Track Day Notes: Cooked Pads, Cooling Cascades, and a Format Pivot

We took the Model 3 out for a proper shakedown this past weekend with Cal Club. A few hours of real lapping told us more than a month of theorizing would have. Here’s what we learned. Instant torque is harder than it sounds The biggest driver-adjustment item is corner exit. With an ICE car you roll into throttle and the power builds. The Model 3 doesn’t roll — it just goes. On most exits we had to actively dial the right foot back to keep the rear planted. Not a problem so much as a calibration thing, and a reminder that EVs at the track ask different things of the driver than they do on the road. Even in a straight line, going flat out is fun, but until we solve the thermal cascade a lot of drive attention goes to watching temps. We cooked a set of pads The photo tells it better than we can. When we turned regen off to feel out the brake balance, the pads took the full load — and they didn’t love it. On a ~4,000lb car shedding speed into hot corners, dropping regen is a step change…