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photos track days videos WCM Ultralite S2k

Buttonwillow Weekend


After going through many of the initial setup issues on the Seven and giving it a quick shakedown at Laguna Seca, I decided that it was time to take it on my first road trip. I drove it down to Buttonwillow Raceway Park to join a group of other Se7en owners for a track weekend. The fact that there were going to be other owners there made me feel more confident that there would be enough mechanical expertise to solve any mechanical issues that may crop up. Having been to Buttonwillow once before, I knew that the heat would be brutal and was glad to pitch in with the other folks to share a couple of garages with the other folks.… Read the rest

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cars track days videos

One lap of Reno-Fernley Raceway (N95 video)

Lap of Reno-Fernley Raceway (Nokia N95) from rnair on Vimeo

I finally got around to editing and uploading some of the video* I recorded during my last trackday. This was the first time I was using the Nokia N95 and I had high expectations from the high-rez camera. As you can see over here the video quality is dramatically better than my past recordings from the N73. I have been planning on getting a ChaseCam PDR setup for a while but now that I can get such excellent video from the phone I think I will stick to my homebrew cellphone setup.… Read the rest

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cars track days

Spinning out at 95 mph

Reno-Fernley course map

I was at the NCRC trackday at Reno-Fernley Raceway last weekend when I got some first hand experience of what happens in a high speed spin. I was coming down the front straight at well over 100 mph and slowed slightly to take the esses that make up turn 1. Now on the track map they may look like fairly severe turns but in actual fact you just lift a little bit to settle the car at the end of the straight before flooring it though S bends. On this particular lap I came in a little hotter than on my previous runs and just after i made it though turn 1 (but before 1A) the back end came around and I flew off the track at 95 mph.… Read the rest

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track days

Heading to Thunderhill on Sunday

Heading to Thunderhill tomorrow

(image from http://www.thunderhill.com/)

Got a chance to get some cheap tracktime ($140 for 3.5 hours) at Thunderhill on Sunday with Bonnie and T.E.A.M. She runs some great events and while the groups are not as fast as NCRC it should be good fun. I’ve only been to Thunderhill once before and that was on a wet-dry kind of day which is never good for building a good rhythm. I even had my first (and so far only) spin while coming out of turn 6 – the entry was dry but the exit was wet which led to me losing the rear and doing a full 180.… Read the rest

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personal track days

Track day #3 (GGLC – Laguna Seca) [Orig posted: 27/02/2006]

Laguna Seca telemetry

The picture was generated using GPS readings that I took at one of my track sessions. As you can see I really need to get some more confidence and put in some consisten lines through turns 8-10. I am taking the corkscrew (turn 8) pretty well for a beginner but turns 9 and 10 are confidence turns and I just dont have that confidence in me and my car yet.

I am starting to get a hang of it and my lines did improve quite a bit over the course of the day. Jason (Enigma on Elisetalk) took me out for a session in his Elise which showed me what the car can do.… Read the rest