Team3S Logo, 5k jpg
New York - Munich - Portland - San Francisco - Seattle - Stockholm - Vancouver - Zurich





Team3S Member Track Report:





Red Gradient Line, 1k GIF

Philip Glazatov:  Gingerman Raceway, April 12, 2002
Private Track Rental & Instruction, Gingerman Raceway, South Haven, MI
In-Car Videos and Photos by Philip Glazatov

Red Gradient Line, 1k GIF



Overview



Hi Team!  I am back from the Gingerman Raceway.  Road racing a 3S is a BOMB, a BLAST, better than sex, etc!  I have never been to a race track before, so everything that I am going to say are my first impressions.  If you want to go to the fun stuff right away go to the videos and photos by clicking the link at the end or this report (or this photo).


Click here to go right to the photos and videos!



Red Gradient Line, 1k GIF



Quick Summary



1) Open tracking is the coolest thing since the invention of video games.

2) Brakes are just as important as engine power.

3) All-Wheel Drive is King!




Red Gradient Line, 1k GIF



Details



Road racing is like a big cool video game. It is just more real. All-wheel drive makes it so easy!

I was the fastest car in the loosely-defined street and street prepared groups. I like to think this is true because nobody passed me. A supercharged Mustang was holding behind for a while but my friend's stock Neon on slicks was catching up in tight turns.

Brakes are almost just as important as engine power. Our brakes suck! Brakes on most cars are underdesigned for open tracking, and ours is not an exception. When I press on the brake pedal hard I expect the tires to squeal and the car to stop, but this was rarely happening. Brakes overheat, brake pads wear out in no time and rotors warp. My rotors are trashed, the brake pads are gone. Now I understand why you guys spend 1/3 of the time talking about brakes! Now I can speak you language too.

Always install new brake pads before going to the race track or take a set of spares with you. My brake pads had about 60% of the thickness left before I went there. On the way back home the brake pads were scraping the rotors with those noisy warning plates. The rotors are warped pretty badly. We were sitting in a restaurant after the day of riding and I asked if anyone was feeling the table vibrating. The table was not vibrating, but MY ARMS were..., after holding onto that steering wheel all day while braking!

I am not sure if it is a good idea to buy aftermarket Power-cryo-porter brake rotors. Unless you guys convince me that they last forever I think I will either buy or turn the rotors at Murray's. They give a 1-year warranty on them. I will buy good brake pads though. On second though, if I warped the stock rotors on my first track day I will definitely warp them on the next track day, unless, of course, I slow down :(  What should I do???

The tires were squealing like crazy. Those Kumho's are nice and they grip well (especially on dirt, hehe). But they are very-very noisy at the limit. When I was making turns everyone on the track was turning heads - they were that noisy! Some people do not like tires that squeal but I do not care, I will buy those tires again.

I got black flagged four times. Two times for squealing tires - the guys just wanted to make sure I was okay because I was making one helluva noise going through most turns - and two times for some dirt tracking. The conversation went like: "How are you doing out there?" "Okay", I respond. "Having fun?" "Yep", I go again. "Alright then, go!". I was surprised at how well my tires were holding on the grass. I was prepared to keep sliding once I am on it, but I just slowed down and kept going. I even flew off the track with two wheels couple times but that did not slow me down too much.

I spun out once and flew off the track with my rear wheels lifting some dirt. That was on the third lap, before I discovered the remedy from spinning out. The remedy is simple - FLOOR IT! The car behaves like a front wheel drive one in turns. Braking or letting off the gas would make matters worse. Simply turn the wheel out and step on it. Once I discovered that, the fun began! From that point on it was so simple! I was feeling sorry for the RWD guys worrying about spinning out and the FWD guys worrying about the the throw-back once they regain the grip after spinning out. Keep the gas on and you will be okay.

On the other hand, going through the turns sideways is not the fastest way. I was told by Gene Martindale, a former Team Viper pilot (who rode with me and later let me ride with him in his race-prepped Datsun), that the way to do it is to brake straight, then let off the brake and pivot, and then start accelerating. You should be already accelerating before the middle of the turn.

I finally found the balance between the front and the rear tire pressure but then it turned out that the front tires were being chewed up very quickly on the outer edge. The only way to stop that was to raise the pressure on all the wheels but I decided not to do that because the rear tires were already losing traction at that high pressure. I was risking to reduce the total overall traction. Instead, I am planning on changing the camber to a more negative one for the next track event. Lowering the car should decrease the camber as well.

I checked the pressures on cold tires today and it is 43 psi in the front and 40 in the rear. I found the 3S handling interesting. I tuned the tire pressures so that I get a more or less neutral handling during coasting through the turn. When exiting the turn on the power I get understeer. And when I enter the turn and my wheels are not straight I get an oversteer and the rear end is trying to come around on me. I lowered the tire pressure in the rear and the braking oversteer was reduced, but everything other aspect of handling was also deteriorated. So I pumped the rear back up. Maybe the way to change the braking oversteer would be to install bigger brake calipers or better brake pads in the front. This is when I start to feel like experimenting with the brake force distribution.

I discovered that if the car starts to understeer under power and slide out during the exit from a turn it is sometimes better to turn the front wheels a little out instead of in in order to get more grip. This is because the lateral reaction force decreases when the tire slip angle becomes too large. Turn the wheels out a little to regain the grip.

Gingerman has more right turns than left turns. My tires lost 80% of the tread on the outside edges mostly on the left side tires. The hot tire pressure was higher on the left tires by 2-4 psi than on the right tires. For some reason the rotors were hotter too on the left side by about 50F. I am wondering if this is the effect of the ABS or this is just that when my car was parked the wind was blowing from the right.

I shot some videos with a $40-dollar Intel Easy PC Camera installed on the side of the car and hooked up to a laptop. I wish it was turned on when I spun out. You could hear a lot of wheel squeal and see when I go sideways in turns. I have five unedited videos 365M in size total. If anyone wants to see them uncut I could email them one at a time.

My AVCR was trying to give me trouble. I tuned it perfectly in third gear on the way to the track. It was set to only 0.8 bar. At the track I noticed the boost and the duty cycles were creeping up and boosting all the way to 1.05 bar, I am not sure is which gear though. I reduced the initial duty cycles to -10 across the board and that seemed to have helped a little. Maybe I should have done that in all gears except the third? More on the boost controller in a separate email.

My rear O2 sensor blinkey light gauge seemed low, but my SAFC was set at +10% across the board, so I decided to take my chances.

I almost ran out of gas on the track. The light was not on yet, but the fuel pump was sucking air by the end of two closely positioned tight turns 5 and 6. This is where I spun out at the beginning. By the end of the day I was making these turns into a single long sweeper when I would come at them too fast. Not the fastest way of doing it but a lot of fun and tire squeal!

Guys, learn double clutching. I am glad I learned it earlier this year because it is critical. Without it I would have been the last car on the track.

The stock exhaust is too quiet for racing. I hit the rev limiter three times when passing other cars. Maybe I should just move the rev limiter. ;-)

Open tracking is expensive. We got a group discount for the track. But the track fee was nothing in comparison to all the other expenses: a day off of work, hotel, gas to get there, $3/ga gas at the track, brake rotors, brake pads, car maintenance, wear and tear on the tires and the car. I busted my PC camera too with a door even before I installed it on the car. This is why the focus on videos is not as good. I am glad nothing on the car broke, otherwise I would have to take a night job at McDonald's ;-) But as a commercial goes, sliding an AWD car through turns - PRICELESS!

PS:  This report was brought to you courtesy of my RadioShack digital voice recorder. Without it I would have forgotten half of these things. They would have been forever buried in that gray stuff in my head.


Click here for the Gingerman photos and videos!



---   Philip Glazatov, '95 Stealth RT/TT




Red Gradient Line, 1k GIF



e-mail us at...

Send your own race report or comments HERE





Team3S FAQ Index Page


Back to the Race Reports Page





Article & Gingerman Photos ©2002-2004 Philip Glazatov, All Rights Reserved.
Other Images ©1995-2004 Bob Forrest, All Rights Reserved.