Day 1 - Yokohama Days of Thunderhill
Today is the day…
Champions are not made….Heroes are forgotten….We “race” shit boxes.
Welcoming our newest driver, Zaid, to the team. A little track experience and plenty of eagerness to learn. As always we tossed him in the first stint to learn the car with all the other nervous new drivers. It was a success! He brought the car back for me to drive.
Drivers in order of appearance:
Zaid, Michael (me), Cam, Xin, Zaid
Zaid’s session
First time going wheel-to-wheel….First time running the full 5 miles of Thunderhill….He’ll be fine!
Full of questions about the track, racing line and other drivers. We shared our knowledge, getting around cars is the second priority. First priority is to have fun out there and get seat time. We sent him out.
During the session we watched the confidence build up and lap times fall. Methodically learning the track and how to manage other cars. Overall a great session, clean with no black flags.
Few reminders for new drivers. Always check your mirrors before an after turn in. Other cars don’t always yield. Zaid overall had a very clean driving style with only one small instance that could have ended with a bump.
Again great job!
My session
The car was already warmed up and ready for the twisty road course. Always amazing how fast everything comes back to you. Jumped in and first lap was a 3:51, not bad for a warm up out lap. Enjoyed a few moments of mischief.
There is always a fun team on the track in their VW Bus creatively themed a bread loaf. In past years we have encountered it and met its bumper among other things. Today’s race was apparently my turn to bump into the van unfortunately. Fortunately there was essentially no damage and laughed it off after my stint with the guy driving. They ended up broken in the pits, unrelated to me, and searching for parts as we all eventually do in Lemons.
Another exciting statement from my session was getting to say this phrase from now on:
“I simultaneously passed a Prius and Ranchero while racing!”
Chase and Race with Eyesore
It is always fun to try and keep up with a car you know should be faster than you. That has been the case whenever I encounter the Eyesore Racing Miata. They ended up with a fast lap for the weekend that was something like 5-10 seconds faster than us.
I’m confident they get annoyed by others trying to keep up, none the less I was able to match pace for the most part via navigating traffic. Always a learning lesson while following this team. Video is approximately 15 minutes.
Ended up turning a 3:36.417, which at the time was the 5th fastest of the entire field. This wouldn’t stand, but still fun to be faster than 95% of the drivers thus far.
Cams Session
Captured the title of fastest team member once again. Netting a time of 3:35.891. Not sure if it was this lap as I didn’t bother trying to match video with lap times, but it is a great clean lap.
There is always some excitement while racing. This time out Cam found a few other drivers exploring track limits. Happened to catch surf bums BMW finding the dirt outside of turn 7W. Nice catch and little dust cloud. Living to keep racing.
I spotted the Stilo helmet and think Greg was driving.
He also got caught bumping into the Corolla with a Lexus V8. Slightly naughty, however I understand the frustration trying to get around a slower car that has straight line speed.
Xin’s session
At some point during his session he was bumped in the left rear corner on West straight. No clear indications from video captured, but when he returned to the pits it was obvious someone hit us. No bit deal, a bit of zip ties and electrical tap and we are good to go.
He was brought in for a black flag, apparently for crossing blending line in Turn 1 while racing. Normally not a problem with any race series, but it was the rule for the weekend and we broke it all day long. Xin was just unlucky enough to be caught.
This ended his session and pushed us into another stint for Zaid.
Zaid’s 2nd Session
Wheel bearing failure ended our day a little early…
The sound tells the tale.
:-(
After Zaid radioed in about the vibration 20 minutes before the end, we told him to bring it in if it was bad. Turned out to be quite bad. Right front hub had completely failed and easily had a 1/2” of play with grease oozing out. Good call sir!
While continuing our inspection I noticed the left rear caliper was dripping something, perhaps a loose connection? Unfortunately no. Much much worse. Remember at some point the idea of doing maintenance before racing…well I had skipped the rear pads because the didn’t arrive in time (still might not be at my house yet). Well we used all the pad material and a bit of the steel backing plate.
Lucky we caught it before catastrophic failure. A bit of effort to hammer off the caliper, then hammer off the pad from the piston and we could see how bad were things. Little light cleaning, some new seals (I had those spares) and we were in business. Just had to scavenge the pits for pads, thank you very much Mark for hunting them out!!!
Superhero Mark - Finding impossible parts at the racetrack
Zaid and Cam took care of replacing the front hub, again had that spare. Checked engine oil, only down half a quart. Bled the brakes, reinstalled wheels and we were off to Casa Ramos for a celebratory margarita.
Checked the stats before bed and we are still in 32nd with a fastest time of 3:35.891, set by Cam and good enough for 10th fastest overall.
We shall see the track again tomorrow with a fresh and ready E30. Let’s have some more fun.
Race Notes:
Started tire pressures at 28 psi
Ended tire pressures at 32 psi rear, 33 psi front (10 minutes after coming off track)
Consumed 1/2 quart of oil
