Photo by Kirk Myhre

Final track day of the year and I was hoping to continue building where I had left the previous week, where I started to see some of the true potential of the Elantra N.  Zero adjustments to setup and only focused on refining my driving.  I did run some octane booster for fun and didn’t go too crazy with it.  I had only added enough to yield around 95 octane and it added around a .5-.7 mph top speed increase.  I did do a tire rotation during the week and definitely noticed how well the AR-1s had been wearing.  The Nankangs felt a bit faster after their first track day and although they aren’t as quick as the top of the line 200tw, like the new CRS or A052s, they provide plenty of grip for my current setup and seem like they will last me a few more days.  I could use some more camber to use a bit more of the tire, but we’ll try to address that in the winter.  

I wanted to focus on two specific areas on track to improve upon, which were T2-3 and T6.  I never really had a fantastic T2-3 transition either in my GTI and knew there was a lot of time on the table I could take advantage of by eliminating my throttle hesitation entering T2.  There is a fine line here that the car needs to be pointed accordingly for entering/exiting T3, so I did have to be somewhat wary of too much entry speed or it can piss off the car (I had a nice mini-slide due to exactly this in T2, but kept it on track).  In return, the momentum I ended up gaining from this section directly led into solid drives through T5.  Moving onward, I was also focusing a bit on T6, as I was being too aggressive throughout the entire turn.  My entry positioning was good, but adding throttle too early led to sloppy mid-corner positioning and rushing my exit.  Dialing back my throttle and being more deliberate was all I needed here and it led to cleaner (and faster) exits. 

With those improvements in mind, it led to a full session of 1:54s (and slowly improving each lap), which was not what I was expecting.  I knew I was capable of 1:54s and it had been quite a while since I had a session with zero traffic, so it was easy to get into a great flow.

Given all of this, I’m looking forward to next year.  Hoping to make some changes to the car to improve it a bit, as it is still pretty much stock.  To name a few items on the wish list would be stiffer springs to make the suspension a bit tighter, more camber, and upgraded rotors. I would also like to visit some other tracks in my area, like Portland International Raceway and Pacific Raceways.  It’ll be more clear as 2024 approaches, but for now, I am certainly satisfied with how my year ended. On the final day of the season, I had my best session of the year, and it showed how much progress I’ve made.