tyre I've tried on this car so far.
The Litchfield cooler performed well I have to say. It's not a night and day difference but the car definitely runs cooler with it and I found the car cooled much faster with it as previously stated.
I think a point that got driven home to me quite clearly from this trip, far more so than previously, is that the more you tune these cars and the more you replace bits of the suspension, the more finely everything needs to be setup and calibrated. Without this, the car can feel a little out of sorts. One thing that the Crown pointed out when they had my in to have the cooler fitted was that they noticed that the rose joints for the SPL toe arms had play in them. This is after a year of track work which surprised me a bit. I thought they would last longer to be fair. Luckily it's only £75 for all four from Martin which is not bad, but still. This could have been the culprit for the loose feeling rear end throughout as this is a VERY important arm in how the rear geometry works on these cars.
The car is booked in with Dale at Autoworks to have the new rose joints fitted and the car re-aligned so hopefully it should be in great condition for when I take it out to the Ring again at the end of August.
I also attended the E9X Caffeine and Machine meet and you can see some of my pics here in the thread if you haven't done so already:
https://forums.m3cutters.co.uk/threads/caffine-and-machine-e9x-meet.251774/page-4
Next catch up will be after the Ring trip in August.
Thanks for reading as always!
Rob
