Anyone ever try a drag radial at the track? Like BFG or MT. They are sticky as hell, and besides the wear, I would think they would work ok. I am a little afraid of how dangeroud my car would be with a harder compound then my Drag radials. So far they have not shown any weekness on the street for turning and allow me enough traction to not spin out at speed. Plus I am getting a few thousand miles out of them! :_paranoid

Wrong. I'm not sure how much high performance driving (or motorcycling) experience you have, but the idea is to learn how to go fast, not simply to be "aggressive." There is a huge difference between any high performance driving simulation (street driving, RC cars, computer sim games, etc.) and actually having your life (and the lives of others) at risk if you screw up. Race tracks are dangerous; driving fast on race tracks is dangerous; driving fast on race tracks with novice drivers who are "super agressive" is the most dangerous of all.

You've started several threads about setting your car up for extreme high performance driving situations. In each thread, experienced drivers and builders have taken the time to share their experiences with you, in particular to advise you to forget about how fast you're going and to learn how to go fast. You have largely chosen to ignore (or at least not acknowledge) the safety warnings and persist in the pursuit of the extreme high performance driving situation. If you act on the race track as you have on this board, I truly fear that we will shortly be reading about a terrible crash at RA involving a Chevelle, simply because you've been more focussed on going fast than being safe.

The street tires I've seen after a hard day at the track have been balled up pretty good, right Charley??!!! :unibrow: I do think they "come around" after driving them on the street again.


Jody

By aggressive I mean I am not afraid to go fast. The only thing I was ever afraid of was those darn triple jumps in the motocross days! :(

Like I said, I want to get out there so I can drive to the limits of MY abilitys. I have heard everything you guys have said. And again, I have been asking for input on safety like suspension, brakes, etc. to go real fast, because I have a real fast car. Those things become more important. I want to set the car up for where I am going to be with track time under nmy belt, not for my first time out.

It takes practice to become a better driver, but that is not what I am asking. I want to know how to set the car up to go fast 1st safely in the handling dept and braking, THEN, I will take it to the track and get used to it. That is surely safer then taking a sh*t box to the track and crashing cause the car is not setup for racing? Correct?? Skill will come obviously, but the car has to be setup 1st, thats why I am asking about car setups and accessories. :)

What do you mean? What tires??

GO with some R compound tires, that is what your drag radials are made out of, but the non dragradial ones will have a stiffer sidewall which will make them better for turning. They will heat up quickly on the street and track, and you won't break the bank either. Best of both worlds. Nitto, Toyo, and a few other companies make them.

Anyone try the BFG R1 tires? The inside half looks almost slick? I would think they would work real well. Has anybody put them up against the Toyo RA1??

Here you go. Click here!

Run your car on one of the fastest tracks in the U.S. :yes:

The straight is one mile long. With any luck the tire wall will save the trees from any significant damage. :rofl:

It isn't that far from you... :unibrow:

Randy

Edit for some teaser pics....
151 mph?
Mile long straight
Who would run a big car on the track? :willy:

:unibrow:

One thing to remember and keep in mind is the REAL fun on the roadcourse is getting into and powering out of the turns-- You can signifantly increase your safety factor and take a lot of "wear and tear" off the equipment if you impose a top-speed cap down the straight parts of the track and also let off and brake earlier.

You will still have a lot of fun and your car will thank you for it. :P

It *IS* hard to control yourself though... many guys get out there and immediately overdrive their ability. I've seen it many times at Ferrari Club track days back when my Dad used to have his and we would go out on track rental days with the club. Lots of guys balled their cars up from ego-related mishaps. Once you get over the mental thing of feeling the artificial "need" to drive at 11/10th of your own and your car's ability on a casual open track day you'll have a lot more fun. Just keep it sane and work the speed up slowly, it's much better to run into ability or vehicle shortcomings at lower speeds. Tire barriers, K-rails, and rollovers all suck. Seen 'em all. Work on being smooth first, THEN work on being fast. The mental discipline thing can be real tough though as most guys, even inexperienced, go out and drive foot to the floor. Sometimes they get away with it... other times they hurt the car, themselves, or others. And definately get an experienced instructor.

I can't remember, what front suspension do you run now? Going to Denny's setup (Coleman spindles, Wilwood brakes, etc) or an AFX-based setup would be a HUGE improvement in the geometry and handling predictability department and also get you some better brakes. The B-body setup sucks at high speeds because of the massive amounts of bump steer, I have had a few very scary moments above 130 in my car with the bump steer on the B-body setup. Still needs to be swapped out.

As far as the rear suspension, as long as you keep the factory 4-link in your car that will always be the drawback because of the super-high rear roll center height... but the factory 4 link with all spherical joints and the built in roll-understeer will be quite predictable at the limit. That limit will just be lower than with a well designed rear suspension. I abuse my car all the time in turns and the traction limit of the rear is what holds me back-- but once it breaks loose it stays in a nice controllable slip as long as you don't do anything stupid on the throttle or brakes while it's sliding. I've actually gone to a less-aggressive front alignment to cut down on front end traction because I was getting too much oversteer with the "fun" front end alignment which was overpowering the available rear traction.

On the tire subject, I recently drove a track-prepped 'Stang on RA1's and was very impressed with the mannerisms on the street especially when cold-- way more traction than say Hoosier RS-series slicks when they are cold (aka: ice.) Once heated up the RA1's stuck very well, but obviously didn't hold a candle to hot Hoosiers. For a dual purpose tire R-compounds are nice!

Also think about a track alignment setting with additional caster and camber. More caster for straightline stability, more camber for cornering ability until you put so much in you affect stability under braking. You'll also need less toe-in (possibly toe out) to compensate for the inward thrust that is a component of the additional negative camber. Now is also the time to start thinking about stiffer springs, etc. Depends what you're running now. For our boatly A-bodies you will probably end up in the 850-950#/in range up front with a 1-1.125" sway bar and around 175-200#/in out back. Don't skimp on shocks either, cheap shocks with poor valving and high speed is a bad combination!

^^^^^^^
great post and very well spoken. Oh and by the way, you won't be "racing" anyone but yourself. Remember that racing is totally differnet than an open track day. I know its hard to say driving at the track or something, but if you go to the trackday and talk about racing people are gonna look at you funny ;)