Buttonwillow 7-31 report

[Chad-1stGen]

Well I just got home a short while ago from my first trip to Buttonwillow. I had an absolute blast!! Easily the best time I've ever had in a car I owned. About the only thing that tops it is driving formula cars at Infineon.

We ran 13 CW and it is sooo much faster than my previous experience at Streets of Willow Springs (small track) and El Toro.

I appear to have eliminated most/all of the clutch gremlins that plagued me at Streets so I could really work the shifting aspect with lots of toe/heal. I mainly used 3rd-4th. There are several spots where 100+ mph is possible but I was mostly hitting 90ish.

Car ran pretty much flawlessly until the 4th session. Then I got fuel starvation on the 4th lap right before the pits and pulled off. I ran out of gas at my parking spot in the pits and had to push the car to the pumps to fill up. I'm still not 100% sure it was only a gas issue as the car only took ~12.5 ish gallons but I will figure that out later.

I went 4/4 for improving my fastest lap each session out. The highlight of the day was definitely my 3rd and 4th lap of the 4th session chasing down a 911 turbo. I really got in his head as he started overdriving the car and making lots of mistakes in his line which culminated in him dropping two tires off the track in the esses. That lap would of been a 2:20 I'm positive but I had to pull off. My best lap was a 2:22.3 with two point by's so that one woulda been into the 21's. For my first time there I'm pretty happy as I was shaving time each session.

I met lots of cool people too.

Gaetano - His Orange 69 Camaro is seriously bad ass and he drives the hell out of it. Even on an off day today he was much faster than Orange Crush or I.

Dave with Orange Crush. Seriously a clean and awesome running machine.

Dan (are you SIK02SS?) He was running a newer vet and let Chris pop his track cherry towards the end of the day. Dan made a hell of a passenger and gave me some great pointers in the 4th session. He made chasing down that 911 fun!



Dave (DaveZ28)

Sevillaz28 (sorry blanking on your name atm :/) His 67 was sexy but had a break problem so he came all that way and didn't get to run. I woulda ran to the parts store and slapped a cheapo m/c on there to try and run but respect his self control for wanting to wait and do it right.

I know I'm forgetting a few peeps but I'm running on low sleep and the beginning stages of heat stroke lol.

I didn't have a camera but bought the track photographer pictures of my car. Here are some of them: