VIR with TSCC: Feb 2022
First time out with the GTI : cold tires, and cold brain
I ran with the Tidewater Sports Car Club at VIR on Feb 5-6 in 2022 as the first outing with the car, and first outing since the accident in the Mazda2 at Mid-Ohio. It was a very humbling experience and between that + learning a new car, I opted to drop myself back down to “intermediate” level to go back to the basics, and was looking to strictly improve mentally as a driver.
I had spent a ton of time and money modifying the heck out of my Mazda2 over several years, but didn’t have any real data to show for it other than it “felt good” like most people tend to do.
The GTI I wanted to make small tweaks to of course, but wanted to establish a baseline as-is, so I did the “bare minimum” necessary in my mind to prep it for track and perform any potentially deferred maintenance, factoring in that it had 35k miles and was a new purchase:
Brake pads (DS2500) front and rear
Rotors (Zimmerman blanks)
Brake fluid (Motul RBF600)
Engine oil/filter (Liqui-Moly 5w40 + Mann filter)
DSG fluid/filter (OEM VW)
VAQ diff service (OEM VW)
Engine air filter (Mann)
Cabin air filter (Mann)
Spark plugs (NGK 94833)
So how did the event go?
The event went great. As an experienced driver (albeit less than confident after the incident) I wasn't super happy with the pads. They felt inconsistent from one corner to the next. Temps were in the 50s so I figured maybe they were cooling off a bit too much over the long straights? The brake pedal would be somewhat soft on some applications, but was definitely never “gone”. I hate not being able to trust the brakes every time.
To be clear: braking is one area that I feel I’m pretty decent in, and coming from a 97whp clown car, I was used to pushing braking zones deep. The DS2500s are plenty for a novice getting started.
The factory all seasons suck but still had a load of fun. Stock on all-seasons this car was approximately 10 sec faster than my Mazda2 at VIR just the year before. As far as shifting the DSG goes I left it in sport mode the entire time which is less than ideal, but I was focusing on just trusting the car’s limits more than anything.
As far as data logging goes, I was just using my AIM Solo 2 for GPS speed/G-forces and lap times. I had it stuck on the passenger side out of sight for this event as I was just focusing on the driving more than anything.
