My first track day.....

This Thursday, I'm finally going to do something I suppose I've wanted to do ever since I bought the 328 three years ago: I'm going to take it on a racetrack, with no pace car to slow things down!

I'm going to Talladega Gran Prix Raceway with about 13 friends from work. Most of them have done this before, but the one time I was going to, a cam belt bearing problem arose and I had to cancel. This time, two rounds of winter service (including a new steering rack, new shift shaft seals and rear brake work) have the car in good shape, and I bought a helmet for the occasion.

I know the car won't embarrass me; I hope I don't embarrass it. I'm going to be upholding Ferrari honor against eight Porsches, along with an assortment including a Corvette, a Camaro, a Mitsubishi Evo, a (modern) Mini Cooper, and possibly an Austin-Healy 3000. Still, it should be fun, and while I won't be able to take photos of myself, hopefully some of my friends will take pics of me at the wheel, making a feeble attempt to imitate K. Raikkonen.....

(P.S. For those who don't realize it, TGPR was lengthened and repaved during the winter, so if you've been there before, it will be different for you the next time.)

 

That's a good way to put it: explore your limits. As you said, it isn't a race--in fact only 3 cars will be on the track at any one time--and we aren't even "officially" going to take lap times.

8k? 9k? I think I'm going to keep it under 7k. And I rode the old track once as Mike's passenger. I'm still amazed at how deep he went before braking, but then he has wider-than-original rubber on his 308.

 

It was a fun day, though as I predicted, the car acquitted itself better than I did.

An oddity is that we were restricted to running counterclockwise only, since a drainage ditch that could catch someone going off the track when running clockwise needed some reworking. The revised track is still very much a work in progress; there are no facilities yet at the new pits, so we stayed at the old pits until each group was ready to go out.

Everyone liked the new layout and the new pavement, which was far less abrasive than the old--to my knowledge no one ran out of tires--but a bit slick, especially early in the day.

My first time out, I got the line pretty much down pat, though the right-hander in the infield (which when running CCW is a "reverse Parabolica") was giving everyone fits for awhile. I started out running mostly in 3rd gear, but the two longer straights required either upshifting to 4th or holding the car just below redline in 3rd until the next braking zone. Unfortunately on about my fifth lap, I missed the 4th-3rd downshift at the end of the first straight and wound up in neutral. Without engine braking I couldn't hold the car on the track and spun onto the grass. No damage to the car, but it got quite dusty! (Actually, about half the drivers spun off there at some point during the day, so at least I had company!)

When I got back to the pits there seemed to be a strong gasoline smell, though no leaks were seen. I had topped off the tank about 12 miles from the track, and I don't know if all that gas sloshing around under the g-forces had some effect. Has anyone else had a similar situation? (The smell did subside later as the fuel level dropped. But it never went away entirely.)

One of the more experienced drivers rode with me the next time to watch my technique and, as I expected, he said I need to learn heel-and-toeing, which might have prevented my earlier problem. I've always said that I need to take some sort of high-performance driving course, and his comments confirmed that.

After lunch I took a ride with my boss in his Porsche Boxster; he's not the fastest guy on the track, but quite competent and smooth. Then I let him drive the Ferrari, something he had been asking for for quite some time. He didn't like the shift action, but did very well just leaving it in 4th gear all the way around. Unlike me, he wasn't afraid to go in quite deep and use the brakes pretty hard, and the brakes and Kumho tires did quite well. Although 4th gear would seem to leave you below the good torque range on exiting the corners, he was carrying enough speed so that the engine still had pretty good punch on acceleration. He was quite impressed with the Ferrari's power and grip, and felt that it was "too much car for the track". And this is coming from a German-car enthusiast!

Later on I tried to do the same, but I still wasn't aggressive enough in the corners and as a result my exit speed from the corners was insufficient to get much out of the engine in 4th gear. I think I would have been better off leaving it in 3rd all the way around and just watching the tach on the straights. I do think I'll see about taking a driving course before I track the car again.

I hope to have some photos taken by others provided to me sometime next week, and if I get any decent ones I'll add them to this thread.

Well, the car is filthy, especially the front wheels, but I'll try to spruce it up a bit before Giovanni's tomorrow. Funny thing: the horn started blowing intermittently by itself, so I had to pull its fuse. The joys of Italian car ownership..........

 

Maybe the 348 is different, but I only have one wire, with a flat clip on the end that fits snugly on a flat bracket on the back of the horn button. Even after I took the horn button off, the horn would still blow unless I pinned the wire (NOT the clip) against the side of the housing. Since I couldn't drive holding the wire that way, I just removed the fuse.

 

Okay, here are some photos I took; obviously none of me driving my own car; those will have to come from others and I hope I get some this week.

Some details: a creative use for a Porsche Targa rear spoiler; a neat camera mount between the seats of a red Boxster, and a cute little trailer for bringing a spare set of wheels behind another red Boxster.

The pavement on which we lined up the cars for our group photos was actually the old pit straight; notice that the old pit wall is gone.

And we weren't supposed to be racing, but the silver Evo and white Camaro put on a heck of a show! The Chevy was a bit faster on the straights, but of course the Evo ate him up in the corners with AWD and eventually pulled away.
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Finally! A couple of images, taken by a co-worker, of the 328 on the track. He admits they aren't very good, but since he used a slow shutter-speed, they make the car look like it's going faster than it really was!

In the first pic, I'm driving, with my fancy new helmet. My passenger is another guy from work who is an experienced amateur racer and also gives instruction, which is what he was doing here.

In the second pic, taken later, my boss from work, who is also a pretty good driver, is doing much better with the car than I did. As I said, he was generally impressed with the car.
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