On November 15th I had a track day with extrmespeedtrackevents.com at Streets of Willow in Rosamond, CA. The configuration was Clockwise and it was anywhere from 45-62 degrees during the day, with some sessions completely dry and others in the wet!
My car is stock other than an Accessport and TB Torsion Bar Stiffener. I did put on DTC-60 track pads for the front of the car for the track day.
I’m by no means a superb-driver, I’m just your run of the mill guy with roughly 10 track days of experience over the last 5 years, all of those in a c5 corvette.
Here’s what I thought:
DTC-60 pads up front, OEM pads in the rear and Rotul 600 fluid:
10/10 would run this set up again. Never boiled the fluid and the DTC-60s held up to the task during the day. With the car pointing straight, braking was fairly uneventful.
Occasionally I would experience the rear end wagging a bit during braking, but I believe this was more so based on my driving ability than the pads and the characteristics of the car. The initial bite of the DTC-60’s is noticeable more aggressive than the OEM pads. I felt minimal brake fade, if any, during each session.
Tires:
Stock tires are good for about 5-7 minutes before they get greasy. Unfortunately, they are just not up to the task for a full session if the goal is to put in a hot lap every lap possible. This has been my experience with other “normal” street tires as well.
Handling:
Holy off-throttle oversteer batman. It took a couple sessions to get a hold of the off-throttle oversteer before I was comfortable with it. Bare in mind, I have the TB torsion bar. I was able to utilize this characteristic in the later sessions to help with turn in to the apex of turns. My first session, I was too herky-jerky with the throttle and it upset the car to the point that the torque vectoring had to kick in to help me out. Smoothing the inputs (both steering and throttle) really helped control the car better. Overall, I learned how to use it to help me hit the apex or to correct my line. Definitely an interesting sensation that my previous car did not exhibit much of.
I had issues with on-power understeer with the wider radius turns such as the bowl and the last turn before the front straight. I followed Ryan in a bone-stock fiesta ST and he was able to get more speed out of these turns and would leave me in the dust on the straights. This is definitely a racing-line/experience/decision making thing I can improve on. I never felt like I was able to hit those turns optimally.
Handling Wet:
This was my first time playing in the rain and I was really happy to see the difference between dry and wet sessions. Basically, cornering is much slower relative to the differential in time for accelerating and braking. Throttle input made a difference and getting off line in the wetter corners made a difference as well. We didn’t have puddles on track, but I had two sessions with the wipers on as the trac k transitioned from dry to wet. Overall, it wasn’t much different than the handling in the dry, just at lower speeds.
Fiesta ST oil and coolant temperatures: With it being roughly 60 degrees out, I hit 244 oil and 224 coolant for maximums.. My other sessions the ambient temp and oil/coolant were lower. I believe Ryan in the stock fiesta ST had his go into limp mode at least once.
It was cool to meet Pete and some other people in fiestas and foci. Pete's car is badass.
Unfortunately my gopro footage didn't come out very well, I will have to change the location for the next time.
I had a best time of 1:34.6 in session 4. About a 3 second improvement through the course of the day.
I know a 1:33.1 is possible with a bone stock fiesta because Ryan was able to do it
.
[video=youtube;XEaYk9t8ALY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEaYk9t8ALY[/video]
Disregard the arrow. We ran in the clockwise direction.
My car is stock other than an Accessport and TB Torsion Bar Stiffener. I did put on DTC-60 track pads for the front of the car for the track day.
I’m by no means a superb-driver, I’m just your run of the mill guy with roughly 10 track days of experience over the last 5 years, all of those in a c5 corvette.
Here’s what I thought:
DTC-60 pads up front, OEM pads in the rear and Rotul 600 fluid:
10/10 would run this set up again. Never boiled the fluid and the DTC-60s held up to the task during the day. With the car pointing straight, braking was fairly uneventful.
Occasionally I would experience the rear end wagging a bit during braking, but I believe this was more so based on my driving ability than the pads and the characteristics of the car. The initial bite of the DTC-60’s is noticeable more aggressive than the OEM pads. I felt minimal brake fade, if any, during each session.
Tires:
Stock tires are good for about 5-7 minutes before they get greasy. Unfortunately, they are just not up to the task for a full session if the goal is to put in a hot lap every lap possible. This has been my experience with other “normal” street tires as well.
Handling:
Holy off-throttle oversteer batman. It took a couple sessions to get a hold of the off-throttle oversteer before I was comfortable with it. Bare in mind, I have the TB torsion bar. I was able to utilize this characteristic in the later sessions to help with turn in to the apex of turns. My first session, I was too herky-jerky with the throttle and it upset the car to the point that the torque vectoring had to kick in to help me out. Smoothing the inputs (both steering and throttle) really helped control the car better. Overall, I learned how to use it to help me hit the apex or to correct my line. Definitely an interesting sensation that my previous car did not exhibit much of.
I had issues with on-power understeer with the wider radius turns such as the bowl and the last turn before the front straight. I followed Ryan in a bone-stock fiesta ST and he was able to get more speed out of these turns and would leave me in the dust on the straights. This is definitely a racing-line/experience/decision making thing I can improve on. I never felt like I was able to hit those turns optimally.
Handling Wet:
This was my first time playing in the rain and I was really happy to see the difference between dry and wet sessions. Basically, cornering is much slower relative to the differential in time for accelerating and braking. Throttle input made a difference and getting off line in the wetter corners made a difference as well. We didn’t have puddles on track, but I had two sessions with the wipers on as the trac k transitioned from dry to wet. Overall, it wasn’t much different than the handling in the dry, just at lower speeds.
Fiesta ST oil and coolant temperatures: With it being roughly 60 degrees out, I hit 244 oil and 224 coolant for maximums.. My other sessions the ambient temp and oil/coolant were lower. I believe Ryan in the stock fiesta ST had his go into limp mode at least once.
It was cool to meet Pete and some other people in fiestas and foci. Pete's car is badass.
Unfortunately my gopro footage didn't come out very well, I will have to change the location for the next time.
I had a best time of 1:34.6 in session 4. About a 3 second improvement through the course of the day.
I know a 1:33.1 is possible with a bone stock fiesta because Ryan was able to do it
. [video=youtube;XEaYk9t8ALY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEaYk9t8ALY[/video]
