freq

Take your time. Measure twice, drill / cut once.

driftintherain

I wanted to go but HPDE 1 is sold out

GinoGT

I was wondering if you had gotten around to that yet. Good times for sure. Measure several times, cut once.

jcianfrani

You can rent a helmet from PDA/NASA at the track for a couple bucks. No M helmets must be SA2000 or better.

I've run with these guys alot in the beginning of my HPDE days (before they hooked up with NASA, they were just PDA - performance drivers association).

You will get hooked - I've done about 40 events now and am running in HPDE4 with a miata on slicks. Let me know if I can be of any further help.

Also, tracktime4cars.com is a great group for advanced drivers. 30min on, 30min off all day. Check it out.

jcianfrani

The S2000 stock rollbar is ok for HPDE...

r3en

jcianfrani,

Thanks for your info. I think renting maybe the way to go. I'd love to get a taste of what's it like before I invest more money to the sport. I n00b to this, so i'd appreciate any suggestion and advisory.

I've already purchased the rollbar. I will just install it anyway. It's a harddog bar.

jcianfrani

Nice quality bar, I have one on the miata.

You'll find that all you'll need to have fun for a good while are some decent tires, and uprated brake fluid and pads to resist brake fade. You won't notice this during your first few events, but once you start to push the stock brakes, you'll get what I'm saying. Fluid is the most important (Motul and ATE are great). Pads you can do when the stock one's wear out.
I ran with only these mods on my prelude vtec for 2 full years. By then I caught the bug, bought a track only car, and $$$$$.....

You'll have an instructor in the car with you the first day along with some classroom stuff. Great learning experience for any enthusiast.

r3en

Once the weather gets warm I will start getting those parts installed for the track days.

Did you buy a spec miata or you built it? Do you tow it to the track?

jcianfrani

Cool. The car was modded before we got it but everything had to be replaced (suspension, brakes, exhaust). The car is street legal an driven to and from the track. A hitch and mini trailer holds wheels and tools. Whole setup cost about $6k total. Racing on the cheap....

GinoGT

I dunno about running the stock pads at NJMP. I cooked the hell out of mine, and it was only my 3rd day. You can close in on turn 1 on both tracks with some pretty significant speed.

He'll be running on Lightning, there 125mph is no problem and someone that's new is almost certainly going to over-slow the car for turn 1.... it can be a bit scary for the uninitiated (turn-in, apex, blind exit, hit the top of the crest and the car takes a little hop sideways, track out.... FUN ) My brakes turned to crap during said 125mph run and I was extremely lucky to only put one wheel off.