[Shotimes] Lime Rock Fun Saturday (OT)

[David Rosicke]

I had fun on Saturday at the Alfa owner's club event. It was a classroom/track day and about 70 cars showed up. Note that except for two classes, an Instructor was present in EVERY class! They put me in Novice since I had not run at LimeRock since it was repaved ('90 or so). Each heat was 20 minutes long.

The Cars:
My SHO
Newer Boxster 'S'
Early 80's Alfa Spyder with cage and slicks
Blue WRX - Second time on the track this summer
Silver WRX - Second time on the track this summer - Car was 8 months old!
Early 90's Carerra
BMW 'M' Hardtop - year or two old
Acura Integra with 16A Japanese motor and mods (Suspension, rims/tires, engine/exhaust)

First run was with the Instructor driving. Once he got comfortable, he only let the Boxster by.

My first run I took it easy until the brakes started to warm up. I only passed the Alfa and the BMW. I lapped the Alfa a couple of times - He never pushed the car hard enough. 

My second run I had gotten the line down and everyone was pushing harder (except the Alfa). I passed the BMW, the blue WRX, and tried but did not pass the Acura. The Silver WRX was on my tail for much of this run. I added four pounds of air in the right-side tires prior to this run.

My Third run, I had to bleed the brakes first - they went to the floor 15 minutes after I parked the car from the second run! I had a bunch of air to get out and they were fine for the rest of the day. I passed the Alfa a bunch of times, along with the BMW (twice), the Carerra (once), the Blue WRX (once) and the Acura (once). The Silver WRX was really running much harder this time, but eventually I lost him behind some cars I passed. I never saw the Boxster, though my wife taped him.

The fourth run was at 4:30, so the Boxster and Alfa went home early. I passed everyone at least once except for the Acura - He was running VERY hard and I ran out of track time!

I do have Video, but since it is in 640x480 MJPEG mode with no sound, it is 574MB in size. I threw together a PC to do the capturing yesterday afternoon. Once I get it down to size, I'll post a link to it!

All in all, it was a very fun day! My instructor said that he only had two things for me to work on.
1) Keep my hands in the proper position. I did some shuffling as well as some shifter holding.
2) Don't second guess myself as I drive. My instincts are usually correct for the line I need to take.

Other cars present:
Two Ferarris (The brand new 360 Modena went off-roading rather spectacularly, though no damage was done), several BMW's of various flavors, several Vintage Porsche, a '98 Cobra, a couple of 'Stangs, an STI, and of course, the Alfas.


Dave R.
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'91 SHO+, PPlus Y-Pipe W/ Cats, FPS Reinforced Motormounts, Poly/Police bushings, Konis, Springs, BFG KDW's, Carbon-Metallic pads, Composite Rotors, Quaife