10/14/08 It is good to know some things still work well. The 35th trackday for DarkHelmet went perfectly. The car behaved well and was fast and fun to drive. I got into 1:34s on the Dunlops which equaled the best I've done on KDW2s. This brings me to the next thing that's working well - the tires. They are holding up amazingly well, still. We did have them flipped on the wheels and rotated around the car since the left front was starting to show wear on the outward-facing half (not surprisingly as most turns at PIR are to the right). This is how the tires look after more than 1,000 track miles, driven in throttle-steered slides through all the turns:

For anyone doing lots of trackdays I don't know of any better tire than this. Sure, there are grippier ones (any R compound) and there are those that work better in the wet (Goodyear F1-GSD3) but as far as something that works well on the track AND lasts, the Dunlop Direzza Z1 Star Spec can't be beat, at least in my experience. And yes those calipers USED to be black... :) The brakes continue to work extremely well too but they do wear - we're half through another set of track pads. The track season is pretty much done now (might be one or two more trackdays left but not sure if we'll do them).

There were several cool cars in attendance, the new M3 that ran in the novice group and an Aston V8 that ran in advanced. M now wants the M3, badly. Hmm.... I still think the Aston is one of the most beautiful cars of all time. He was running about 1:33 out there, catching the Mini on the straights but losing a bit in the corners despite being on R compound Pirellis. I don't know anything about the driver but that's about the performance I would expect from the car in the advanced group, driven by someone who is not a pro but competent. Yes, I still want one but not bad enough to actually get one any time soon.