Track time for any serious driving enthusiast is a rare commodity. You never have enough when you want it. Luckily in the North Texas area there are a number of tracks with a variety of driving events all with in a short drive. You literally could have a track event somewhere close every other weekend. Our resident AutoSpies racer Combfilter, has just started to discover the wide range of choices at his disposal. You may remember he was recently down at Texas World Speedway (TWS) two months ago testing his car for the first time on a road circuit banked oval and all. After some impressive runs on the speedway Combfilter wondered just how much better times might have been if practiced a bit more behind the wheel.
So when the Apex Driving Academy called and asked if he wanted to participate in a track day at their home turf at Texas Motorsport Ranch (MSR), in Cresson Texas, he was all for it. After all practice does make perfect.
Location
Texas Motorsport Ranch is nothing like the high speed course of TWS. Where the TWS track emphasizes all out speed with high banking and a good mix of winding turns, TMS shorter 1.7 mile course concentrates more on driving technique. As Combfilter puts it: “You leave MSR having a good time, but with TWS you leave on an adrenaline high.” However he also reasoned if you are good at the more technical TMS road circuit, then high speed courses will improve as well. Good advice for any budding enthusiast.
The Driver
Even with a high speed event under his wing Combfilter opted for a season veteran to ride with him to pass along any tips. After a few laps the instructor made a few notes and pushed him wisely to the next level. After a few more laps and instruction, the intermediate instructor let him loose to play on the track until he could play no more. Sounds like a lot of fun to me.
The Car
As we have mentioned before Combfilter’s 2007 Lexus IS350 is known as more of a touring sedan rather than by any track pedigree. The 306hp V6 has the power to keep up with most of the competition, but the suspension is geared more for a soft ride rather than track prowess and Combfilter now feels that sway bars are the route to go to tame this behavior, and compliment the Eibach springs
The Driver's Perspective
OK, so i was on the waiting list for Apex driving academy's school out at MSR in Cresson TX. They sent me an email about 3 weeks ago stating that I could get in under the novice group. I thought cool, this place is close and I would like to check it out.
So the morning first session me and my instructor go out to do some drills. He bumps me up to their intermediate group where I get another instructor. He approves me for solo, boom we get that out of the way. so the rest of the day it's just me and the IS.
First, this is mostly for Texas people. TWS (college station) totally blows away MSR (Cresson) as far as a track for the IS. Cresson is more for lighter less horsepower cars, and motorcycles. You can hold so much more speed out at TWS, and it seems to flow better. One interesting item, is that in 4 sessions at TWS i went through an entire tank of gas plus another 1/4, at Cresson I used barely over 1/2 a tank in 6 sessions.
Second my review of the handling of the car pretty much is the same as my review from TWS. There is a lot of body roll, a surprising amount of under steer, and at Cresson the car was having trouble finding the right gear because of the track being tighter. I never once had an issue with the auto transmission at TWS and at Cresson it was jumping all over between 3rd, 4th, and 5th. I guess what I am trying to say is that it was hard for me to be smooth exiting the turns. The under steer was not 100% the cars fault. Actually, i would say that I am to blame for about 75% as I was entering a lot of the turns to hot, and therefore not hitting the right apex and having to fight the car back.
Finally, I learned a lot more this day on how to set the car into the turns better, and why I am causing a lot of the under steer problems. I did however, manage to run pretty much the best in my class, passing cars in every session without being passed (except by the instructor in his skyline).
I ran it on the stock Potenza’s which suck major balls. I know i said I was going to get some new tires for track day, but haven't seen the right deals on tirerack yet.
The video's below are from the last session where we are all very tired. I let out way way too much air causing the tires to whine on just about every turn. In the previous sessions I would barely ever hear them skid. I do manage to pass 6 cars in this session, and one of them was a Lotus Elise (which a monkey could drive). I got a lot of compliments from the instructors on my car. They were surprised by its power, and one of them liked the way the car sounded.
In future sessions I will concentrate on setting the car better into the turns, and exiting the turns smoother.
OH and my camera mount worked good (diy thread here). I need to move it over to the right because the rear view mirror is in the way. Also the wind noise is bad, but what do you expect with the windows rolled down. The quality is crappy because, 1. i had the camera on the wrong setting to get the most out of its record time (not on purpose). 2. i had to convert from vob, to avi , to wmv, to youtube flv. 3. I could have focused it down the road a little more. Oh well, its good enough for me.
It was a fun day. There was 1 other IS out there. Nice guy, I think his name was Brian.
How About Some video Action?
This part one of last session (first lap is under yellow flag so I don't get on it till around 2:15)
This is part two of the last session (this blue 350z had something done to it, because I only could catch and pass him via turns. On the straights he would even kind of pull away from me.)
This is the final part featuring an Audi RS4 getting passed along with a Lotus Elise.