Sometimes, you can get lucky... as I posted here, a couple of weeks ago, at Perry Performance and Competition's "friends and family" track day at ICAR, my car broke after literally 5 minutes on track and I was unable to repair it at the track. As ICAR was not officially holding any more events in 2020, I figured I would not be back on the track until 2021. The following weekend, it actually snowed. Last week, however, I received a message from Pat stating that ICAR would be hosting one more Saturday morning event, given the unseasonably hot weather we were seeing. I didn't expect to be able to go, as we had planned to go to the country house, but then Alex mentioned that she preferred to stay in town, since it was to be much warmer here. I then asked her if I could go do a couple of sessions and try to be home by 11 am, to which she agreed. Awesome! The car was ready to roll and all I did on the Friday evening was check the tire pressures. I didn't remember how to check the oil level with the Accusump.
I woke up to beautiful warm weather and headed to the track. The car was quickly ready to roll and as I was chatting with another driver, I saw a car heading onto the track. I rushed to get all set up and headed out myself. The track was dry and the weather warm, but there seemed to be little grip out there. On the beginning for my second lap, the rear end came around at the flat out left hander that is turn 2. As I was beginning to spin, I looked around and saw I was unlikely to hit anything, and then somehow, the car came back around as I slowed to a stop, pointing in the right direction. Cold tires or cold track, I guess. I took it easy for a couple of laps and started to pick up the pace near the end of the session, but I could see I was never going to beat my best time with the available grip. Still, the engine was pulling hard and I was enjoying myself. I tried to check the oil level with the Accusump closed and the engine running, but the dipstick still indicated I was well over full, so I didn't add any oil.
I sat out the next session (which was for beginners anyway) and strapped in for the next intermediate/advanced session. I was surrounded by a bunch of other cars, mainly German, as I headed out. I could feel that the grip seemed to have improved and my lap times were improving as well. I could see that I was soon going to go under 1:50, which would bring me closer to my personal best of 1:48.5. I hit a 1:50.1 on my 4th lap and got down to 1:49.1 on my fifth lap. I was catching a Lamborghini Huracan and a 991 GT3. The Huracan was not pushing and waved me by, and I began to chase down the GT3. Unfortunately, my check engine light came on and I could feel the vtec cutting out several times per lap. I was unable to improve on my times due to the slight power loss. The Huracan caught and passed me. I was caught and passed by Marco Sylvestre's very quick Porsche 987 Cayman and another GT3 (there were 5 GT3's at the track, out of maybe 20-25 cars). I finished the session without incident and packed up. I was home by 11:00 am, as promised. Even though I had not improved on my personal best lap time, I was satisfied with the car's performance. I have since looked at the data and the top speeds were where they should be (new record top speed of 168 km/h). I was off by 5-10 km/h in many corners, which seems to confirm that the grip on the track was not optimal. As for the vtec problem, I may have been slightly low on oil. Pat explained to me that to check the oil, I had to make sure that I kept the oil pressure up for a while, maybe 30 seconds, so that the Accusump tank would fill up, then close the valve, then check the oil. I have yet to do this but I think it will reveal a slightly low oil pressure. If this ends up being the last track activity of the year, it was a pretty good one.
I made a short video of the two best laps:
And here are a few photos:
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