So after two years of ownership, I was finally able to get my car out on track! I attended the SCCBC (Sports Car Club of British Columbia) Driver Training this past weekend at Mission Raceway Park, and it was an AWESOME experience.
All the SCCBC instructors, crew and volunteers were super welcoming, friendly and helpful, and I had a great time learning the feel and balance of my car closer to its limits.
Day 1 was cold, wet and rainy, so perfect conditions for working on car control at lower speeds.
Day 2 was still cool but dry, so we got to push the pace a lot more, and I got to where I felt like I was at around 7 or 8 tenths of my limit by the end, which is about as hard as I wanted to push my daily driver on a course where there are a LOT of trackside walls on corner exits! Overall, I think I was third-fastest in my group, behind the white GR86 and the Mustang Cobra.
My 500TW, 3 year old Pirelli P Zero All Seasons held up pretty well, but I could definitely feel that they were going off a bit towards the end of each hot-lapping session.
PowerStop Track Day pads with fresh rotors front and rear also held up great, with consistent feel and performance throughout, but man, are they ever dusty! I wasn't able to get my brake fluid flush to Motul DOT 5.1 done before the weekend, but didn't really notice a whole lot of difference in pedal feel from the start to the end of each session, though they were only 15-20 minutes long.
My RCE SS1's rode the curbs nicely and the car always felt really well balanced. I was running the dampers on the soft street settings (-14 clicks front / -16 clicks rear) due to the wet and cold initial conditions, and do feel like it would have benefited from the rebound being turned up a bit in the later dry sessions as speeds increased, particularly at the rear.
EDIT: Oh, yeah - almost forgot. I averaged 22.8 litres/100km on track, or a whopping 8.3 mpg...LOL! Even a stock FA20 is thirsty when pushing it hard.
Overall - SO MUCH FUN! Here are some pics:
