Track day - brakes and tyres

[bigcar]

Folks,

Does anybody have some insights into how much a track day/advanced driver training course is likely to take out of my brakes and tyres? My 2006 Boxster S has 19" Continental sportcontact II's - fairly new... less than 3000kms on them.

Cheers, Dave

[ericinboca]

I think it really depends on how experienced you are and on the course.

If this is one of your first forays into road course driving, then you will be fine with your set of tires, no problem. You want your street tires to be worn some. A beginner driver is more likley to find wear related to inadequate camber adjustment rather than simply rubbing off the rubber.

As for the pads - well, street pads are not designed to handle the heat that CAN be generated on the track. But, will you be able as a driver to exceed their heat capacity? Or is the course such that there are not many opportunities to cool them down?

In the DE club in which I instruct, we tell novices not to worry about their pads on their first weekend out - not many drivers get good enough the first or second day to cook the pads. If their pads are more than half gone, though, we adivise a back up set in case they go through the existing set.

We do tell them to be sure their fluid is fresh, clean with no air.

After a weekend or two, then they have to move up to a higher temp capable race pad.

Hope that helps.

[berty987]

From what I've seen the 19" wheels and tyres do not fair well on track , the outer edges often melting down and having large chunks removed from scrubbing. I would advise avoiding pushing the car into heavy understeer in corners or increasing the tyre pressures to compensate. Certainly I think of track days as the last use of my tyres before replacment , the wear is very biased towards the edges of the tyre. I think 18 " tyres fair better , especially if you can find TOYO or pirelli competition tyres that are road legal like the 888 and Corsa ranges.