[SlamForce]

Well, after 6 months of Camaro ownership, finally registered with SpeedSF and completed first track day at Sonoma Raceway on 5/10. Signed up with SpeedSF so I could do a couple instructor follows sessions, and so I could wear my motorcycle helmet. The car is essentially stock, just an MBRP axle back exhaust put on by previous owner. Stock brakes pads, 3 halfway worn down SC3 tires and 1 Lexani (due to big SC3 puncture and limited tire availability on drive home from Vegas), 5w30 oil, and fresh Motul RBF 600 brake fluid. Street alignment. Emptied the car out and deflated tires to about 29psi cold. PDR on, send it.
I was able to complete all 5 20 minute sessions, the car had no issues. First 2 sessions were essentially follow the instructor sessions, low speed, learn the line. Last 3 sessions, was able to get out with no pacer, and open it up.
In the final session, was lapping at 1:57 consistently. A lot of room for improvement, and excited to keep learning and progressing. This forum has been incredibly helpful so far. I’m hooked on HPDE and going back for round 2 with SpeedSF on 6/7. Who’s coming with me?

[SlamForce]

https://youtu.be/3f62y6PNsG8



Any constructive feedback is welcome.

[wakespeak]

0w-40 oil as I recall is backward compatible and recommended for track use. I would search some youtube videos for other 1LEs at Sonoma and compare your speeds at corner apexes to get a sense of the car's potential. Once you get the right line work to brake later and getting to full throttle earlier. Then you'll be tweaking all of your timing and streering inputs, but that's the sport.

[TransamGTA350]

Congrats on your first track day. Sounds like you're hooked!

I would consider on your next day having an instructor ride right seat. You'll get a lot out of it.

[SlamForce]

Originally Posted by wakespeak

0w-40 oil as I recall is backward compatible and recommended for track use. I would search some youtube videos for other 1LEs at Sonoma and compare your speeds at corner apexes to get a sense of the car's potential. Once you get the right line work to brake later and getting to full throttle earlier. Then you'll be tweaking all of your timing and streering inputs, but that's the sport.

Car came with original 5w30 oil cap so that’s what dealer used last oil change. You’re right, they now recommend 0w40 for track use, so I will switch to that before next time.
YouTube was helpful before my first track day, will continue to watch what other experienced drivers are doing on track.
Got faster each session by 2 seconds/lap average by braking later as I started to trust the car more. I’m sure I’m leaving a lot on the table.
Thank you!

[SlamForce]

Originally Posted by TransamGTA350

Congrats on your first track day. Sounds like you're hooked!

I would consider on your next day having an instructor ride right seat. You'll get a lot out of it.

That’s good advice. I think I will do this upcoming track day solo so I can deliberately work on braking later and throttling out sooner. Will look at getting in-car instructor for the following session.

[Dabjbr]

Great way to experience your Camaro! Nice to see more Camaros at Sonoma. I coach for Hooked on Driving. I would agree with Transam above. Get a coach to ride with you and/or sit passenger in their car. It will accelerate your learnings especially on a technical track like Sonoma

[kropscamaro16]

good shit man ! and i use 5w40 oil in my track camaro torco sr1 full synthetic you dont need to use dexos 2 only approved oil its fine

[SlamForce]

Originally Posted by Dabjbr

Great way to experience your Camaro! Nice to see more Camaros at Sonoma. I coach for Hooked on Driving. I would agree with Transam above. Get a coach to ride with you and/or sit passenger in their car. It will accelerate your learnings especially on a technical track like Sonoma

Cool, I’ll check out the Hooked On Driving calendar and try to get to one of their events with some coaching. See you out there. PM me if you got any promo codes!

[Baddawg53]

Originally Posted by Dabjbr

Great way to experience your Camaro! Nice to see more Camaros at Sonoma. I coach for Hooked on Driving. I would agree with Transam above. Get a coach to ride with you and/or sit passenger in their car. It will accelerate your learnings especially on a technical track like Sonoma

OP Just follow this guy around ... He's pretty fast!!

Sonoma is a great track! So is Laguna seca, and thunderhill. We have some great tracks in northern California decibel limits be damned...

[N Camarolina]

Glad you are taking up HPDE and enjoying it. I happened across your recent PDR video on YT, and noticed it appears you were you are driving the car in "normal" Sport mode rather than one of the one of the TRACK PTM modes.

This may make little difference in car balance and brake pad wear at the moment, but as you start to become more comfortable and push the car harder, the normal car modes (Tour, Sport, Track) will have a negative impact on your learning and your rear brake pad longevity. That's because the stability control system in these modes is very aggressive and will step in often to prevent car rotation (yaw). This will have the effect of covering up your mistakes (not good when you are supposed to be learning) and cause excessive wear to the rear brake pads.

Read the sticky note (Driving modes/PTM demystified) at top of the 1LE subforum which explains how to select one of the Track PTM modes, along with an explanation of how each mode behaves. If you start with PTM Dry or maybe Sport 1, you'll still have the benefit of stability control system being active to help save you if you start to invoke a spin (excess yaw), but it's more permissive (than PTM wet or the non-PTM Tour, Sport or Track selection) as to how much yaw rate it allows before stepping to stop rotation.

[SlamForce]

Originally Posted by Baddawg53

OP Just follow this guy around ... He's pretty fast!!

Sonoma is a great track! So is Laguna seca, and thunderhill. We have some great tracks in northern California decibel limits be damned...

Sonoma is great and closest to me, so probably my go-to moving forward. Excited to get to Laguna and Thunderhill in time.

A week leading up to event I was concerned about the 103db limit. Once I got there and heard some serious cars ripping around track, my car sounded like a Prius in comparison and realized I was fine.

[SlamForce]

Originally Posted by N Camarolina

Glad you are taking up HPDE and enjoying it. I happened across your recent PDR video on YT, and noticed it appears you were you are driving the car in "normal" Sport mode rather than one of the one of the TRACK PTM modes.

This may make little difference in car balance and brake pad wear at the moment, but as you start to become more comfortable and push the car harder, the normal car modes (Tour, Sport, Track) will have a negative impact on your learning and your rear brake pad longevity. That's because the stability control system in these modes is very aggressive and will step in often to prevent car rotation (yaw). This will have the effect of covering up your mistakes (not good when you are supposed to be learning) and cause excessive wear to the rear brake pads.

Read the sticky note (Driving modes/PTM demystified) at top of the 1LE subforum which explains how to select one of the Track PTM modes, along with an explanation of how each mode behaves. If you start with PTM Dry or maybe Sport 1, you'll still have the benefit of stability control system being active to help save you if you start to invoke a spin (excess yaw), but it's more permissive (than PTM wet or the non-PTM Tour, Sport or Track selection) as to how much yaw rate it allows before stepping to stop rotation.

Thank you for that advice. I read that thread, but never actually tested putting the car into PTM. Once I got on track, I tried to put in Track/PTM Dry and the TC and ESC lights came on. I thought this meant they were both fully off. Since it was first track day, I figured better to have some electronic assistance on track and just put it in trusty Sport mode, my backroad cruising mode. After reading the thread again, it seems when I put car in PTM, the lights coming on just mean TC and ESC are reduced, correct?
If above statement is correct, I will use PTM Dry and Sport 1 for upcoming track day. Sport mode was a little frustrating as I did not have the power coming out of corners that I wanted.

[N Camarolina]

Originally Posted by SlamForce

Thank you for that advice. I read that thread, but never actually tested putting the car into PTM. Once I got on track, I tried to put in Track/PTM Dry and the TC and ESC lights came on. I thought this meant they were both fully off. Since it was first track day, I figured better to have some electronic assistance on track and just put it in trusty Sport mode, my backroad cruising mode. After reading the thread again, it seems when I put car in PTM, the lights coming on just mean TC and ESC are reduced, correct?
If above statement is correct, I will use PTM Dry and Sport 1 for upcoming track day. Sport mode was a little frustrating as I did not have the power coming out of corners that I wanted.

You have that mostly correct. When you have the car in a "normal" (non PTM) mode, the stability control system is automatically "full on" (aggressive prevention of yaw), and the traction control system is in a mode that will permit the rear wheels to start to slip under power on corner exit, BUT will intervene to reduce power as soon as the rear wheels start slipping. To the novice Camaro track driver, you may not even notice the rear wheels starting to slip on corner exit (under aggressive throttle application with the steering not unwound yet) before the traction control intervenes to retard power and prevent wheel slip. You may only notice that when you ask for more throttle on corner exit, you don't seem to be getting it. PTM modes work differently from this, by allowing a certain amount of throttle on corner exit based on steering angle (less steering angle = more throttle allowed; so as you unwind the steeering wheel, you get more and more power permitted). PTM Wet allows the least amount of throttle for a given amount of steering angle, while RACE allows the most.

Putting the car in PTM mode is a little tricky until you get used to it. With the car in normal Track mode, you have to double press the traction control button and you'll then see a menu pop up in the DIC display, showing the 4 PTM modes to choose from. You then use the center console button (Tour, Sport, Track) to toggle through the 4 PTM modes shown on the DIC display (1 will be highlighted as you toggle up or down the list). There is no "enter" button to make your choice. Just leave the PTM mode that you want highlighted and the menu will disappear in a few seconds. If you touch the center console button up or down after that point, it will bring up the PTM mode display in the DIC and allow you to change the PTM mode on the fly (say from DRY to Sport1). Once you turn the car off, or press the traction control button, or press the cruise control button, the PTM system will disengage. The traction control button "double press" has to be done at that right rate in order to turn on the PTM menu. If you don't see the PTM menu pop up, wait a second and try again with the 2nd press following more quickly, or more slowly.*

As a learning tool, you can run your PDR recordings through free software from Cosworth Toolbox and you'll be able to see if/when during a lap the stability control has activated. Since I run in Sport1, I check this routinely to identify if the computer ever stepped in with stability control and determine whether it was actually saving me (my mistake) or whether I had the car under complete control at the time and it was just decreasing the yaw rate when it didn't actually need to.