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Old 05-26-2009, 02:20 PM
gmorris gmorris is offline
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Default First Track Day with the Chevelle

After just 800 shakedown miles on my '69 Chevelle I signed up for a high performance road car driving school and track day with Allen Berg Racing Schools here in Calgary Alberta. The morning consisted of some classroom time followed by one on one instruction from certified instructors with slalom, threshold braking, and lead/follow sessions. All the drills were carried out on the track so the students had a chance to learn the track before running real laps. We were then turned loose in an open lapping session.

The track is about 2 miles,with 13 turns and a 3/4 mile front straight. There was a nice mix of cars with the fast group including me, a porsche gt3, ferarri 355, nissan GTR, BMW Dinan supercharged M coupe, and an e92 M3. There were some snickers when I pulled in but after one run through the track they stopped and everyone was asking what I had done to it to make it corner the way it does. Basically none of tehm could keep up on the straight (I guess that's what 750HP will do) and they weren't exactly loosing me through the coners either. I was glad that I went ahead with my "phase 2" suspension overhaul before I hit teh track as I likely would have died with my previous setup. I went with SPC springs, Varishocks, spohn PT adjustable rear swaybar and huge 1 5/16' front bar. The ride is improved, turn in is better and body roll is gone...very impressed! Thanks to Mark at SC&C for the help on the setup.

We did not run timed laps but I was hitting 145mph in the front straight and had a lot more room to accelerate. My rev limiter was cutting in early for some reason which slowed me down a lot.

A few small issues popped up that stopped me from running the full day. My breather system was not adequate for extended high RPM and I managed to puke oil everywhere under the hood...so much for the nice ceramic coated headers. My oil temps were also through the roof after 3 laps so I now have a cooler on the way to take care of that. Now that I have completed the instruction portion I can go back for afternoon lapping sessions throughout the summer once I get things sorted out.

All in all it was an amazing experience that has made me far more comfortable with the car and improved my skills significantly. Few pics below that the staff took throughout the day.

More info on my car:

https://lateral-g.net/forums/showthread.php4?t=19847
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Old 05-26-2009, 02:55 PM
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70rs 70rs is offline
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Looks like the track day was a good one huh? The car is really nice!
It's got to be a great feeling to take a car you built and compete at or near the same level as factory cars like the Ferrari and Porsche.
Nice work!
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Old 05-26-2009, 03:01 PM
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Very cool dude. I have a cooler in the works before my first road course day as well.
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Old 05-26-2009, 03:03 PM
byebye67 byebye67 is offline
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Old 05-26-2009, 03:53 PM
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Very nice car and glad you are having fun.
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Old 05-26-2009, 04:16 PM
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Glad you had fun and are getting to know your car better.
That is a killer looking car. VERY NICE!!
I like how you made them "euro" car owners shut their mouth!! lol
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Old 05-26-2009, 04:27 PM
g_vanlaar g_vanlaar is offline
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That looks like it was a blast! Glad to hear it went well for you.
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Old 05-26-2009, 06:14 PM
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gearheads78 gearheads78 is offline
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Originally Posted by tones2SS View Post
I like how you made them "euro" car owners shut their mouth!! lol
HAHA I was thinking the same thing.
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Old 05-26-2009, 06:33 PM
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Congrats. Track days and Power Tour will find all the stuff that needs to be fixed.
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Old 05-27-2009, 01:48 PM
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James OLC James OLC is offline
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Great work Gary!

Race City is/was a great track and it really is too bad that it's going the way of the DoDo (or the dump to be more accurate). Hitting the braking zone at the end of the front straight and tossing the car into that quick left right left is too much fun!

It's great to see the Chevelle out there with all of the new junk. There are a couple of other options to run the car if you want - David at Racing Adventures usually has a couple of days that you can take your own car to, the Calgary Exotic Club has a few days but they are all preapproved for members, and I think that Steve at Davenport has a few open track days scheduled for the summer. If you want to run some more he is probably your best bet.

Maybe I'll see you around town some time - we almost have enough guys around here to justify a Lateral-G get together...
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