We had a blast last weekend at Barber Motorsports Park. PBOC was the club arranging this event and it was just great - a lot of track time (4 sessions of 30 min. a day - Matt was on the track for 3 full hours as an instructor...) I got to run with Matt and he is FAST! Matt - thanks for the helpful tips! It was a pleasure driving with you! A local instructor too me for a ride on his Vette - I did not know a car can brake that hard. Here are some videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAUVe60RHy8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPjSDOr-1Zc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybyertX6FR4
I had a lot of fun you guys were great students. I sent youre paperwork in today and suggested that they let you solo. Matt
Tal is great, unfortunately he was having issues with his car at Barber so we were not able to get into boost, and he was still maintaining enough momentum to chase people down. Matt
I sucked up two Porsche cup cars over the weekend two, they did not want to point me by.....I got by anyway. LOL The other guy that Tal said he took a ride with is David Leonard and he is a badass, he showed me a line through 10-11-12-13-14 That doesnt require the use of brakes and its really fast. I was pulling between 8 and 9 car lengths in on people through that set. Its pretty amazing what you can do on the PRO line. Matt
Awesome about passing the cup cars (that didn't want to be passed). I'd like to see the PRO line from turns 5 though 7 at RA next time we're out there. I feel like I'm good in 6 but lacking in 5 and especially 7.
5 is a tough corner to get right, 6 just involves getting it far enough inside because thats where all the grip seems to be, and 7 is a late apex and make sure you use all the curbing. Matt
Barber Guys, you HAVE to try Barber - it is a great track that has a little bit of everything. It is technical and you can easily see the difference between the drivers. Turn 13-14 -14A-15 is a combination that tests your trail braking skills - and like Matt said, you can gain 10 car lenghths doing it right. After driving with David Leonard in his Vette I realized how much speed you can carry through the long corners of this track (http://www.barbermotorsports.com/pdfs/trackgeometry.pdf). look at turns 2-3-4 - here you feel the grip limit of your car, you turn into 2 very fast, scrubbing speed as you turn into 3, let the car drift out going downhill and then into turn 4 (uphill). The amazing thing about this combination is that the steering input is almost 0 - you hold it turned right and the car takes the line - a great feeling if you get it right. Another thing id this trank's elevation (http://www.barbermotorsports.com/pdfs/Elevation.pdf) - you turn into 12 totaly blind, guessing where the road ends and fast dowhill into 13 (cutting the grass in the apex - as you can see in the first video). Bottom-line, a must! and the BPOC guys are great, you dont have to be a member and you get a lot of track time. One big lesson - try to get a ride with an experienced driver, it'll save you so much time learning the track.
I'll be there on May 6th as well. This will be my first time on Sunday, usually just go on Sat. The extra hour of track time will be nice.
...interesting story about 5 this past weekend. I'll post a thread about it. Amazingly, my Dad happened to be in the perfect spot to get a good sequence of pics, but my camcorder battery died about 10 min before all the excitement. I can now say I've had my first off-road experience at Road Atlanta.