Track days - knowledge base

[Petrina Polo]

Make sure your brakes are upto scratch...

Fitted 6 piston calipers on a car years ago... We went to wakefield and thought we would out break everybody... did three laps and the disk tore it self right off, both fronts..

Had to do a lap just to slow the car down, only had rear brakes.. ended up taking it off the track, very difficult to stop and tow home to sydney $$$...

Brakes are most most important.. We thought we did everything right but they were just faulty set..

At least have newish pads on your car..

[Timbo]

^^ as above. Good pads and fluid. If you are tracking a few times a year, you'll want (at least) harder pads and higher spec fluid.

Have fun, and aim to improve your times, not beat someone else's

[shaneth]

Have fun, and aim to improve your times, not beat someone else's

Couldnt agree more Timbo.

[seangti]

Queensland raceway - sprint circuit

Did a 69.68 in the third session, 4th session was untimed, probably did slightly better than that. The car was sweet doing 70's laps. Probably an extra .5-1sec left in it, track had a big oil spill and a bit of water before entering the straight, shooting the car sideways even at 60km/h.Good times. Stock brakes and pads were surprisingly great, not a hint of fade at all and was very confident diving deep under brakes.

Even the continentals did ok - ran 44psi front, 42 rear. Front left tyre shoulder is worn. The tyres didn't go off through out the day, ambient temp was around 29-31 and very humid.

[clubracer]

Hey guys, I've got a gti that I'm in the midst of researching parts to turn it into a track day car. I'm only new to here since buying the polo a few months ago but I must say there's a lot to pick up on here, it's been great. I run http://autosports.com.au and we have a few track days coming up so it'd be interesting to get anyone along to see what mods work best! My car will probably still be standard at the first event, but I've got some bilstein coilovers coming soon, then a big brake conversion (still undecided as to which way to go here though) on the front, followed by some semi slicks...

[clubracer]

Hey guys,

We had our day at Marulan a couple of weeks back. It's a fantastic little track and my standard Polo definitely embarrassed some of the big HP cars as it's a real handling circuit (SS Commodore with pro driver was doing 46's and I was doing 48s). The standard tyres were the surprise though, although they weren't really getting all that hot they just didn't wear (although I lost both front wheel centre caps). I've done track days a few years ago and could shred a brand new set of tyres after just a few sessions! It averaged 36L/100km for the day. Ha!

A couple of photos here:

http://www.chrisho.net/albums/mdtc/IMG_1332.jpg
http://www.chrisho.net/albums/mdtc/IMG_1335.jpg

I am planning wheels, tyres and suspension next as this seemed to be the biggest limitation. Brakes helf up a lot better than expected although peddle got a bit long by the end of the day. Wakefield Park is on the 9th May so any other VW drivers should come along.

http://events.autosports.com.au

[seangti]

I had a similar experience with my stock GTi. Tyres and brakes feeling good all day. I didn't get a track session fuel consumption, but did for the day, was high 13l/100, with about 200kms of high cruising.

Brissy guys, there's two sprints in May, one at QR, one at Lakeside. I'll be doing one, not 100% sure where yet. If you're keen, let me know where and I'll do that. If you've never tracked, QR is as safe as you can ever get.