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Ryephile · 10-08-2018, 09:09 AM

I just came back from my last track weekend of the year. Back to Grattan Raceway, instructing for the Great Lakes Lotus Club. They're such a great group of enthusiasts; fun, modest, and open to all cars that have passion in them.

The weather was pretty awful. Very rainy all weekend, and rather cold on Sunday. There was a narrow window around Sunday noon where the sky held the rain long enough for a dry line to form. The bulk of the weekend I ran the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S, but for three sessions on Sunday afternoon I ran the Supercar 3R's, where the conditions were nearly dry, dry but cold, and then rain soaked.

For how great the 4S's are on the street, they're truly bad in the wet on the track. Very sharp snapping breakaway with no communication. I even did a 180° spin coming onto the front straight, a rare error for me, because the tires snapped out so hard even with solely maintenance throttle on the corner exit. Yikes. Thankfully I stayed on-track, but the 4S's get a big thumbs down on wet-track from me.

The Supercar 3R's however turned out to be very Hoosier R7-esque in the wet, which is to say predictable and with a broad breakaway. Despite the overall grip being similar in the wet to the PS4S, the 3R's are much easier and enjoyable to drive in the wet, assuming there's no standing water of course. Given how chilly it was yesterday, I wasn't able to get the 3R's up to their happy place temperature-wise. As such I was a bit over one second off my pace from earlier this year. Given how much everyone else was also struggling, that's actually really great. For perspective, a good friend of mine that was also instructing this weekend has a well prepped Exige S, and he was about 3 seconds off his usual pace in that one dry session. He is an excellent driver and very consistent, so that tells me the track was significantly down on potential pace.

Finally, a discovery with PDR. I thought I could keep separate SD cards for each track, with their respective finish line data on each SD card. It turns out this doesn't work. After the first couple sessions I looked at the data and discovered I had 20 minute "laps", the system had either ignored or forgotten the finish line I marked the previous visit.

-->The PSA here is: mark your finish line every visit, no matter what SD card is plugged in!

You can easily see how dingy the sky is even when it stopped long enough to snap a couple pictures:

GLLC HPDE at Grattan, Oct 2018 by Ryephile, on Flickr

GLLC HPDE at Grattan, Oct 2018 by Ryephile, on Flickr

A pack of 911 GT3's were there on Sunday. Two of them were quite well driven. Every single one of them had to give up the point-bys as I reeled them in. +4 Internet track-day winning points for the 1LE.

GLLC HPDE at Grattan, Oct 2018 by Ryephile, on Flickr

10-08-2018, 09:09 AM	#163
Ryephile Hot Dog Drives: '17 1SS 1LE Join Date: Feb 2016 Location: Metro Detroit Posts: 1,937	I just came back from my last track weekend of the year. Back to Grattan Raceway, instructing for the Great Lakes Lotus Club. They're such a great group of enthusiasts; fun, modest, and open to all cars that have passion in them. The weather was pretty awful. Very rainy all weekend, and rather cold on Sunday. There was a narrow window around Sunday noon where the sky held the rain long enough for a dry line to form. The bulk of the weekend I ran the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S, but for three sessions on Sunday afternoon I ran the Supercar 3R's, where the conditions were nearly dry, dry but cold, and then rain soaked. For how great the 4S's are on the street, they're truly bad in the wet on the track. Very sharp snapping breakaway with no communication. I even did a 180° spin coming onto the front straight, a rare error for me, because the tires snapped out so hard even with solely maintenance throttle on the corner exit. Yikes. Thankfully I stayed on-track, but the 4S's get a big thumbs down on wet-track from me. The Supercar 3R's however turned out to be very Hoosier R7-esque in the wet, which is to say predictable and with a broad breakaway. Despite the overall grip being similar in the wet to the PS4S, the 3R's are much easier and enjoyable to drive in the wet, assuming there's no standing water of course. Given how chilly it was yesterday, I wasn't able to get the 3R's up to their happy place temperature-wise. As such I was a bit over one second off my pace from earlier this year. Given how much everyone else was also struggling, that's actually really great. For perspective, a good friend of mine that was also instructing this weekend has a well prepped Exige S, and he was about 3 seconds off his usual pace in that one dry session. He is an excellent driver and very consistent, so that tells me the track was significantly down on potential pace. Finally, a discovery with PDR. I thought I could keep separate SD cards for each track, with their respective finish line data on each SD card. It turns out this doesn't work. After the first couple sessions I looked at the data and discovered I had 20 minute "laps", the system had either ignored or forgotten the finish line I marked the previous visit. -->The PSA here is: mark your finish line every visit, no matter what SD card is plugged in! You can easily see how dingy the sky is even when it stopped long enough to snap a couple pictures: GLLC HPDE at Grattan, Oct 2018 by Ryephile, on Flickr GLLC HPDE at Grattan, Oct 2018 by Ryephile, on Flickr GLLC HPDE at Grattan, Oct 2018 by Ryephile, on Flickr A pack of 911 GT3's were there on Sunday. Two of them were quite well driven. Every single one of them had to give up the point-bys as I reeled them in. +4 Internet track-day winning points for the 1LE. GLLC HPDE at Grattan, Oct 2018 by Ryephile, on Flickr __________________ 2017 "M1SS1LE" in Hyper Blue w/PDR Last edited by Ryephile; 11-06-2018 at 09:22 AM.