Bad day for me...but I made it home, and the car and I are in 1, well 2 pieces.

Started Friday night when it took me 3 hours instead of the normal 1.5-2 hours to get to my friends house, missed being able to go karting.

Saturday -
slept in a little, went karting, picked up some food...forgot to wash the car. Boonielander called and said that his clutch blew at Buttonwillow, I told him to drive it back up here and we'd replace it before he went back down, ended up that he was able to get a replacement car for the track, and had his girlfriend meet him in Gilroy, the replacement was an M5. We metet up with Racerzook, I was ~40 minutes late, and we headed down to Buttonwillow, after seeing ~8 CHP cars, and being paced by 1 CHP car for 10 minutes, we finally made it to Buttonwillow, went out to dinner, then went out to bed in a new set of Cobalt SpecVR pads.

Sunday -
Went to get a coffee and a muffin, filled up with gas, then off to the track. Unpacked the car, then installed the Toyo RA-1's.

2001 itr
Zeal B6, 8k/10k 6 is full stiff
Toyo RA-1's newly shaved up front, beaten badly on the rear

Session #1, grey group
Suspension - F5-R5
2 laps of traffic, off to the hot pits to get out of the traffic, back on track and I spin at Cotton Corner, rear end was a little loose, in to talk...back out on the track, above 80mph lots of vibration.

Off the track because of the vibration, took the car to the tire shop, one of the tires was off by 4.5OZ

Session #2
Suspension - F5-R4
A learning lap, rear end is really loose, brake pads are still fairly new...I took it a little slow, a little shuddering that I accounted to the new brake pads/pad transfer. Brake fluid overflowed, forgot to remove some of the fluid after I installed the new pads.

Session #3
Suspension - F5-R3
3 laps and I have a LOT of shuddering, and now I have some bad noises, slow WAY down ~15mph around Star Mazda, Emergency flashers are on, into the pits...jack up the car to find out that the rims that I took off to have them balanced...someone forgot to torque the lugs Session over by the time I get back to the hot pit.

Session #4
Suspension - F5-R2
LOTS of oversteer, the rear tires were not gripping at all, oil temperate pegged the gauge at 300*F, with the heater on full hot and on full blower, I was getting sloppy, which I attributed to a little heat stroke, I called it the day after this, almost fell over after I put the rims back on the car.

A friends EZ-up launched itself over my car and left scratch marks all over the car, some all the way down to the metal, dented my fender, A-pillar, left rear quarter panel, and the rear bumper.

I was so overheated my friend was going to drive back into town, only problem is that she couldn't get the leaverage to use the ACT Extreme pressure plate with the Sparco EVO2 seat installed a little farther back than the stock seat.

The group that I was with went back into Buttonwillow for dinner since I-5 was a deadlock. I was too exhausted to drive the 5 hours home, rented a room, and called in sick. I slept for 12 hours, left Buttonwillow at 9am, finally got home after a million rest stops at 6pm on Monday. I'm still exhausted, I'm still not feeling all that well.

It was good to see Yoshi, Mikehonda, B2finity, Ken(actually Jay), Boonielander, all the guys from Redstone Motors, Downey, quite a few people.

Austin


Modified by Austin at 7:54 PM 8/10/2004


Modified by Austin at 8:01 PM 8/10/2004

 

i-5 gridlocked at buttonwillow?? big wreck or something???

sounds like a bad day at the track....at least the car is still together!!

 

is "5" full stiff on those dampers?

Damn, sorry to hear about your episode. I have track days like that at least a couple times a year.....

Depending on the tire shop, you could get a new set of wheels out of the situation.....

I didn't understand this though:

"A friends EZ-up launched itself over my car and left scratch marks all over the car, some all the way down to the metal, dented my fender, A-pillar, left rear quarter panel, and the rear bumper."

Is that one of those portable canopy tent thingies?

 

Glad you are ok.

Heat Exhaustion is no joke, it can kill you.

 

WOW! That is all I can say. Last weekend certainly took a beating on all of us but you really had it bad.

it was great to finally meet you. Suprised you were so friendly even though everything was going so rough!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Black R &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
"A friends EZ-up launched itself over my car and left scratch marks all over the car, some all the way down to the metal, dented my fender, A-pillar, left rear quarter panel, and the rear bumper."

Is that one of those portable canopy tent thingies? </TD></TR></TABLE>

yep...

 

The heat was killer out there. The guy over at 7's only said it was 97 out on Sunday. I drank about 6 bottles of water and 3 bottles of gatorade. Glad to hear your ok.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RyanR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The heat was killer out there. The guy over at 7's only said it was 97 out on Sunday. I drank about 6 bottles of water and 3 bottles of gatorade. Glad to hear your ok.</TD></TR></TABLE>

7 pints of water, 1 pint of cranberry juice, 32oz of gatorade, and I poured 3 pints of water on myself. As well as eating grapes, and other fruits. It really got me, I'm still tired, about to head off to sleep some more...after I go get some more water.

Let me know when you come up to get your car, I'm only an hour away and I'd like to see it finished.

Austin

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Austin &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

7 pints of water, 1 pint of cranberry juice, 32oz of gatorade, and I poured 3 pints of water on myself. As well as eating grapes, and other fruits. It really got me, I'm still tired, about to head off to sleep some more...after I go get some more water.

Let me know when you come up to get your car, I'm only an hour away and I'd like to see it finished.

Austin</TD></TR></TABLE>

Sure thing, car is going up north this week. Engine, new suspension and full cage should be in within 1.5 months.

 

austin, jay here (not ken ). man, when we were about to head out to meet for dinner at the end, i saw your left rear quarter kinda dented up and didn't put 2 and 2 together. sorry to hear about that.

and about that heat, shoot, yosh and 'hawnder bailed early. plus every buttonwillow event i've been to usually has another run for all levels to spare. this time it seemed that even stusa threw in the towel early.

dennis and i headed over to the "magic powerade y0 machine" and got some extra fluids. plus i was nursing a huge water jug around to keep from drying out. rough day on the cars and da bodies.

hope everything gets back to a-1 steak sauce!

kepani-who didn't show up to work on mon. either

 

yaya, yoshi234 and I left @ 3pm. Overheated is an understatement. The 5S was HELL, took us 4 1/2 hours to get home.


mikehonda- who thought he had it bad, glad your k00 now Austin

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by .RJ &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Glad you are ok.

Heat Exhaustion is no joke, it can kill you.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Ditto. Glad you're ok.

I know I almost passed out @ Slummit last year during HyperFest.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by thk &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Ditto. Glad you're ok.

I know I almost passed out @ Slummit last year during HyperFest. </TD></TR></TABLE>

**** is, you don't even realize it

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by kepani &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">:

kepani-who didn't show up to work on mon. either </TD></TR></TABLE>

word. same here. The heat killed us all.

 

Sorry to hear Austin...

I didn't make it out as planned. My car is having braking issues (still...even since Expo) and leaking a lot of oil from the rear main seal now as well, a lot.

I hate those track days, I've had a couple of those this year. Not fun...at all.

I hope the scratches aren't too bad.

 

Hope that ya feel better all of you.

 

glad you're home safe austin.

For some reason, things just didn't feel right for me on sunday so I only did two sessions and called it a day.

y shi - who will be going to more track events looks like

 

dang you got caught off gaurd, the next seession is 5 weeks away @ willow and I've already cut out the coke and moved to water and juice hitting the exercycle ect. Of course I've got 2 full days comming up so it's gonna be tough

I've seeen alot of people go off in those conditions becuase it messes with your judgment and concentration so much

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Austin &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Off the track because of the vibration, took the car to the tire shop, one of the tires was off by 4.5OZ</TD></TR></TABLE>


















But hey... not all was bad.

 

Off topic, but hey Austin, do you live in Gilroy? Just wondering cause thats where I'm from, there's only one other type R in Gilroy that I know of.

 

I really wanted to go, but kinda glad I didn't after hearing how hot it was. Was in baja that weekend bodyboarding.....weather was hot, but found my shade in the tube.

-Brandon

 

Best thing to do is a week or so leading up to the event cut out sodas, juice, etc, drink lots of water and get plenty of rest, and continue doing it through the weekend. When its really hot out I'll go through 1-2 gallons of water a day, and some gatorade as well.

 

The last time I was out at button...i really almost passed out from the heat. I went through a gallon and a 32oz'er of water. It is really hot down there...glad you are ok austin!!

 

Soly to hear things didn't go well, Austin


Question - I'm using the crappy monitor at work, so I may be missing something, but is there a worker in that bucket?

 

huhu...also, Austin is aparently not a big fan of the middle pedal

What happened to both feet in?