I was at Thunderhill Raceway in Northern California, it was the day after a NASA 12 hour enduro race, so there wasn't a whole lot of people at the track. It's a 3 mile, 15 turn track run clockwise, here is a picture of the track:



I paid $179, plus $30 for a NASA membership, got a free tech from the Racer's Group at Sears Point the weekend before, this was an event that was well worth it for me.

The track was quite simply an open track day, opened at 9am, closed at noon for lunch, opened at 1pm, closed at 4:40pm, the only times that it closed were ~2 times when they had to sweep some dirt off the track. We ran the track without the Cyclone and had the bypass in place, much faster with the bypass in. Temps were in the 40’s and 50’s all day, first time that I’ve been to Thunderhill with it being cold.

I had a bit of fun…since I don’t really have a whole lot of track experience I opted to have an instructor in the morning…so what did I do? I irritated him a little bit(so much he told me to pull in for a 30 minute break) by spinning out and going off track in turn 3, on my lap #4…oh well, first session over he claims that I was going to fast, but he didn’t realize that I had other factors that accounted for the spin until our second session where I informed him that I set the cold pressures to where they should have been, however they heated up to 7psi to high in the rear, and 5 psi in the front(let’s say tail happy), then I have the suspension set toe out front and rear for autocrossing…maximum within stock settings(tail happy), rear JDM upper strut bar(stiffer rear, tail happy), then combine this with me trail braking(braking to late ) we can say that the tail decided that it wanted to be in the front…oh well.

Second session out I was still with the instructor waited for a couple of laps to get everything back up to temperature…no problems, going into turn 2 I ended up having 2 race prepped(cages, trailered, and on slicks) Integras take my line out from under me, they passed me on the inside of turn 2, instructor never said anything, just let me finish my line…I had this custom mustang behind me that I kept slowing down for in the straights and giving him the wave by, but he wouldn’t pass me…I mentioned it to the instructor and his response was “That’s because you’re slaughtering him in the corners, you’re much faster than him.” I kept my speed in the straights and lost him rather quickly. After the second session the instructor informed me that I was going to be an excellent driver, that I was hitting the correct lines and apexing correctly, and that I should work on different lines, and different braking points when I went out later in the day. He told me that after lunch I could have passengers, and that if I wanted to he could ride with me later in the day.

After lunch I had 3 sessions(would have been 4 but the gas pump ran out of 92 octane), and I took a trip around the track with Frank Lin(Ghettoracer) in his civic hatch. I had quite a bit of fun. I was able to pass quite a few cars, and were blown away by a more than a few cars. I put somewhere around 110 miles on the car at the track, burnt ~3/4 quart of oil during the day(could have been 1 quart). I noticed that I was dropping out of vtec in turn 11 through the esses, it happened 3 times during a session, and it was only a very momentary thing, pulled in after I decided that I was through for the session, I was ~1/4 quart low(Mobil 1, 5W30). I did have one off track in the afternoon, I had a passenger and went off in 14, I was waved by on the back straight, had to late brake, and early apexed…knew that I wouldn’t make the corner, so I just drove off when I started hitting the runoff. I went in and the person asked what I did, she asked me “You’re not going to do that one again are you?” My response was a nope, she told me to have fun and gave me the approval to head back on out.

The Axxis Ultimate pads that I was using appeared to not have been bedded in before the track, I had installed them with new rotors on Wednesday, followed the directions of Andie at Cobalt, then drove 150 mountain road miles, followed by 400 highway miles. The brakes weren’t what they should have been during the first 2 sessions, after a 1.5 hour wait during lunch they were fine for the last 3 sessions. I really do need to get the heel-toe technique down, I can rev match without a problem, but the heel-toe just isn’t what it should be, and it would considerably shorten my braking zones.

My upper body is pretty sore, I think that it’s mainly from abusing the berms in turns 9, 10, and 15…I was hitting the burms in a few other locations, but nowhere as hard as these locations.

Austin - who is looking at schedules to see when he can make it out again.



[Modified by Austin, 4:28 PM 12/9/2002]

 

Sounds like fun. Thunderhill is a nice course.

 

awesome