As a bit of background, our local pad has just been extended, and is now a nice 20 x 40 metres, with no walls. Some know my car, but the barebones is 195kW at all 4 and Toyo T1Rs. Every other mod means bugga all in this circumstance.
On a side note, for all those who want to head out to a dirt circuit event with their car, You'll need REALLY compliant/soft suspension. My set of STi pink springs are WAY to stiff. The track is solid, rough, and has potholes everywhere. Anywhere off the racing line is slippery as hell. Made for some fun doing the lap round the track out to the pad though
Anyways, The first attempt didn't work too well, but proved it could be done. I did a quick circle round the pad to gauge the size, then slowly increased throttle as I tightened the turns. Started working a treat apparantly, with some smoke rolling off the fronts. All was good until I touched some leaked coolant dropped by one of the previous entrants with a front tyre. With a wet front, I push understeered, and that was that.
A couple of things to remember if you try this. Make sure you are the first on the pad, and its free of liquids. Also, sit a layer of ice over the top mount. One issue I had in this round was severe heat soak. Also, brakes dont work. Even with the brembos and ABS, I just slid. Theres traction if you are slow about it, but once theres any sort of speed involved, you can't stop.
The fourth round I tried a different method, a fair bit more abusive. With the ice and first spot, I wasnt too worried about heatsoak. So once the flag dropped for me to start, I pulled her up to launch control revs, and went. This worked to bring speed up quickly, and with a quick hand brake near the other end of the pad, the circles started. This didnt end up working either, as the extra speed threw the diameter of the spins outwards, and I ended up sliding off the pad.
There were a few pics taken, but I dont have copies as yet, so I can't post them up. Basically, to do flat spins, you will need about a 40m square pad and some pretty thin tyres (I had my standard 225/45/17 Toyo T1Rs on, at 50psi) Space savers would probably do well, but I don't know if they clear brembos, and I don't have 4 of them. Also, 20m is just too narrow to get the spins started. Once you have them started, you can do it in about 10m, but you need much more to start it. More power would probably help the cause also. Probably 230 - 250 odd kW would be easier to get it arcing up.
