Afer being cooped up for 2 weeks, it was time to go out for a bit of fresh air, stretching my car's legs, and going to the beach for a few walks:
quick stop on skyline
before long, we reached Pescadero beach
Caltrans nicely were closing all the beach parking lots as we arrived
We then drove down Hwy 1 to hit a few beaches:
found a nice surfer
the next beach
where skyline of the beach, ends up
We ended up going to Shark Fin Cove or lunch:
railroad to nowhere
I went to check out the cave which was really a storm drain
didn't smell so good :)
nice hole in the rock
After lunch, we drove back up on bonny doon road. which was find until we hite what looked like snow on the road. How as that possible? Turns out, it hailed so much that the hail accumulated on the ground and looked like snow:
it was melting, but super slick
Eventually, after driving not as fast as I wished due to the uncertain roads, we got to 236 and big basin redwoods, which was closed as expected:
After that, it was a fun drive up 236, and 9 back home.
Thanks to my friend Justice, I learned about this track day, which ended up getting few cars. I was able to attend with my F458C, maybe the last time I get to drive it since I'm looking at selling it, given that I just don't do track driving enough to be worth owning my own racecar. It was a bit bittersweet, but I was able to get a few 1:31 times. Unfortunately, by the time I put fresh tires, the track got warmer, and my times went up instead of down. I know I could have had 1:29 early in the morning, but never got to actually do it, oh well.
The plan is that I'll be able to rent from Fast Toys Club in the future:
ideally that's the one of the cars I'll be able to rent/drive after selling mine
After a quick drivers' meeting, it was time to go on track:
Lots of Mclarens:
Justice took his SVJ, beautiful car:
Ken came with my car and gave me support during the day:
I had fun, despite my times getting worse throughout the day as the track got warmer. In the afternoon, all the rungroups merged, so it was interesting, but it worked out pretty well.
Thanks to Fast Toys Club for the good day.
Since I was at Laguna Seca with my racecar and I had driven in the Model 3 (AWD LR, but not performance, 18" aero wheels), I figured I'd try the Tesla for a few laps. I should have planned this better and re-read my friend Matt Crowley's report when he tried that in his car a while back. Also, I didn't know Matt spent $3500 fixing his brakes after the day. This probably would have talked me out of trying :)
trying to get some charge from the 50A/220V plug I found.
Laguna unplugged me soon thereafter and put a nice note that such power was worth $700 + 40% surcharge, how nice of them, over $1000 for $4's worth of electricity.
ready, all you need is stickers, right? (they fit nicely on top of the mud I got driving in the snow in tahoe)
Anyway, given that ignorance is bliss, I went out with all my crap in the car, I figured removing it wouldn't change much anyway, and planned on doing only 3 laps so as not to thoroughly destroy the brakes. I did manage to hit 119 mph on my 2nd lap, and that was just when the brakes started not working due to overheating. Stopping in turn 2 was going to be "fun" (I made it though).
After 2 laps and boiled brake fluid, but also having passed a lamborghini and a porsche on the outside of the corkscrew, and being blackflagged for it :) I figured I'd call it a day. My 2nd lap (which was far from clean) was 1:56.
Those were not fast drivers, but it was cool to pass a few of them:
I passed several cars on the outside after the corkscrew in my ferrari, but got one in my tesla too :)
Sorry to the driver, I must have scared him a bit, he likely never saw/heard me until 'WTF is that car doing here'
And then there was the lambo I passed fair and square :)
wee!
Here is the first "session": (really 2 full laps and then I got black flagged for passing the porsche and scaring it). I passed the porsche at 3:40 and the lambo at 5:00
I came back for 2 more laps later in the afternoon when the track was warmer, my tires still over inflated, and my brake fluid still boiled (no firm pedal), and I got 2 laps of 1:55. I didn't commit for more speed in the straights because honestly I didn't know that car would stop and I didn't really want to completely destroy my braking hardware. Had done my first lap right, now knowing how to drive that car, I should have been able to get a single lap at 1:50 before the brakes gave up.
4 laps, 13 miles, 35% battery used
Two cleaner laps at 1:55 each, obviously not that fast, but my brake fluid was alrady boiled, my tires were likely too inflated (55psi) and the track was already 3-4 seconds slower than it was in the morning when I started I wonder how much faster the car could have been (I was already 10 mph slower before 2 due to the lack of brakes):
Looks like a full battery would have given 36 miles and 12 laps or so. This makes me question the wisdom of going through the work of tracking a tesla with proper brakes and tires. 12 laps is not a lot, and if you don't have a supercharger nearby (which is still 1h charge), that's not a lot of laps.
Overheating stuff, made other stuff unhappy :)
1.5Kw/mile, it's 1.5H of my house's power used in a single mile
On the plus side, despite all the errors I got, the car recovered when it cooled down, and even the brake fluid got back in a state that my brakes work somewhat. Not as well as before, but enough to stop the car :)
At least I didn't ran the pads down to the backing plates while destroying the rotors. That said, it's still amazing how a single lap at laguna seca can overheat stock breaks and boil brake fluid (which is exactly what happened in my case).
This was stupid, but it was fun. For comparison I did some 1:31's in my Ferrari F458 Challenge GT3 that morning on used tires. Looks like a stock Model 3 Performance with proper tires and brakes, can go 10 seconds faster than my 1:55's, not bad!
