First day at the track! (with pics)

[LeRoux Strydom]

On Saturday I joined the local Porsche club for a funday at Kyalami track (old F1 racetrack in Johannesburg). I estimate about 300 Porsches took part. No "racing" took place, and we went out on the track in different classes. Naturally, I joined the novice/rookie class in my '78 Euro SC, and I was able to do about 20 laps or so in two sessions. Although we were not racing, driving in general was fairly aggressive. I got passed a few times, but I also managed to pass a Boxter S and 993 Turbo S, although they probably were not going as fast as they could.

By lunchtime, 3 "incidents" took place already. On the second lap of the first rookie session, a light blue 964 RS spun out about 4 cars in front of me, and hit the tyre wall backwards. Lots of plastic debris, bent rear fenders and unhappy faces. A few laps later, the yellow SC in front of me started smoking under braking, then blew a big smoke screen just before retiring on the grass verge. During a later session, another car went nose first into the tyre wall at the end of the main straight, and had to be flat-bedded out.

My own drive was a blast. The car had no issues, and handling was very predictable. For the first time since I had the car, I could feel the car starting to drift in corners. I never used 5th gear once on the 4.2km track, mostly 2nd to 4th gear. Oil temps started creeping up to the highest level I have seen, but no untoward noises or loss of oil pressure. Ambient temp was probably around 28 - 30 °C (80 - 90 F ??).

A friend of mine took some in-car pics and track pics.

Some of the cars:





Ready to go out on track!!

[LeRoux Strydom]

Some of the action






Oil temp max observed - I think a Carrera oil cooler upgrade may be in my future:




Afterwards in the pits:




The obligatory "Jack Olsen" pose.....



All in all, it was a great day. Next time, I'll even consider getting track insurance.............

LeRoux

Hey nice pictures. I know how you feel. Recently I participated in a track day too. That was my first time and I must say it's highly addictive I too felt the rear end coming and lovely 4 wheel drifts. Never done that before Great fun. But I have a lot to learn. There was a 356 from 1956 that clocked the same times as I did But it was a rather small track with cones and slalom zones and the driver is quite experienced

[Mark sP]

Thanks for posting the pics.

[Fishcop]

Glad to hear you had a great time with no "incidents"!

I thought you guys drove RHD cars over there?

[goat]

What a fun weekend.

[KobaltBlau]

Nice! What preparation did you end up doing before the event?

I'm sorry to hear of the crashes, happens quite rarely at events in my locality.

That white 993 looks very interesting.

[efhughes3]

I'd say your oil pressure looks Scary Low. You have almost no pressure showing at idle.

[JeremyD]

Congrats and just a warning - it just gets more addictive. Like Ed - I'd be more worried about your oil pressure than your oil temp.

PS - you have to smile when you are surrounded by that many Porsche cars at the track - it's their natural environment!

[VincentVega]

That looks like a great facility! Ditto on the oil pressure, temps look fine. What oil are you running?

[LeRoux Strydom]

Thanks for the comments. It was a fun day indeed. The white 993 is a car owned and raced by Porsche Centre SA, the official importer here.

Yes, normal cars are RHD here, but a fair percentage of Porshces that were imported until late 80's were LHD. Even today, I'm allowed to import a LHD vehicle for private use. Dealers are not allowed to import LHD (new or used) for resale.

My track prep consisted of fitting a fire extinguisher, checking pads, brake fluid (was replaced about 3 months ago), checking oil, torquing wheel lug nuts, check tyre pressures and taking all loose stuff out the car.

My oil pressure is fine. It pegs at 4500 rpm, and is slightly above the accepted level of 1 bar/1000 rpm even at these temps. My owners handbook says the the gauge can show near zero and the oil light is even allowed to come on at idle at high oil temps. I run 20W-50 dino oil. See this enlarged pic extract among the in-car action shots......



LeRoux

[AirCooledExcellence]

Hi LeRoux,

I did my first one a couple of months ago, luckily not so many incidents as your fellow drivers had!

I liked it so much that I'm now converting a 924 into a track only car (basically because I can't afford to smash up my 911!)

Cheers,

Tim.

[efhughes3]

I'm not so sure I'd go "by the book" on the O.P. My guess is you've got some wear in some bearings or something, and it manifests itself at low RPM's. I'd think this would accelerate wear.

[azasadny]

Thanks for the great pics!

[Jeff Alton]

The Factory only has one spec for oil pressure. It is 4bar at 5000rpm. Judging from that one pic at speed it looks like you have 4bar at 4000rpm so you should prabably be fine.

Jeff

[KobaltBlau]

And of course you'll get lower than normal oil pressure when your oil is good and hot.