Garage Heroes In Training

Wendy Charlier has been our primary contact at Porterfield's since we started our team and has been with the company 20 years. Wendy has a racing background from her family that goes back many years.

Also, for those of you that are not familiar with them, Porterfield's is a private company that services all kinds of performance applications related to the braking your car and heat management, including brake pads, rotors, calipers, fluids, full brake kits etc., as well as other aspects of performance & racing like suspension components, oil coolers, starters, heat protection items, and batteries, and many others items. So if you need any brake pads for virtually any car or truck, they have them or will make them for you.

Highlights from this episode include:

Brake Pads Selection Factors

• What tracks
• What type of racing, historic, endurance autocross, dirt, etc.
• What use
• What car
• What heat/temperature is expected

Rotors

• Vented vs solid
• Drilled and/or slotted (Hint don't cross drill if you are racing)
• Slotted
• One piece vs two piece
• Proper sizing and selection

Calipers/Pistons

• The effect of the piston size, piston quantity, and the total piston surface area

Brake fluids, types, uses, comparisons

Wendy also recommended several brake pads to choose from depending on your driving needs, autocross, sprints, HPDE/track days, road/endurance racing etc.

• We also cover the brake pad torque performance and its impact on braking and brake feel
• A good bit of discussion on our racing pads of choice the Raybestos ST43's
• Other brands available include the Porterfield brand, Hawk, Performance Friction, Pagid, and several others from Raybestos
• How brake calipers can affect brake pad selection, especially with respect to the available pad thickness

Brake Fluids selection

• Dry boiling point vs wet boiling point
• DOT 3 4 5 etc. (racing use DOT 4)
• Frequencies and reasons to change, bleed, etc., like if it boils, bleed it …..
• Hydroscopic effects on brake fluid and its boiling point depression and why brake fluid is hydroscopic
• How varying local humidity levels can affect brake fluid performance
• Brake fluid compressibility and its effect on pedal feel

Brake lines and selection and advantages of braided stainless steel lines

(real) Brake Ducting and cooling solutions (not using pool noodles), both neoprene and silicone, with wire reinforcement

Sizing of ducts and positioning tips on both the inlet and outlet sides

NACA Ducts and other options

Oil coolers

We also reviewed a reusable oil filter that we are absolutely dying to try.

Finally, Bill also attempted to talk Wendy off her personal cliff and start her amazing race career. We will get Wendy out racing soon.

So please join us for an excellent podcast reviewing all aspects of braking your race car. And no, brakes don't just slow you down.

This episode is dedicated to our friend Aaron Leinemann. He has had some unexpected bad medical news and a GoFundMe page has been started to assist. Please share whatever you can to assist Aaron and his amazing family. Link at the end.

On this episode, our team reviews the 2019 24 Hours of Lemons race GP du Lac Chargoggagogg(etcetera) AT Thompson Speedway in Northeastern Connecticut. We entered our Race Truck "El Jeffe" a 2004 Chevy S-10 with many Isuzu Hombre body panels and our new to us 1998 BMW E36 3-series car for our first race with it after buying it about two weeks prior. El Jeffe was updated from the former Stan Lee livery to and Avengers Endgame livery and the E36 was quickly themed in the paddock to be a Captain America car.

We review Friday practice and spend most of the episode covering the race on Saturday and Sunday. Highlights include:

• New Drivers, several first timers at Thompson
• Thompson track walk and review
• Saturday and Sunday within El Jeffe
• Saturday and Sunday in the BMW E36
• El Jeffe brake issues and a potential fix and path forward to alleviate this ongoing problem.
• Our 4 black flag debacle and how it impacted our position in the race (HINT not well)
• Bill got to make two signs with Connor to slow the cars in the pits
• A minor incident where a car came across the bow of the El Jeffe and removed moist of the front end facia
• Saturday night's Potluck Dinner hosted by the Three Pedal Mafia team for Stuntin' and Explodin' fest
• We show our exceptional math skills several times this episode
• Team awards for the weekend
• Hella Sweet or Butt Terrible idea of the week
• To do's and improvements for our next race
• Radio and Helmet communication issues
• Then things devolved from there

Aaron's Go Fund me link:

https://www.gofundme.com/calling-all-racers-support-a-teammate-in-need?pc=tw_dn_cpgntopnavlarge_r&rcid=r01-156579899205-2044fc655aa44466&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tw_dn_cpgn

We were honored to have internationally renowned racing coach Peter Krause join us for an introductory discussion of data collection and analysis to improve your track driving while minimizing the addition of risk. The conversation was exceptional and covered a wide range of areas and topics. Some of the highlight areas we covered include:

• Data collection systems, options, and comparison
• What to use, how to use, and several options for how to analyze the data
• His virtual track walks with Ross Bentley, especially the Road Atlanta Vicki, Alan, and Bill studied prior to our race at Road Atlanta last December
• We also discussed the use of Video to compliment the data and several ways to get to intelligent video which includes the track video with several displays of the data
• Several stages of progression in data collection and analysis
• Predictive lap times and the use and implications in car
• Keys to breaking through stagnation and plateaus in driving
• A simple and clear delineation between good and great drivers
• Several different ways of presenting the data including tabular formats, strip charts, and colored maps which can aide in the use and interpretation of the data collected.

We also cover several of the more popular commercial systems including:

• Race Monitor app
• Harry's Lap Timer
• Aim's Solo, Solo 2, Solo 2 DL, MXM, and MXL
• GoPro Hero 7
• VBox Sport
• Race Render
• Use of OBD blue tooth dongles
• Race Chrono
• Porsche Precision Track App
• BMW M App

Peter also recommended two books that he finds useful in introducing more detail into the use and the analysis of the data. We have already ordered our copies.

1. Making Sense of Squiggly Lines by Chris Brown
2. Practical Race Car Data Acquisition by Bob Knox

If you ever wondered what the top three key data collection parameters are, Peter shared his views as a driver coach who hopes everyone can use these three metrics to help with their self-learning.

1. Engine speed/rpm
2. Throttle position
3. Brake Pressure

If you have any more questions or wish to talk with Peter in more depth, he is easily contacted through his website at www.PeterKrause.net and please pay special attention to his websites area on Track Wisdom.

Other references we also recommend include:

AIM sports YouTube channel

Race studio Analysis

And of course, the Virtual track walks Peter made with Ross Bentley that are available on the speed secrets website.

We can't wait until we can go into a bit more depth with Peter after we utilize his wisdom in our coming races and HPDE's.

On this episode, we were happy to have the lead instructor of the NASA HPDE group that Bill attended a few weeks ago. We tried to cover John's background, NASA Great Lakes teaching philosophy and approach. We think this is one of our best episodes yet and hope it serves to get at least one of you to go out and try performance driving. We would love to see you at the track. Please make sure to say hello

For our main topics, Alan, Vicki, and Bill go over where we are with the Capri resuscitation progress and Bill's recent NASA HPDE event at Pitt Race. Additionally, we talk about a how Alan's Yankee ingenuity has "helped" in mocking up the Capri build, his "free" source of "new to us" metal, wheel spacers.

We also have a detailed explanation in how to alleviate the potential pressure involved with having a racing hobby and any potential friction that may cause with your significant other.

And, yes, we may need an intervention to get the Capri to Thompson. Anyone free and/or bored want to meet in CT?

We are trying new software so please let us know what you think, etc, especially nice would be to leave a podcast review from wherever you subscribed. Thanks again.