they dont stick quite as good as they do when the asphalt is 130 degrees... LOL

so its 30 ish outside... coming back from dinner with my cousin....

offramp. 400 yds away.... approaching rapidly to make the light... BRAKE.... let off and set the line.... now i dont think i was trailbraking... but just as i rolled onto the throttle (like minimal increase) .... ass end started coming around slowly.... then faster got off the throttle a bit to try and let it bite.... it did... but im already sideways....

recovered....

cousin thought it was part of the show.....

that was phun...


note to self. "self... it aint 90 degrees out right now.."

yoko ES100's are a great tire... but man... watchout when its low double digits and you are trying to corner at warp factor 9

Been there done that.... Only I knew it wasn't part of the show. It wasn't cold out butwe were on old hard race tires. It was about 15 years ago. I was riding with a friend in a Brad Mayuer built 2.0 The driver was not the owner of the car by the way, but was an excellent driver. He used to AX a fully preped Boss 302 back when they were new.

We took a 90 deg left approch on ramp at 90 deg. I'm not sure your supposed to be able to look down the lane center from the passanger window. My friend lifted, cracked the steering wheel to the right, the rear started to grab, the car straightened, he let go of the wheel because it would self center faster than he could turn it, and we were hauling ass down the ramp! Woo Hoo!

We were in my shop managers 914. He never knew we damn near wrecked his car for years. I remember thinking as I was looking down the center of the lane from the passanger window.... What's this going to cost me..

Welcome to dirt tracking..

Steering with the throttle is half the fun.

NOTE: You break that car... While doing something stupid.

And you don't die....

We will rebuild it and make it go faster.... that makes sense... To me.

C

learned the same lesson today. the hard way...

OOOoooo That's going to leave a mark... Any rash?

rashes yes, but nothing broke. Felt like I was in the spin cycle - stop already! Yay, another project.

yup.
Now you know why we East coasters dont always agree on tire recomendations...

Its cold here more than its hot..

Rich

rich - yep.. now i remember our convo/thread about em....
record lows here and i experienced what you spoke of....

man... done that offramp literally tens of thousands of times.... never once got close to stuffing it....

I'm glad you're ok and the car was unscathed. Inexpensive lesson. (You learned that Clayton will take your car when you're gone and make it faster and you'll miss out on all the fun!)

wise words
I learned the capabilities of my tires in the rain a couple weeks ago... At a stop light in a left turn lane, turns green, took off in a hurry, put it in second step on it again, ass end started coming around. Scared the piss out of me. never doin' that again.
Luckily it was late at night with no cars around. i was sideways in two lanes. Recovered really easily though.....

this was mid rpm in shorth third.... 45-50 ish....

funny how fast the natural reaction is.

Rich beat me to it.

Pretty much everyone around here has summer tires off thier car by around september, or they figure out pretty quick that when the temps drop to ~50, they start loosing traction.

The best, as far as I am concerned, are the guys that wrap thier WRX STis around trees in the snow with summer tires. "But I thought AWD was supposed to save me." Summer tires should not come standard on any tire in a climate where there is snow.

Zach

i take it your car was nice and warm too. bet those heat exchangers sound pretty good these days.

k

I purchased a set of inexpensive all season ContiExtremeContacts for this very reason. I expect to be driving my car soon and wish to keep down the unexpected surprises.

Aa... I think you need some studded tires.

Having a vehicle break traction due to road/tire conditions is quite common in our climate, so we teach throttle control steering in big snowcovered parking lots. These nice big skid pads are great, only problem is now we Sinday shopping so it is more difficult to find a good spot! Once you have learned this skill it is invaluable whether you get in trouble due to speed or rain or having a tire go down, any time any of you want to come up to Canada in Jan/Feb come on up, we will have a great time!

Ian Stott
Moncton
Canada

Yeah, it almost seems like STi's were meant to be wrapped around trees. Do any of 'em actually live past 50k ? And the part about AWD is right on the money. The ditches are full of SUVs these days.


As for Aaron's little adventure, I had something kinda similar. Had to run up to Denver last week for work; while going out on a dinner break I spun 90 degrees. I wasn't taking an offramp at high spped; I was pulling into a parking space at like 3 MPH ! Friggin side streets are still covered with 8" of black ice, and around the parking spot it was so lumpy that I think my wheels were basically slipping "downhill" in two different directions; caught me totally by suprise.

I learned that lesson when I was 16 driving my dad's 914 on a cold Nor Cal mountain road with hard cold Michelin radials. Did a 180 out of a corner on a cold road. Glad you kept the clean side up!

However I'm finding that some of the softer summer tires are fairly impressive in the cold 30 to 50 degree range) For example my Mazdaspeed 6 which has BF Goodrich g-force TA KDW hold remarkably well on cold moist roads that I drive everyday. Today it was 25 degrees coming down the mountain and in a few safe places I pushed the car and tires had remarkable grip. Finding similar charateristics with new Hankook VENTUS RS-2 Z212 on the MX5.

The Yoko ES 100's didnt impress me as much in the cold. I spent 3 days on those tires on Infineon from rain to warmer sunny days. I noticed a signficant differnce with them when sun finally came out and warmed up the track. More so than with other tires. They are a predictable tire however

SO I read your post a couple times Aaron. and deduced what you did wrong. Too fast in. and then chickened out mid corner and lifted off the gas. Transfered any traction you did have on the back right into wieght transfer on the front.
Oh and you actually thought that ES100's are good tires.

too fast in for the conditions.... and rolled back off the gas mid corner when it started to come around

ok... let me roll home an put my A032R's on..... im sure they will stick even better in the cold LOL

I have run AX courses in everything from 100+ degree days to times when you didn't want to hit a pylon because it would either shatter or leave a dent ( NO SHIT.. throw the cone out of the transport truck, and it breaks on the frozen asphalt). From torrential rain to ice storms.


The one thing I learned is that High Performance tires don't like the cold. The best I have ever run in the cold were the first generation Comp TAs. The KDWs that are on my car right now are fairly good in the cold, but with no heater, I don't drive it much in the cold.


Aaron.. glad you are OK and learned something without bending the car. That puts you one step in front of me. I actually wrecked a car at Green Valley raceway in the cold rain finding out the same thing you just learned. (It was my first Porsche - A 924). Slid sideways into a pedestrian bridge on the back side of the course. Too bad that place is now a housing development.