Another fun track day in my 458

Back in March I posted about my first track day at COTA with my 458. Truly an amazing experience. While I was waiting for my next scheduled event at COTA later this month, I found and bought a Groupon for a two month membership at a private track just south of Austin called Harris Hill Road(H2R). It is 1.8 miles long with 11 turns and some nice elevation changes. I hired my driving instructor from COTA for a day of private coaching and gave it a go last week. Here is a video clip of part of my last session.

https://youtu.be/9xFwfAcM82Y

As you can see, it is VERY bumpy in places. They call it "character". I actually think the bumps will help me better develop smoothness in my driving. And concentration. The learning process continues.

I'm just waiting for the (much needed) rain to subside here in central Texas and I'll be back there hopefully once a week for the two month membership. I can see new tires and brake pads in my future.

 

@dustman
Thanks for the compliment. Smoothness is one of the things my driving coach is having me focus on.

I'm running Michelin Pilot Super Sports with ~11k miles on them. It would be nice if they were grippier, but this way I'm learning to "listen to the tires" as my coach says, to find the limits of adhesion.

 

I did the shifting, which was pretty straightforward.

I chose to run in Sport mode this first time simply because of how bumpy the track is. I tried Race mode for a bit and the car really liked to step out when accelerating around the bumpy sweepers. With more time and experience there, I'll try it again.

By contrast, the afternoon before this track day I did a quick 30 minute session on COTA, which is as smooth as a billiard table, and I ran in Race mode for the quicker shifts as well as the relaxed traction control and ESC which seems to help the car rotate through the corners a bit better.

Keep in mind, I'm a beginner at this stuff and my use of Sport vs Race and other such things should be taken with a grain of salt

 

@tatanmatan, there's a video of a 458 Speciale doing a 1:26 at H2R. Shoot for that. I am.

 

Same track, only counterclockwise last week. Lap 7 was going to be my cool down lap but I saw my friend getting ready to enter the track in his 458 Spider. He is better on the track than I am so I decided to stay out another couple laps to see how well I could stay in front of him. After I waved him by, I got to see some nice Ferrari drifting at the top of Santa Rita (at the end of the video).

Best lap was 1:29.2. Plenty of places to improve that time. Looking forward to getting back there after Tropical Storm Bill finishes watering the State of Texas.


https://youtu.be/_YM7kTKrFtA

 

And finally...
My two month membership at Harris Hill Road ended in June. Here is a video of my best lap (a 1:27.1)

https://youtu.be/sXVTrxRQPpA

This was at 1:15pm, mostly sunny and 95 degrees so the track and tires were getting pretty hot. The lap was pretty calm and tidy, so I think having another go in the "cool" Texas morning (75 degrees) with a little more driving gusto would get me in the 1:26's.

I'll be back at COTA this Sunday (7/5) for another HPDE and then that will be it for a while. All in all, a heck of a lot of fun.

Three years ago at this time, my Italia was on a boat in the Atlantic heading to the U.S. I took the keys on August 1st 2012. What a journey it has been.