God I love the smell of race fuel in the morning...

Had track day #2 today. Went totally by myself and had an absolute blast. I also have some helpful information for my fellow Cobalt owners.

First run I focused more on re-learning the line, so speeds weren't too high, plus I had some track virgins in my group. Got the line back down. My instructor is a former ARCA driver who works with all sorts of race teams, he's been up at the track for Graham Rahal's testing sessions.

Went back to the classroom, part of which I got to talk about learning a vehicle and getting a feel for it as well as shift points for F/I cars as well as finding the proper line through turns 2, 3, and 4. It was cool.

Second run was experimentation, finding where to add speed, finding more efficient lines. Got the speeds WAY up. Found a better way through 7 by short shifting. Ran out of gear in 4th on the back stretch and through 9.

Got signed off and moved from the beginner group to the expert group. I'm now certified to run solo!!!!!!!!

There weren't many cars there, so they let an Integra and I have at it with each other, they pulled us off grid first so we could run w/each other. Took him 5 laps to catch me, 2 to finally get past, then I backed off a little bit because I was running him down easily through the straights, so I decided to let him go and hang back. In the meantime I lapped a C6 Corvette...yay!

Last run was me vs Integra part 2. Again, I was walking away on the straights and he was catching me through turns, which he should have, he had mucho dinero in his suspension set up. This time though he told me not to drop back, stay on him and push him through the turns. So we did, it was a lot of fun.

Very good day, the chief of instructors, track director, and track pro have decided I'm worthy of being groomed as an instructor so that's my new endeavor.

The interesting part of the day though was they had a setup where you can get your car weighed and they'd let you know the corner weights, so I decided to take the Cobalt over. I don't have the paper at the computer with me, so here's the gist of it:

Weight w/driver: 3049
Weight front to rear was almost 60/40
MOST IMPORTANTLY:
Cross weight was 49.9% RF to LR and 50.1% LF to RR...that was with 1/8 tank gas. With a full tank, we'd have almost perfect 50/50 crossweights.

 

sweet! i wish i could race and learn on an actual track

 

Sounds like a realy cool day! I didn't see mention of what track you were on, and im not sure what tracks are around you in Pittsburgh. Ever thought about an in-car camera setup? Would be cool to see some flying laps from a Cobalt, specialy when your fighting an integra.

One of these days, Ill get my butt back to an open track day.

 

I am glad to hear your success from Sunday. Yay!! Congrats

 

The track Alleycat was at was BeaverRun Motorsports Complex. Right over in the Beaver Falls area... western PA.. right off the Turnpike. Very cool track... not something like the Glen, or Mid-Ohio, but I hear it's a great track to get your feet wet, and there's alot of runoff, so less chance of smacking up your DD.

Going to give it a try next year when the brakes and suspension are upgraded, and I have some track tires.

Now... I'll have a guide too....lol

 

Possibly an instructor too :-). They do a lot of open wheel tuning up there. Graham Rahal currently holds the track record at 52 seconds. My best lap time is 1:12. Kinda weird to only be 10 seconds off an open wheel car. Straight line speed, I'm about even w/his time on the straights. But he also averages 92mph through the corners...so yeah, no can do on that one.

And Brian, I'm running fully stock on both suspension and brakes. And I could out-brake most other cars there, no brake fade either. That's stock pads and rotors with almost 26k on them...

 

Thanks Karla! Good luck on Wednesday!!!!!

 

hah damn i have over that many miles on my stock brakes and i have an 06, i'm think i'm really close to 27k and i got my car 10/01/05...

 

sounds like fun! do you have any pics?

 

hey alleycat, what tires did you run at the track? adjust tire pressure at all? thanks.

 

How far is this track from Harrisburg, PA? I would love to go to a track in my Cobalt whenever I'm back in PA for good. Sounds like a lot of fun. I have no idea what the closest track to Western South Dakota is. Closest thing to road course racing I get out here is the local autox...

 

Bitchin! Hope ya become an instructor, I'd drive all the way to PA, Just to see you as an instructor!

 

Hey,

BeaverRun is about a 4+ hour drive from Harrisburg/Carlisle... doing the speed limit.

I make it to BR in 55-60 minutes from Irwin and for me... it's about 3 hours to the Carlisle fairgrounds....

As far as South Dakota.... My advice..... Check out www.scca.org and then find taht region. They list all their "local" tracks to each region there.

That's how I found Beaver Run.

BR is a ncie track with a decent amount of challenges there. I've not personally run it, but I'm planning on it.

It's not like Mid-Ohio, or Lime Rock or the like, but a very nice local track. They are planning on expanding the track in time as well, but no idea how far off in the future that is.

 

Avon Tech-R racing tires. I believe I ran 45lbs all 4 corners for now. It was rushed so I didn't have time to switch

 

Hey thanks, did run some 16's or 17's? I cant find them in a 18.

 

Nice Alleycat! Way to represent the Cobalt!!