I went to the Big Willow event in CA this weekend with Speed Trials USA. This was my second time at this track. My first time was one year ago when I first started going to road courses.
I have to say though they are not as organized as Open-Track they run a pretty good event. I like their rules. You can pass on the left only on the front and back straight. There is no requirement for a point-by. And if you are pointed by by a slower car in a no-pass zone you are not flaged. Cool. In the fast run group everyone was aggressive and they did not complain about each other. Perfect fit for me.
If you are a newbie you are better off with
Open-Track though. There is more instruction and more explanation with Open-Track. But I like both. And I intend to run with both. So what happened this week end.
* Saturday sucked. It rained on and off all day long. I ran my street tires for part of the day and my racing tires for the other part. There was a lot of slipping and sliding including me. I was taking turn two when the track was beginnig to dry and I hit a wet spot and went straight off. I did not
correct. I let the car go straight and it ended up stopping by the fence. Yikes. The suspension openned up and bottomed down hard. I left two deep marks in the mud and they were still visible the next day. I drove the car back to the pits and did an inspection. I had grass up to the light
assembly. So I mowed the lawn for them
Ther was no damage to the car.
* Three cars spun right in front of me on saturday. A miata, a 240sx, and a race prepped Type R. Luckily I avoided them all.
* Sunday was great no rain and all sun. I was booking. I brought my time down from a previous 1:47 to 1:41.18. I know the car had more in it. but I kept hitting the speed limiter and on occasion the rev limiter. I was coming out of turn 9 doing 100 mph on the speedo. and then the car would cut off at
an indicated 115. So I had about 15 mph to paly with only. If I had no rev/speed limter i can do 1:35. I am sure. On the back straight the same **** of hitting the limiters happened. On the front straight I finally started shifting into 5th to avoid the rev limiter and keeping the speedo a
hair under 115.
* I was uncatchable around the twisty section. But, alas on the straights the Mazda RX-7, the SVT Stang and the Type R would catch me at the end of the straight
and pass me just before turn one. For Some reason the beemers and a Turbo 944 could not
catch me, however. It sucked big time. I am not going to Big Willow w/o an ECU. That is it. If I had a JWT ECU I would have been uncatchable on Sunday.
* My Toyo RA1 tires are done. I corded all four of them. The RA1s are great. They have served me for 5 events. Each event two days long. And each day had 4-5 sessions of 20 minutes each. You do the math. I just ordered another set from tread depot.
* The NX AD22VF brakes are maginificant. You do not need bigger brakes on an NA car. All you need are the AD22VFs, Motul 600, Hawk Blue pads, and SS lines. That is it. The car stops on a dim. The brakes have not faded with me at all the track events I have been to. And I go on the track like a pit bull after a postman. I was stopping from 109 mph to turn into one with no problems.
* At one point I looked at my rotors and noticed hair line cracks developing. These are the rotors that have been to 6 track events. They have been resurfaced three times. So I switched them with my new street rotors. It was a good thing to have two sets I guess. From now on I will always bring two sets of rotors and pads (I have 3 with me) to the track.
* At the last ButtonWillow event I had Clunking problems on my True Choice suspension. I solved the clunking problem in my suspension. I have 1.5 inches of front travel and 2.0 inches in the rear. I put the tenders on top of the mian spring as originally intended. I set the compression to 7 clicks out of 12 and rebound 1.5 tuns out of 3.5 up front. I set the rears to 4 out of 12 and rebound 1 turn out of 3 and 1/3. The car felt very good all day. No clunks at all. The car was very neutral and when pushed to the limits it go into a very controllable four wheel drift. Very cool.
* There was one G20 on Saturday and no SR20DEs on Sunday. I was the only one representin
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Mad props to me yo!!
* I saw two Lotus Elise roadsters. And the amazing thing is that they had a Type R engine and tranny. A company named sunspeed is importing them and doing the transplant and selling them as street legal machines in the US. The cost 55K. Any takers
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Naji Dahi, aka Red Mist
Fast 1998 SE-R Last of the SE-Rs
Slow 1996 G20 (AGXs/G20t springs, K&N drop in filter)
I have to say though they are not as organized as Open-Track they run a pretty good event. I like their rules. You can pass on the left only on the front and back straight. There is no requirement for a point-by. And if you are pointed by by a slower car in a no-pass zone you are not flaged. Cool. In the fast run group everyone was aggressive and they did not complain about each other. Perfect fit for me.
If you are a newbie you are better off with
Open-Track though. There is more instruction and more explanation with Open-Track. But I like both. And I intend to run with both. So what happened this week end.
* Saturday sucked. It rained on and off all day long. I ran my street tires for part of the day and my racing tires for the other part. There was a lot of slipping and sliding including me. I was taking turn two when the track was beginnig to dry and I hit a wet spot and went straight off. I did not
correct. I let the car go straight and it ended up stopping by the fence. Yikes. The suspension openned up and bottomed down hard. I left two deep marks in the mud and they were still visible the next day. I drove the car back to the pits and did an inspection. I had grass up to the light
assembly. So I mowed the lawn for them
Ther was no damage to the car.* Three cars spun right in front of me on saturday. A miata, a 240sx, and a race prepped Type R. Luckily I avoided them all.
* Sunday was great no rain and all sun. I was booking. I brought my time down from a previous 1:47 to 1:41.18. I know the car had more in it. but I kept hitting the speed limiter and on occasion the rev limiter. I was coming out of turn 9 doing 100 mph on the speedo. and then the car would cut off at
an indicated 115. So I had about 15 mph to paly with only. If I had no rev/speed limter i can do 1:35. I am sure. On the back straight the same **** of hitting the limiters happened. On the front straight I finally started shifting into 5th to avoid the rev limiter and keeping the speedo a
hair under 115.
* I was uncatchable around the twisty section. But, alas on the straights the Mazda RX-7, the SVT Stang and the Type R would catch me at the end of the straight
and pass me just before turn one. For Some reason the beemers and a Turbo 944 could not
catch me, however. It sucked big time. I am not going to Big Willow w/o an ECU. That is it. If I had a JWT ECU I would have been uncatchable on Sunday.
* My Toyo RA1 tires are done. I corded all four of them. The RA1s are great. They have served me for 5 events. Each event two days long. And each day had 4-5 sessions of 20 minutes each. You do the math. I just ordered another set from tread depot.
* The NX AD22VF brakes are maginificant. You do not need bigger brakes on an NA car. All you need are the AD22VFs, Motul 600, Hawk Blue pads, and SS lines. That is it. The car stops on a dim. The brakes have not faded with me at all the track events I have been to. And I go on the track like a pit bull after a postman. I was stopping from 109 mph to turn into one with no problems.
* At one point I looked at my rotors and noticed hair line cracks developing. These are the rotors that have been to 6 track events. They have been resurfaced three times. So I switched them with my new street rotors. It was a good thing to have two sets I guess. From now on I will always bring two sets of rotors and pads (I have 3 with me) to the track.
* At the last ButtonWillow event I had Clunking problems on my True Choice suspension. I solved the clunking problem in my suspension. I have 1.5 inches of front travel and 2.0 inches in the rear. I put the tenders on top of the mian spring as originally intended. I set the compression to 7 clicks out of 12 and rebound 1.5 tuns out of 3.5 up front. I set the rears to 4 out of 12 and rebound 1 turn out of 3 and 1/3. The car felt very good all day. No clunks at all. The car was very neutral and when pushed to the limits it go into a very controllable four wheel drift. Very cool.
* There was one G20 on Saturday and no SR20DEs on Sunday. I was the only one representin
* I saw two Lotus Elise roadsters. And the amazing thing is that they had a Type R engine and tranny. A company named sunspeed is importing them and doing the transplant and selling them as street legal machines in the US. The cost 55K. Any takers
------------------
Naji Dahi, aka Red Mist
Fast 1998 SE-R Last of the SE-Rs
Slow 1996 G20 (AGXs/G20t springs, K&N drop in filter)
