Blog moved to LTR main website

 The blog has now been integrated into our main website at http://ltr.pca.org.  We don't plan to use this Google Blogger blog anymore.  

Website Redesign

I am in the process of replacing our entire website with a Wordpress system.  You can preview it here: http://ltrtemp.pca.org/ .  This system integrates the blog and classified adds system into a single website.  I am hoping to have it done and moved to our domain (http://ltr.pca.org) later this month. 

Events cancelled through April

Due to the virus, and the state mandated distancing rules, we will need to cancel our LTR events through April 30.  Let's hope we can start back up in May.

Street Survival 2020

These events have been cancelled for 2020.

The dates for the Mossville Street Survival are now on the calendar for September 26th and 27th (2 classes, one each day) and open for registration.

Several Lincoln Trail members volunteer for this and have since the beginning.  We always need more volunteers so if you can spare some time to help young new drivers learn car control please contact Rick Largen. We have many volunteer jobs from registration and managing the various course obstacles to in-car coaches.  The Illini BMW Club with support from Lincoln Trail, Kauth & Mayeur, and Caterpillar (and many others) have been hosting the Street Survival in Mossville Caterpillar building AC parking lot, and using the Caterpillar AC building and auditorium, since 2011.  This is a great way for car people to give back to the community.

Learn high performance driving skills online

Here are 2 great resources for learning the skills of performance driving. They are both geared toward racing but most the skills they teach also apply to HPDE.

• Racer360 is a collection of tutorials aimed at different aspects of driving.  Many are free but other require a subscription.
• Driver61 has a great collection of video tutorials where a race driving instructor talks through car control and racing skills in a classroom setting with in-car video clips.  You can also find his channel and  play list on YouTube.

These are great to study now as track season is coming up soon.  If you are new to high performance drivers education, check out this blog post: https://ltrpca.blogspot.com/2018/02/high-performance-drivers-education-aka.html

Driving events on the calendar already

It's still January but car clubs are already busy getting driving events on their calendars.

Autocross

The biggest autocross club in Central Illinois is the Champaign County Sports Car Club.  Here is their autocross schedule they just posted.

The Central Illinois Region (CIR) of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) also hosts autocrosses in Central Illinois, including Mossville.  I have not seen their 2020 schedule yet though.

High Performance Drivers Education (HPDE)

Some of us LTR members have already signed up for the CIR PCA Spring Brake HPDE at Putnam Park April 24 - 26.  This is a great event for all from beginners to experts.

The dates for the St Louis Region PCA HPDE events at Worldwide Technology Raceway at Gateway are:

• April 24-26th - Registration opens 2/29
• June 5-7th - Registration opens 4/4
• October 16-18th - Registration opens 8/15

More clubs will be adding events soon so this is just the beginning.  You can search for driving events at Clubregistration.net and Motorsportreg.com too.

Leaderboard

As discussed in an earlier blog post, Las Vegas (and other places) has places you can go to drive high end sports cars and supercars on the track.  Generally normal people like you and me do 5 laps or more on their track with an instructor.  Exotics Racing times these laps and posts them all on their leaderboard here: https://exoticsracing.com/michelin-time-trial-world-challenge.html .  Notice what cars make the vast majority of the fastest laps.  The Porsche GT cars.  Right now the Porsche GT2 RS and GT3 RS hold the top 5 spots.

It took F1 driver Charles Leclerc to get a Ferrari to number 6.  Only 4 of the top 20 are not Porsche.  What this shows to me is how easy it is to drive the Porsche GT cars very fast compared to other supercars.  Even YouTuber Shmee150 can make excellent lap times in his first time out with these cars on this track.

I was really impressed that they were able to hold 1.49g cornering in a stock GT2 RS at this very short track.

On paper the GT2 RS sounds like a monster.  Yet several have taken them to the track for their first time and were surprised how easy it is to drive this car silly fast.  Consider this comparison between a GT3 cup car and a stock GT2 RS at Road America.

Listen to the drivers comments about the relative ease of making fast laps in the GT2 RS.

Next time you are in Las Vegas, see where you fit on the Exotics Racing leaderboard in the GT2 RS.

Car stuff in Central Illinois

Here in the Midwest we enjoy a rich car culture. Even in Central Illinois, away from the big cities, we have plenty of car related things to do. We also have many activities within a few hours drive from here as well. I wanted to share some key website to get people started. 

Social Events and Groups

• One of the larger social groups is the Central Illinois Automotive Enthusiasts group on Facebook.  
• Peoria Cars & Coffee and Friday Night Lights events.  These events draw hundreds from all around and feature every kind of car, 4x4, rat rod, classic, custom, sports car, pony car, etc.
• Bloomington/Normal Automotive Enthusiasts group.

Driving Events

There are 2 main websites to find and register for automotive events, Clubregistration.net and Motorsports.reg.  Most PCA, BMWCCA, SCCA, Audi club, and others use one of these two sites so they are a great place to find events. 

Autocross

The Central Illinois SCCA has the most autocrosses in Central Illinois.  As with many clubs, they use Motorsports.reg for their event registration. 

Drive to Uptown Grille, Lasalle

The Lincoln Trail PCA will have a driving tour from Autohaus in Peoria, to the Uptown Grille in Lasalle for lunch on September 21st.  We will meet at Autohaus by 10am.  Please RSVP to ltr.news.letter@gmail.com by September 18th.

Here is a link to the waiver we will need each participant to sign before we begin the drive..

Here is a link to the map of the route.

Here is a link to the route step-by-step instructions.

Here is a compressed video of the route.

Use this link to add this event to your calendar.

Street Survival 2019

Several LTR members participated in the Street Survival at Cat Mossville AC this weekend.  The local newspaper printed this article about it too.  This was our 10th year offering this event and its going stronger than ever.  If you have never been involved in one of these I would highly recommend it.  At a minimum, all new drivers should go through it.  My daughter did it twice.  We are always looking for volunteers.  We will be doing this again in the Spring, generally May-ish.

Be All In with LTR

I have heard from several members off and on that they are not aware of what is going on in the region.  I decided to create this post so people know when things are happening, both LTR events, and other car events around the region.

1. Make sure your email is up-to-date on the PCA national website!  We used this with our emailer to send notices out to the members.  You must have an up-to-date email in the PCA national website in order for this to work.  Go to the website: https://www.pca.org/, login [Member Log-in], select the [Edit] tab, and update your information.  If you change email addresses make sure to update this.
2. Connect to our calendar.  I created a blog post for this a while back.  It explains how to connect the LTR calendar with your Google calendar so you can see LTR events.  http://ltrpca.blogspot.com/2018/02/add-ltr-calendar-to-your-smartphone-or.html. I believe you can connect this to other calendar types as well.  
3. Connect with us on Facebook.  I know, I am not a big fan of Facebook either but it is the most popular social media platform.  The LTR has a page and a private group.  Lets use this to share events around the region, tips, etc.  Start here: https://www.facebook.com/ltrpca/.  I have a link to this right on the LTR website for your convenience.
4. The LTR website.  This is our main place to connect with our region.  I have links to all the above on the website.  I also have an additional calendar showing other car events around the region and in nearby regions.

Please take advantage of these so you are aware of what is going on and can hopefully participate in some club activities and get the most out of your LTR membership.

Next time you are in Las Vegas...

... spend some of that gambling money on a great driving experience. I visited Speed Vegas recently and drove a Ferrari 488 on track.  The whole story is here: https://jimroal.blogspot.com/2019/03/driving-speed-vegas-in-ferrari-488.html.

If you are interested in cars that Speed Vegas does not have, or you want to try a different track, there are another places very similar at the Las Vegas Speedway Commerce Center North if Las Vegas.  For instance Exotics Racing, Dream Racing, and Vegas Supercars.

Street Survival June 2019

The PCA and BMWCCA both support Tire Rack Street Survival schools to help teach new drivers car control.  The goal is to create better drivers by developing skills that will help them avoid accidents.  Here in Central Illinois the Illini BMW club sponsors a Street Survival school at Caterpillar building AC near Mossville.  There are actually 2 schools, one per day, on June 22nd and 23rd.  This event is run by all volunteers and we need more volunteers to support more students.  We need all sorts of volunteers such as people helping with registration, course workers, in-car coaches, and in-class instructors.  If you would like to help improve new drivers, please go to this site http://illinibmw.com/events/trss/ and follow the instructions to contact the Street Survival team.

Drivers Education (Track days)

I wanted to make a brief post for those interested in performance driving.  Last year I posted this blog about it to give information and videos explaining what they are all about. One of my personal favorites is Central Indiana region PCA Spring Brake which is now open for registration. I hope to see many LTR folks there.

Porsche at The Revs Institute, Naples Florida

I was recently on vacation near Naples Florida and a friend told me about The Revs Institute.  We spent about two and a half hours there enjoying their car collection.  Not only did they have cars on display but they also had engines on stands out where you can see all the details.  They have a whole section dedicated for Porsche. 

I took copious photos (almost 200) but they actually have the whole collection in great photos online.  They had both race cars and street cars including the original 718, 356, 911 of course, 917, and much more.  I posted a few photos below but if you go to their website you can see much more of the collection.