PDC is a casual group of track junkies organized by Mark Dadgar, who is also
the driving events coordinator for the Golden Gate Chapter of the BMW Car Club
of America. He also runs justracing.com
and races a J-Prepared 325i with BMW Club Racing.

Mark has three rules about who is allowed to drive with his group:

1. The person must have 10 days of on-track experience, with at least a few of them
   “signed off” driving solo.
2. The person must not be an idiot.
3. The person must be referred by a current PDC memeber.

Up until last week, I only (barely) met rule #2. With only 9 days on track, I
was one short of the first. Arturo drives with PDC whenever he can, so rule #3
was a shoe-in.

In a simultaneous event, Arturo managed to convince Mark that he could relax
rule #1 and I signed up for a day at Infineon Raceway with TrackMasters Racing.
So I was set — PDC here I come!

After having dinner with Arti’s parents in Pleasanton, Arturo and I caravaned
up to Willows on Thursday night. We stayed at the Amerihost, which is a step
up from my usual fare at the Best Western. We arrived at about 10:30, and
turned in shortly after to sleep. After a quick but huge breakfast at the
Black Bear Diner, we were off to the track.

I had some doubts about how well the event would go, since there were 50
drivers of somewhat varying skill levels (mostly advanced mixed with a few
“junior” members like me), and wildly varying cars — from a beautiful
handbuilt Porsche 910 replica, to Miatas, to Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars, to BMW
race and street cars, to awesome Radical prototype cars. The track was open
from 9AM to 5PM, with no set run groups. It was basically “drive whenever you
want to”. An all-you-can-eat buffet of sorts…

Once the driving started, all my doubts went away quickly. This was the best
trackday yet — there was not a time when I was behind someone for more than a
turn or two before passing, and I never felt like I was making the (many, many)
faster drivers frustrated. Everyone knew that there was as much track as
they could consume, so everyone was very relaxed and polite.

My first session felt very sloppy — it usually takes several laps for me to
get the rhythm of a track that I’m familiar with, and this was no exception.
The car felt great with the recent bushing replacement, but I was just a bit
off. The second session was a bit better. Arturo came along, which helped
quite a bit. His advice was right on, and helped me to recall some of the
secrets of Thunderhill. We had a scary moment coming out of Turn 6 (3rd gear,
probably 70 MPH) — as I was accelerating past the apex of the turn, the car
just went into an odd oversteering condition. Luckily I managed to keep the
car on track, but this was to be a recurring theme for the day…

I went out with Arturo in his car and got to experience firsthand the joy of
being in an early 70’s era 911 at speed. The car is just so wonderfully
communicative, and with Arturo’s expertise behind the wheel it would just dance
around the track. Driving that car seems to be much more involved than driving
a modern car, but that’s where the fun is at the track!

Subsequent sessions were starting to feel really good. I was getting the hang
of the track a bit better, and experimenting with carrying more speed through
Turn 8. I started out at around 85MPH and worked my way up to about 95MPH, but
I know the car could do it at least five, maybe 10 MPH faster than I was
willing to negotiate it. Turn 9 is suprisingly fast, but being that the exit
point is not visible as you enter the turn, I usually don’t take it anywhere
near the car’s limit. Maybe next time!

During one of my solo sessions, I had another little bobble coming out of Turn
6 — just some very slight oversteer, but it was still very odd. The car would
not get upset like that in any other turn.

In the afternoon, I had a long session with Joe Colicchi (Tony’s younger
brother) in the passenger seat. We were about to come in to the pits when
Arturo in his 911 Carrera RS whizzed by in a pack of spec Miatas. I couldn’t
let this opportunity pass — the car was feeling great, and I thought that
maybe I could try to keep up. WRONG. Exiting Turn 15, Arturo just started
pulling away. The speed that he carries through the turns is significantly
higher than me, so by turn 5 he was completely out of my reach. Oh well, one
day Arturo I’ll get you!

After lamenting over my tires’ lack of grip with Arturo after that session, he
suggested that I get Tony Colicchio to take me around the track in my car.
Tony is a master of all kinds of things motorsport — from being the best roll
cage designer and builder in the Bay Area (or more), to being an expert in
suspension design and setup, to being a pro race driver, Tony does it all.
Thankfully, he entertained my request for some laps in the car.

This was an awesome experience — he was taking the car far deeper to its
limits than I thought was possible, and with such skill and grace. His hands
were always relaxed at the wheel, and I could really feel him shifting the
car’s weight around the make it do what he intended. After complimenting him
on his “beautifully smooth” driving coming out of Turn 5, he proceeded to find
the same snap oversteer that I had been experiencing all day. He was going
fast enough, though, that recovery was not possible and we ended up going
backwards off the track. The car got a little dusty, but was otherwise fine.
He mentioned that the rear toe setting was probably not optimal, and that I
should bring it by his shop for a quick adjustment this coming week. I will
definitely do this.

Friday brought a couple of firsts for me:

First of all, it was my first time using a HANS device on track. Schroth
recently came out with a set of clip-in belts that are HANS-compatible. The
belts are designed for use in cars without a roll cage, and use patented
Anti-Submarining (ASM) technology in a shoulder belt to keep the occupant from
sliding under the lap belt in a frontal collision. The HANS device fits over
the drivers shoulders, under the shoulder belts, and attaches to the helmet
with nylon straps. Its purpose is to keep the driver’s helmeted head from
moving too far forward in a hard crash. The additional weight of the helmet,
combined with harnesses that keep the driver’s shoulders against the seatback
can lead to unusual forces on the driver’s neck in a hard impact. These
forces can be enough to “disconnect” a person’s brain stem from the brain.
Death is quick, and guaranteed. The HANS has saved many lives, and its cost
is easy to justify, given the cost of modifications to the car that make it
go faster. I modified my own helmet to install the posts the HANS attaches
to. It was easy with the instructions and hardware provided with the HANS.

Driving with the HANS took a bit of getting used to. First off, I could only
rotate my head 45 degrees to either side, which made backing out of the pit
stall difficult. On-track, this range of motion was just fine, even in tight
turns. A few times I realized that one of the shoulder belts had slipped off
the HANS, so I started wearing the shoulders a bit tighter. That fixed the
problem.

The other first came about halfway through the day. I had gotten a little
tired of feeling the traction control kicking in, and thought that maybe it
would be OK to turn it off. When autocrossing the M3, I always turn it off,
and I feel like I can control the rear end of the car pretty well now. So
halfway through one of my solo sessions, I turned off DSC and backed down my
speed by a couple notches. WOW! What a great difference! I felt more
control over the car, and its movements just felt more natural and
intentional. Quickly I was back on my earlier pace, and slowly worked up a
little more speed. The M3’s balance allows for nicely controlled slides
(usually!) so switching DSC off, with requisite respect for what the gas
pedal is capable of works out well.

I’m signed up to return to Thunderhill at the end of August with BMWCCA, and am
very excited to get back out there. It’s such a fun track that is deceptively
fast. I’ll also be watching for future PDC events — there’s nothing like a
great group of people to make a trackday enjoyable.

Porsches have ruined me for other cars. Every time I’m able to drive one, I realize just a little bit more of the magic of what makes people coo-coo for them.

It all started with the ‘05 Boxster S (987) that I test drove before getting the M3. Sweet Mother of Handling Grace! The car is amazing in all kinds of turns, from tight 90-degree city street elbows to sweeping freeway connectors. The balance of the car is just amazing.

Then Derek got his 997 Cabriolet. I recall the first time I really got to drive it for any length of time, and I spent the whole drive swerving back and forth at 55mph on San Tomas Expressway. The feeling of the steering on that car was like a drug — there was something uniquely rewarding about how it felt shifting weight side-to-side.

A few months later, Jan got a base-model Boxster as a loaner while his 996 was having some work done. He let me take it out for a 30 minute flogging session on the “Test Circuit” around work. Even though this is Porsche’s cheapest car, its capabilities are astounding. No, it’s not going to win any stoplight drag races, but it has a way about it that is unique to any car I’ve ever driven. Balance and communication, balance and communication.

Jan’s 996 is a 2003 Cabriolet with 14K miles on it. I drove it a bit before and after he bought it. That car didn’t feel nearly as good as the others — the front end just felt floaty and disconnected from the road. He wanted to make it handle a bit better, so he ordered the “ROW MO030″ suspension from the dealer. This is the “Rest of World” sport suspension — apparently US cars are more softly sprung and ride almost an inch higher than Porsches everywhere else. Driving his car after the suspension was installed was like night and day. The car felt very agile and planted, and lo and behold, there is that magnificent Porsche communication with the driver through the steering wheel. More joyful swerving down San Tomas…..

I had to have some of this. I’ve been methodically upgrading the suspension on the M3 since I got it. First were shocks, springs, and camber plates to get some handling balance potential into the car. Next came equal-sized wheels and tires for track days. This made the car extremely fun and well balanced on the track. After that, I got a Ground Control front swaybar to help the front end stick to the road a bit better to help the car rotate through turns (yes, this goes against common advice, but a lowered M3 does not posess a common suspension setup).

The car is nicely balanced and very fun to drive on track or autocross, but driving those Porsches leaves me wanting more!

My search for more communication from the suspension lead me to the soft rubber bushings that connect the suspension arms to the chassis of the car. Under hard cornering, the rubber deforms, changing the toe angles of the front and rear tires in proportion to load. The net result is a car that feels vague and mushy and does not respond well to small changes in steering angle at the limit. Could addressing this lead me closer to Porsche-like nirvana?

Ground Control makes some gorgeous “Hybrid” (aluminum / urethane) bushings for the front control arms. The consensus is that they do a lot in terms of controlling the motion of the suspension arm to its intended axis of motion, while preserving the quiet and smooth ride of the stock pieces. Powerflex makes a pure urethane bushing for the rear lower control arm, which a very common fix/upgrade for cars whose rubber bushings have torn.

A swift call to Dan Law and the pieces were en route from Atlanta. After a nearly unbearable weeklong wait for UPS to deliver the goods, I brought the car to TC Design for installation. It’s possible to do the install myself, but with the proper tools it’s an easy two hour job, versus 8 hours of cutting, hacking, chiseling and swearing. I left this one to the pros.

Initial impressions from the drive home: The car feels a tiny bit stiffer — sharp bumps come through to the cabin a little bit more than with the stock bushings. It feels much more agile though; almost as if I went to a stiffer spring. (This is indeed the case, since the entire suspension system from tires to bushings to springs and shocks contributes to the “wheel rate” or the amount of force required to move the wheel some unit of distance.)

I did some brief “testing” on the four varied cloverleaves that connect San Tomas Expressway to Central Expressway. There is a nice mix of second and third gear right-hand corners. This is where I felt the most difference. The mushiness at the limit has been replaced with a very precise and controllable feeling. It seems that I can really feel the tires now — very nice! The car just feels hooked up; maybe a tiny bit more traction, but I can really feel when the tires start to really lose their grip.

The true test will come this Friday when I’m driving with Track Masters at Infineon Raceway. The next Friday, I’m going up to Willows to drive with PDC at Thunderhill, then the next day is a BMWCCA Autocross. So the car will really be put through its paces over the next week and a half. My hope is that the additional communication at the limit will give me the confidence to explore the outer bounds of traction, and to make track days more fun!