| 2007/06/23 Reno Fernley Race Track | |
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2007-06-23 23:20
by Merlin
in Cars, Ncars
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 :)
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 |
| 2007/06/15 Unlimited Laps at ThunderHill | |
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2007-06-15 21:06
by Merlin
in Cars, Ncars
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 |
