I used Pagid Orange pads for the first time, fronts only. This was my first time on the track with actual track pads. First impressions?? They are MUCH better than stock. They gripped well even when cold, but gripped significantly better than the stock pads once they warmed up. Now this is the kind of braking power I was used to in the Boxster!
But, things soon took a turn for the worse. I was out on my first session behind the wheel with my instructor Don. I was only driving at about 80% as Don was trying to teach me how to heel-toe. As I was going into corner 2, the car just lost grip in the back. I managed to regain control without going off the track, but that scared the heck out of me! I wasn't going that fast and my line was pretty good, so why did the car just lose it like that?
Shortly thereafter I noticed a vabration coming from the car. I immediately brought my speed way down and headed for the pits. Yup, the right rear tire was flat as a pancake! But wait, there's more! I slowly drove the car over to the air pump to fill up the tire to see how bad the leak was. Within seconds I noticed a bubble forming on the sidewall then BAM!, there was a noise like a gunshot coming from the wheel. I jacked up the car and removed the wheel to find that the sidewall on the back side of the tire had an 18" gash in it.
My best guess at what happened was that I got flat while on the track. The sidewall became very weak due to the low pressure, so when I tried to fill it up, it popped at the weak point.
I borrowed a couple yellow pages and called every tire shop between Beloit, Wisconsin and Rockford, Illinois, but nobody had that tire in stock. Heck, nobody had a 245/45 ZR 16 tire that size in ANY brand.
I spent the rest of the day riding along with Don and playing spectator then went home early. I wasn't looking forward to driving home and keeping my speed under 50mph.
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Here is the tire with the huge gash visible.
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I wonder if this 12 year old collapsible spare will hold up for the 100 miles home?
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Looking good! Where can I get 3 more of these to replace my Fuchs? Yeah, I know it's not supposed to be on the rear wheel. I didn't figure that out until I was almost home.
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Here's Don on the track with his spare RX-7.
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Good looking Guards Red Boxster with the aero kit.
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This is a no smoking track.
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Nice 911 caught at 1/2000 coming through corner 6.
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911s handle better on 3 wheels than most cars on all 4 wheels. This is the same guy I saw at Gingerman a couple weeks ago.
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This 993 went off the track before corner 5 and into some water barrels and finally stopped in some bushes. He hosed down the car and went back out on the track! You can kind of see the crinkled right front fender.