First run in the prosport

[gixermark]

Hi Guys,

picked up the new toy on Fri, and first day on track at anglesey Sat..

First impressions were terrible, regretted buying it.. and yearned to have my little striker there with me !!!

the car was SO nervous and twitchy at teh front end, total lack of grip at turn in and exit.. felt terrible.. spun 4 or 5 times at silly slow speed, and generally rather unimpressed..

Came back in and the slicks were stone cold, decided i'd rather destroy a set of the 2nd hand wets than go out again... so we changed them and went out again... straight away felt 'proper' and started exploring the track/car lap by lap... and actually started passing cars - rather then being a mobile chicane !!

stuck with the wets for teh whole day - and steadily improved lap by lap session by session.. was only going at 'track day' pace as i wasn;t prepared to push my braking nor aceleration beyond the wet tyres ability (or should that be mine!!) but i enjoyed the day - and really rate the Anglesey track.

tested the hardness of the dunlop slicks when we got back home - 90+ on the guage... so i will wither bin them or maybe tyre soften them for practice.. even teh wets were up at 70-80

I will no doubt have lists of silly questions between now and the season starting, but all in all I am looking forward to the challenge of trying to get to grips with slicks/wings...

Mark.

[NASA racer]

Congrats! In my experience, the Dunlops are good for about 6-7 heat cycles then they're off. And getting heat in them is vital at any time. The front of the Prosport is it's weak end so as the tires go off, the car will push and push and push but it will also be prone to throttle induced oversteer and "snapping" into oversteer.

And like any slick, after it's been heat-cycled, sitting around for weeks or months makes them almost too hard to use.

I don't know how folks in colder climates use the Dunlops but they work just "okay" in the hot US southwest.

[jpivey]

Glad you started to get to grips with your Prosport, biggest thing this time of the year is getting some heat into the tyres and for all you know the tyres could be years old and the rubber has gone hard. I used to moan about buying tyres and would run them until they were dead, and then wonder why I was going slower, now I bite the bullet and get new as and when they are required. In an ideal world every couple of races no way I can afford that so budget for two sets a season only used one set this year as I hardly raced.

[gixermark]

yea - these tyres are harder than the tarmac i was on !!

i didn;t think even old tyres would be that bad, but thankfully its a lesson learnt and no harm done.

totally different feel to the car I'm used too - will enjoy working on it though..

Mark.

[dsl2]

I was amazed just how little grip the Dunlop tyre's had until they have some heat in them, couldn't understand why everyone was weaving like mad on the warm up lap at the first race, I soon got with the plan!

Another shocker was putting on my first set of new slicks after 18mths on the original set of tyres, absolutely stunning difference, just hope they last a few events in this fashion!

[911hillclimber]

Just as a contrast:

There are special AVON hillclimb slicks which do not need too much time to get hot (You race straight from the line for 50 seconds)

On my 370 bhp Impreza a set (crossplies @ £180 each) lasted 11 events, about 44 miles.....2 were down to the canvas literally.

However, the grip levels are stunning.
Radials same size are about £30 more/corner.

Hillclimbs are very poor value for money .