Herbie on Steroids
 

BMW had a driving event at Infineon(formerly known as Sears Point) Raceway this weekend. This guy brought a Porsche GT3, white, and to my delight it had the red and blue striped down the center and a 53 on the door. I thought, this has to be the very best case of reverse German Look that I can think of!

Jason

:laugh: Pictures???

The owner/driver was obviously a crack-addict....who's his supplier eh?

What was even more fun is trying to run him down in my M3! The GT3 is practically a race car, so there really wasn't a serious competition, but let's just say he left me very slowly. If not for traffic he would have pulled steadily, slowly, away from me, but as it was, he and I found ourselves together for most of a 30 minute session! It's a lot of fun FOLLOWING a GT3, especially when it is Herbie's cousin!!

Jason

I had no idea you were into track days. We gotta hit some of the same events especially when both our projects are finished. I can't wait to hit some of the tracks around here, laguna seca being the closest one. How did you like Infineon? I've only driven past it on my way to Thunder Hill never actually raced on it.

I've only been doing the track days for a couple of years now, but I have managed to hit all the California tracks I like, with the exception of Reno-Fernley(NV, but it's close to CA), which I haven't just because it is so far.

I really enjoy Infineon, it's quite a challenging course, doesn't really give you time to breath and relax. Thunderhill has a much more relaxed pace, but the long, unbanked or off camber corners tend to get on my nerves, as I'm just wearing of rubber for nothing. So far, Laguna Seca is my fav, a combo of nicely banked turns with a lot of elevation changes and gut-check braking zones.

I really don't know how my rig is going to do at the speeds those tracks get to, I'll be getting a full cage in before that happens I'm sure. The front end was designed for those type of events, but the back end geometry still remains a mystery as far as it's performance.

Did you take your Bug to Thunderhill? How was it going through turn 1?

Jason

Bug isn't finished yet and it didn't make to any real racetracks before it was pulled apart. I crewed for my roomate and did a couple of fun runs at a rallycross at Thunderhill, but never got onto the track itself. Before the wrx swap I was doing hillclimbs in the northwest and hitting autocrosses every other weekend. My goal for '07 is to hit every track in the bay area at least once. :D

I did Infineon again Thur and Fri witht he Audi Club. I found out why turn 10 has such a reputation! I ended up doing about 5 360s at around 100 mph all the way down to turn 11! I was very lucky, didn't even stall the motor. Not a scratch.

Chip Herr(SPEED Touring Car Championship) was right behind me in a Stasis A3 and saw the whole thing. He said it was the most spectacular wipeout he'd ever seen! His crew guy said it was the most tire screeching he'd ever heard without a thud at the end.

I feel very fortunate to have escaped without a scratch on me or the car. I got a good look at the inside wall on the back of the drag strip announcer booth, and it wasn't pretty, could have been very bad. If you head out there in the next little while you can see the swizzle skids I made, I really can't believe I came out OK. Lessons learned.

So you might want want to rephrase "hit the track"! You will really enjoy them, they are fantastic tracks, but I realize now that 10/10ths isn't really where you want to be unless your car is really ready to put up with the results of a bad accident. I'm going to get some Hoosier race tires and then stay within the limits of them, working on my driving as well. After I get another daily driver, I'll put a roll cage in this one too.

Glad to hear you and the car are alright. It was a spin like that that nearly cost me my thumb so it's good to hear you made out it without a scratch. I'm building up my bug to be driven 10/10ths just at the edge of my comfort zone and I expect to have a spin or 2 when testing at that level.

Are there any tracks "local-ish" that have good run-off areas for shakedown testing?

ThunderHill is awesome. Totally open. Also ButtonWillow is pretty good as well.

Jason