I am enrolled in a driver education day at limerock next month. Going with the Porsche club of America... should be fun to go stomp on those 911's exiting the turns and down the straights. Give me a list of things I should go over on my car, beyond the basic tech inspection, as this will be my first time out there.

Have a snell 2000 helmet, and a PS cooler installed on the car. All the basic tech that I do for autocrossing is done already, so Im not sure what I might overlook, but I want to be ready for anything.

Also as an aside... Will they let me run with the cutout open (its thru the cats) at limerock... they have a db limit, but it depends on what distance, so that doesnt help me gauge at all. Only reason I ask is that without it, with the helmet on at speed I cant hear the motor through the stock exhuast well.

 

as far as i know, most roadcourses are harder on brakes than autox's. so you might need to ask around and see how hard limerock is on brakes. maybe just running better brake fluid and pads will do you fine....unless you're doing that already.

i have no experience with limerock, so i couldn't tell you how demanding it might be on your car.....

 

Lime Rock is right in my back yard, not literally of course. Its like 1 1/2 hours away. Awesome racing goes on there.

 

I ran Lime Rock about this time last year in my 1998 Z28. It is not terribly hard on brakes. Even so, I would recommend bleeding the brake fluid with new, quality fluid just in case. If your current pads are at 50% or less, change to new ones. You don't want to have your day ended early because you ran out of brakes. I had that happen to me at Nelsons Ledges and it sucked that I couldn't run anymore and it sucked worse that I had to drive home with no brakes (140 miles).

A good description on how to prepare for an open tracking event can be found here:

http://www.nasaproracing.com/hpde/index.html

Scroll down to the related links at the bottom.

Three things to look for at Lime Rock:
1) Towards the end of the day, you will be pushing it into big bend (end of front straight). I braked too late once and almost ran out of track.
2) You know you're starting to get quick when the rear end gets airborne at the top of the steep hill on the back of the course.
3) Be careful of the diving turn (coming onto the frontstraight). Most "offs" seem to happen here and you are carrying enough speed to hit the "blue hedges" - guardrails.

I am sure you will have fun. Report back how your day went.

Hey Kevin - my wife is from Berlin and my in-laws still live there. Been there many times. My father-in-law sometimes works as a corner worker at Lime Rock.

 

LRP is pretty strict with their noise requirements. The club I run with (EMRA - www.emraracing.org) measures sound as part of the test. If you run it through any muffler, you should be fine. Open dumps might not pass, and if it's your first time on the track, you don't need that extra 2.1 hp. The rotaries have a much harder time passing sound... Guaranteed that every session you go out you'll shave off another few seconds by learning the track. Get an instructor to ride with you every time, as well, since there is always stuff that you can learn and be better at, and the inst will help you with planning ahead as well. What club and date is it? I should be ready by late April...

--
Andris Skulte
'89 IROC T56 DFI Twin Turbo
www.skulte.com/turbo.html