Vince's Stuff: The Civic finally hits the track!

First car at the track!

Yesterday I headed to ICAR for Tuesday night lapping for the first time in a year... yes, it had been that long! I was wondering if the car would be reliable, if it would be quick, if it would feel very different... Short answers: super reliable, quick enough, not that different.

I headed to the North Shore before 3:00 pm, bringing my laptop so I could do some work after having beaten the traffic. I stopped at the Blainville public library (a nice spot, but a bigger detour than I thought, about 20 minutes) and worked a bit. I then topped up my fuel and headed to the track. I was the first one there on what was to be a busy night. I renewed my membership and, while walking around, stupidly tripped on the front part of a trailer I was checking out, and sraped up my elbow like an idiot. I was still able to get the car set up, going through my checklist and even looking under the car to see if the subframe bolts had stayed tight (they had).

The first session was for beginners. The second session would be for the yellow/intermediate group, but I was getting impatient and decided to run in that group. The session was uneventful. I was passed by a C8 Corvette, and no one else behind me caught up to me. They have reconfigured the before-last corner before the front straight so that after the hairpin, you have to stay right before diving back to the left to prepare for the right-hander onto the straight. This will take some time to get used to for me. The car felt fine, although I was not feeling confident, mostly due to the poor grip of the tires. I had flipped my 2018 tires from the back to the front because my 2019 tires were pretty close to cording. The price for more rubber in front seems to have been less grip. I could not get on the gas early after the esses for the fast left-hander leading onto the back straight. The lap times were 5 seconds off my personal best, in the 1:51's, but I figured this was due to the tires and my general cautiousness. The temperature and everything else seemed normal. Choo was at the track, he wanted to see how the car would do (he had another friend/client there with a similar swap he had carried out). Mazen was supposed to meet me too, with his GT3.

The next session was green and I was not ready to do back to back sessions, so I went out in the next session after that. I was in the middle of a bunch of cars, most going much more slowly than me. I was behind another Civic and we were passing as many people as possible but it was a bit of a waste of a session for me. I realized after that it was a beginner group, not intermediate as I had thought. By this point, Mazen had shown up. He offered me a drive in the GT3, but I preferred to take him as a passenger with me in the advanced group. This was quite fun. The extra weight of having a passenger meant I would be no quicker than 1:51 yet again. I figured I was driving better, and it felt like there was as much power as before. The weak link seemed to really be the tires.

I was given permission to be Mazen's "instructor" in the beginner group and we went out in the GT3. Mazen was willing to push his 200k$ car much more than I had expected him to and we had a fun session, mostly passing slower cars.

I had been on track in 4 different sessions, 3 as a driver. This is the point where you ask yourself "should I go for 1 more?" and the correct answer is usually "no". However, things were going well, the weather was cooling a bit and the sun was setting. The conditions seemed perfect for me to try and put down a clean sub 1:50 lap in the evening's last green session. I positioned myself early and could see several fast cars lined up behind me. In the first 3 or 4 laps, I was passed by an M4 and 350Z that I often saw here, two GT3's, the crazy fast Exige and two Ferrari 488 Challenge race cars. Later I was passed by an E46 M3. I got in several clean laps, but I was not able to push any harder. In the end, I managed a 1:49.7, so I had managed to shave off some time. Over all, I was happy. The car had performed flawlessly. Looking at the data at home, I can see that my peak speeds before the braking zones were almost identical to those of last year, despite lower speeds in several corners. This shows that what was making the lap times slower was the grip (and the confidence of the driver), and not the horsepower.

I packed up the car and drove home just as the sun had set. It was a satisfying evening and a nice way to ease back into the track driving season.