[paradoxical3]

Just got back from the track. I ran with a local Porsche Club chapter, and while they are all extremely nice people (and I think I found a new line through the carousel from my instructor that will be faster), they placed me in the wrong run group. There are four groups - D, C, B, A, in order of slowest to fastest. They placed me in C (likely because I have an X1) when in reality my lap times are equivalent to high B, low A drivers.

It was a pretty funny, but frustrating result. I filmed today's session and am working on uploading them, but in 55 minutes on video I passed 35 cars (26 Porsches). Unfortunately, nobody was even remotely close to passing me all weekend. I feel I was not able to progress as a driver that much. It is hard to work on skills like threshold braking, off-line passing, etc, when you are stuck at 80mph behind novice drivers for lap after lap. I also do not like being the fastest car in a group because it is easy to get lazy and get into bad habits like not checking your mirrors, etc. I much prefer to be on track with faster cars and drivers - it is fun to see what they do differently, what lines work for particular cars, etc.

Because of the very slow traffic I was not able to string a few fast laps together to see what kind of difference the new modifications make time-wise.

That being said, it is clearly evident that the Wavetrac LSD and CSF Racing radiator are two of the best modifications I have done to the car. Frankly, I wish I had installed a LSD a long, long time ago - ahead of the turbo and perhaps even suspension.

I gained multiple things from the LSD that are each huge individually, but when taken in total truly transform the way the car drives:

1. Ability to truly rotate the car and throttle steer. This was impossible before. Mid corner adjustments are just a breath on the throttle away. So much fun.

2. Hugely better tire/brake wear. Since the car isn't trying to control wheel spin via corner braking you are not going to run into the situation where the pads/tires are overheated.

3. The ECU no longer cuts power due to "brake disc temperature too high." Previously it would cut my boost because of over-active corner braking and throw a code for brake disc temp.

4. The ability to put power down and maintain drive through corners is tremendous. I gained 4mph on the back straight at Mid Ohio since I could put power down smoothly and earlier.

5. Most importantly, the car is fun. Just simply fun. No longer do you have that frustrating tire "stuttering" when you turn in tightly - the car just grips and goes. You can throw it around, rotate it, be precise - whatever you want to do.

As for the CSF racing radiator, it allowed me to run the entire day at 100% full power with no coolant issues whatsoever. I was having no problem whatsoever pulling on brand new 991 Carrera S down the back straight. I hit 140mph, which is pretty nuts for an X1.

While the video is uploading, here is a funny picture from one of the vids. A Boxter was in the middle of passing a Cayman, but he saw me coming up on them so fast that he didn't even bother completing the pass before pointing me by. Props to the Boxter driver for great track awareness.