Gear Up for Track Season: Car Maintenance, Performance Upgrades, and Event Logistics for Racing Enthusiasts
If you're anything like me, you spend the off-season planning: What are you going to improve between the seasons? Perhaps you'll pick up some new Accelera tires to drop a few seconds of time, or maybe you're looking for some additional reliability and you'll get a metallurgical analysis on your oil. Are you looking forward to a new track, or a different format for your experience resume? All these things require planning, be it financial, time, or parts/maintenance based. To be prepared for this year’s track season, these are some of the questions and thought processes that need to occur. It may seem like a lot, but let’s break it down for you.
Maintenance
Let's start by simply looking at the car itself. If you're anything like me, your track car is also your daily driver. Because of this, driven it on a regular basis and you know whether it's making any strange noises or is simply time for routine maintenance. For my car, the only thing I *really* needed was an oil change, and a quick bleed of the brakes. I had replaced my brake fluid just after the end of track season last year, so I know my fluid (Motul RBF600) is perfectly fine. The track tires (Accelera 651 Sport 200tw) were ready for a change. The last time they were on track was at a scored event, a Time Trial at NCCAR. After placing my order through Tire Streets, I headed off to my local tire shop to get them mounted. Finally, while the wheels and tires were off for test-fitting some new wheels, I did go through the subframe bolts to check for tightness, gave the control arms and hubs a solid shake to ensure that nothing felt like a bearing or bushing was doing anything 'odd', and put everything back together.
Upgrades!!!
One of the best parts of being in between seasons is that you have an opportunity to take apart pieces of your car that you may not have time for in mid-season. This is especially the case if you're working on a new setup that requires custom tuning, or you're working with a shop or dealership that tends to get backed up, which causes delays and prevents you from getting on the track. One of the biggest upgrades that I did in the off season was to test fit a few different sized tires and found that I can actually run significantly wider than what I've been running on the car. Tire Streets has recently started carrying a new 285/35 R18 version of the popular Accelera 651 Sport XTRA. They got some of them to me to test fit around the car. Fortunately, they fit! I'm hopeful that moving to a 285 section width over the 265 from last season will help me shave the last few tenths off to solidify me into two podium (overall) finishes for the SCCA Time Trial events that this year.
As you upgrade your car, this is another chance to make sure that everything is sound and secure. I ended up taking my subframe down for a sway bar install/adjustment; during that time, I went ahead and ensured that my downpipe and exhaust connections were still nice and snug. They were, but it's one of those situations where the one time you don't check, you'll wish you had!
Track Events: Logistics
The final piece of the puzzle (and arguably the largest) is the logistics around track days. Here we try to answer the questions like - which tracks? what days? how much does it cost? do I need HPDE insurance? how do I get my stuff to the track?!
I've come up with a schedule for the year (adjusted for COVID19) which unfortunately reduced my track days for testing, eliminated 3 Track Night in America, and left me with only 2 events before my first scored Time Trial with SCCA. This has me at around 7 days on track for the year instead of my target of 10-12. The tracks that I'll be at will be VIR, NCCAR, and Dominion Raceway. I'm hoping to get to Carolina Motorsports Park, especially with their recently announced repaving initiative. Most of these events are in the 200-500 price range, and I personally make the decision to run track day insurance at ALL my events.
Another large change for me this year is how I transport my items to the track. As I run directional Accelera tires with different sizes on the front and back, I like to have a spare of each wheel (which prevents me from to having to run a tire backward). Enter my new tire trailer! I've been exploring tire trailers and the various ways to get things to and from the track. My previous method was to literally shove everything in the trunk of the car, seats folded down. This was a bit chaotic. It required me to add wear and tear to my interior and made it uncomfortable to have to unload the entire car for every event. The new tire trailer gave me a few new options for tools and toolboxes (including a set of quickjacks). With everything organized this way; I could go to the track, disconnect the trailer, remove a few personal effects from the car, and start the conversion on the car (tires/wheels and brake pads). I also had to install a trailer hitch to the RS3, which was rated for 2000lbs, 100lb tongue weight; and turns out to be very inconspicuous (and it was easy to install!). 2000lbs is a *lot* of gear, including two full sets of wheels/tires (400lbs by themselves!), quick jacks, full complement of tools, ez-up, camping gear (as needed), and a few other odds and ends (fuel jug, fluids, etc.).
Size Up the Competition
The final piece of advice is to watch your track videos and compare your lines to other drivers - I'm not suggesting that your lines are bad, however reviewing how others are getting around the track with similar car types, power levels, and types of events is helpful. Be mindful, though, that anybody participating in a door-to-door race may be looking to pick slower lines to block or prevent somebody from getting a passing run on them on a following straight section.
Following the above steps and applying them to your own cars and situations will not only be preparing you for the new season, but setting your own set of best practices for the seasons to come!
