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    Results 1 to 7 of 7
    1. #1
      Join Date
      Apr 2006
      Location
      Huntington Beach, CA
      Posts
      2,415
      Country Flag: United States

      Track day report - Streets of Willow Springs with my 68 Camaro 7-18-15

      Well yesterday was an interesting day. I'm not sure if this is a track day report or a weather report...

      Anyhow after a little over a 4 year absence I got to return and run the full Streets of Willow Springs (SOWS) course in counter clockwise direction (CCW). I last ran this course in May 2011 with Dave of Badmotofinger fame.

      The great thing about running at Willow Springs is that I don't have to stay in a hotel. However, the bad thing is that I have to get on the road by 5:30am... It was a beautiful morning though.


      After driving over 100 miles I arrived at the track. I still get major jitters or what some call butterflies in the stomache when standing around the morning of a track day before I can get on track. When checking in they asked me what run group I wanted to which I say intermediate. Now extreme speed has gold for intermediate / advanced and green for intermediate / beginner. I'm thinking i haven't been on this track in 4+ years so I don't want to hold anyone up so when they put me in green I don't sweat it.

      I had invited everyone local I knew on facebook but didn't give much notice. Maybe people knew about the weather to come but nobody else showed. I always get a kick out of being the only old car around. This day there were only two American cars older than the mid 90's there. An 88-92 Mustang and myself.

      Well my first session out was good for a major ego boost as I passed everything on the track in the green group and still managed to run a 1:29 second lap time which beat my previous best of 1:31 from 4 years ago. I think the next fastest car in green ran a 1:35. The Camaro impressed a lot of folks there that day and usually whenever I was near the car people came up and asked me questions about it or commented on how surprised they were at the lap times I was turning. A lot of track day drivers aren't familiar with protouring so they assume an old car like ours are just going to get annihilated. Of course outside of optima and the American Street Car series most pro touring cars don't get run on the road course much.

      I come back into the pits and let the car cool off. What a beautiful day!


      As I'm waiting around after session 1 I see on facebook both Steve Rupp and Greg Blundell mention crazy storms. huh. I shrug it off and get bumped to the Gold run group for session 2.

      I run my best lap of the day in session 2 with a 1:28 second lap time. I'm still passing a lot of the cars in my run group. After checking transponder times I see that I'm the 4th fastest car of the day. I review the video on my phone and notice that I'm still braking way way too early on both straight aways on track.

      In between session 2 and 3 some rain comes in. It's big drops but not too hard and my phone says it will clear up by 2pm so I decide to just wait it out. Becausestreetcar right?


      Right before session 2 I noticed that Darren Friedman of Camarillo autocross fame is at the track with his C7 z06. I had introduced myself after session 2 and then after the rain really started coming down he offered the hospitality of his trailer where I promptly stored my stuff and myself for the next 6 hours waiting for the rain to break.

      Darren's vette. Oh look the rain is ttarting to come down harder...



      What the hell. Don't those clouds realize this is Southern California in the desert... in JULY?!?




      I did try going back out on track a third time during what appeared to be a lull in the storm. I didn't last the full session before pulling off. Driving a 68 Camaro on the track is awesome. Driving it in the rain with maniacs spinning out left and right and my own car trying to wag its tail anytime I think about the gas pedal was too much for me.

      The best part about getting to run SOWS CCW was the ability to compare v2.0 of my car to v3.0. This is because SOWS is considered a small car track where handling is >>> than horsepower. The track is a little over 1.5 miles long and has 12 turns. Given that v3.0 has about 150 ft tq and 225 more hp to the wheels SOWS would remove a lot of the hp advantage (not all) and focus more on the suspension.
      Some data. The lateral acceleration are the jutting marks to the side of the track (yellow 0.8+ g's, red 1.0+ g's) while the green and red track line represents lineal acceleration (green = accel, red decel).

      v2.0


      v3.0



      A 3.5 second improvement in lap time may not seem like much but I didn't even get to run the whole day. With the whole day I could of easily dropped another second off, maybe more. I left a lot of time with my super large braking zones. I put a comparison video together of my best lap with v2.0 and v3.0 and its amazing how hard I was working driving v2.0 compared to how easy it looks to drive v3.0.

      Please Subscribe to the AutoXandTrack YouTube Channel

      Autocross and track blog about running autocross and track events with pro touring cars


    2. #2
      Join Date
      Apr 2006
      Location
      Huntington Beach, CA
      Posts
      2,415
      Country Flag: United States
      And here is video of my full run session. You can see me chasing Darren around and some of the other cars on the track.

      Please Subscribe to the AutoXandTrack YouTube Channel

      Autocross and track blog about running autocross and track events with pro touring cars

    3. #3
      Join Date
      May 2015
      Posts
      249
      Country Flag: United States
      Looks like a lot of fun.
      I did not think it was going to pour like it did.
      I took the family to Six Flags, rained there also, but we still had fun.

    4. #4
      Join Date
      Apr 2006
      Location
      Huntington Beach, CA
      Posts
      2,415
      Country Flag: United States
      Quote Originally Posted by mean buzzen half dozen View Post
      Looks like a lot of fun.
      I did not think it was going to pour like it did.
      I took the family to Six Flags, rained there also, but we still had fun.
      Thanks, it was a ton of fun during the first two sessions. I wouldn't of minded if the rain skipped me over. It was the hardest rain my poor Camaro has had to sit in and be driven in. I had my DSE wiper motor going full blast on the drive home for about 20 miles of it.
      Please Subscribe to the AutoXandTrack YouTube Channel

      Autocross and track blog about running autocross and track events with pro touring cars

    5. #5
      Join Date
      Dec 2010
      Posts
      709
      Very cool post--I was wishing we'd get some of that rain up here, but no dice. It's cool to see how much better the new version of the car works. Perhaps more importantly, I like the fact that you drove the car there. That's the version I've decided to pursue with my Falcon, as the last version had gotten to a point that was just not all that tolerable to drive 100 miles to the track, and then back . . . worse yet, I just didn't want to drive it without kicking the snot out of it. Congrats on creating pro-touring success!

    6. #6
      Join Date
      Nov 2011
      Location
      Livermore, CA
      Posts
      668
      Country Flag: United States
      Awesome thanks for sharing!!! Car sounds great (things that I'm not hearing), just driving my Chevelle around the block I have so many different rattles!!!

      Well done, looks like a great day and a great performance.

      Livermore, CA
      American:
      1966 Chevelle SS "Tribute" Retro / Pro-Tour
      For Sale

    7. #7
      Join Date
      Apr 2006
      Location
      Huntington Beach, CA
      Posts
      2,415
      Country Flag: United States
      Thanks guys him going back tomorrow!
      Please Subscribe to the AutoXandTrack YouTube Channel

      Autocross and track blog about running autocross and track events with pro touring cars





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