Yeah, oil on turn 2 at Watkins in definitely bad and probably one of the worst turns to have debris on since most experience drivers are flat all of the way from turn 1 up the through the Esses until the Bus Stop. I would NOT want to lose it in turn 2!!
one of those things where it was luck that the yellows came out at turn 9, although not. A black flag which you’d think would be the case . Maybe they didn’t realize yet, so I was just ambling and when headed towards 2 could see smoke etc. they sanded the track and whatever else they do, but after that turn in on 2 was not the same and required a feathering, plus whatever car went over the remaining sand kicked up a cloud. it was interesting because on my car yes turn 1-3 is flat and if anything it’s rear grip that can be an issue on 2, after the oil it was the front end that lacked the bite on intial turn in. Makes sense with sand and a bit of oil. earlier in the day there was a strip of rubber maybe 1-2 feet long laying halfway across 3 Made a real thwack when I went over it. trackmasters a great group, open track all day and 99% know what they’re doing and have the right equipment. Great way to end the season. exige got into the 2.06s day before and after the oil on track bit we focused on the backside of track where between bust stop and toe I learned to gain another second so next year…. Key was staying flat out bus stop past the flag station on left and untill the flag pole on right when one was already well into carousel and then Using the throttle to pivot between front and rear. That and just doing a very slight lift at the 100 on turn 10. as much as I can add power to the exige, another 100 or so doable, that will certainly drop lap times but not make me a better driver, I’m not yet using all the car has in the bends. So work to do yet. The one area where I’m pretty much faster than anyone is the esses because there you’re either flat or not and the exige is just really fast there. One guy in a gt3 cup mr would keep pace there. im Pretty sure the exige as is will get into the 2.04s and then can add power and some aero. if a Camaro can do 2 mins on r compounds I gotta belive a z06 will savage that. I’m 3 or so years when Mordor hopefully comes through I hope I’ll be up to the level of fully using all it has and getting well below 2 secs. still plan on keeping the exige, it’s such a viceral and challenging experience.
Very cool! And yes, Trackmasters is the best HPDE group I've ever ran with. I've been tracking with those guys since 2005. You should definitely be flat in your Lotus all of the way through the Esses...even turn #3. Most guys will lift or do "throttle maintenance" because there is a slight bump and the car gets a little light as you transition from right to left up through the Esses. You just need to trust your car and GET INSIDE on turn 3. You also have much more room to track-out of turn 3 than you think. Most guys will not use all of the track after turn 3 because the track is not visible before you crest and all you can see is that big catch fence. You will scrub speed and possibly get into a lot of trouble if you "pinch" the left hander in The Esses. I can't tell you how many times I have "left" faster cars in the Esses because they don't stay "on it" all of the way through turn #3 and track out onto the back straight flat out. The Esses are the most important sequence of turns because they lead onto the longest straight which translates to a much higher Vmax as you build speed before the Bus Stop. If you can track-out onto the back straight 10 mph faster, that extra speed builds and builds all of the way down before braking into the Bus Stop. You can easily put 5 car lengths on someone by doing this, even if they have a faster car. I also see guys losing tons of time in the Bus Stop. A really good way to increase your speed in the Bus Stop is to pick a time where there's hardly any traffic (usually the afternoon of the last day of the event) and drive ALL OF THE WAY down the back straight at a constant speed. No acceleration whatsoever. Start on the slow side, maybe drive all of the way doing 70 mph and KEEP the speed throughout the entire Bus Stop sequence. Do this again but increase your speed by 5 mph. Repeat this until you find your Vmax. I did this with my highly modified C6 ZO6. I did this over and over again until I got up to 100mph and I spun in the Bus Stop...and bingo...you've just established you Bus Stop Vmax! You should be at that EVERY TIME you go through it! You will be amazed at how many lengths you can put on someone by doing this. It's especially fun when they're in a more powerful car than you! I loved eating guys up in their 458 Challenge Cars up through The Esses and in the Bus Stop. They were so pissed that a "Chevy" would walk all over them. Good Stuff!
The blackout of reviews is supposed to end on Oct 3. We might see them as early as late Sunday night.
I made it up to the track today and was able to get up close to a couple of the cars. I was surprised that there were probably somewhere between fifteen and twenty zo6's. I missed an opportunity to meet Oliver Gavin. The person that invited me to the event got to go around the track as his passenger. A project at work had me tied up enough to screw up my schedule and I missed out. I did get a couple of pictures and will post them soon. I also watched a few laps and the sound these cars make is something else.
Yeah the Lotus is flat out from turn 1 through 3, if you get it right the seam at turn 3 is not an issue, the key is slow hands transitioning from 2-3. On the lotus by the time you get to 3 in 4th its on the limiter and there is no way to shift between turn 2-3 unless you have paddles. One of these days when the car gets the bigger blower and a short ratio box it will be 4th gear through turn 1 and 5th before 2, that will make the exit from 3 significantly faster. the only time I back of in the esses is old cold tires and oil on track. Frankly when one gets the transition from 2-3 right the esses is no big deal at all. Ill try your technique through bustsop to learn it better. Basically at this point braking from 150 at the 300 marker, maintenance throttle over the two curbs going in and then foot flat gain. the key seems to be staying flat past the flag station and well into the carousell. Bottom line the lotus does not have the power and vmax of a hyepr vettes etc, so its a function of slowing less on corners and carrying more speed. On the the approach to the bustrop Im just touching 150, the 700hp club is doing closer to 160, so all the time I make up through the esses is lost, but then the back area of the track the lotus can shine again, at least if i do it right. Its pretty clear Im throwing away a second between the bustop and turn 8/9, whereas i should be gaining 1-2 secs. Once I get that part right it will be time to add power and aero to the car, doing so now may gain time but that power and grip will just be a crutch getting in the way of learning and ultimate possible speed. All things being equal i should break into the 2.04s next year, and then will add power power and aero to chase 1.59($20k in upgrades), by the time I get there, hopefully my z06 will be in build 24/25 I guesstimate. It will also be interesting to see what the car will do at LRP, because there the power differential is not really the issue. In my NA 195 hp elsie on r compounds and stock suspension I run 1.03, so the exige should be well below a minute, the question is how far below. Gotta find an unmuffled day. But there is a lot to be said for just driving the elise 45 mins up the road to lrp and playign for the day. low impact effort and plenty of fun. So im thinking az06 drive to daytona sebring maybe even the glenn, we'll see. meanwhile I spent nearly 10 hours cleaning up the exige and changing all fluids etc yesterday, Perhaps Im too ocd cleaning all the suspension underside etc, but its going into hibernation tomorrow, and its nice to pull out a car in spring ready to go and spotless, Did the Elsie today, much easier as it didn't see the track much this year so basicaly fluids and a wash. Meanwhile drove the BBi a few times this week(first time this year) as it loves the cool weather, and a few days of driving makes an easy clean, M3 went into hibernation last week, as did the bikes. Back to Fl Saturday, needless to say work got crazy this week too, cause it all happens at once. The Gulia is in Fl on a battery tender, and there is a lot to be said for a modern car that just goes and can do a carwash, a z06 should work well there. Those camaros made me really excited about the potential of the z06. All this summer I was hoping to see a c8 being driven hard on track, but while a few showed up, they were at a much lower pace. 2 458 challeges showed up at the glenn, they were like chicanes to go around, those cars should do much better. But then if you start in too fast a car hard to ever really learn. I managed to get 7 days at the Glenn this year and frankly could have used another 2 on that track. . Blue car is a GT RS club sport, driven nowhere near its potential. The other porche is a GT3 Cup MR, loved it, CF body I think 2700bs.
And of course the lotus. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Lets see how good that z06 is going to be.
Wow! I’ve never seen an RS Club Sport in person. Seems like a great track car. Get the performance of a Cup Car with less maintenance due to the PDK. Price of admission on those things is too steep for me. My next track car will be an aero car and will weigh around 1,100 pounds. No desire to modify/track street cars anymore. I raced GoKarts for the last couple of years and that ruined me for any desire to track “tin tops.” I remember around 10yrs ago when a guy flew his F1 McLaren in for the day at Watkins. I think the owner of that car was the inventor of the Ethernet. He had to have two passengers with him so they could give point byes because the driver is in the middle in that car with a passenger seat on either side next to the windows. The F1 ended up getting black flagged for the day for not keeping pace with traffic and being a hazard on track. Can’t say I blame the guy. Not sure I would push a car worth that much on track. I think it was a $12M car back then. Now they trade hands for $20M+.
If youre flying your F1 to the track, then it should be on pace, probably not a good track driver. Its like the senna that was at Monticello, blasting down the straights and cruising though corners, prob fun for the owner, but he didn't have a clue. I did see a La ferrari gettign thrashed once, that was pretty cool, and it sounded great. i had a 570 GT4 black flagged at LRP for not letting me past in the elise. Theres a reason why some of the best drivers learn to race in miatas. i think the Gt2 Rs cubsport is something like 800k. The Gt3 Cup Mr more like 300k, but yeah lots of maintanace. Open cars, well I love the Dallara, and radicals always work, but somehow don't appeal. A friend got a palatov out west, like a radical its really light motorcycle engined car. Lots to be said for factory turn key, drive to the track. Hence the popularity of Gt3s and various cyamans. But yeah even the best road cars always going to feel a little soft. Personally id love to have a Chevron B16 and and old F5000, but there is a lot going on keeping those cars going, and if you crash its all over for you. Which brings me back to lotus, as close to the feel and response of a single seater as you can get in a closed car, pretty reliable and economic to run, easy to upgrade. Basicaly gas, fluids tires and pads. Alas they no longer make the eliges and now used ones are getting pricey. if you dont mind the inital cost, that dallara looks like the cats ass.
Came really close to buying this Wolf GB08 and probably should have bought it. Will put 5 seconds per lap on a pro driver in a Cup Car and can be run at 1/10 of the operating costs of a Cup Car. It’s basically a much higher quality, faster, more reliable version of an SR8 Radical. It has a 4 cylinder Honda K20 engine so there’s no B.S. to deal with like the Radicals…no need for 30-40 engine refreshes, transmissions are bulletproof. I’ve never understood the appeal of a motorcycle engine powering a vehicle that weighs 3-4 times more than what it was designed for. The Wolf will lap Watkins in the low to mid 1:40’s which would be a lot of fun but would definitely not be a good fit for HPDE’s. The closing speeds/delta’s would just be too drastically different. If you make contact with another car that weighs 3,000pds you are going to lose. And, if you have an “off” going that fast at a track with little to no run-off like Watkins, you’re going to have a really bad day. Image Unavailable, Please Login
In general Im a fan of silver cars. Also like that chalky color and white, But that lime yellow really works with the vette, not sure how nice it would be to look at every day, and while it wouldn't stand out too badly in Florida, up north it would be a total cop magnet. The thing with colors, some really catch the eye. My elise BBI M3 etc are silver, they barely get a second look, and for years the Elise on trailer only attracted car fans. Put the orange car on the trailer and every second car is taking photos. Its like red flags to bulls. Thats an issue if you want to be rolling down the road, better to go silver, white etc and blend into the tarmac, not stick out. Years ago a friend had a lime greenish 911, he couldn't go around the block without getting pulled over for a "check', nice as some reds may look, I think its a similar effect. Some cars also look better in some colors and bad in others. Always thought a550 maranello looked terrible in red, but yellow and silver really worked. i guess its personal preference with an eye on practical reality which is dependent on where you live and how you drive.
I don't know if I'll ever do another black car. I absolutely love the way it looks, but I'm getting tired of washing it every time I take it out of the garage. Four of the five vettes I've owned were black, one white. The white one required less than half of the time to keep looking decent. I really like the darker silver, but I don't think there was one at the event this week. There was one in the yellow you mentioned; I think it's called accelerate yellow. The calipers and seat belts were that color on my white car. I never warmed up to it.
Performance looks good! Not too quick that you can’t keep the hammer down for the road to hear that NA V8 scream. 10.5 1/4 at 130 or so is about perfect for an NA car. One issue with my 765 is that 40-140 happens in under 7 seconds so you can’t really enjoy the fury for long without jail time possibilities. That would be a shame with such a beautifully sounding engine.
So this is now the choice for a new sports car. Nothing can compare to this engine. Only question is whether or not to go z07 with cf rims. I would lean towards yes since will eventually recoup most cost on resale. Even ignoring cost, this is more desirable to me than current Porsche, ferrari, lambo, mclaren. Artura or z06?? Really? And as much as I love lotus....
Love TH, great video. Seriously, I pray they make as many of these as they can. If I can get this at MSRP, I'm ready to give up my Ferrari for it. I remember that what made me lust for the Ferrari was the high revving v8. The sound on this video is the exact sound that drives me insane and makes it a must have. There's no other car I want more right now from any other manufacturer. The last car I lusted after like this was the 458, but I'm happy to take the C8 Z06 with it's modern amenities and warranty, and forget about the 458 that currently costs about twice as this.
How about the exclusive m4 csl? Same price, dull turbo sound, down 150 hp, regular auto trans, same weight. Who would choose that over this? And why? Same 2 seats and storage room so not even better that regard.
It definitely a replacement for a 10 year old 458. But I think Chevy dealers are going to screw their customers which is going to put a sour taste in everyone's mouth trying to get one. Ferrari will sell you a new car at MSRP. And the lead times aren't much different. I liked the 458 but I thought it had a lack of low end torque. Once it got going it was amazing but off the line it was not what I thought you should get for $300K. This one seems like its got more torque from the extra liter and adjustments.
i would absolutely not want be 1st with these as i dont trust new drivetrain reliability. i would wait few years and then get one at sticker (or below) once bugs have been worked out
