Trackday #5 for
AccZDent
Holy crap! Open
Practice Day at Buttonwillow! Fully open passing in corners and straights, no
session time limits and open-wheel Formula cars on track with AccZDent. ALL ON
A TRACK I’VE NEVER DRIVEN ON BEFORE. I knew this one was going to be good.
http://www.buttonwillowraceway.com
Pre-Race Prep
& Mods:
What
the nuts? The dreaded misfire is back again. After a $60 spark plug change
(factory double platinum plugs? 60,000 spark plug change interval? Whatever…) and
repositioning of ignition coils, I think that I have wasted $60 to narrow it
down to a bad fuel injector.
Too bad all
that stuff is buried 8 inches deep in hard to get to and lies squarely in burn
your hand land. Was that going to keep me off the track? Don’t bet on it… I
capped off the passenger side PCV valve, put in a new set of Metal Master front
brake pads and got on the road.
Friday:
Left
SB at 10:00am. Arrive at Buttonwillow in two hours and 10 minutes. I get gas
and find a parking spot. 30 seconds after I unload the Z the track goes hot.
Schweet.
I head out
and have the track to myself…for about 3 laps. I downloaded track notes from
some Porsche club, so I knew where I should be for just about all corners. I
just had to figure out how to get MY car in the same place as the pictures.
I ALSO had to
figure out what open passing was all about. Not only am I an open passing
newbie, but I am also running today with the Historic Sports Racer - West
division practice. There are REAL Shelby Cobras with racing histories, Alfa
Romeos with sick camshafts and slicks and WINGED OPEN WHEEL FORMULA RACECARS.
Not just Formula Fords, but ridiculous winged beasts with 12 inch wide slicks
on the front. Historied, expensive stuff you REALLY don’t wanna hit.
The
point being, many of these open wheel cars can go from “no one in the mirrors”
to racecar on my bumper in 10 seconds or so. I must have spent 1/3 of my time
per lap looking behind me in the MIRRORS (or out the side after Star Mazda)!
I
occasionally ran two wide through Sunrise and Riverside/Talladega/NASCAR, which
was fun. I had a really antsy open wheel Renault decide to run two wide through
the kink after Magic Mountain. That was kinda scary. I knew it was coming, but
here we are, sliding side by side at 80mph+ and I CAN’T SEE THE tiny little
thing! Luckily, those little bastards are noisy as hell, so I could sorta
figure out where he was from the noise.
Observations:
Just
because you own a real “Shelby Cobra”, that doesn’t mean you know the line. I
gave a point by to this Cobra who proceeds to go off track THREE TIMES in two
laps. Lookout!
I managed to
keep up with a guy new to the track in an open cockpit prototype well enough
that HE POINTS ME BY (yay!) and follows me for three laps to figure out where
the hell the line is. How nuts is that?!?
I
also had to drive through a 200 foot cloud of dust “Days of Thunder” style
after some nimrod biffed after Star Mazda and then did a burnout in the dirt
getting back on. I was not pleased.
Wrap up:
Well,
with no dents, I spent about three hours out of four on track. The longest
continuous session was about 37 minutes. I ended up low on gas and my leg hurt,
so I pulled in. To get to 37 minutes without overheating my brakes, I had to
brake like I was driving a mass transit bus…really early and really easy. I
definitely need the thicker rotors from the 91-96 300ZX.
I
think I am done for a month at least. There’s another open test in two weeks
though…
Its only money.
- Jason