Marc's Public Blog - Cars

2008/11/23: TEAM event at Thunderhill

2008-11-23T16:00:00Z

I really wasn't sure I'd be doing any driving that weekend, having gotten sick again, just days before the track day. That was quite annoying, 2 times in a row...
Friday I knew that I just couldn't do saturday, I was too sick. Saturday, I was feeling marginally better and decided to tempt going sunday. First I was hoping to fly there, but doing a night flight while sick (sunset at 17:20) just didn't seem like a swell idea. On the flipside, I didn't feel up for a 2-3H drive to Thunderhill, so I'm indebted to JBQ for offering to drive me there.

The next morning, I wasn't feeling great, but well enough to give driving a shot. I was a little bit apprehensive about being out of it and doing something stupid while driving, but I did well enough. It sure wasn't my most precise or consistent driving. I dropped a couple of wheels off the track once, and the car corrected some imperfect driving more than once, but it went ok in the end.
Unfortunately, I did lose a session due to my new brakes being much harder to change than the old ones (the entire caliper has to be taken apart, which you can't do without special tools I didn't have, and before it's cool to the touch). After I put the new race pads in, I was able to do two more sessions and score some times of 2:08, which isn't bad, but I know the car can still do better.

JBQ, trusty driver and photographer

Can't slide out the pads anymore :(

The big bolts had to be taken out and the caliper split in two

Another prey :)

All in all, while I sure wasn't feeling my top, it was still a good day. More thanks go to JBQ to driving me home after the last session: I was totally dead after my last shot of energy drink was wearing off...

Here is one video for my 3rd session. See more images for 2008/11/23: TEAM event at Thunderhill

Reno Fernley Raceway

2008-05-25T00:09:00Z

Bonni had her yearly event at the Fernley race track again this year. Unfortunately, she moved it a bit earlier in the calendar, and we ended up having freak bad weather there. The first day, I only got one dry session (rain in the morning, and then they shut down the track in the afternoon as mud and small rivers went across the track.
Sunday wasn't forecast to be better, but by mid-morning the track was actually mostly dry. Unfortunately, I only got one session and a half before I ended up climbing in a burm, which in turn caused some kind of tire failure and a flat (pinch flat maybe?), putting an end to that day.

My new shiny brake kit upgrade

double hole

In hindsight, that weekend was pretty much a waste of time and money, but hindsight is 20/20...
A few other pix... , a video from a wet session , and a video from a dry session

Got Guts at Thunderhill

2008-04-22T11:12:00Z

I had just gotten the car back with changed fluids, and brakes, and I was looking forward to getting some instruction from Rick Weldon. I did actually get a few laps from him eventually, but they ended as I got a total brake system failure: loss of hydraulic pressure in the breaking zone before T14.
Thankfully I was able to stop with the parking brake, go around the tire wall at the end of 14, and crub off the rest with a 180 on the tarmac connecting to T8.
Turns out that one of the speedbleeder screws check valve apparently failed, causing the loss of pressure and a good size bubble in the system.
After that, I decided to call it a day, since there was no need to take any risks with a faulty system.

This was a trip in memory lane: former instructors from my first miata school in 2001

first lap, with John

I've decided to get the system replaced with a more reliable big brake kit from brembo, which will hopefully take care such situations in the future.

here are the remaining pictures

Overdue First 2008 track day at Thunderhill

2008-04-05T12:27:00Z

It had been a little while since I got to flog the red car at thunderhill. I was curious if I'd get to improve on my lap time of 2:09 without the wheel misbalance issue.

I did what I thought was a nice pass in the SSes because of an NSX that was slow and way off line, but apparently I scared the guy off a bit and he didn't expect me to pass him. Oh well, he'll check his mirrors next time and stay on line or expect to be passed, although while I was in my full right to pass him anywhere in group A (if he's not comfortable with that, and/or can't keep pace, he shouldn't be in that group), I still apologized to him since he was clearly upset and I did scare him off a bit.

The NSX is visible on a portion of the picture on the left. Eh, at least the picture shows that I wasn't the only one on his butt :)

So it sounds like I can't talk about a track day without talking about brakes. Sure enough, my pads worked, but they were struggling with keeping the car in check, which I think is partially responsible for preventing me from going faster, as I just wasn't sure I'd be able to stop in time before the next turn.
And on the 4th session, I checked my pads before going, and it looked like I had enough pads left for one more session, but that turned out to be a wrong guess (the inside pads ran out first...)

I was under the mistaken impression that the 2mm of pads I had left would be enough for one more session

turns out that was pretty optimistic on my part

The brand new pads in

and they caused me to overshoot turn 14 and have to drive straight off the track to another piece of unused asphalt before I was able to stop the car (using the backing plate and whatever pads I did have left and return to the track and exit in the right place :)

Changing the pads was kind of a bitch since they were burning, and I only got everything changed half way through my next session. Better than nothing I guess...
Unfortunately, on my last session, some guy lost it in turn 1, damaged his car, had to be towed out and ruined the rest of our session.

The flight to Willows was uneventful. My trusty driver Scott showed up early that morning, and he had fully working brake pads and tires to drive home.
Unfortunately, on the way back he got a flat on Hwy 5, just 20 miles from Willows, putting him far from home. Poor guy had to call the tow service that came with my car, and got home around midnight while I got the car home a bit past midnight. I haven't heard back on what went through the tire yet, or why the fix a flat and compressor that came with the car, didn't work.

The flight home was also a bit eventful for me: I picked up a stranded passenger and CFI in Willows who could not go home due to a failure on their plane. I was dropped them off at Sonoma County Airport and then headed home by overflying San Francisco and the California Coast (made for a pretty flight).

The remaing pictures (including GotBlueMilk shots ) are here

Quick Skyline Drive with Daniel

2007-12-09T08:18:00Z

As Daniel was over for a quick visit, we were going to the airport, got slightly lost, and took a quick detour through Skyline :)
The only problem with pagemill down is that it's easy to bottom out, which didn't sound good, even with the skid plates.
Daniel had a good time though :)

A few more picts/vids

Thunderhill: Ariel Atom Experience and Team Racing Track Day

2007-11-17T11:53:00Z

Jason and I had been keeping track of the weather in Willows while impatiently waiting for the day we would be able to each drive an Ariel Atom at thunderhill, thanks to the folks from Ariel Atom Experience . You can see what that car looks like in top gear
The next day, I was able to line up a Bonni track day, making the trip to Willows, even more worth it. The flight there was interesting since it was pretty dark flying up, but I got there within slightly less than one hour, well in time to get some rest for the next morning.

I was impressed by the setup and organization at the Ariel Atom Experience. The organizers definitely cared about safety, customer service, and offering everything they could. Some people first expressed that $1500 was expensive for a track day, but I personally thought it was a bargain to drive a car I would never be able to drive otherwise, and it was without counting the extras that were offered:

Access to the cars, obviously. A track day in my car tends to be expensive if I factor in the set of pads I'll be wearing out, the high rotor wear and tear, and the tire use (for the Ariels they had to worry about flat spots since they had no ABS).
one on one instruction the whole day
GPS equipped cars to generate a video of your last session, showing you on the track, along with 2 separate camera shots of you, the car and track, and your position on the track
Headset communication with your instructor, and radio communication with the base if they had an emergency or need to shut down the track
Eflags, which are basically a visual representation of flag status inside your car (yellow, black...), so that you can't miss an outside flagger.
Oh, and of course, an entire track for 4 to 8 cars (well, not quite, more on that later)

The "problem" (from my point of view that is), is that the event was marketed to anyone, including people who had never driven at a track (apparently, they even had someone show up who did not even know how to drive a stick shift). As a result, they not only had to make sure we knew how to drive the car (i.e. no ABS, no traction control, a lot of power and fast response, and tires that gripped well, but did not seem to give a lot of warning when they were at the edge of traction), but they also had to teach people how to drive around a track without going off the next turn, or oversteering, going sideways in a ditch, and flipping the car.
Quite frankly, my kudos to the instructors who had to sit along for the ride, and didn't have much control over the car if things went haywire. My afternoon instructor mostly just sat there silently as I went around lapping faster and faster throughout the sessions, and reminded me that I should not stay too close to the people in front of me because I could not expect them to do rational things or not to spin out (good point indeed).
Now, I thought the main problem, from someone reasonably experienced with track days, and the track in question, was that the morning was mostly a throwaway: 3 sessions of lead follow where I only got to pass a couple of cars on the last session, and that session was still very slow. Again, I can't blame them for doing that when some of the other drivers didn't know what they were doing, but I really wish we had been put in skill groups: we only had 4 cars on a half track, and even with equal power, I would lap each of them at least once during each 20mn session (after being stuck behind them for a while).
While I understand they had a chicane in the straight so that people didn't go 130mph+ before trying to brake and turn (which can be hard with wheels that tend to lock up), I really wish we had had the entire track as opposed to a half track. I just have no idea how fast I was going compared to my F430 because I only had half track times which I could not do much with (also, the full track would have alleviated the problem with slower people getting in the way). Unfortunately, they didn't have enough flaggers to man the whole track. I really hope they do next year, especially as I can imagine the half track being a parking lot with 8 cars on it including slow people, instead of 4 (we were on the last day, and they had fewer people then, hence more room for us).
Maybe in addition to making skill groups on each day, since they had 4 days, they could also recommend a day for beginners who've never been at a track, and a day for experienced people. Within that group, you can even split it between people who know the track in question, and those who don't.

All that said, the cars were fun to drive, definitely required driver skill and gave you a sense for the road. Outside of the very mixed driver skill problem, the event was very well organized, and they all really deserve credit for organizing an event where you get to drive a car that you would not have been able to, otherwise. I think it's an awesome idea and I hope other such events pop up with other cars.

See the other pictures of that day .
After a fun day of driving the Ariel Atom around, I went to chill out for the evening, and came back the next morning with my F430 that Scott nice drove over for me.
The Pagids pads worked fine, and the Pirelli Pzero Corsa Rosso tires (tread wear 60), were great. For the first time, I brought my Thunderhill lap time under 2:10 (2:09 three times, including one when I passed someone), and I'm pretty sure I could have gone a bit lower still, but I had a problem with pretty bad vibration due to a missing wheel weight, or some other misbalance problem. Driving the car with that shake was a bit worrisome, but traction control and/or tire stickiness kept it on the road. No idea what it cost me time-wise though.
However, the extra speed cost me a lot more pad wear, and I ran out of pad after the 5th session, down to the plate. Doh! But, eh, I can't complain, I was apparently the fastest street car of the day. The flipside is that I ran my brakes pads down to the backing plates by the 5th session. I guess going faster meant wearing the pads faster too :)

Unfortunately, someone in the beginner group apparently had an ABS fluke/failure or some other problem and had his car shoot sideways when trying to brake before a turn, had the car go sideways off the turn, catch a tire in the dirt, and flip a few times. He was ok, but the car not as much.

See the other pictures of that day and the video of my best lap.
Since I was out of brakes, I decided to call it a day, which gave me the chance of driving home with daylight, which was good since I was able to keep an eye on the weather which was likely to be overcast and/or foggy, making takeoff and landing potentially harder. I turned out to be lucky at that time, and got clear skies for takeoff and landing, but that could have changed at any time.

Track Day at Sears Point/Infineon

2007-10-06T14:39:00Z

The Qimonda folks were nice enough to invite us for a track day at Sears/Infineon, with instruction from the Jim Russell Racing School folks.

I've always been a bit scared of Sears: too many walls, and sure enough, at least one guy hit one, despite the instruction we got. That said, seeing the line while being driven around in a van was both fun, and useful :)

All in all, it was a good day, and I got my time down to 2:04 from over 2:20, which was reasonably good for me.

Just in case you wonder if I went off track, I didn't. In the morning, we had a different track configuration :)

The rest of the pictures are here

Reno Fernley Race Track

2007-06-24T14:20:00Z

I had freshly gotten my car back from service that it went in the hands of Samer from Tailored Relocation Services, to be driven in en enclosed truck to the Reno Fernley track. Apparently the drive took 6 to 7 hours due to traffic.
Thankfully I flew there in about 90 minutes due to cooperative winds, and by adding preflight and tiedown, it was probably 3h end to end.

The track takes a while to figure out, it's more than 4 miles long, and a big thanks to Scott for showing me around the track a few times.
First, I was clocking around 3:26 or so, and by the second day, I took it down to 3:16. While I was figuring things out, I waved a fair amount of people by, who I'm sure were delighted to pass my car :)

making sure that all the wheels are still probably attached :)

I likely would have been able to take it a bit further below 3:16 by the end of sunday, but while I was lucky with the brakes working great this time (it looks like most of my problems were due to a front/back bias issue which went away when I replaced the rear pads with non stock ones), but unfortunately, one of my tire's sidewall failed, forcing me to call it a day a bit early.
Yet, I still got 2/3rd of my sessions in, which wasn't too bad considering. I'm just now wondering how long I drove with that bulge, or if I did catch it right after it happened.

Jennifer was able to come this time and got her first laps around a real track, which is the best way to show what a car can really do, and how much leg room I have when I drive on the street (except for not knowing what other drivers not paying attention around you, could do at any time). Thanks to her for the extra pictures she was able to take while I was driving.
And here's a link to the other pictures from the TEAM track day at Reno Fernley

Unlimited Laps at ThunderHill

2007-06-16T12:06:00Z

It was a nice flight to TH and back, except for the weather being pretty freaking hot in Willows and causing some of my checklist plastic covers to half melt :)

Thunderhill itself wasn't great unfortunately, while it was pretty hot there, my car ran fine: no overheating issues, Ferrari definitely did cooling right.
My brakes unfortunately didn't fare as well, in the end I had to pack after three sessions and after having totally cooked my rotors and calipers (and boiled the brake fluid, which means your brakes pretty much stop working, and that's slightly undesirable when you're doing over 120mph and a turn is coming :)
I got some good help at the track, including from a nice coworker called Arnaud,but in the end, there wasn't that much to do, so I ended up flying home early.

After that, my car spent 4 days straight at Silicon Valley Auto Group where they fixed the alignment, changed the tires, cleaned up the abused calipers, tried to get all the brake pads to fit (Cobalt GT) and when it was all set and done and I got the car back, I finally got a callback from a Ferrari track specialist who told me that I should avoid those pads since they damage the rotors and tend to overheat.
Great, I had just spent a lot of time and money to try and get them in. Yet, it was good to know this just before the next track day, and I got an emergency change of the Cobalt GTs with Pagids I had on hand literally 2 hours before my car left for the next track day (and they turned out to make the overheating issues go away)
I also found out that my calipers cooked so much that they melted their dust shields and were supposed to be rebuilt except there no time for that before the next track day. I guess I'll find out then if things work, or not.
All in all, this track day was a bit frustrating, but also a learning experience.
A few more pictures are here

First Thunderhill of the year

2007-04-24T12:50:00Z

iI usually wait for the snow season to be over before going for the track. April 23rd sounded like late enough. Little did I know that I'd be snowboarding in more than one foot of fresh powder the previous day.
Luckily, the weather was ok the next day. Since Thunderhill was a mere few miles from the Willows general aviation airport, I took the opportunity to fly there. It was about 55mn in the air when flying by Mt Diablo (to avoid crowded San Francisco airspace), and close to 2H if you factor in going to/from the airport, getting the plane ready, tied down, and so forth... That said, it was both more scenic and peaceful than driving there, and I didn't have to worry about cops while doing close to 200mph :)

I was a bit sluggish on my first session, but started getting a bit more awake and precise on my next session and getting more comfortable with the amount of brakes and traction I had, or didn't have. Unfortunately, that's around the time that my brake pads started going out (I knew they wouldn't last the day, and brought spares).
Changing the said brake pads ended up being much more work than expected however. The pin that needed to be slid out was wedged in there quite well, probably due to heat expansion. We did get it out eventually, but the next problem was that the new brake pads I had were too thick, and just wouldn't fit.
After more calls, the advise was to rub them down until they were thin enough to fit. Sure enough, I used some stone to rub them against, and they fit eventually.

After that I had 3 more sessions left (one lost to brake changing), but unfortunately, something wasn't quite right in the pad install, and my brake fluid would overheat and boil. It's scary to have your brake pedal go to the floor with no brakes when you're going over 100mph, and there is a turn coming :) (pumping helped a bit, but was barely enough).
We drained the fluid, which helped a bit, but I still had problem after a few laps each time. Ultimately, we now think that the pads were a bit too thick, and were rubbing on the rotors even when I wasn't braking, overheating the whole system. My car is now getting a full flush and brake check, which should take care of that.
Anyway, I was able to get a few laps that were a bit better (down to 2:11 or 2:10), but still very far from what the car could do. Not only do I still need to learn how to drive it, as it's nothing alike my old turbo miata, but I was also being very conservative on braking because I didn't want to lose my brakes at 120, right before a turn...
That said, despite the brake issues, it was still nice to have a little fun on the track, but I don't feel I got to learn a whole lot this time, especially on my later sessions where I was more awake, but just afraid of pushing it too much and losing my brakes in the wrong place. Unfortunately, I also didn't much time to socialize, or take other pictures. I was too busy changing the pads, and then trying to bleed out the boiled brake fluid... (that said the pictures I was able to get (including 2 not from me) are here )

The flight home was fine (55mn) and I got home in less than 2H door to door, which isn't bad :)

The funny part is how I was trying to shift my M5 with the windshield wipers, which my brain had decided had become paddle shifters :)
Oh, and thanks to Jason for the help :)

SpeedZone in Dallas

2006-12-28T14:33:00Z

When done visiting the Dallas, we has extra time which I thought would be well spent by visiting an intriguing park they had: SpeedZone. It's the first amusement park I know that is entirely based on motorsports. They have 3 different tracks and kinds: one somewhat lame many vehicle, somewhat slow speed track, a faster slick track where you get to practise oversteering (and oh boy do many people suck at it), and a higher speed autocross style track, where you go for the best possible laptime. Those were much fun.
That said, the unusual part was the dragster track with 300hp propane powered dragsters. The setup is quite nice: you are on a rail and they automatically stop you at the end so that you don't hit anything :)

See more SpeedZone pictures
or the SpeedZone web site

Gotbluemilk Pictures

2006-12-18T13:29:00Z

Along the years, when going to track events, the guy from gotbluemilk.com took pictures of all of us. I recently bought a CD with all the pictures he took at different track events I've gone to betwween 2004 and 2006 (Laguna Seca and Thunderhill in my Miata, M5, and F430).

Let's start with a few pictures of my turbo miata:

Then, my one track day with the M5:

and a couple of recent track days with the F430:

All in all, some nice pictures. You can find the other gotbluemilk pictures here and especially the best of gotbluemilk .
Thanks to the fine folks at gotbluemilk for the great pictures.

Foggy / Rainy Thunderhill Day

2006-12-12T12:07:00Z

I took a slight gamble on the weather, but in the end the forecast looked good enough to give it a shot.
Unfortunately, we were greeted by ground fog, and the first sessions were delayed by about 90mn because the overall visibility was just too bad. Then, we had light rain, making the track quite slippery.
It made for a good exercise in light driving, and seeing how your traction control and ABS worked if you had any. That's where mine came in very handy, I set it to sport mode, which did a good job of cutting off before I got in trouble with the power. The corvettes however probably had a traction control that was so bad that they turned it off right away, and of course the next thing that happened is they ended up outside of the track.
By the afternoon, my third and last session was the only relatively dry one, and I was able to switch the traction control to race mode and get better times. Yet, wet tracks always make me nervous :)
I did have an instructor's session at the end, but I was just too beat due to a bad night, and decided to quit while I was ahead, instead of too tired, and off track, and headed back around 15:00 :)
Oh, I did get my butt kicked by a very fast Evo. That guy definitely had more balls than me. My times were around 2:19 in the half wet, and 2:13 to 2:15 in the somewhat more dry. Not stellar, but probably the best I could do that day :)

Yet, since I was there, I still made the best of it. Might as well :) (oh, and the best part is that the brakes held up. My new brake pads are definitely much better)

The rest of the pictures are here

430 at Thunderhill

2006-11-18T00:01:00Z

I can't believe it had been more than a year since I had last gone to the track, but with my miata requiring more love^H^H^H^Hhelp than I can give it, and my mostly flying machines that actually do have wings, I guess it just had been that long.
After the last (I'm sure minor, but annoying nonetheless) fuel delivery issue with my miata, and my not being a mechanic, I decided to call it quits, and sell my miata. That gave way for another car, and it was more than time to go back to the track to try it out.

Since I was still half on European time, getting up at 05:30 to go to the track wasn't that hard, so I just left that morning for Thunderhill. Weather was not that great, and the 505 raceway was fogged to the ground, with a police escort enticing everyone to stay below 70mph anyway (which I got all the way to thunderhill, somewhat slowing me down (about 2:15-2:20 to get there)

There were lots of varied cars in attendance, including some fast lotuses, and a Radical racecar (that one was fast).

hey, they look like they almost belong together :)

Unfortunately, my brand new brake pads barely lasted 100 miles of track, and I decided to call it quits while I still had enough pads left to go home

Although good time was had nonetheless.... The car felt solid and fairly forgiving, even with the traction control in race mode, and while I didn't get very exact times, I got down around 2:10 or so. I know the car can be pushed harder, but I'd rather work my way up to it while keeping it with the shiny side up :) and I also felt the car's weight a bit in the turns, but especially in braking, where I found that the stock pads didn't actually do that good a job stopping the car fast in my opinion (especially if they wear out that quickly in addition to that). Well, I'll see what can be done next time.

My timings were a bit sloppy as I tried to use my GPS watch as an automated timing device, but it just didn't work that well this time. I think a running/biking watch wasn't really designed to work at 120mph+, and pinpoint a loop point ot reset the lap timer at that speed :)

Drive home was uneventful, although not that fast due to generally too many people on the road, and left lane camping (2h25 or so).

You can look at the rest of the pictures of the TEAM event at Thunderhill

I drove the fastest road car in the world

2006-05-19T14:45:00Z

This morning, I got to drive a Bugatti Veyron , which is and probably will remain the fastest road car in the world (as well as the most expensive, with a price of 1.3 million dollars + tax). You should follow the link to wikipedia for the gory details, but interesting pieces are acceleration from 0 to 60mph in 2.5sec, 1006HP (and the 2 8 cylinder engines with 4 turbos actually develop 3000HP, but 1000 are lost in the exhaust, and another 1000 are lost in cooling).
Before you ask me how I pulled off a test drive, it's thanks to a coworker who had bought a car at the dealership, got an invite himself, and told me about it. When I called, with his referral, I was able to get the last test drive left on the schedule (the Veyrons were only there for 3 days). What's kind of interesting is that 2 people had already bought one, haven't received yet, and went for a test drive as their first time driving the car ever.
Anyway, in my case, well, it was just a cool thing to try. The test drive itself was unfortunately a bit short, and while I did get to drive the car for maybe 5-10mn, we didn't really get much clear road, and never got to see its handling or how it would handle when pushed in a corner. The other bummer is that the driver who would take you out was actually a Lemans driver and he told me how he would make a left on Bear Creek Road, but he couldn't do that anymore because the cops knew he was giving test rides.
Yet, we still got to do a few launches on the freeway, and boy does the car have power. Surprisingly it was very stable, easy to drive, and wasn't that loud, although you could hear the turbos spinning. While, we never got to push the car much, it was really nice to drive. Too bad I didn't have a newborn to sell :) so that I could reserve one for late 2007 (!)
Oh, the other interesting Tidbits is that I drove the actual car that Jeremy Clarkson drove on Top Gear when he tested it (race against the Cessna 182), and that VW loses about 4 million dollars on each of the 300 cars they'll make over the next 6 years.

Back at Los Gatos Silicon Valley Auto Group, I used the opportunity to test drive an F430 spyder, which is almost 5 times cheaper with its punny 490HP :)
The sound was pretty glorious, I have to give it that, and it was fun to drive too :) I kind of knew I liked that car, and I confirmed that I do :)

They also have all kinds of other exotic cars that you wouldn't really get to see in any other places in the world, including a Saleen S7. You can look at the pictures I took to see all those cars and other Veyron pictures I took . I just can't believe that I was stupid enough not to get a picture of me inside the Veyron. Doh!

Hahaha, I beat Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson and his NSX around Laguna Seca by 1 second :)

2006-01-04T15:00:00Z

I was watching Top Gear's last episode of this season, and Jeremy flew to Laguna Seca to compare how the real driving experience was with driving the same car on the same track on a playstation.
Turns out that I had done the exact same thing than him, and with the exact same track a year and a half ago :)
Ok, that's not actually a huge feat, besides my time of 1:56 around LS is ok, but nothing to be really proud of compared to what real miata drivers can do, but it was more funny to see Jeremy go through the same excercise than me :)

To be entirely fair, Jeremy probably did fewer laps than me anyway (although his car was probably as, if not more capable than mine), but in both cases we did much better times on the playstation than in real life, and we both concluded that in real life with the fear of death and severe mauling by fire, you don't drive the same than in the game :) (that, and the fact that the game is over optimistic on the car and track capabilities).

All in all, it was quite entertaining to watch

M5 at TH (T.E.A.M. Track Event at Thunderhill)

2005-07-19T14:34:00Z

After getting my trip to Canada and OLS cancelled (and not being very happy about it), I decided to join a T.E.A.M. track day at thunderhill at the last minute. However, my miata being out of commission (again :( It's at the shop to debug an electrical problem), I was left with taking my backup car, the M5 :)

I ended up getting to bed early last night since I was tired anyway, got up around 05:30, and just drove there. Despite the fact that at 06:00, there is already traffic on 680, and I was barely making 70-80, I was able to make up for lost time on 505 by averaging slighly over 200kph on the whole 30miles. The bad news however, was that my car seemed to speed limit around 165mph: speed was just bouncing and getting back up there. That's kind of weird since I could swear I've already reached 170, and the speed limiter was supposed to be 155, so I thought it just didn't work. Now I think it's actually there, but it's just confused about what speed to kick in at. In the end I got there in 1H56, which was a decent time considering (Note what I just wrote there did not happen, it's just total fabrication for my own amusement, just like the doctored pictures below)

Ok, it's hard to take steady pictures, sorry :)

Yeah, welcome to the track

I got a nice ride in Rick Weldon's car

Temperature was above 42°C, which made some engines hot. Oh yeah, MPG wasn't too good on the track, but then again, my miata doesn't do much better at full boost :)

My car sure talked to me today, and told me things we had never discussed before :)

By the end of all sessions, I had to short shift to bring the RPMs and temps down, but due to the remaining torque I had, it was not a big deal

My brake pads however totally vanished :)

Unfortunately, I had to bail after 4 sessions because I had just totally ran out of brakes (and did one session with the very little brake pad left warning light on the whole time).
Bonni nicely let me drive her spec miata, and it was such a contrast to go back in a small car that just stuck to the road and had so much grip that I barely ever had to touch the brakes: just gas the whole way.

Even though I only did 4 sessions in the M5, and I did struggle to use any power considering that the street tires would just not hold the massive weight of the car in turns, I was almost able to read a laptime of 2:20.
I know that with a little more practise, and had I actually reached the zone (which I wasn't quite in), I could probably have gone down to 2:18-ish, but still about 4 seconds slower than my miata. Now, if I actually had sticky tires and a bit more practise, I would most likely have been able to beat it, and get in the low 2:10s, but I'm not sure I want the hassle of new wheels and new tires for an occasional visit to the track.

Anyway, good time was had, it was nice to drive the car without traction control on (actually, it was mostly on the slight understeer side of mostly neutral, which I guess makes it safer). My brakes just had a hard time keeping up with the load, and gave up their life trying :)

Trip back was mostly uneventful, due to traffic jams on 80, it took about 2H25. The only interesting part was the chippie coming the other way on 505 when I was doing over a buck-twenty the other way. Either he didn't see me or didn't bother trying to turn around trying to catch up to say hello :)

Pictures are here

My miata

2005-07-08T23:59:00Z

Finally, I got my miata back after almost two months. Boy, did I miss it, I had to drive a boring big sedan in the meantime, it was hell :)

Anyway, after much work to fix/re-install the turbo, I got it back.
It's kind of funny how I have to relearn to drive the car, and it does confirm what I tell other people: it can be a scary car to drive at the limit, and right now I have to relearn that :)

For one, no ABS, but especially no DSC (advanced traction/stability control), which means that the only thing that will make sure I don't spin out in a corner is me, not the car :)

Bay Area Ms Drive

2005-05-23T15:00:00Z

This was my first club drive with BMW M enthousiasts, from a very rare M1, older M3s, M5s, and a Z8.
The drive was fun, although it was somewhat mellow since it was copper day (one of the first nice and sunny saturdays this year). After heading for Hyw 1, we drove up to the Presidio. All in all a very nice drive and a great day.

The picts are here
I've also created a list for BMW M enthousiasts, you can go can ask to join the BAMS mailing list

M1 (only about 60 of those in the US)

Z8

My miata almost made it into a movie

2005-05-12T12:00:00Z

No, no, not fast and furious 3 :)
A guy from skysound (Lucas' Skywalker Ranch Sound Studio) invited me to the old alameda runway, the one that was turned into a piece of freeway for Matrix 2

They wanted to do some sound recordings of my miata's turbo, engine and exhaust for one of their upcoming movies (I'm guessing Pixar's Cars ). Unfortunately my miata is in the shop, getting its turbo install cleaned up and redone (actually, it's been about 3 weeks now, and I'm really starting to miss it...).
Oh well, it would have been fun...