some pix from Road America BMW-WC event

[nsx1164]

some of the Midwestern NSXs...

Jeff'a (91 red/ivory) and Tim's (99 Zanardi) cars in paddock



Bryan's car (96 NSX-T)



Ken's car (91 red/ivory)



Other NSX paddock pix

[nsx1164]

Steve (91 black/ivory) and Andy (91 silver/black) were also in the school.... unfortunately I don't have any pix of their cars.

Please post them here if you have any. Thanks.

** EDIT **

Steve's 91 black/ivory (photo by T. Bell)



###############

Hope everyone made it home safely....

Kudos to John Vasos of Acura of Brookfield. He came up Friday and Saturday to help fix folks' cars... hopefully not Sunday too.

- Manuel

[nsxtasy]

Yes, we had a total of seven NSX at this event:

Bryan (instructor)
Jeff (instructor)
Tim (instructor)
me (instructor)
Steven (student)
Andy (student)
Manuel (workerbee)

SJJ 28 also showed up to hang out, but brought his other car.

As I had anticipated, this event was NOT sold out. Many track events that had sold out for years are not now selling out now, due to the poor state of the economy, no doubt. If you're interested in participating in a track event, don't assume it's full.

Originally posted by nsx1164
Steve (91 black/ivory) and Andy (91 silver/black) were also in the school.... unfortunately I don't have any pix of their cars.

Please post them here if you have any. Thanks.

I would ask that no one post photos of Andy's car. PLEASE.

Originally posted by nsx1164
Kudos to John Vasos of Acura of Brookfield. He came up Friday and Saturday to help fix folks' cars... hopefully not Sunday too.

Yes, Sunday too.

[NSX 3.0]

I had a great time it was good to see all you guys...My car ran great but Holy soft Brake Pedal had to miss the last session I know where I'm going to get it bled AOB soon.




Steven 91 Blk/Ivory

[nsx1164]

Originally posted by Steven Spanbauer
I had a great time it was good to see all you guys...

It was great to see several local NSX owners, including some newer ones. I missed Sunday, so missed all the excitement.

** EDIT **
see some event car pix on my Fotki albums --> http://public.fotki.com/nsx1164/cars..._america_hpde/ . Several pix courtesy of Tom Bell (turbo Integra GSR).

I was helping with the Safety School, and did some ground stuff (starter, course setup/cleanup) and did some in-car coaching in the afternoon. It was a lot of fun... a great way to learn your cars handling characteristics in a relatively lower-speed (mostly 2nd gear, except for torquey cars like C5 Vettes and E46M3s). Test courses included a circular skidpad and a larger oval slalom.

While this was "required" only for less-experienced students, IMO its a great way to test your car, particularly if you've done suspension mods, in conjunction with regular track test-n-tune sessions At least one advanced student (high-hp Viper) was seen testing some stuff out ( or maybe just bedding in pads ?).

I got to ride in, as well as test-drive, several cars during the day, and the handling characteristics were pretty interesting. Again, this was mostly 2nd gear stuff on a 40-50s degree wet course, although some of the E46 SMG folks played with 1->2->1 shifts on the oval ("play" being the operative word). A couple of (subjective) observations:
- E46 M3 - Good low-end grunt; handling on the heavy side, particularly with TCS off. OE exhaust sounds a bit "tinny". TCS on, seems more confidence-inspiring than NSX in the wet.
- E46 330 - Decent ride... IMO handles better than the E46M3... possibly due to the weight distribution. Grunt pretty decent... low-end seems to pull harder than 3.0L NSX (through about 4500 RPM or so, then NSX hits its stride)
- E36 M3 - Good ride, nice setup in general. A bit underpowered given its suspension capability.
- NSX (did this a few years ago with 91 and 93 models) - ok in general; catching the first slide is reasonably straightforward, but counter-corrections not as easy in the wet. TCS in the wet is pretty limiting, with pretty severe cut-out -- is it any better in later cars?. 17/18 combo (Dunlop SP9000) understeers heavily in the wet compared to OEM 15/16 tires.