My friend emailed this to me:
I will be there the 12th -13th BMWCCA
14th- 15th Chin Motorsports
Cheers,
John B
As many of you know, The Glen made some changes to the track surface in the fall of 2006. Having just come back from running the track on 4/3/07 here are my observations to date. In a word – SMOOTH! Totally smooth, unbelievable smooth, this can’t be The Glen I’m driving kind of smooth...
Turn 1- all new pavement, the curbs were not changed as far as I can tell, but from before the turn in until after turn out there is just lots of all new black pavement, no concrete, and smooth.
Turn 5- all new pavement coming out of the bus stop, around Turn 5, down the hill, and then just a little ways up the NASCAR straight. The transition off the new pavement as you head down into Turn 6 is also smooth. In addition there is lots of new pavement to the left of the turn at the top of the hill in what used to be the grass run off. This new pavement then runs down hill to where the track out point is as you head out of 5 where it meets up with new concrete curbing, the type of curbing that has small high and low spots, like the stuff all around the bus stop.
Turn 6- all new pavement from before the turn in until after the turn out, no concrete, and smooth. There are new curbs on the inside of the corner like the new curbs in 5, and it looks to me like they have made the corner wider, as in made the distance from the Armco to the apex of 6 narrower. The one thing I don’t like about this change is the intersection of old pavement to new, the change is smooth, but the outside right edge is rather uneven, so if you move all the way to the right to set up for 6, now it’s easy to drop a wheel into the dirt and then track crap up onto the track. For the record, I did not have a problem with this, but my students and other we were following seemed to have this issue.
Overall, all the new pavement except Turn 1 has all sorts of strange grey marks and shapes in it, so you can learn some new reference points.
Roy Hopkins, Adrienne Hughes and I talked about the degree of grip of the new blacktop, I’m not entirely sure it is grippier, it is without a doubt smoother, but I’m not so sure it has more grip and it was Roy who suspected the same lower grip feel.
The track was dry when I ran it, and I do not know if the grey marks are going to have different grip levels than the blacktop in the rain.
For what ever reason there were lots of spins in Turn 1, this might be because the pavement is totally devoid of any details, just a sea of solid black color. And again, I’m not so sure it has more grip. { Vince tells me he saw one there during a parade lap on opening day
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Some people theorize the track will have concrete patches for the fall, after the NASCAR teams rip the blacktop up in their high g-load areas