Stock '18 PP BRZ at Grattan in the rain

[atomicalex]

Possibly a strange habit, but I like to take cars as received to a track I know to get a baseline. Also a bit of a baseline for me as I've spent my track career in FWD VWs.

Saturday was the day for my bone stock '18 PP BRZ.

Grattan is a challenging a fun track and is Michigan's little piece of heaven. If you haven't been there, imagine those videos of the Nordschleife and cut it down to just over two miles. It is truly a wonderful place to drive. I've got a lot of laps there, but the last time out there was about eight years ago. That is a lot of ground to make up.



One thing that helped me was that I was assigned to do the classroom for the novices. I actually love doing this. Club day, so we try to make sure no one gets in the (literal) weeds. No, seriously. The bottom of the track is a swamp, complete with turtles. For a first day out, it was actually really helpful to go through the routine with them and put myself in the novice mindset. I ended up basically driving control (this appears to be a motorcycle thing) and doing lead follow laps with all of the assorted novices. This had the side effect of forcing me to pay strict attention to my lines instead of just screwing around. I found myself able to go much deeper into the turns than I expected and what traction I had was useful for pushing turning.



One new challenge at Grattan is a repave of sections of the track with some very weird tar surface. Grattan is challenging enough dry, but this surface and water did not agree. I experienced something new to me - skittering. I have not experienced a car hopping sideways across the track before. That was rather unsettling, because it was a start-stop behaviour instead of a slide. There was not a whole lot of steering into it as that just caused the traction control (even light) to go nuts. I have not perfected the pedal dance yet, so getting rid of all of it was not an option.

I have to address that being new to RWD (except for about 5 years as a kid) cost me a ton of time. It's like learning to drive all over again. I have a good feel for pushing the car, but not for sliding it yet. The skittering was really off-putting and once I figured it out, it was a matter of keeping two wheels on the old pavement at all times. I needed a lot of laps to get my reference points back (needed as the track drops away in several places) and I am a lot rustier than I had hoped. I'm pretty good everywhere except turn 3 now. 3 makes the Corkscrew seem like a walk in the park. It's so blind (downhill and off camber left) that it is now officially the track exit, mostly because people freak out and drive off right there. I think it took me several days to get it the first time, so no crisis. I'm slow, it's ok. I have the jump, the esses, the bowl, the bus stop, and the valley back in my brain now.

So enough about me and the track, now the car, with a brief weather report.

The day was cold (low to mid 50s) and rainy. Then came the hail. And more hail. Then more rain. Not the best conditions, which contributed mightily to my experience.



Holy hell, the stock tyres are hilariously bad. Forget worrying about brake updates, the first things that need to go are these stupid tyres. I have experience quite a bit of wandering on longitudinally grooved pavement here in MI, and after a few skitters, I was able to associate it with the rain grooves in the tyres themselves. They seem to be folding over and breaking traction, then catching it again. Like slideways ABS? NO. Like driving me batshit crazy. I think a fair amount of this was due to the weather conditions - summer tyres right at the thermal limit of performance. I had one session where the track was dry and this was far different than the rest of the day. The control was there, I was able to avoid ABS, no skitters, etc. That was a good session and instead of learning new ways to avoid engaging TC, I was building speed in the corners. My hope had been to practice entering little slides, but that did not happen.

Brakes never really got tested because I was never going that fast. ABS is minimally intrusive - I prefer more feedback! It's useless as a training aid if you can't feel it. Again, the weather contributed.

Steering was tight and predictable.

The seat (which is outstanding for everyday driving) was ok, but a proper high seat and harness are going to be necessary. I'm spoiled in that all of my VWs have had harnesses, and some have had seats and cages. Trying to track a car without being attached to it is uncomfortable and less fun. I was seriously sore everywhere at the end of the day. Except my legs, which was nice. My upper body was feeling it from being in motion so much. I ordered a CGLock and then forgot to install it. It would not have helped with the upper body movement, though, and might have made things worse.

The best part of the day was that another BRZ driver was among my novices and he improved greatly throughout the day. The second best was discovering that my old endurance car still lives and is actually the west side track rat for our VW club. I got home and found the title, we are going to plate that sucker. It is a beast - ABA swapped with GTI brakes, and caged with two seats and harnesses. It even has window glass now! It weighs all of 1820#. It is soooooo much fun to drive. Pure point and shoot.



There are no bad days at the track if you can drive home. It wasn't a great day for me, but it was a great (new) start.

I'll be browsing TireRack now....

[Jamestl]

Nice! Seems like you had a good enough of a time there. Curious - have you been to Gingerman and if yes, how does it compare to Grattan? I've only been to Gingerman but have wanted to go to Grattan.

On the seatbelt point - i usually lock the seat belt and then use the back and then up/down lever to get myself tight to the seat. Don't think it beats a proper seat/harness combo but it can get reasonably tight.

[atomicalex]

Originally Posted by Jamestl

Curious - have you been to Gingerman and if yes, how does it compare to Grattan?

We call GingerMan "My First Racetrack".

Not because it is no good, in fact, completely the opposite. It is possibly one of the best tracks there is to learn on. GingerMan is quite a bit flatter, far better runoffs, safer, more modern, (best showers in the country!), and the sight lines are excellent. It is a wonderful place to play with cars. The turns are mathematically pure - a DR is a DR. A double apex is a double apex. Etc. They have lunch! The paddock is outside of the track. Camping is easy. So many great things about GingerMan.

Grattan, well, we were all excited when they put curtains on the showers.

Grattan is basically terrifying for your first lap. And your second lap. Until you get to the end of the first day, you are going to wonder what the hell you were thinking.

You can learn more about yourself and your car in one day at Grattan than in a week of days anywhere else. At the same time, that is the reason we don't run LeMons races there.

[5H1F7Y]

Originally Posted by atomicalex

Possibly a strange habit, but I like to take cars as received to a track I know to get a baseline. Also a bit of a baseline for me as I've spent my track career in FWD VWs.

Saturday was the day for my bone stock '18 PP BRZ.

Ill post some of my pictures from the track day when i get home from work. I skipped the session immediately after the hail, my friends and i were too busy chatting it up with some of the other guys. My friend usually drives with 3Balls Racing when they do events there, so im sure when spring rolls around we will be out 4/5 times.

The braking tips you gave before my last session helped quite a bit, felt more confident carrying another 15mph at the end of the strait before turn one, and more consistent lines at bus stop hairpin

[atomicalex]

Originally Posted by 5H1F7Y

Ill post some of my pictures from the track day when i get home from work. I skipped the session immediately after the hail, my friends and i were too busy chatting it up with some of the other guys. My friend usually drives with 3Balls Racing when they do events there, so im sure when spring rolls around we will be out 4/5 times.

The braking tips you gave before my last session helped quite a bit, felt more confident carrying another 15mph at the end of the strait before turn one, and more consistent lines at bus stop hairpin

Yay!!! That is great to hear. You looked great at the end of the day, really tightening up your line and getting deeper. The bus stop was horrible in the morning with the leaves, which sucked for everyone.

Post more detail about your experience. We had a terrifically shitty day weather-wise, only thing worse would have been snow, although that would have evened out the traction surface quite a bit....

3Balls is wonderful. I ran my old wagon with them their first two seasons, much to everyone's amusement. Ken is a fantastic guy.

[5H1F7Y]

Originally Posted by atomicalex

Yay!!! That is great to hear. You looked great at the end of the day, really tightening up your line and getting deeper. The bus stop was horrible in the morning with the leaves, which sucked for everyone.

Post more detail about your experience. We had a terrifically shitty day weather-wise, only thing worse would have been snow, although that would have evened out the traction surface quite a bit....

3Balls is wonderful. I ran my old wagon with them their first two seasons, much to everyone's amusement. Ken is a fantastic guy.

Yea, I rode with Matt in his Katech Z06 after the novice driver meeting. His tires were worn, and combining that with the track conditions i was happy to have 1/3 the hp on tap. He rode with me the first session to give pointers and make sure i wasn't doing anything stupid. Time was mostly spent feeling out the car. The only other car i've tracked was my A4, which feels like a pig in comparison to the BRZ. We ended up stuck behind a few people the first run, so i didn't get a chance to really push that hard. The bend after the bowl and before the hairpin i had to control my urges to lean in to the throttle since that area was still in shadows and the dampest portion. And when the camber switches is right about where i wanted to get in to it again. Took some control to wait that extra second or two until the car re-centered itself before leaning more in to the throttle.

By the second session i pointed two cars by, and just followed them to work on a decent line and finding the threshold of the car given the conditions. Once i pointed them by the three of us started putting a little distance between us and the cars behind. It was nice to be able to follow some people who (i tihnk) had a little more experience on the track. It gave me a pace to keep up with, yet still keeping myself in check and not over cooking a corner. This session i think i could have gone much quicker on as i didn't use my brakes as much as i could have so im sure my overall speed was down from where it could have been if i had been braking harder.

That leads us to my third session on the track. After you gave me those pointers for trail braking and where i initiated my braking i was able to carry much more speed up to, and through the corners. Changing my braking points i could feel the weight transfer a little differently and help set me up for the following corners in the S's. And turning it a little later to the downhill off-camber turn 3 helped pull me all the way to the apex and ride that side of the track to the next corner. School bus was still a little tricky as i had some trouble getting the exact braking point down, but it was much improved from the first two runs. I was the second car on the track that session, and the first and i were playing cat and mouse the whole time. He would pull on the straights, then i would be back on him through the corners, we were pretty much on pace the whole time. Im not sure when the other cars entered the track as i didnt see anyone in my mirrors the entire time. We did end up catching up to the pack the last few laps before the checkered dropped.

Matt and i left after that run as it started to downpour again and we had a 2.5 hour commute home. I cant wait to see what this car is capable of next season when some proper heat can get in to the tires.

[atomicalex]

Originally Posted by 5H1F7Y

The only other car i've tracked was my A4, which feels like a pig in comparison to the BRZ.

OMG what gen A4? My old rat is my 1.8T B5 wagon.

[CounterSpace Garage]

The OEM tires are great for MPG and decent grip, however, they easily cook even in cold conditions. A good 200TW tire makes for a completely different experience. OEM PP brake pads are not bad and definitely not a slouch on the street. A car that sees track should use pads designed for track/race application. Great review of the 18 BRZ PP!

[strat61caster]

Why did you leave TC on if you were fighting it?

[atomicalex]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

Why did you leave TC on if you were fighting it?

Ha! Good question. I basically forgot about it. And when I finally remembered and turned it off (again, I don't have the pedal dance down, so all I have are the switches), it was so wet and cold that on or off didn't seem to matter. I was able to manage best by keeping two wheels on the old pavement - this was more effective at defeating the TC than turning it off.

For the first couple of sessions, I honestly was so occupied with the tyres that I was not paying much attention to the TC. Trying to figure out when ABS was triggering was more in focus. I was so disappointed with the tyres and just down about how sloppy they were.

It was one of those days where it sounds really bad, but it really wasn't. I'm not a naturally fast person and I have to work really hard in my head to get things down. I can teach it and make others really fast, but doing it myself is pushing my brain much harder than the car.

The BRZ is a huge treat for me because I spent some time getting to the point of being able to outdrive my two FWD cars, and then I stalled hard as a driver. Now I get to start at 0 again. That's the point, I guess? Starting from scratch and getting it back together? Forcing myself to change and update.

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by atomicalex

And when I finally remembered and turned it off (again, I don't have the pedal dance down, so all I have are the switches), it was so wet and cold that on or off didn't seem to matter. I was able to manage best by keeping two wheels on the old pavement - this was more effective at defeating the TC than turning it off.

That doesn't make sense, if you're turning it off correctly the only aids remaining without the pedal dance activated is ABS brake biasing to increase corner entry stability (as well as multi-channel abs) and the 'auto-LSD' which applies brake to a lifted or no traction wheel to make the Torsen function properly. I wouldn't think you'd feel much of anything on a cold wet day, and putting the tires on two different grip surfaces would make the auto-lsd more pronounced, not better.

Were you perchance in "track mode"? Because what you describe is more consistent with that than with TC fully off in this car by pushing the TC-Off button for 3 seconds which should make driving aids nigh on invisible unless you're a hard trail braker or are lifting a drive wheel and probably doing neither in cold and wet conditions.

p. 259-260 of the '18 BRZ manual apparently.

You could also tell me to politely fuck off too, just trying to help

[atomicalex]

@strat61caster no stress! You are good.

The track conditions were really weird and depending on how the yaw angle sense is programmed, it's easy to fake out the TC. The one time the TC really slammed on I had three wheels in the slick tar and one on the pavement. Coming off the slick tar was not comfy. Just as I moved to steer into the slide... brrrp and shakes in the rear. With the outer wheels both off and tracking, the yaw was settled down and TC was silent.

I guess I'm a bit weird, I treat ABS and TC as training tools.

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by atomicalex

The track conditions were really weird and depending on how the yaw angle sense is programmed, it's easy to fake out the TC.

I'm not doubting that it's annoying when it's on, only that you shouldn't have felt it if it was turned off with the button.

I agree that it's worth knowing how the car acts with aids.

[atomicalex]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

I'm not doubting that it's annoying when it's on, only that you shouldn't have felt it if it was turned off with the button.

I agree that it's worth knowing how the car acts with aids.

I'm saying it probably wasn't off.....